Mother Earth, Postcolonial and Liberation Theologies

Sophia Chirongoma is a senior lecturer in the religious studies department at Midlands State University, Zimbabwe. She is also a research fellow at the Research Institute for Theology and Religion (RITR) in the College of Human Sciences, University of South Africa (UNISA).Esther Mombo is associate professor in the Faculty of Theology at St. Paul’s University in Limuru, Kenya.

Mother Earth, Postcolonial and Liberation Theologies is a deep and intense cry from the womb of Africa.Chronicling the faithful and persistent pilgrimage of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians to the Promised Land of true liberation and freedom in every sphere of life and living on the planet, this landmark collection of essays is informed and visionary. It is churned in the crucible of an incisive socio-political and prophetic imagination.Bravely bearing witness to a pernicious history of diminishment and erosion of true personhood in Africa, through the blight of colonial oppression and discrimination, poverty, wars, degradation of our common environment, and the absence of basic amenities for dignified, everyday living, this book is a CRY OF THE EARTH for urgent change and transformation. Grounded and rooted in a robust contextual theology, it is a compelling call for the restoration and healing of humanity in the image of God.

• Introduction: Mother Earth and Postcolonial and Liberation TheologiesSophia Chirongoma and Esther MomboPart 1: Introductory Mapping 1.30 Years of African Women’s Liberation Theology Esther Mombo and Sophia Chirongoma Part 2: Envisioning Mother Africa’s Liberation through Textual Exploration2.Sisters of the Soil … Surviving Collective Cultural Traumatization: Intertextualities between Hagar, the Ethiopian Virgin Girls in the Book of Esther, and Mother Africa Ericka Dunbar3.A Kenyan Postcolonial Feminist Rereading of the Fourth Gospel: Towards a Christology for Eco- and Gender JusticeLydia ChemeiPart 3: Earth Friendly and Eco-Feminist Hermeneutics4.“On Earth as It Is in Heaven”: Conversations between Musa Dube’s Earth-Friendly Hermeneutics and Sallie McFague’s Ecological Theology Megan Bedford-Strohm5.The Cry of the Earth Is the Cry of Women: Ecofeminisms in Critical Dialogue with Laudato Si’Nontando HadebePart 4: Mother Africa and Postcolonial Musings on Eco-Justice