The Beekay Library · Learning & scholarship
Beekay
Papers
Explore ideas. Examine the evidence.
This collection brings together papers written over the years by Prof. Bernard Kimani (Prof. Beekay) on theology, education, leadership, governance and related subjects.
Revised for publication in light of his current reflections, these papers revisit the questions, arguments and practical implications of the original work while remaining attentive to its historical and scholarly context.
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Religion and TheologyTranslatability and the Indigenisation of Christianity in Africa A Critical Review of Lamin Sanneh's Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on CulturePreview abstract KES 500
Translatability and the Indigenisation of Christianity in Africa A Critical Review of Lamin Sanneh's Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture
Abstract preview
This paper offers a critical review of Lamin Sanneh's Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture (Orbis Books, 1989). Sanneh's central thesis is that Christianity, from its origins, identified itself with the need to translate out of Aramaic and Hebrew, and from that position came to exert a dual force in its historical development. The paper summarises the argument of the book, examines Sanneh's distinction between mission by diffusion and mission by translation, assesses his defence of vernacular Bible translation against its critics, and observes that his thesis rests on surprisingly little exegetical or biblical-theological support. It then reflects on what the principle of translatability means for the indigenisation of the Christian faith in Africa. The paper concludes that translation is key to the effectiveness of gospel transmission and that indigenous Christianity is, in a real sense, a child of translation.
Religion and TheologyChristianity is not a Western Religion: An Apologetic ResponsePreview abstract KES 500
Christianity is not a Western Religion: An Apologetic Response
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This paper responds to the charge that Christianity is a Western religion — too white, too foreign, and a religious expression of colonialism — and therefore not an authentic faith for Africans. While acknowledging the aggressive, superior and imperialistic attitudes that have accompanied much of historic Western Christianity, it argues that Christianity is not and never was a Western religion, nor was it imposed on Africans by Westerners. Nine lines of argument are advanced: Africans freely chose to believe the gospel; the gospel was received and transmitted by indigenous Africans; Christianity is distinct from colonialism; the faith did not originate in the West but was shaped in Africa by the early church fathers; the biblical account links Africa with early Christianity; the colour of the messenger does not colour the message; Christianity is universal and cannot be encapsulated in race or colour; the charge of foreignness rests on neo-colonial presuppositions; and Africa's own religious heritage was never the blank slate the missionaries assumed. The paper closes with implications for contextualisation, incarnational missiology and a presuppositional apologetics in African Christianity.
EducationTowards a Value-Based Education The Challenge of Value-Based Education in Economy-Focused Training ApproachesPreview abstract KES 500
Towards a Value-Based Education The Challenge of Value-Based Education in Economy-Focused Training Approaches
Abstract preview
Contemporary education has shifted towards producing competent people who can handle machines, or Bible texts, but who lack moral values and character, because education systems are geared towards economic growth and competition at the expense of moral values and social solidarity. This paper explores the challenges that value-based education faces in economy-focused training approaches. After defining education, values and value-based education, it sets out a biblical rationale for value-based education, with the home as its centre, and compares the Hindu concept articulated by P. Venkataramaiah. It then identifies five challenges — the wrong assessment of the value of education, the economic goal of education, individualism, the absence of mentorship, and exam-centred curricula — and proposes responses in the learning environment, the curriculum, and the link between the school and the wider society. It closes with implications for African education, culture and society: revitalising the family as the chief agent of socialisation, a paradigm shift in the assessment of educational value, integrative systems that connect class and life, and balance in the social functions of education.
Ministry LeadershipYouth and MusicPreview abstract KES 500
Youth and Music
Abstract preview
Music is a significant setting in which Christian young adults negotiate faith, identity, belonging, and moral responsibility. A June 2010 study explored attitudes toward Christian and secular music in Nairobi through a literature review and exploratory interviews with thirteen participants, comprising eight adults aged 20–30 and five aged 40 or above. The interviews examined listening preferences, definitions of Christian music, the significance of artists’ conduct, the use of secular tunes in worship, and participation in church and secular venues. Participants frequently distinguished music by its lyrical message, although views differed over genre, context, and the moral authority of performers. Their responses also exposed tensions between personal conviction, church expectations, and explicitly articulated biblical reasoning. The central argument is that musical discernment requires attention to message, purpose, context, character, and the formation of Christian community. The small convenience sample supports contextual insight rather than generalisation about Nairobi’s churches. Reflections developed in 2026 explore implications for theological education, intergenerational dialogue, pastoral leadership, and responsible artistic participation, distinct from the historical evidence.
