Sam believes that Gandalf has fallen a catastrophic distance and has died. But in the end of the story, with Sam having been asleep for a long while and then beginning to regain consciousness, Gandalf stands before Sam, robed in white, his face glistening in the sunlight, and says:

“Well, Master Samwise, how do you feel?”

But Sam lay back, and stared with open mouth, and for a moment, between bewilderment and great joy, he could not answer. At last he gasped: “Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?”

“A great shadow has departed,” said Gandalf, and then he laughed, and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days without count. It fell upon his ears like the echo of all the joys he had ever known. But he himself burst into tears. Then as a sweet rain will pass down a wind of spring and the sun will shine out the clearer, his tears ceased, and his laughter welled up, and laughing he sprang from bed… “How do I feel?” he cried.” Well, I don’t know how to say it. I feel, I feel” –he waved his arms in the air– “I feel like spring after winter, and sun on the leaves; and like trumpets and harps and all the songs I have ever heard!”

— J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973), The Return of the King

All going on in Christ Church, #Cheltenham today! Look at that #Byzantine #ArtsandCrafts bling by William Blake Richmond and James Eadie Reid, 1893. Wowzers. pic.twitter.com/Gr84xOff0R

— Kirsty Hartsiotis 🇪🇺 (@StroudStory) April 19, 2022

Rise heart; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise
Without delayes,
Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise
With him mayst rise:
That, as his death calcined1 thee to dust,
His life may make thee gold, and much more, just.

Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part
With all thy art.
The crosse taught all wood to resound his name,
Who bore the same.
His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key
Is best to celebrate this most high day.

Read it all.

Beautiful sunrise over Downtown Charleston! #chswx pic.twitter.com/MipBJGs1Sd

— JoeyLive5 (@JoeySovine) April 19, 2022

Gather gladness from the skies;
Take a lesson from the ground;
Flowers do ope their heavenward eyes
And a Spring-time joy have found;
Earth throws Winter’s robes away,
Decks herself for Easter Day.

Beauty now for ashes wear,
Perfumes for the garb of woe.
Chaplets for disheveled hair,
Dances for sad footsteps slow;
Open wide your hearts that they
Let in joy this Easter Day.

Seek God’s house in happy throng;
Crowded let His table be;
Mingle praises, prayer and song,
Singing to the Trinity.
Henceforth let your souls alway
Make each morn an Easter Day.

Read it all.

Visit this house, we pray you, Lord:
drive far away from it all the snares of the enemy.
May your holy #angels stay here & guard us in peace,
& let your blessing be always upon us.

The Lord grant us a quiet night & a perfect end.#Compline #NightPrayer #ChristIsRisen #Easter pic.twitter.com/xHhJIsfGiX

— PrayeroftheChurch (@Neddamred) April 18, 2022

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.
The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that pierced died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.
Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not paper-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

–John Updike (1932-2009)

"God exists: that is the real message of Easter. Anyone who even begins to grasp what this means also knows what it means to be redeemed."
~Pope Benedict XVI pic.twitter.com/DUmgk49vON

— 🕯️ن THEO-LOGICA ☧ (@Theo_Logica) April 18, 2022

Happy Easter.

Here is R. S. Thomas… pic.twitter.com/qIyzcLSxoG

— Tom Holland (@holland_tom) April 17, 2022

All night had shout of men, and cry
Of woeful women filled His way;
Until that noon of sombre sky
On Friday, clamour and display
Smote Him; no solitude had He,
No silence, since Gethsemane.

Public was Death; but Power, but Might,
But Life again, but Victory,
Were hushed within the dead of night,
The shutter’d dark, the secrecy.
And all alone, alone, alone,
He rose again behind the stone.

–Alice Meynell (1847-1922)

There’s a rumour, a whisper. Something’s happening. Could it be? #HolySaturday @gandkchurch @cofe pic.twitter.com/4xJz6oTEpv

— Craig J Huxley (@CraigJHuxley) April 15, 2017

“Mother, now I may you say:
Better that I alone should die
Than all mankind should go to hell.”
“Son, I see your body swung,
Your breast, your hand, your foot through-stung; [pierced]
No wonder that I mourn!”

“Mother, if I dare you tell,
If I die not, you will go to hell;
I suffer this death for your sake.”
“Son, you are so meek and kind;
Blame me not, it is my kind [nature]
That I for you this sorrow make.”

“Mother, have mercy! let me die,
Adam out of hell to buy
And all mankind that is forlorn!”
“Son, what would you have me do?
Your pain pains me to death;
Let me die before you.”

