Understanding Religion and Social Change in Ethiopia

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxi

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2. The Hermeneutic of “Wax and Gold”

   • Mohammed Girma

   Pages 1-44

3. The Hermeneutic of Demystification

   • Mohammed Girma

   Pages 45-89

4. The Hermeneutic of Compartmentalization

   • Mohammed Girma

   Pages 91-135

5. Toward a New Hermeneutic of Covenant

   • Mohammed Girma

   Pages 137-186

6. Back Matter

   Pages 187-219

   PDF

Religiosity is one aspect without which Ethiopian society cannot be fully understood. This book aims to map out the terrain of the discourse in religion-social change nexus in Ethiopian using the notion of covenant as an interpretive tool.

• aspect
• bibliography
• discourse
• interpret
• religion
• religiosity
• social change
• society
• understanding
• religion and society

"This book is a wide-angled and original analysis of the past, present and future of Ethiopian society and politics, achieving what much secular social science still thinks cannot or should not be attempted. It effectively deploys a profoundly religious notion, that of 'covenant', both as an explanatory device to illuminate one of the most powerful, but often neglected, drivers of Ethiopian history and culture and as a fruitful normative resource to guide it into a more just and peaceful future." - Jonathan Chaplin, Director, the Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics, Cambridge, and Co-editor of God and Global Order: The Power of Religion in American Foreign Policy (Baylor University Press, 2010)

"Writing into the tensions of cultural dynamism in a globalizing world, Mohammed Girma makes an important contribution to religious studies and political theory by exploring resources for Ethiopians to interpret and negotiate social change." - Willis Jenkins, Margaret Farley Associate Professor of Social Ethics, Yale Divinity School

Mohammed Girma is a Postdoctoral Researcher at ETF, Leuven, Belgium, and Research Associate at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa. He previously worked at Yale University as a Visiting Research Fellow, and has published a number of articles in refereed academic journals and book chapters. He currently lives in The Hague, The Netherlands.

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