LeadershipEffective Management Practices for Maximum Impact in the Postmodern Church: Common Management Challenges Facing Churches Today and How to Meet ThemPreview abstract KES 500
Effective Management Practices for Maximum Impact in the Postmodern Church: Common Management Challenges Facing Churches Today and How to Meet Them
Abstract preview
The church exists to spread the gospel, and how well it does so depends in no small measure on how well it is managed. This paper examines management challenges that confront many churches today, especially in the postmodern setting, where people are sceptical of institutions, quick to notice inconsistency and slow to commit. Using the classic management practices of planning, organising, staffing, motivating and controlling, together with the processes of communicating and decision making, it identifies recurring problems: the absence of a clear mission and strategic plan, the undue influence of powerful patrons, nepotism and conflicts of interest, idle volunteers, weak motivation, poor financial accountability and communication, and decision making concentrated in a few hands. It then recommends practices, drawn from management theory and Christian leadership literature, for each area. The reflections and applications consider what these practices mean for the church today: transparency as the basis of trust, governance that no single person can capture, clarity of mission in an age of options, equipping and releasing people, reaching the next generation, stewarding the digital church, and training leaders who both lead and manage. The paper concludes that sound management and spiritual gifting are partners, not rivals, in the mission of the church.
TheologyJames Dunn’s Theology of the Charismatic Community An Evaluation and Its Implications for the Contemporary African ChurchPreview abstract KES 500
James Dunn’s Theology of the Charismatic Community An Evaluation and Its Implications for the Contemporary African Church
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In Jesus and the Spirit, James D. G. Dunn describes the earliest Christian congregations as charismatic communities: bodies in which the gracious activity of the Spirit was experienced, not merely believed, and found expression in a diversity of gifts exercised for the good of all. This paper summarises Dunn’s account of the Spirit, grace and charisma, evaluates the vision of the church that emerges from it, and offers a critical analysis of his views on speaking in tongues, on the relationship between charisma and sanctification, and on the charismatic standing of every member. It then compares Dunn’s vision with the author’s experience of pastoral ministry, in which spiritual gifts have too often been personalised and have become occasions of division rather than unity. Seven implications follow for the contemporary African church: the need to balance faith and reason, charisma and character, and spontaneity and order; to encourage every believer to exercise his or her gifts; to integrate natural talent with spiritual gifting; to bridge the divide between the sacred and the secular; and to restore genuine fellowship in an age of virtual church.
Christian Life & MinistryThe Church as the Manifestation of the Kingdom of God The Already/Not Yet Tension and the African Church TodayPreview abstract KES 500
The Church as the Manifestation of the Kingdom of God The Already/Not Yet Tension and the African Church Today
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The kingdom of God is the central theme of Jesus’ teaching and a thread that runs through the whole of Scripture. This paper traces the theme from God’s purpose in Eden and his dealings with Israel to its fullest expression in the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus. It explores the tension between the kingdom that has already broken into the present age and the kingdom that is not yet consummated, and it sets out the relationship between the church and the kingdom: the church is not the kingdom, but it is the community, the agent, the fruit and the showpiece of the kingdom. It then identifies ways in which God’s dynamic reign is manifested today. In its reflections and applications the paper argues that a vision of the kingdom can give direction to the church in Africa by grounding congregations in kingdom values, renewing the proclamation of the gospel, holding together the present and future dimensions of the kingdom, modelling servant leadership and good governance, and overcoming ethnic division through a multi-ethnic, cross-cultural witness
Religion and TheologyAfrican Traditional Religions and the Promotion of the Community Ideal in Africa The Religious Dimension of Community in Traditional and Contemporary AfricaPreview abstract KES 500
African Traditional Religions and the Promotion of the Community Ideal in Africa The Religious Dimension of Community in Traditional and Contemporary Africa
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The sense of community is among the most cherished values of traditional African life, and for traditional Africans the community is sacred rather than secular. This paper examines the religious dimension of community in the traditional African background. It first sets out the traditional African concept of community as a unity of two worlds — the visible world of the physically living and the invisible world of the ancestors, divinities and the unborn. It then shows how African traditional religions promote the ideal of harmonious community living: through their concept of God and of a delicately balanced universe, through the promotion of harmony as a core value, and through the transmission of key religious beliefs, initiation rituals, dominant ritual symbols and sacred institutions. Further avenues are examined in personal and title names, traditional prayers and the normative standards of behaviour reinforced by supernatural sanction. The paper closes by reflecting on the role of the traditional religions in promoting the community ideal in contemporary Africa, where radical social change has diminished that role even as the ideal itself endures.
