This books deals with an apparent separation observed between spirituality and morality in West African Christianity. It explains a paradox in an African society where an exuberant Christian mission and spirituality flourishes alongside social issues, which are typically exacerbated by widespread corruption in public life. Through doctoral research Lord Elorm-Donkor has carefully examined the Deliverance Theology of Ghanaian Pentecostals and explains that although it is regarded generally as a positive appropriation of an African religious heritage into Christianity, it is done without an appropriate understanding of the Akan traditional moral scheme and creates an epistemological crisis for Christian moral reasoning and practice. This book succinctly explains the evolving African Christian moral identity, forged between the anvil of African traditional religions and the hammer of Pentecostalism. While at it, Lord Elorm Donkor brilliantly combines Wesleyan moral theology, MacIntyrean virtue ethics, and African worldview to create new a paradigm for Ghanaian Pentecostal practical theology and to reposition Christian social ethics in Africa. This is a careful, impressive, and insightful work. Nimi Wariboko, Professor of Social Ethics, Boston University School of Theology Coming from a practising African Pentecostal minister who neither seeks to deny the useful role of African culture to Christianity, nor seeks to idealise or gloss over the subject, this book has a brave, honest, and authoritative ring to it and its findings cannot be lightly dismissed. The strength of this book lies in the positive contributions of African Pentecostalism to a tired western Christianity, and its creative suggestions for a transformation of that form of Pentecostalism by critically engaging with the African (in this case Akan) world with sensitivity. This is done most effectively by someone on the inside of this world, and this study does that engagement brilliantly. Allan H Anderson, Professor of Mission and Global Pentecostalism, University of Birmingham Lord Elorm-Donkor has written a well-researched and important work that will serve both scholars and practitioners interested in understanding some of the challenges and successes of Pentecostal mission and ecclesiology from a non-Western perspective. J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, Professor of Pentecostal Studies, Trinity Theological Seminary, Legon, Ghana Lord Elorm-Donkor is the Principal of the Birmingham Christian College, UK where he also teaches Bible Survey, Pastoral Studies and Christian Ethics. He holds an MA degree in Mission Studies and PhD from the University of Manchester and an MPhil in Pentecostal/Charismatic Studies from the University of Birmingham. He is a District Pastor and Director of Training of The Church of Pentecost-UK. His research interests are in theological ethics, African Christianity and missions, Pentecostal theology and the integration of moral traditions.