“Mother, now you may well learn
What pain they endure who children bear,
What sorrow they have who children lose.”
“Son, indeed, I can you tell,
No sorrow but the pain of hell
Is greater than to suffer so!”

Read it all.

'Alone, alone,
Sore I sigh and all for one.'

From last year, and perhaps still relevant today: being alone on Good Friday, in some medieval poems https://t.co/QRpcQ3Q1tu pic.twitter.com/nd9Q6tR01z

— Eleanor Parker (@ClerkofOxford) April 2, 2021

O My chief good,
How shall I measure out thy bloud?
How shall I count what thee befell,
And each grief tell?

Shall I thy woes
Number according to thy foes?
Or, since one starre show’d thy first breath,
Shall all thy death?

Or shall each leaf,
Which falls in Autumn, score a grief?
Or can not leaves, but fruit, be signe
Of the true vine?

Then let each houre
Of my whole life one grief devoure;
That thy distresse through all may runne,
And be my sunne.
Or rather let
My severall sinnes their sorrows get;
That as each beast his cure doth know,
Each sinne may so.

Since bloud is fittest, Lord, to write
Thy sorrows in, and bloudie fight;
My heart hath store, write there, where in
One box doth lie both ink and sinne:

That when sinne spies so many foes,
Thy whips, thy nails, thy wounds, thy woes,
All come to lodge there, sinne may say,
No room for me, and flie away.

Sinne being gone, oh fill the place,
And keep possession with thy grace;
Lest sinne take courage and return,
And all the writings blot or burn.

–George Herbert (1593-1633)

3/3 Just had to remind you of this Rogier crucifixion. They knew tragedy, the old masters. pic.twitter.com/SUoCowb9ME

— Dr. Peter Paul Rubens 🇺🇦 (@PP_Rubens) November 1, 2021

This day, when my Soules forme bends toward the East.
There I should see a Sunne, by rising set,
And by that setting endlesse day beget;
But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall,
Sinne had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I’almost be glad, I do not see
That spectacle of too much weight for mee.
Who sees Gods face, that is selfe life, must dye;
What a death were it then to see God dye?
It made his owne Lieutenant Nature shrinke,
It made his footstoole crack, and the Sunne winke.
Could I behold those hands which span the Poles,
And tune all spheares at once peirc’d with those holes?
Could I behold that endlesse height which is
Zenith to us, and our Antipodes,
Humbled below us? or that blood which is
The seat of all our Soules, if not of his,
Made durt of dust, or that flesh which was worne
By God, for his apparell, rag’d, and torne?

Read it all.

There is a green hill far away,
Without a city wall,
Where the dear Lord was crucified,
Who died to save us all. pic.twitter.com/MV7PPs9C4e

— Holy Trinity Geneva (@GenevaAnglican) April 15, 2022

St. Peter once: ‘Lord, dost Thou wash my feet?’-
Much more I say: Lord, dost Thou stand and knock
At my closed heart more rugged than a rock,
Bolted and barred, for Thy soft touch unmeet,
Nor garnished nor in any wise made sweet?
Owls roost within and dancing satyrs mock.
Lord, I have heard the crowing of the cock
And have not wept: ah, Lord, thou knowest it.
Yet still I hear Thee knocking, still I hear:
‘Open to Me, look on Me eye to eye,
That I may wring thy heart and make it whole;
And teach thee love because I hold thee dear
And sup with thee in gladness soul with soul
And sup with thee in glory by and by.’

–Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

Portrait of a bearded man as an Apostle (Saint Peter) Pier Francesco Mola. @zigut @sofia_pinzi @45lefia @silvia_nader pic.twitter.com/Hi41L2vdNX

— 🎨 Bel Art – Orlando Fernández — 🎨🎼 (@ofervi) February 9, 2014

Palm Sunday pic.twitter.com/VXYqfDXJqf

— Katherine Augustine 🍐 (@kebayf) April 10, 2022

Palm Sunday procession, Moscow, with Tsar Alexei Michaelovich (painting by Vyacheslav Schwarz, 1865) pic.twitter.com/4xG79CY4xp

— Pictures of Churches (@ChurchPictures8) April 9, 2017

And God held in his hand
A small globe. Look he said.
The son looked. Far off,
As through water, he saw
A scorched land of fierce
Colour. The light burned
There; crusted buildings
Cast their shadows: a bright
Serpent, A river
Uncoiled itself, radiant
With slime.

Read it all.

Morning sunshine in the south transept on the Wednesday of #HolyWeek pic.twitter.com/oyRuKmcxXz

— Westminster Abbey (@wabbey) April 13, 2022

These poems speak, as [Philip] Yancey says, to “the guilt and fear and helpless faith that marked [Donne’s] darkest days.” They also answer one of the toughest questions we can face, “In the midst of plague times, how can we give thanks?”

