The Theology of Mercy Amba Oduyoye - (Notre Dame Studies in African Theology) by Oluwatomisin Olayinka Oredein (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This illuminating study explores African theologian Mercy Amba Oduyoye's constructive initiative to include African women's experiences and voices within Christian theological discourse.

Mercy Amba Oduyoye, a renowned Ghanaian Methodist theologian, has worked for decades to address issues of poverty, women's rights, and global unrest. She is one of the founders of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians, a pan-African ecumenical organization that mentors the next generation of African women theologians to counter the dearth of academic theological literature written by African women. This book offers an in-depth analysis of Oduyoye's life and work, providing a much-needed corrective to Eurocentric, colonial, and patriarchal theologies by centering the experiences of African women as a starting point from which theological reflection might begin.

Oluwatomisin Olayinka Oredein's study begins by narrating the story of Mercy Oduyoye's life, focusing on her early years, which led to her eventual interest in women's equality and African women's theology. At the heart of the book is a close analysis of Oduyoye's theological thought, exploring her unique approach to four issues: the doctrine of God, Christology, theological anthropology, and ecclesiology. Through the course of these examinations, Oredein shows how Oduyoye's life story and theological output are intimately intertwined. Stories of gender formation, racial ideas, and cultural foundations teem throughout Oduyoye's construction of a Christian theological story. Oduyoye shows that one's theology does not leave particularity behind but rather becomes the locus in which the fullness of divinity might be known.

Review Quotes

"Giving voice to African women theologians to reinvent feminism, reinvent Christian theology, and reinvent African culture, three crucial moments or movements, gives birth to the inclusive view of the human created by God. That is why this book must be read by all: women and men, Christian and other religious practitioners, Black, White and other Shades." --Bulletin of Ecumenical Theology

"Of interest to readers at multiple levels, this study demonstrates that robust theological work can come from engaging with an individual's personal experience. Recommended." --Choice

"Oredein comprehensively covers the life's work of a woman who is a forerunner of a branch of theology that not only serves African woman but is a gift to the church and religious scholarship around the world. This book provides enduring value to the academy and the church and is highly recommended as a prized reference for theological educators, religious scholars, and students who want to incorporate a fuller understanding of theology in a post-colonial world." --African Journal of Gender and Religion

"Oredein's articulation of Odoyuye's theological discourses is fascinating. This book is worth reading to understand more significant themes around women, the church, and theology in modern Africa, primarily through the works of early women scholars." --Anglican and Epsicopal History

"This book charts a history of the Circle and Mercy Oduyoye's role in founding it that has not previously been captured, particularly with such detailed attention to the ideas of African women scholars in religion who launched this intellectual revolution in religious studies." --Traci C. West, author of Solidarity and Defiant Spirituality

"You have here in your hands an extraordinary treasure--an African womanist theologian telling the remarkable story of one of the most important African womanist theologians of our time, the great Mercy Amba Oduyoye. There is no other book written on Oduyoye that draws as deeply on insider knowledge of the challenges, struggles, and promise of African womanist theology than what this Nigerian American theologian has given us. Oluwatomisin Olayinka Oredein has given us a book for the ages." --Willie James Jennings, author of The Christian Imagination

About the Author

Oluwatomisin Olayinka Oredein is an assistant professor in Black religious traditions, constructive theology, and ethics at Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University.