The task of a theologian is to tell the story of God as experienced by humans in the concrete nakedness of their human existence within a social location. The theologian, if he or she is to be faithful to this calling, must necessarily locate himself or herself within the narrative. Vulnerability as a storyteller is the key to transmitting the transformative power of stories. This is exactly what Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator has done in the work Religion and Faith in Africa: Confessions of an Animist. In this work, a series of short essays exploring relevant themes that define the religiosity of the African continent, the author aims to shed light on what African Christianity means today as a religion with its own vibrancy and pathologies, as well as African Islam, though more focus is given to African Christianity. He does this from the locus of his own testimonies as a convert who inhabits the crossroads of multiple religiosities, African Religion, and African Christianity. This is commendable. For more than a century, Western anthropologists, missionaries, and colonial agents systematically erased all traces of the positive contributions made by African Religion to African worldview and societies. This religious tradition was simply reduced to labels that evoke images of barbarism and evil in its stark nakedness. The author provides a corrective narrative to this agenda-driven one from the West. He writes with the confidence that one hardly sees among theologians who take on the defense of African religious consciousness.

The author offers relevant critique of the inability of African Christianity to help articulate a new reality for all Africans, one that leads to the flourishing of life and the eradication of systemic evils that currently hold the continent hostage. Stating it bluntly, he writes, “Why does religion thrive in the midst of underdevelopment and widespread dysfunctionality?” (85). In his attempt to offer a prognosis to this paradoxical landscape, he enters into a comparative dialogue with relevant dialogical partners whose works explore the operative factors defining the histories of the continent. This work does not stop there. The author makes a compelling case for theologians and religious scholars to take seriously insights from African Religion. Unlike contemporary African Christianity that has been defined radically by capitalist bias for wealth in the form of Prosperity Gospel, African Religion provides a religious worldview that is holistic, one that offers pathways not just for individual practices and interactions with the divine, but also the entire community in its interactions with the larger environment. It is on that note that this work offers an ecological insight that helps to broaden the sometimes-narrow perspectives from African Christianity. Again, a positive bias for African Religion is offered in the discourse on how Africa can overcome its current ecological crises.

Africa prides itself as a continent whose proverbs, adages, myths, and religious heritages are saturated with feminine motifs. The author calls all these to question by shedding light on the many missed opportunities of the Catholic Church in Africa. However, a weakness in the author's critique is a lack of a sustained and thorough engagement with the African Church and what must be done to move from the world of words to that of concrete actions. Many Christian churches in Africa have no qualms about having women leaders and founders as the author rightly observed. However, one must ask, why has the Catholic Church in Africa not caught up? What must African Catholics do to change the current realities? Solutions to these questions must not be offered by Rome; they must come from Africans themselves. Perhaps, the author is setting the stage for the conversation to occur, but it is one that is definitely overdue.

This work is very accessible. This is a skill and strength that the author brings to the theological discourse. The work will be relevant to persons interested in having an understanding of the multiple faces of the religious expressions inherent in Africa, particularly the previously relegated African Religion.

Finally, Orobator has shown that the African story can be told in ways that capture vividly the complex contours of its historicities. This work showcases the purity of a theology of dialogue that is done in the spirit of humility, vulnerability, and open-mindedness.