Book Review: Religion and Faith in Africa: Confessions of an Animist (original) (raw)
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Towards a Christian Approach to Africa Traditional Religion
2021
Inter-Religious dialogue is a demand for the mission. Based on the theological investigation of scholars who explore and write on the subject, the article analyses the theological challenge of Inter-Religious dialogue especially in approaching African Traditional Religions. The discussion concerns the Christian theology of religious pluralism with the local religion in Africa looking at the theological progress, not just from the abstract world of books, but also, from connecting with the life of the people, appreciating and connecting points of convergences with the local culture and religions. Still, a long way to go on the reflection and there needs to open wider our vision concerning the action of the Spirit that has been always present in Africa.
African Crossroads: Conflicts between African Traditional Religion and Christianity
This paper focuses on the conflicts between African Traditional Religion and Christianity. Although there are other religions in Africa such as Islam and Judaism, this study concentrates on African Traditional Religion and Christianity. Religion is the strongest element in traditional African culture and exerts great influence upon the conduct of the African people. Religion is closely bound up with the traditional way of African life; therefore, religion has shaped the lives of Africans, at the same time life has shaped religion as well. Whenever two or three cultures meet, there is potential conflict. Spiritual conflicts exist between African Traditional Religion and Christianity. It is difficult to separate African culture from African Traditional Religion because religion is embedded in African culture. African Traditional religion is part of the African’s ethos and an understanding of it should go hand in hand with Christian evangelization. Ignoring these traditional beliefs, attitudes and practices may lead to a lack of understanding of African behavior and problems. This paper work uses Nollywood, the Nigerian movie industry, to showcase the clash between African Traditional Religion and Christianity.
African Religion in our Contemporary Society
Jumuga journal of education, oral studies, and human sciences, 2024
Characteristically, African Religion is a resilient enterprise that cuts across centuries of interaction with other religions such as Christianity and Islam. This research article sets out to unveil its resilient characteristics, as it underlines the fact that it is part and parcel of the African cultural heritage. Methodologically, it highlights the multi-dimensional ways in which the African Religion has permeated into the lives of Africans to date. In the context of Christianity and Islam, it has remained a 'controversial' area of research among theologians, as some fail to understand its relevance. On the flip-side, there are other scholars who contends that it needs to be recognized as an independent and self-fulfilling religion, just as it is the case with Christianity, Islam, and other world religions. To address the divergent views, an application of an Afro-Biblical Dialogue, as a theory, has been proposed to address this development. As the dialogical methodology, this model which was first adopted by the Jerusalem Christian Council in the wake of Hellenism (Acts 15), will thus attempt to answer the question regarding the place of Gentiles who became Christians. Were they meant to abandon their religio-cultural backgrounds?
Christianity and the African traditional religion(s): The postcolonial round of engagement
Verbum et Ecclesia, 2011
This article concerned itself with the modern encounter between Christianity and African Indigenous Religion (AIR) in Africa. It is essentially a postcolonial approach to what AIR and its essential characteristics is: God and humanity, sacrifices, afterlife and ancestors. The rapid growth of many religions in Africa and the revival of AIR in postcolonial Africa have made inter-religious dialogue an urgent necessity. Unlike the colonial encounter with AIR, which was characterised by hostility and the condemnation of AIR, the postcolonial encounter should be characterised by mutual respect, understanding, tolerance, and some level of freedom, liberation and genuineness. In this way, suspicion will be reduced, because despite the adherents� confession of Christianity, AIR is not about to be extinct.
