Afua Kuma

Jon P Kirby

Afua Kuma was an Illiterate, rural woman (1906-87) whose amazing prayers and praises in the Twi language of Ghana confirm her as a prophetess, healer, and first class oral theologian.

Fr Jon P Kirby, SVD recorded her praises in the late 1970s and published them as Jesus of the Deep Forest in 1981. Jon worked in Ghana for 36 years as a missionary-anthropologist; at first in Catholic mission stations and later as the founder/director of Tamale Institute of Cross-Cultural Studies in Tamale, N. Ghana. He has degrees in theology (MA - DePaul), ministry (MDiv - CTU), and social anthropology (PhD - Cantab). He is also a certified practitioner of psychodrama, and uses the related bibliodrama and “culture-drama” to foster interculturality. He has been a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge UK, Boston University, and Catholic Theological Union, and has held the chair of Mission and Cross-Cultural Studies at Washington Theological Union. He is the author or editor of 25 books including: God, Shrines and Problem-Solving (1986), The Power and the Glory: Popular Religion in Northern Ghana (2013), and The Surprising African Jesus (2022), which offers a new collection of Afua Kuma’s praises in poetic English, especially for readers in the Global North.