Teresia Mbari HINGA.  African, Christian, Feminist: The Enduring Search for What Matters.  Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2017.  pp.  xxv + 244.  $45.00 pb.  ISBN: 978-1-62698-249-9.  Reviewed by Moni MCINTYRE, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA  15282.

This anthology of previously published “peer-reviewed” and “peer mentored and validated” (xxv) essays by Teresia Mbari Hinga offers a sweeping history of feminist consciousness on the African continent, with emphasis on Kenya, her birth country.  Writing as a Christian living in Silicon Valley, Hinga is associate professor in the Religious Studies Department at Santa Clara University. Hinga’s articles explore a variety of topics including the influence of colonialism, the Bible, the HIV/AIDS syndemic and churches’ responses, and the common neglect in contemporary scholarship of Africa’s three primary religions: African Traditional Religion, Islam, and Christianity.  In this volume, she conscientiously tackles such questions as whether the Bible silences women, causes of extreme poverty in much of Africa, and violence against women.  Hinga “demonstrates how Afro-feminist theologians and ethicists have responded . . . to the contradiction and paradox of Christianity’s de jure message of liberation and African women’s de facto experiences of intersecting injustices . . .” (xxi).  She does this in a thorough, accessible, and compelling manner.

Hinga’s opening articles introduce the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians, a group formed and led by Mercy Amba Oduyoye thirty years ago.  The group continues to be the voice of encouragement, ecumenism, and scholarship in women’s studies in religion and culture in Africa.  Deliberate inclusion of women from all of Africa’s religions has yielded rich insights into the nature of and responses to violence against women throughout the continent and beyond.  Female genital mutilation is one such area of concern.  Hinga and her Circle members have revealed how missionaries, who wanted to stamp out what they considered to be the barbaric practice of female circumcision, ended up causing a great deal of suffering for the women concerned.  Likewise, Circle scholars have demonstrated how a lack of cultural understanding has led to untold suffering for individuals in polygamous relationships. She underscores the close and often destructive connection between missionary zeal and the imposition of colonialism.

Becoming “better Samaritans” is Hinga’s goal for doing social justice.  After identifying several issues that have plunged many Africans into situations of desperation, e.g., “fifteen thousand people die in Africa each day from treatable diseases” (93), she calls upon the world community to respond as better Samaritans, not just “good Samaritans.”  Enlisting the aid of such economists as Jeffrey Sachs to illustrate the victimization of those Africans trapped by the policies of the World Bank and the IMF, Hinga urges concerned individuals to pursue a model that “develops appropriate theo-ethical and practical response to the scandal of poverty today” (101).  Such a model will encourage the “accompaniment” action encouraged by the late Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador.
Neither Hinga nor her Circle members advocate for disembodied scholarship.  They are very much dedicated to research that has the potential to change lives.  Food security for all people, therefore, is a pressing concern.  Appealing to the work of Vandana Shiva and others, Hinga writes in favor of applied ethics that leads to full granaries around the world.  She urges fair trade, not free trade, as well as an end to “energy poverty,” i.e., “the lack of access to affordable energy for lighting and cooking” (119). 

As a professor, Hinga is deeply concerned about how religion is taught in schools and seminaries.  In the closing chapters of her book, she argues in favor of curriculum revision so that students and faculty are engaged in the process of “teaching to transform” (199).  She holds up her own Jesuit institution for emulation.

            This collection of essays, written over three decades, is necessarily repetitious in some places.  Still, as readers travel through chapter after chapter, they can see the evolution of thought and marvel at what is possible when people work together unto good.