Browsing by Author "Munyao, Martin"
Now showing 1 - 11 of 11
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Collectivism vs. Individualism; Reading the Scripture through Honor-Shame Lenses for Community-based African Cultures(Sacra Testamentum, 2019) Munyao, MartinIn recent studies, honor and shame has gained quite amount of attention from scholars: anthropologists and psychologists. However, theologians have on the other hand overlooked this pervasive yet critical human phenomenon. There seems to be a paucity of theological resources whereby to engage honor and shame related issues in community and collective based societies. While this is a trendy subject in other disciplines, it deserves a great deal of attention in black reflections on Christian studies. Moreover, it is critical that whenever Biblical studies are in engagement with social-political that honor and shame is surfaced. This is because, honor and shame, being pivotal cultural values of the Ancient Mediterranean world where the Bible was written are also present in most African societies today. Unfortunately, current theological discourse doesn’t engage honor-shame as a cultural and theological component to Biblical studies. Therefore, this paper will firstly demonstrate how the theme of honor and shame is pervasive throughout the Bible. Secondly, the paper will argue that while honor and shame are replete in the Scripture, seem to be missing in Biblical studies as well as in African Christianity. Thirdly, the paper will argue how cultural values of honor and shame have played a significant role in shaping morality and behavior in collective and shame-based societies. Lastly, while different shades of honor/shame can be negative, the paper will suggest ways in which a biblical 2 view of the same can be leveraged upon to redeem biblical morality and ethics in community based societies. The goal is to open a conversation in black reflections on Biblical studies whereby honor-shame theology and missiology is mainstreamed in the academia as well in church pews.Item Decolonial Conversations in African Christianity: Developing a Public Theology for Kenya(Transformation, 2022) Munyao, MartinHistorians have held that colonialism and Western missionary enterprise were two distinct and unrelated entries to pre-colonial Kenya. How then did Christianity for decades live side by side with colonialism? The impact of that unholy relationship is felt and sustained in contemporary forms of violence. Whiteness realizes that is hard to enter into something that is in harmony. Therefore, separation needs to happen for Whiteness to succeed. Unfortunately, much of our theological understanding today is tempered with a neocolonial mindset that separates the soul from the body for Christian triumphalism. This paper will analyze the impact of Whiteness in Kenya during and after colonialism to demonstrate how the British explorer-settler-missionary alliance oiled the religious and economic disenfranchising of African people. Secondly, it proposes a political theology that will restore ‘Shalom’ in a socially, economically, and spiritually broken country.Item Distance Education that Matters; Creating Sustainable Online Pedagogy(Lexington Books, MD, 2022) Plant, Alicia; Munyao, MartinOnline Learning, Instruction, and Research in Post-Pandemic Higher Education in Africa, edited by Martin Munyao, argues that beyond survival, universities need to adapt to technology-mediated communication learning in order to thrive. Disruptive technologies have recently proved to be means of thriving for institutions of higher learning. This book reflects on how leveraging on education technology has transformed teaching, learning, and research Higher Education Institutions (HEI) impacting Africa through digital transformation. In particular, HEIs are collaborating more now than ever before. Finally, this book addresses the challenges of teaching STEM programs online in Africa.Item Enhancing Collaboration in Online Learning(Lexington Books, MD, 2022) Munyao, Martin; Wachirah, SerahOnline Learning, Instruction, and Research in Post-Pandemic Higher Education in Africa, edited by Martin Munyao, argues that beyond survival, universities need to adapt to technology-mediated communication learning in order to thrive. Disruptive technologies have recently proved to be means of thriving for institutions of higher learning. This book reflects on how leveraging on education technology has transformed teaching, learning, and research Higher Education Institutions (HEI) impacting Africa through digital transformation. In particular, HEIs are collaborating more now than ever before. Finally, this book addresses the challenges of teaching STEM programs online in Africa.Item Faith on the Ballot, Faith in the Ballot: The Democratic Process in Kenya(Routledge, 2023-10-18) Munyao, Martin; Wakene, S.The Routledge International Handbook of Sociology and Christianity examines the intersection of the sociology of religion – a long-standing focus of sociology as a discipline – and Christianity – the world’s largest religion. An internationally representative and thematically comprehensive collection, it analyzes both the sociology of Christianity and Christian approaches to sociology, with attention to the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant branches of Christianity. An authoritative, state-of-the-art review of current research, it is organized into five inter-connected thematic sections, considering the overlapping emergence of both the Christian religion and the social science, the conceptualization of and engagement with Christianity by sociological theory, the ways in which Christianity shapes and is shaped by various social institutions, the manner in which