Where would Christian theology be without the contributions of Tertullian, Cyprian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Athanasius and Augustine? What is often overlooked in historical theology is that these church fathers were all African. Thomas Oden has done a great service to students of history and theology in his recent work How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind: Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity (Intervarsity, 2008). My review of Oden's book, first published in the Criswell Theological Review, can be accessed here.