Bosch, Henk van den. “What Do We Mean by Secularization in Africa? Contributions and Limitations by the Western Secularization Discourse.” In Is Africa Incurably Religious? Secularization and Discipleship in Africa, edited by Benno van den Toren, J. Bosco Bangura, and Richard E. Seed, 59–70. Oxford: Regnum, 2020.
AbstractAlmost none of the critical theory concerned with the secular addresses it in relation to sub-Saharan Africa. This is notable not least given the extent to which other post-colonial regions, such as North Africa and South Asia, are central to such discussions. It is not, however, that the critical theorists are ignoring Africanists' work; indeed, looking at the Africanist literature in any depth makes it clear that there is not, and has never been, a field of “secular studies.” Taking this observation as a point of departure, and considering it in relation to a range of classic and contemporary ethnographic cases, this paper aims to shed light (and cast shadows) on some of the key terms in current debates about the secular—terms such as immanence, the mundane, critique, and doubt. In doing so, it calls for further considerations of how to figure the Africanist canon in relation to the terms of critical theory.
Martin, David. “The Relevance of the European Model of Secularization in Latin America and Africa.” In Secularization and the World Religions, edited by Hans Joas and Klaus Wiegandt, 278–95. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2009.
Mombo, Esther. “Secularization - Whose Discourse?” In Mission in Secularised Contexts of Europe: Contemporary Narratives and Experiences, edited by Marina Ngursangzeli Behera, Michael Biehl, and Knud Jørgensen, 206–13. Regnum Studies in Mission. Oxford: Regnum, 2018.
Toren, Benno van den. “Secularisatie in Afrika: Een casestudie over het belang van de systematische theologie voor de religiewetenschappen.” Nederlands Theologisch Tijdschrift 70, no. 2 (2016): 140–50.
Walmsley, Gerard. “Authentic Faith in a "Secular Age’’: McCarthy and Lonergan on the Dialectic between Sacralisation and Secularisation.” Missionalia: Southern African Journal of Mission Studies 40, no. 1–2 (2012): 24–63.
AbstractThe paper argues that the relationship between secularisation and sacralisation has to be understood dialectically. We have to accept the ''intellectual irreversibility of the Enlightenment'', for the secular is here to stay. But also religion is not going away. Hence, we have to struggle to live authentically in a complex ambiguous situation, with a plurality of faiths and secularisms. The key questions to be considered are: (a) What is meant by ''the secular age''? (b) How did we arrive at this secular age? (c) How do we respond authentically to this secular age? Following Lonergan, I argue that (a) there is a secularism to be welcomed, as well as a secularism to be resisted, and (b) there is a sacralisation to be discarded, as well as a sacralisation to be fostered.
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