Christianity resists and promotes various forms of social change, and the identification, diagnosis, and correction of social problems by sociology and Christianity. This volume is an invaluable collection for scholars and advanced students, with special appeal for those working in the fields of sociology and social theory, as well as religious studies and theologyItem Migration, Interfaith Engagement, and Mission among Somali Refugees in Kenya: Assessing the Cape Town Commitment from a Global South Perspective One Decade On(Religions, 2021-12) Munyao, MartinIn the last decade, since the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization (2010) in Cape Town, South Africa, the world has significantly changed. The majority of the world’s Christians are located in the Global South. Globalization, conflict, and migration have catalyzed the emergence of multifaith communities. All these developments have in one way or another impacted missions in twenty-first-century sub-Saharan Africa. As both Christianity and Islam are spreading and expanding, new approaches to a peaceful and harmonious coexistence have been developed that seem to be hampering the mission of the Church as delineated in the Cape Town Commitment (2010). Hence a missiological assessment of the Cape Town Commitment is imperative for the new decade’s crosscutting developments and challenges. In this article, the author contends that the mission theology of the 2010 Lausanne Congress no longer addresses the contemporary complex reality of a multifaith context occasioned by refugee crises in Kenya. The article will also describe the Somali refugee situation in Nairobi, Kenya, occasioned by political instability and violence in Somalia. Finally, the article will propose a methodology for performing missions for interfaith engagement in Nairobi’s Eastleigh refugee centers in the post Cape Town Commitment era. The overall goal is to provide mainstream evangelical mission models that are biblically sound, culturally appropriate, and tolerant to the multifaith diversity in conflict areas.Item Migration, Interfaith Engagement, and Mission among Somali Refugees in Kenya: Assessing the Cape Town Commitment from a Global South Perspective One Decade On(Religions, 2021-02) Munyao, MartinIn the last decade, since the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization (2010) in Cape Town, South Africa, the world has significantly changed. The majority of the world’s Christians are located in the Global South. Globalization, conflict, and migration have catalyzed the emergence of multifaith communities. All these developments have in one way or another impacted missions in twenty-first-century sub-Saharan Africa. As both Christianity and Islam are spreading and expanding, new approaches to a peaceful and harmonious coexistence have been developed that seem to be hampering the mission of the Church as delineated in the Cape Town Commitment (2010). Hence a missiological assessment of the Cape Town Commitment is imperative for the new decade’s crosscutting developments and challenges. In this article, the author contends that the mission theology of the 2010 Lausanne Congress no longer addresses the contemporary complex reality of a multifaith context occasioned by refugee crises in Kenya. The article will also describe the Somali refugee situation in Nairobi, Kenya, occasioned by political instability and violence in Somalia. Finally, the article will propose a methodology for performing missions for interfaith engagement in Nairobi’s Eastleigh refugee centers in the post Cape Town Commitment era. The overall goal is to provide mainstream evangelical mission models that are biblically sound, culturally appropriate, and tolerant to the multifaith diversity in conflict areas.Item ‘New wine, old wineskins’: a comparative study of interfaith engagement and transitional justice in Kenya and South Africa(Munyao, M. (2021). ‘New wine, old wineskins’: a comparative study of interfaith engagement and transitional justice in Kenya and South Africa. Journal of the British Academy, 2021-05) Munyao, MartinTransitional justice (TJ) is an approach that has been used by states to bring hope and renaissance in addressing past injustices. Unfortunately, transitional justice mechanisms have been ambiguous and often yield underwhelming results. While various components that constitute human societies have been incorporated in Africa’s journey towards resolving historical injustices, religion has been casually utilised, if not altogether ignored. An interfaith approach to addressing a violent past has not been exploited, yet religion played a significant role in South Africa’s (SA) postapartheid era and Kenya’s second liberation from KANU’s single-party rule. This article will highlight the insufficiencies and gains made by past TJ mechanisms in Kenya and SA. The article will also discuss the place of interfaith engagement in confronting structural violence. Lastly, improving on SA’s TJ model, it will suggest an interfaith agenda for TJ that mitigates the horrors of historical injustices for reconciliation, peace, and stability in Kenya.Item The Role of Educational Technology and Elearning During Covid-19 Pandemic and its Impact on the Higher Education Sector in Kenya(Lexington Books, MD, 2022) Ayiro, Laban Peter; Munyao, Martin; Wambua, AnthonyOnline Learning, Instruction, and Research in Post-Pandemic Higher Education in Africa, edited by Martin Munyao, argues that beyond survival, universities need to adapt to technology-mediated communication learning in order to thrive. Disruptive technologies have recently proved to be means of thriving for institutions of higher learning. This book reflects on how leveraging on education technology has transformed