This book, which is a collection of various essays on Africa and the Bible, is a must-read for scholars and students who are interested in exploring the intersection between the Bible and public spaces exposing the liberating and oppressing strands of the Bible. Given the enchanted African worldview, which includes belief in miracles, divine healing and prosperity, the Bible is the go-to-authority of many religious activities. Though at home, the Bible's role and function needs closer assessment. The critical question tackled in this volume is: how can Africa read the Bible from its various contexts to recover its usefulness on issues of gender, patriarchy and political and economic liberation? Yet equally, how do we guard against oppressive discourses that find support from the Bible such as polygamy, viewing women as unequal to men and growing economic disparities? In addition, throughout history, Africans are made to be comfortable with theologies that further distance them away from economic and political processes, such as the belief in an angry God who punishes and demands utter obedience-theologies which have sustained particular asymmetric socio-economic and political structures across the continent. This book is important because it traces the sociological contours in the Bible in relation to Africa, sensitizing us to the liberating strands and, at the same time, making us aware of the pathos associated with the literary reading of the Bible.

What does the Bible say about divorce and remarriage after divorce? Is it acceptable for a Christian to divorce his/her spouse, or remarry after divorce, under what biblical grounds? What is the position of the church concerning issues of divorce and remarriage? What is the response of lay Christians to the position of the church? These are some of the questions that greatly concern this book. Some scholars (Wenham, Heth, and Keener) have also embarked in a discussion about such questions. They have mostly searched for the meaning that the text on divorce in the gospel of Matthew had to offer, and the how to apply that meaning to the current church. This book contributes to this ongoing discussion. Instead of looking only at the meaning of the text in the gospel of Mark and applying it to the current church, the book analyzes the voices of some people from the church in Tanzania so as to open up a possibility for a dialogue between the text and its context and the current readers and their context. Hence, the book can be useful to both scholars and students as a textbook in classes or any group discussions about the way divorce and remarriage texts can be used in current churches