Finding A Social Voice: The Church And Marxism In Africa

Features of Finding a Social Voice: The Church and Marxism in Africa

From the late 1960s until the mid1980s the influence of Marxist ideas expanded in subSaharan Africa The Catholic Church saw this influence as likely to affect the accomplishment of its mission and its pastoral efforts accordingly sought to deal with the Marxist thrust In the late 1980s Marxist influence in Africa declined sharply as Marxist political dominance became less intense Nevertheless the Churchs encounter with African Marxism constituted an important chapter in both secular and ecclesiastical history Finding a Social Voice records and analyzes the significant elements of this encounter Father McKennas book investigates how postcolonial African regimes under varying degree of Marxist influence have interacted with the Catholic Church and studies how the Church has grown through its response to that interaction The book contributes greatly to the virtually unexplored topic of churchstate interaction in contemporary Africa McKennas claim that the Catholic Chruchs response to Marxism was a part of its coming to maturity part of its bringing its social perspective to bear on the processes of political economic and social modernization through which traditional cultures were passing is an important contribution to the more recent literature on the emergence of civil society in SubSaharan AfricaThe text also provides an introduction to postVatican II understandings of ecclesiastical activity in Africa It reviews the theory and practice of Marxism as developed by Marx Engels Lenin and the leaders of Soviet Russia and other Communist countries It then presents an overview of the ways in which Marxist influence worked in Africa and a similar overview of how the Church functioned and was affected by that influence Finally the book offers casestudies on the interaction of Marxism and the Church in four diverse Africa countries Mozambique Madagascar Zimbabwe and ZambiaThe introductory chapters make this book accessible to the general reader the book as a whole is an enrichment of our understanding of contemporary Africa