The Mongwande Snake Cult: a Case Study in Contextualization

In this book Sveinung Johnson Moen presents a very fascinating subject, a snake cult among the Mongwande people in the northern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Going beyond a mere anthropological description, he brings the subject in relation to the snake concept in Scripture and reflects on the opportunities and fallacies of missionary ministry. Even though his experiences go back to the 1950s (that is the end of the colonial period), his reflections on contextualization situate him rather in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Sveinung Moen draws the reader into an interdisciplinary endeavour of very original reflections on cultural anthropo­logy, sociology, theology, and missiology. He does this by using many case studies and stories which make the book a piece of fascinating literature.