Book Review: Living Together Differently, Volumes I & II

When Dr. Anthony Egan, SJ, first encountered the title Living Together Differently, his imagination took a humorous detour, as he expected perhaps a provocative theological defense of unconventional relationships. What he found instead was a far more profound and ambitious work: a two-volume collection born from the 2024 joint conference of Jesuit faculties of philosophy and theology in Africa and Madagascar, held in Kinshasa.

Egan lauds the editors, Rev. Dr. Stephen Eyeowa and Rev. Prof. Dieudonné Mbiribindi, SJ, for an extraordinary academic feat, calling it a “Testament to Academic Collaboration.” From the fourth edition of the (Jesuit Conference of Africa and Madagascar Research Network (JCAM-RN) held on November 28-30, 2024, at the Manresa Spiritual Centre in Kimwenza, Kinshasa, the publication of two polished volumes within a year, Dr. Egan quips, could count as “the sixth proof for the existence of God.” Anyone familiar with academic publishing knows that transforming papers into reviewed, edited, and printed volumes in under twelve months is near miraculous.

Volume I carries the subtitle A Theological Perspective, while Volume II offers An Interdisciplinary Perspective. Together, they feature 21 essays spanning theology, philosophy, political science, linguistics, and even applied Egyptology. Seven contributors hail from Hekima University College, underscoring its active intellectual engagement.

The contributors represent a mosaic of backgrounds, authors from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Kenya, Germany, India, Zimbabwe, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, and Rwanda, reflecting both the global and local diversity of Jesuit scholarship in Africa.

For Egan, the most striking quality of these volumes is their genuine interdisciplinarity. Essays refuse to remain confined within academic silos, instead weaving together unexpected combinations that include scripture and ethics, systematic theology and Girardian theory, history and ecclesiology, Egyptology and ecology, and even Jean-Paul Sartre in dialogue with Madagascan communitarian philosophy.

This creative crossing of boundaries produces, as Egan notes, “a community of communities,” which disciplines, cultures, and perspectives engaged in deep conversation. The essays explore an array of vital topics: Israel’s ethics of hospitality, the Bible and abortion, friendship as a foundation for ecclesiastical service, integral soteriology, interculturality, and ecological ethics, among others.

Stylistically, the volumes range from rigorously academic to refreshingly conversational and even humorous. One essay, Egan notes with amusement, includes a reference to jazz legend Louis Armstrong, which offers evidence of the lively, human tone running through the collection.

Egan praises Living Together Differently as a “lightning rod” of contemporary Jesuit and African intellectual thought, which is bold, diverse, and ethically grounded. The bilingual nature of the work (with essays in both English and French) enriches its reach but also poses challenges for accessibility. He suggests that future editions might consider bilingual abstracts, or even separate English and French editions to maximize readership.

Looking ahead, Egan encourages Jesuit scholars to move from interdisciplinarity to transdisciplinarity, which is a deeper, transformative engagement across fields that births entirely new modes of understanding.

He concluded the review with admiration and humor, saying the publications are a rare academic collection that is both intellectually rich and accessible, “a valuable, exciting, and incredibly readable collection of essays.” And unlike many scholarly volumes, it is, as he wryly adds, “quite cheap at the price one won’t need to sell three kidneys to buy it.”

Living Together Differently stands as a remarkable testament to Jesuit collaboration, African theological creativity, and the promise of scholarly dialogue across difference.

By Pamela Adinda, HUC International and Communications Coordinator