John Mbiti Was The Father Of Africa

John Mbiti, is called the “father of contemporary African Theology”, and was born in November of the year 1931,i n Kenya. He is currently 87 years of age and is a renowned pastor, author of various books as well as a Theologian and a teacher. He is also seen as a religious Philosopher and he critically challenged the Christian hypothesis of the “demonic and anti-christian”, seen as the traditional African religion. He made the following statement “Christian Theology in Africa is not a new phenomenon”? With the statement the question arises, how old is this phenomenon then really. If we look back at the history of the very early church of Egypt, the gospel was spread throughout Egypt, North Africa as well as Ethiopia already in 43AD. The Jewish Bible was translated for the first time in Alexandria, Africa and the African people read the Bible even before Christianity was expanded all through Africa. The Bible was translated into Coptic- the local language in Egypt at that time. The People in Egypt that became the first Christians, was common people which spoke Coptic, an Egyptian dialect. John Mbiti sees the Bible as the main source for theological development and the spread of the gospel.

The Egyptian church was believed to be established by an Apostle
This institute taught religious learnings to scholars. The scholars was taught by Theologians like Athenagoras, Clement, Didymus and Origen, who was believed and seen as the “Father of Theology” in this first era . Other African Theologians like Cyprian, Justin, Athanasius and Augustine also had a great influence on the spread of the gospel in this first era of the church. The above mentioned Theologians help with the spread of the gospel right into the 6 TH century. With this history of the first church we can see that the statement that John Mbiti made about the Christian Theology in Africa not being a new phenomenon is