Here are the three poems excerpted by Yancey, with his clarifying revisions of Donne’s eighteenth-century language…

Read it all.

The Church of England today commemorates John Donne, Priest, Poet, 1631 https://t.co/eOoA6wnyxv

Portrait of John Donne by Unknown English artist, c.1595. © National Portrait Gallery, London, CC-BY-NC-ND pic.twitter.com/1MSYaKCls3

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) March 31, 2022

Today is the feast of the Annunciation, or ‘Lady Day in Lent’, as it was known in the Middle Ages. As I explored last year, the medieval church considered 25 March to be the single most important date in history: it was both the beginning and the end of Christ’s life on earth, the date of his conception at the Annunciation and his death on Good Friday. To underline the harmony and purpose which, in the eyes of medieval Christians, shaped the divinely-written narrative of the history of the world, 25 March was also said to be the date of other significant events: the eighth day of Creation, the crossing of the Red Sea, the sacrifice of Isaac, and other days linked with or prefiguring the story of the world’s fall and redemption. The date occurs at a conjunction of solar, lunar, and natural cycles: all these events were understood to have happened in the spring, when life returns to the earth, and at the vernal equinox, once the days begin to grow longer than the nights and light triumphs over the power of darkness. The resonances of 25 March reached even unto Middle Earth, as Tolkien aligned the downfall of the Ring to this most auspicious of dates.

‘Lady Day in Lent’ is the springtime feast of the Virgin Mary, one of several ‘lady days’ which marked the seasons of the medieval year. There is a vast amount of medieval poetry and art on the theme of the Annunciation, more than you could read or look at in a lifetime, and much of it is exquisite: I’ve posted some of my own favourites under this tag. Over and over again, through many centuries, thousands of poets and artists have tried to imagine this scene, where heaven and earth meet and the fate of the universe hangs upon a young woman’s word.

For today, here’s a lovely little poem about the Annunciation by William Herebert, friar and poet, writing in the early 14th century.

Read it all.

Today is the feast of the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary, 'Lady Day in Lent'. For the medieval church, March 25 was the single most important date in history: the day which saw both the beginning and the culmination of Christ's life on earth. https://t.co/7lQCefIOvR pic.twitter.com/NS57MoubD1

— Eleanor Parker (@ClerkofOxford) March 25, 2022

War broke out in August and in September 1914 Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy wrote these words in his parish magazine:

“I cannot say too strongly that I believe every able-bodied man ought to volunteer for service anywhere. Here ought to be no shirking of that duty.”

This from the man who would, before long be writing this, “Waste”:

“Waste of Muscle, waste of Brain,
Waste of Patience, waste of Pain,
Waste of Manhood, waste of Health,
Waste of Beauty, waste of Wealth,
Waste of Blood, and waste of Tears,
Waste of Youth’s most precious years,
Waste of ways the Saints have trod,
Waste of glory, Waste of God–War!”

Read it all.

The Church also remembers Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, more often known as ‘Woodbine Willie’. The great First World War Padre who brought comfort to many, along with many Woodbines! pic.twitter.com/NyBl0hTz9I

— OurCofELike (@OurCofELike) March 8, 2022

Listen to and ponder it all–more than once.

How could they have known not to come
On what amounted to pretense? Everything
Their learning held, all their beliefs
Said regal gifts were needful for a king.

The things they brought were left behind,
Doubtless; or maybe traded for bread:
Impecunious Joseph with a family
To feed, a roof to put over his head.

Read it all.

Join us on Thursday 6 January at 9:30am (said) and 8pm (sung) as we celebrate the feast of #Epiphany All welcome #AtTheHeartOfChristmas pic.twitter.com/7SYe3Ae6W9

— St Mary's Potters Bar (@StMarysPB) January 2, 2022

The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt,
And the children got ready for school. There are enough
Left-overs to do, warmed-up, for the rest of the week —
Not that we have much appetite, having drunk such a lot,
Stayed up so late, attempted — quite unsuccessfully —
To love all of our relatives, and in general
Grossly overestimated our powers. Once again
As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed
To do more than entertain it as an agreeable
Possibility, once again we have sent Him away,
Begging though to remain His disobedient servant,
The promising child who cannot keep His word for long.
The Christmas Feast is already a fading memory,
And already the mind begins to be vaguely aware
Of an unpleasant whiff of apprehension at the thought
Of Lent and Good Friday which cannot, after all, now
Be very far off.

Read it all (my emphasis).