Religion and TheologyNine Reflections on African Religion and Philosophy Review Essays on Nine Readings in African Traditional Religion, with Implications for TodayPreview abstract KES 600
Nine Reflections on African Religion and Philosophy Review Essays on Nine Readings in African Traditional Religion, with Implications for Today
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This paper gathers nine review essays on readings in African traditional religion that were first written as a connected series in 2010. Each essay states the thesis of the work reviewed,reflects on it critically from an evangelical African standpoint, and draws an application for the church. The readings span the foundational claim of John S. Mbiti that religion permeates the whole of African life; Jacob K. Olupona’s agenda for the academic study of the religion; Emefie Ikenga-Metuh’s argument that African names and concepts of God are indigenous; a newspaper account of a cabinet minister’s initiation at a Kaya shrine; Mbiti’s study of women in African religion; O. Samuel Nichols on the ancestors in African Christian theology; Laurent Magesa on the moral traditions of abundant life; Martin Nkafu Nkemnkia’s proposal for studying the religion on its own terms; and Lois Fuller’s handbook for missionaries. Read together, the essays argue that African traditional religion cannot be wished away, that Africans knew God before the missionary arrived, that the ancestors remain the point of sharpest disagreement, and that the gospel is best communicated by those who first understand what they are addressing. The paper closes by drawing out the implications of these reflections for the church and for theological education today.
Social SciencesPremarital SexPreview abstract KES 500
Premarital Sex
Abstract preview
Premarital sex raises questions about Christian discipleship, personal responsibility, sexual knowledge, and the church’s pastoral response to young people. This paper presents an evangelical argument for reserving sexual intercourse for marriage while challenging the silence that often surrounds sexuality in families and churches. Drawing on biblical passages,Christian counselling and ethical literature, and Kenyan public discussion from 2007, it examines misconceptions concerning desire, maturity, love, and peer acceptance. It also considers cultural influences and situations that may shape sexual decisions, distinguishing moral responsibility from coercion and avoiding claims that any single influence inevitably determines behaviour. The central argument is that sexual abstinence before marriage should be taught through a positive theology of sexuality, informed dialogue, self-control, and respect for others, rather than prohibition without explanation. The discussion is theological and pastoral, not an empirical study of the prevalence or consequences of premarital sex. Reflections developed in 2026 consider how churches, families, and theological educators can communicate conviction with compassion, support responsible decisions, and offer care without treating a person’s sexual history as the measure of their worth.
Religion and TheologyReflections on Doing Christian Apologetics in AfricaPreview abstract KES 500
Reflections on Doing Christian Apologetics in Africa
Abstract preview
Christian apologetics is as necessary in Africa today as it was in the early church, but the questions it must answer have changed. This paper reflects on three readings in apologetics:the opening essays of the New Dictionary of Christian Apologetics, Richard L. Pratt’s Every Thought Captive, and Alister McGrath’s Bridge-Building. From the first it draws the importance of the apologist’s starting point and spiritual disposition in a postmodern age; from Pratt, a return to Scripture as the framework for defending the faith, expressed in the twin methods of argument by truth and argument from folly; and from Kevin J. Vanhoozer’s essay in the Dictionary, the conviction that theology, not detached evidence, must be the platform for apologetics. Turning to Africa, the paper argues that the African apologist must engage imported ideologies, African traditional religion, the critique of Christianity in African literature, religious pluralism, globalisation and pressing ethical questions, that a new generation of apologists must be trained for the task, and that the gospel must never lose its place at the centre of it.
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