Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Africa by Terence O. Ranger (Professor of Race Relations, Professor of Race Relations, St. Antony's College, Oxford (Emeritus))
This is one of four projected volumes to emerge from a massive, Pew-funded study that sought to answer the question: What happens when a revivalist religion based on scriptural orthodoxy participates in the volatile politics of the Third World? Is the result a democratic politics of the ballot box, or is it more like an authoritarian politics of command from on high? Does the evangelical faith of the Bible hinder or promote a politics of the ballot box? At a time when the global-political impact of another revivalist and scriptural religion, Islam, fuels vexed debate among analysts the world over, these volumes offer an unusual comparative perspective on a critical issue: the often combustible interaction of resurgent religion and the developing world's unstable politics.The present volume considers the case of Africa, the region with the world's fastest expanding population.