African Christian theology: utilizing social media

One day in early 2020, before we knew about the coming pandemic, my friend Wakakuholesanga Chisola and I were lamenting the lack of a forum for discussing the concerns of African theologizing and for networking with likeminded individuals. Existing groups on social media tended to be parochially and myopically Western in their outlook or limited to a single institution. Wakakuholesanga particularly mourned the lack, in his context, of contextual theologies that took the need for authentic Africanity in our Christianity seriously. I bemoaned how efforts of proselytization, instead of seeking Christian conversion, led many Africans, including many Christians, to consider Christianity to be the white man’s religion. “Why don’t we start something?” we asked each other. So he registered a group page on Facebook and together we worked to build something new. Wakakuholesanga articulated our purpose as being “for African Christian Theology and Afrikan theologies as a whole” and, at the end of April, we had a group of two.