The Nativity by Gerard David, oil on canvas 1495. pic.twitter.com/iZXuPB4FVk

— John J Brumer (@Karacyr_1970) December 24, 2017

I saw a stable, low and very bare,
A little child in a manger.
The oxen knew him, had Him in their care,
To men He was a stranger.
The safety of the world was lying there,
And the world’s danger.

–Mary Coleridge (1861-1907)

But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord."' Annunciation to the Shepherds [Horae ad usum Rothmagensem, Paris, 1498] pic.twitter.com/QbsbFgVLpz

— LambethPalaceLibrary (@lampallib) December 24, 2021

In Bethlehem
On Christmas Morn
The lowly gem
Of love was born
Hosannah! Christus natus est.

Bright in her crown
Of fiery star
Judea’s town
Shone from afar
Hosannah! Christus natus est.

For bird and beast
He did not come
But for the least
Of mortal scum
Hosannah! Christus natus est.

While beasts in stall
On bended knee
Did carol all
Most joyously
Hosannah! Christus natus est.

Who lies in ditch?
Who begs his bread
Who has no stitch
For back or head
Hosannah! Christus natus est.

Who wakes to weep,
Lies down to mourn?
Who in his sleep
Withdraws from scorn?
Hosannah! Christus natus est.

Ye outraged dust
On field and plain
To feed the lust
Of madmen slain
Hosannah! Christus natus est.

The manger still
Outshines the throne
Christ must and will
Come to his own
Hosannah! Christus natus est.

–Countee Cullen (1903-1946)

Απόψε γεννιέται η Ελπίδα!
Ας γεμίσει η Καρδιά μας με Φως, Καλοσύνη,
Αθωότητα, Γαλήνη κι Αγάπη!
Έτη Πολλά και Χαρούμενα!
““““““““““““`
Πίνακας: "The Birth of Jesus", Cornelis de Vos, (1618). pic.twitter.com/dbEKZErF1s

— Kalli PapaChristou (@kalli_Pap) December 24, 2018

My own feeling is that writers who see by the light of their Christian faith will have, in these times, the sharpest eyes for the grotesque, for the perverse, and for the unacceptable. In some cases, these writers may be unconsciously infected with the Manichaean spirit of the times and suffer the much-discussed disjunction between sensibility and belief, but I think that more often the reason for this attention to the perverse is the difference between their beliefs and the beliefs of their audience. Redemption is meaningless unless there is case for it in the actual life we live, and for the last few centuries there has been operating in our culture the secular belief that there is no such cause.

The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural; and he may well be forced to take ever more violent means to get his vision across to this hostile audience. When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs as you do, you can relax a little and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock, to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind, you draw large and startling figures.

—Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969) pp. 33-34 [my emphasis]

Nativity, by John Singleton Copley, born OTD 1738. Every era has its own vision of Mary but I can't love this 18th century one. Nice cattle, though! pic.twitter.com/XPBXIpPeKN

— Dr. Peter Paul Rubens (@PP_Rubens) July 3, 2019

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

–Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)

Daniele Crespi (1598 – 19 July 1630) was an Italian painter.Saint Joseph’s dream (Kunsthstorisches Museum Wien) pic.twitter.com/27SdR2TeA3

— Yiannis Einstein-Ιωάννης Αρβανιτάκης (@yianniseinstein) July 20, 2021

so this is the sound of you
here and now whether or not
anyone hears it this is
where we have come with our age
our knowledge such as it is
and our hopes such as they are

Read it all.

New Beginnings
Christi Belcourt ~ Michif
Isaac Murdoch ~ Ojibwe
2014 pic.twitter.com/PlaXZPgZ9r

— Canadian Paintings (@CanadaPaintings) January 1, 2022

These things have served their purpose: let them be.
So with your own, and pray they be forgiven
By others, as I pray you to forgive
Both bad and good. Last season’s fruit is eaten
And the fullfed beast shall kick the empty pail.
For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.

–Little Gidding

Happy New Year from all at Norwich Cathedral! pic.twitter.com/HGgkhZk8NZ

— Norwich Cathedral (@Nrw_Cathedral) January 1, 2022

On Christmas day I weep
Good Friday to rejoice.
I watch the Child asleep.
Does he half-dream the choice
The Man must make and keep?
At Christmastime I sigh
For my good Friday hope
Outflung the Child’s arms lie
To span in their brief scope
The death the Man must die.
Come Christmastide I groan
To hear Good Friday’s pealing.
The Man, racked to the bone,
Has made His hurt my healing,
Has made my ache His own.
Slay me, pierced to the core
With Christmas penitence
So I who, new-born, soar
To that Child’s innocence,
May wound the Man no more.

