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Emmanuel Katongole, Born from Lament: The Theology and Politics of Hope in Africa (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans2017), pp. xx + 294. $30.00

doi:10.1017/S0036930618000091 Emmanuel Katongole, Born from Lament: The Theology and Politics of Hope in Africa (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2017), pp. xx + 294. $30.00 The question that propels this book is, how can the Christian church talk of hope when faced with widespread, systemic violence? Katongole’s answer is found in the midst of widespread suffering. Emmanuel Katongole, associate professor of theology and peace studies at the university of Notre Dame and Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Kampala, examines the theological and social dimensions of lament in biblical texts and as practised in the Great Lakes region of Africa. Building on his previous book, The Sacrifice of Africa: A Political Theology for Africa, he explores the nature of hope in the midst of violence, poverty and displacement. He concludes that hope lies in the agency that lament affords because, through lament, those who suffer wrestle with God are drawn into God’s redemption for the world, and are carried into new knowledge of God and their suffering. Through this knowledge they are freed to participate in the Kingdom of God and they develop a social vision with political ramifications as they critique the injustices of the present situation and strive for better. In such a distilled form these conclusions may be challenging but unsurprising. It is the theological route that Katongole takes to reaches this conclusion that is particularly novel and insightful. By taking us into the lives of Christian activists working for change in Burundi, Congo and Uganda and weaving their laments with those of the Bible he intertwines theological resources in a way that not only contributes to a practical theology of hope but which also provides a thoughtful approach to doing theology. Articles in a recent special edition of Theology Today called for western theologians to engage with the ‘World-Christian turn’ rather than judging emerging theologies as ‘chaotic, syncretistic and superficial’,1 and they outlined the theological benefit of examining the polycentric, worldwide nature of Christianity for interrogating the concept of ‘tradition’ by rendering it ‘a more fluid, heterogeneous, and politically inflected category