African Christian Theologies and the Impact of the Reformation : Symposium Piass Rwanda February 18-23, 2016

"African Christian Theologies and the Reformation Legacy" may seem to have little to do with each other. But there are shared perspectives. One of the strongest heritages of the Reformation for Christianity was to return to the central role given to the Bible, translated in local dialects. Christianity expanded thanks to the translation of the Bible in vernacular languages worldwide. Most importantly, the people who had been victims of prejudices of race supremacy could now have access to God in their own language, culture and idioms without intermediaries. It is largely thanks to Bible translations that the majority of those churches in Africa born of European mission activities continued to develop positively after the end of the colonial age, and that independent African churches emerged.