Ogbu Kalu
Ogbu Uke Kalu is a Nigerian historian and theologian who served as director of the General Studies division at University of Nigeria and was a professor of church history at Nsukka until 2001. As an theologian and academic, he has done work on multidisciplinary fields and has written or co-authored about 14 books. He is recently affiliated with the McCormick Theological Seminary. Kalu also served as an examiner with the West African Examination Council and was on the editorial board of the Caribbean and African Journal of Theology.
Some of the books he has also written on religion includes: The History of Christianity in West Africa, 'The Nigerian Story', Divided People of God: Church Union Movement in Nigeria 1875-1966 and Readings in African Humanities: African Cultural Development.
Kalu was educated at the Ohafia Central School where he had his primary education, he later went on to study at Hope Waddell Training Institute, Calabar (1955-1961), University of Toronto (1963-1967), McMaster University, University of London and the Princeton Theological Seminary.
Research
Kalu's early academic effort was originally on seventeenth century English history until he later decided to turn his research specialty to African church historiography.
In his book, Power Poverty and Prayer: The Challenges of Poverty and Pluralism in African Christianity, Ogbu laments the situation where poverty, militarization, and legitimacy crisis as driven believers to join extremist religious sects that promises salvation on earth and in heaven. He also wrote an article on the role of religion in social control, using Igbo cultural sources, he explains how Igbo world view ascribes a religious meaning to the human world. Whereby, the sacralization of the human world gives the impetus for the preservation of religious moral order the goal of social control. (1)
Selected works
- African Christianity. editor. Africa World Press, Inc. (August 16, 2007)
- History of Christianity in West Africa. Longman, 1981
- The Embattled Gods: Chrisitianization of Igboland, 1841-1991
Further reading
- Chima Korieh. Religion, History, and Politics in Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Ogbu U. Kalu
References
- John S. Mbiti, Sulayman Sheih Nyang. Religious Plurality in Africa: Essays in Honour of John S. Mbiti. p 109-120
