Lament Archives | Contending Modernities

The Church That Lost Its Cry: Public Lament and Ecclesial Capture in Ethiopia

Geleta Berisso
June 17, 2026

Teddy Afro’s song, for all its theological limitations, expresses what Ethiopia’s churches have too often lost: the capacity to grieve publicly, truthfully, and across ethnic lines.

Witnessing Without Redemption: The Remnant and the Refusal of Closure

Jane Barter
April 8, 2026

Witnessing, then, is not about closure but interruption. It is an ethical practice oriented toward what remains unresolved in the present.

The Dangerous Hope of Visceral Lament: A Response to Lynch, Ocobock, Cavanaugh and Maluleke

Series: Born from Lament

Emmanuel Katongole
August 31, 2017August 31, 2017

What the portraits of Born from Lament reveal is a theology and through that theology the possibility of a non-violent politics of solidarity and compassion born out of the deep experience of suffering in the world.

Something Rotten in the State of Denmark: Katongole on Africa’s Gifts for the West

Series: Born from Lament

William Cavanaugh
August 18, 2017August 8, 2017

The choice for Katongole is not simply the choice between Africa and the West. The cure for Africa’s problems does indeed need to come from outside of Africa, but not from a Western state. It needs to come from God.

The “Dark Continent” is Dead

Series: Born from Lament

Paul Ocobock
August 15, 2017August 15, 2017

After reading Born from Lament, I want to shout from the mountaintop that the “Dark Continent is dead!” Or at least the awful way we in the West describe Africa is dead.

Between ‘Descriptive Haste’ and ‘Prescriptive Haste’

Series: Born from Lament

Tinyiko Maluleke
August 8, 2017August 15, 2017

The central thesis of Emmanuel Katongole’s Born from Lament: The Theology and Politics of Hope in Africa is that lament…

The Many Faces of Lament

Series: Born from Lament

Cecelia Lynch
August 3, 2017August 4, 2017

How do Christians who have experienced the indescribable love of God in their suffering, and from it draw out unfathomable hope, relate to those who also practice lament and seek hope, but are not Christian?

The Visceral Politics of Lament: A CM Symposium on “Born from Lament”

Series: Born from Lament

Kyle Lambelet
August 1, 2017October 4, 2018

In his new book Born from Lament: The Theology and Politics of Hope in Africa, Emmanuel Katongole explores a constellation of manifestations of politics in a visceral register by analyzing the theology and politics of lament in East Africa.

Articles tagged as "Lament"