–Vassar Miller (1924-1998)

Today's pick: Martin Schongauer: The Nativity https://t.co/ZE2UaCVZPQ pic.twitter.com/c8SHsrTNKO

— Art and the Bible (@artbible) December 31, 2021

Then came, at a predetermined moment, a moment in time
and of time,
A moment not out of time, but in time, in what we call history:
transecting, bisecting the world of time,
a moment in time but not like a moment of time,
A moment in time but time was made through that moment:
for without the meaning there is no time,
and that moment of time gave the meaning.

—T.S. Eliot, Choruses from “The Rock”, VII, as found for example there (page 107).

Painting originally owned by Mme de Pompadour and displayed at her Chateau de Bellevue: "La Lumiere du Monde" or The Light of the World. This wonderful altarpiece was painted in 1750 by Francois Boucher and is now kept in the Musee de Beaux Arts in Lyons. pic.twitter.com/FXVWtG7ksj

— Maria SarfatiChiprut (@jsarfatichiprut) March 24, 2019

Twas much,
that man was
made like God before,
But that God should
be like man
much more

–John Donne (1572-1631)

El Greco, The Nativity (1603-05) pic.twitter.com/ZqvrVaAeMP

— Jane Tim (@JaneTim8) December 25, 2021

She was five,
sure of the facts,
and recited them
with slow solemnity
convinced every word
was revelation.

She said
they were so poor
they had only peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
to eat
and they went a long way from home
without getting lost. The lady rode
a donkey, the man walked, and the baby
was inside the lady.
They had to stay in a stable
with an ox and an ass (hee-hee)
but the Three Rich Men found them
because a star lited the roof.
Shepherds came and you could
pet the sheep but not feed them.
Then the baby was borned.
And do you know who he was?
Her quarter eyes inflated
to silver dollars.
The baby was God.

And she jumped in the air
whirled around, dove into the sofa
and buried her head under the cushion
which is the only proper response
to the Good News of the Incarnation.

–John Shea, The Hour of the Unexpected; one of my favourite Christmas poems, it was used in my Christmas Eve sermon

Carlo Maratta 🇮🇹 (1625-1713)
"The Nativity"
c. 1650s pic.twitter.com/NCTdHabHO6

— Dionisio Olavarrieta (@djolavarrieta) January 4, 2021

She was five,
sure of the facts,
and recited them
with slow solemnity
convinced every word
was revelation.

She said
they were so poor
they had only peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
to eat
and they went a long way from home
without getting lost. The lady rode
a donkey, the man walked, and the baby
was inside the lady.
They had to stay in a stable
with an ox and an ass (hee-hee)
but the Three Rich Men found them
because a star lited the roof.
Shepherds came and you could
pet the sheep but not feed them.
Then the baby was borned.
And do you know who he was?
Her quarter eyes inflated
to silver dollars.
The baby was God.

And she jumped in the air
whirled around, dove into the sofa
and buried her head under the cushion
which is the only proper response
to the Good News of the Incarnation.

–John Shea, The Hour of the Unexpected

That’s all for this Nativity edition of Art Wednesday. Have a great Christmas. Remember, hope has come. Glory to God in the highest. #ArtWednesday #Nativity #Rembrandt pic.twitter.com/kxqUaXQeOk

— Russ Ramsey 🫀 (@russramsey) December 23, 2021

Having expanded as a civilising religion during the era of European colonialism, the growth of Christianity in Africa in the decades after the 1960s has revealed a tendency to reject European patronage, choosing either to ‘pentecostalise’ (to various extents) and, following American-styled expressions of Christianity, to globalise or to embrace a new identity as independent African denominations.

This globalisation of African Christianity has been influenced greatly by American Evangelicalism and with this came the legitimisation of celebrity-styled preachers and the prosperity gospel which has, in turn, led to some African evangelical and Pentecostal preachers using fear to dominate and exploit vulnerable people.

In Western discourses on African Christianity, these prosperity-preaching ministries dominate the conversation. However, a majority of African Christians, especially in rural Africa, have no clue what it is.

Soyinka is against charlatanism, fundamentalism and extremism in religion. He has written and spoken at length about what he perceives as the imperialist tendencies in the two leading religions. He gives many examples of abuse of power and the weaponisation of fear in his creative writings as well as in newspaper articles, lectures (particularly the 2004 BBC Reith Lectures that resulted in his book, Climate of Fear), and other works.

What is particularly troubling here is his tendency to demonise all religion without acknowledging the good that it stands for.

Read it all.

#Trending | Wole Soyinka releases first novel in 48 years https://t.co/0G7kGczH66. pic.twitter.com/sZ6NI79QPw

— City Press (@City_Press) December 19, 2021