teaching, learning, and research Higher Education Institutions (HEI) impacting Africa through digital transformation. In particular, HEIs are collaborating more now than ever before. Finally, this book addresses the challenges of teaching STEM programs online in Africa.Item The Role of Religion in Public Life: COVID-19 and Gender-based Violence in Kenya(Rowman & Littlefield, 2021) Munyao, Martin; Kithuka, ElizabethWhen the World Health Organization (WHO) chief declared the COVID-19 spread to be a global pandemic, renowned global philanthropist Melinda Gates of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation projected that Africa was waiting to see hundreds of thousands of fatalities. She cited weak economies, poor healthcare systems, increasing slum dwellings, lack of clean water, and high rates of poverty as some of the reasons why COVID-19 was going to ravage Africa. Contrariwise, Africa has not experienced high Coronavirus cases compared to the USA, Europe, and Asia. However, the pandemic has revealed what human rights activists have been decrying of Africa for decades, namely, widespread economic disparities and social inequalities. The pandemic is disparaging Africa not by COVID-19 related sicknesses and death, but by exposing the already existing dysfunctional political, economic, and social systems. At the center of the said dysfunction amidst a pandemic are religious institutions which often have acted as an adhesive in the society. Not only do religious organizations bring people together for worship but also do shape life and morality amongst communities. However, in the recent past, the religious space has delegated that role to secondary parties such as civil society organizations. There is less and less public engagement on matters of politics and push for socio-economic reforms. As containment measures against further spread of the Coronavirus, the religious places of worship were considered as ‘nonessential’ need. While from a public health standpoint it is known that this was a containment measure to curb the COVID-19 spread, it symbolically brings in the question of whether religious institutions rose to the occasion as a public defender. This is even though African life is fundamentally rooted in religious foundations. In this chapter, the authors will firstly discuss the role of religious institutions during the COVID-19 period on the public. Secondly, the paper will analyze the impact of COVID19 on gender issues in Kenya. Lastly, the authors will suggest viable options for restoring the prophetic voice of various religious institutions in Kenya’s public life in the event of future global crises for sustainable developmentItem Whiteness in Christianity and Decoloniality of the African Experience: Developing a Political Theology for ‘Shalom’ in Kenya(Religions, 2021-11) Munyao, Martin; Tanui, Philemon KiprutoThe decolonial discourse around Christianity must not avoid dealing with Whiteness if there is going to be any fruitful decolonization. Colonialism and the Western missionary enterprise were not necessarily two distinct and unrelated entries to precolonial Kenya. How then did Christianity, for decades, live side by side with colonialism? In this article, we contend that Colonialism in Kenya could not have been possible without the missionary enterprise activity. The impact of that unholy relationship is felt and sustained in contemporary forms of violence. Unfortunately, critics of such a discourse dismiss the decolonial efforts in African Christianity citing intellectual activism. Such voices of dissent may not be far from the truth as Jesus’ ministry involved elements of activism. Whenever he confronted oppressive institutional structures, he used activism tempered with a degree of pacifism. Looking at the history of historical injustices in Kenya, we see instances whereby missionary Christianity conveniently abetted injustices for colonial structures to sustain the oppression of the indigenous Africans. Such injustices have been unresolved to date because the oppressive structures are still in place in the shape of neocolonialism. Land, for example, is a present source of conflict in Kenya. In the precolonial African ontology, the land was in harmony with the people. For land to be taken away from its owners, a separation of the people from the land had to happen. This was facilitated by a Christian theology that created existential dualism, violently separating the African bodies from their souls and the person from the community. Hence, Christian doctrine that emphasized ‘saving souls’ and ‘personal salvation’ was entrenched. This separation and fragmentation are fundamental to Whiteness. Whiteness universalizes truth, even theology; it puts a face of neutrality that obscures specificity. Such has made the church uncritical of oppressive and unjust political structures. Whiteness realizes that it is hard to enter into something that is in harmony. Therefore, separation needs to happen for Whiteness to succeed. Unfortunately, much of our theological understanding today is tempered with a neocolonial mindset that separates the soul from the body for Christian triumphalism. It anesthetizes the pain of oppression with the eschatological promise of future deliverance. This paper will analyze the impact of Whiteness in Kenya during and after colonialism to demonstrate how the British explorer–settler–missionary alliance ‘oiled’ the religious and economic disenfranchising of African people. Secondly, it proposes a political theology that will restore ‘Shalom’ in a socially, economically, and spiritually broken country. It is such a theology undertaken in Africa that will confront oppressive structures and identify with the marginalized communities in Kenya