These traditional reads are brimming with spirited characters and positive values--but with a little extra excitement and bite, so hold on to your hats! Written expressly for the middle grade struggling reader, the series does not contain strong language, edgy themes, or dysfunctional families. In fact, family is the main theme of these titles. And one particular Latino family is the focus with their uncanny knack for finding humor, hope, and colorful personalities--even in unusual circumstances. Written at the lowest reading levels, the 50-page story structure is straightforward and moves the reader through the text quickly and efficiently. They were trapped. Then Ana remembered the old stone church. It was nearby. She knew the old building was the safest place for her family. It could withstand the high winds and rising water.

In this first in-depth and wide-ranging history of Christian conversion, David Kling examines the dynamic of turning to the Christian faith by individuals, families, and people groups. Global in reach and engaging recent methods and theories in conversion studies, the narrative progresses from early Christian beginnings in the Roman world to Christianity's expansion into Europe, the Americas, China, India, and Africa. Although conversion is often associated with a particular strand of modern Christianity (evangelical) and a particular type of experience (sudden, overwhelming), when examined over two millennia, it emerges as a phenomenon far more complex than any one-dimensional profile would suggest.

Collects almost five hundred entries that cover the African response to spirituality, taboos, ethics, sacred space, and objects.

The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to African Religions brings together a team of international scholars to create a single-volume resource on the religious beliefs and practices of the peoples in Africa. Offers broad coverage of issues relating to African religions, considering experiences in indigenous, Christian, and Islamic traditions across the continent Contributors are from a variety of fields, ensuring the volume offers multidisciplinary perspectives Explores methodological approaches to religion from anthropological, philosophical, and historical perspectives Provides insights into the historical developments in African religions, as well as contemporary issues such as the development of African-initiated churches, neo traditional religions, and Pentecostalism Discusses important topics at the intersection of culture and religion in Africa, including the arts, health, politics, globalization, gender relations, and the economy

First published in 1985. This collection of papers on theoretical and methodological perspectives in the study of African religion is the outcome of a conference which the editors were asked to convene on behalf of the African Studies Centre, Leiden, in December 1979.

Dialogue between African Religion and other world religions has, regrettably, been a much neglected area in formal religious discourse in Africa to date. Moreover, up to now, the imperative of dialogue in the process of evangelism figures only peripherally - if at all - in the study of African Christian Theology. This book is probably the first deliberate, extensive and well-argued attempt by an African theologian to fill this unfortunate lacuna. How can Christian and African spiritualities interact with and enrich each other on the basis of mutual respect, without - as has historically been the case - the one necessarily seeking to eradicate the other? This is the fundamental question of dialogue discussed in the pages of this book. Dr. Laurenti Magesa is Senior Lecturer in African Theology at the Maryknoll Institute of African Studies and the Jesuit School of Theology, Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Nairobi, Kenya.

This comprehensive reference volume covers every country in Sub-Saharan Africa, offering reliable demographic information and original interpretative essays by indigenous scholars and practitioners. It maps patterns of growth and decline, assesses major traditions and movements, analyses key themes and examines current trends.

African religion is ancestor worship; it revolves around the dead, now thought to be alive and well in heaven (the Samanadzie) and propitiated by the living on earth. For the Akan, the ancestors’ stool is the emblem of the ancestors (Nananom Nsamanfo). Led by their kings and queen mothers as living ancestors, the Akan periodically propitiate the ancestors’ stools housing their ancestors. In return, the ancestors and deities influence the affairs of living descendants, making ancestor worship as tenably viable as any other religion. This second edition updates the scholarship on ancestor worship by demonstrating the centrality of the ancestors’ stool as the ultimate religious symbol. In addition, all chapters have been expanded. A new chapter has been added to show how ancestor worship is pragmatically integrative, theologically sound, teleological as well as soteriological, with a highly trained clerical body and elders as mediators.