2011
Nominated in 2013 for the 2015 Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion! "This well-crafted book probes the key dimensions of Africa’s existential predicament. It constitutes an intellectual response to a gnawing “African situation”—the starting-point for grasping Africa’s social and religious quest. Beyond split explanations of external (e.g., colonization/slavery) vs. internal (e.g., leadership/cultural values) factors, this study accounts more comprehensively for emergent issues shaping this situation. The situation reflects a gamut of problems in (traditional) African religion and material culture, which hitherto defines African communality, polities and destinies vis-à-vis the cosmos and nature. Thus, African religion and communities, with their attendant values, operate via adaptation, rather than by critical engagement with larger issues of society and civilization, especially those shaped by the advent of (post-) modernity. The communal drive for natural and social harmony inevitably produces a preservationist view of culture (“leaving things as they are”). This study takes an integrative approach to religion, society and civilization, eschews dichotomies, broadly defines and resignifies life and wholeness as a true end of Africans’ quest today (from the Back Cover) ENDORSEMENTS (For more endorsements, see the US & World edition 2013 by University Press of America @ url: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780761862680) “This book … strives to lay bare the determining structures, decisive trends, and dominant principle that fashion and serve the goals of thought and action in Africa. … [It] is a project of interpretation of life’s heritage and baggage which Africans employ to craft their identities, sustain flourishing human socialities, and actualize their potentials. …. If there is a select group of books that captures the broad phenomenology of African peoples’ spirituality this book is arguably one of it.” ~NIMI WARIBOKO, Katherine B. Stuart Professor & Chair of Christian Ethics, Andover Newton Theological School, Massachusetts, USA “A formidable contribution to a giant topic … The author proceeds to the project with a broad knowledge of the field as well as with impressing pedagogical skills, and the result is a book that will serve as an important discussion partner for scholars of religion, theology, and biblical studies in Africa in the years to come.” ~KNUT HOLTER, Professor of Old Testament studies, MHS School of Mission and Theology, Norway “A must-read document for every African citizen; a benchmark … for the new African project. [The] time has come for an African renaissance … with this cornerstone book …” ~DR. DANIEL ETOUNGA-MANGUELLE, Chairman and CEO of SADEG Consulting Group, Yaoundé, Cameroon & former member of the World Bank’s Council of African Advisors “… A richness of bibliographical references and sources, together with innovative theories, is a further confirmation of the presence of new prestigious African authors committed to the challenge of understanding Africa.” ~Professor BEATRICE NICOLINI, PhD, Chair of History and Institutions of Africa, Faculty of Political Science, Catholic University, Milan-Italy "
Book Review: Religions in Contemporary Africa
Ethnologia Actualis, 2022
Religion is an indispensable factor which explains the development of the sub-Saharan African continent as well as linking Africa with other continents. Religious transformation in Africa went hand in hand with human history, social, political, and economic experiences. Over time, African Indigenous Religions (AIR) spread to the other parts of the world through human migrations such as slave trade. The external oriented religions such as Christianity, Islam and religions originating in Asia diffused to Africa from the 1 st century. (pp.5, 35, 51) These religious traditions are co-existing and affecting each other while being shaped by African environment. (p.12) Recent studies on religion address, among other aspects, new religious practices in Africa and diaspora (Aderibigbe-Medine 2015), religion and reconciliations in Africa (Chapman-Spong 2003), relationship between religion and sexuality (Van Klinken, 2019; Chitando-Van Klinken 2016) and religion and politics in Africa. (Abink 2014) However, there has always been a need of updating sources to capture new trends, methodology and perspectives conducted in African context.
The massive accession to Christian faith in post-colonial Africa is leading to the ongoing creation of distinctively African forms of Christian thought and practice that differ in significant ways from those of the West-a trend anticipated by developments in Black American Christianity. Africana Religious Studies has been imagined as a field that would 'generate credible scholarship on indigenous African religious traditions' yet the rise of African Christianity raises questions about what constitutes indigeneity. If the Ethiopian church represents 'Africa indigenously Christian do these more recent developments suggest Christianity indigenously African? Can Christianity be considered indigenously African? Is there a need for Africana religious scholarship to reassess the widespread notion of Christianity as a cultural product of the West and an imposition alien to Africana peoples? If so, what does the rise of African Christianity indicate about both nature and structure of Christianity, understood as an Africana religion?
Rencontre des Traditions Religieuses de l’Afrique avec le Christianisme, L’Islam et la Laicite: A partir des Ecrits de Leopold Sedar Senghor
It has become fashionable for scholars of religion writing through the medium of European languages to employ the use of the term, “African Traditional Religion” (ATR), to refer to the autochthonous religions of Africa. It is my considered view that this is incorrect. In addition, it seems that the use of this term “ATR” seems to diminish from the value of the indigenous religions of Africa as authentic religions. Some scholars even use the term “ancestral religion”. Both of the terms seem to imply that the indigenous religions of Africa are not real religions in the full sense of the word.