Pentecostalism and Shamanism in Asia and Beyond, A Critical Analysis of Byang Kato's Demonology and Its Theological Relevance for an Evangelical Demonology, INITIATION IN AFRICAN TRADITIONAL RELIGION, Veli-Matti Karkkainen, Kirsteen Kim, Amos Yong: Interdisciplinary and Religio-Cultural Discourses on a Spirit-Filled World, Encounter - Journal of African Life and Religion, 12 (2017), REGNUM STUDIES IN MISSION Pentecostal Mission and Global Christianity An Edinburgh Centenary Reader, Van Rheenen, Gailyn: Missions - biblical foundations. To achieve its goal, the paper adopts the method of . (+1) 202-419-4372 | Media Inquiries. Traditional African religion does not show any belief in the Trinity. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings. Neglect, it is believed, might spell doom. These spirit do not carry the desires of humans to the Creator God. Africans believe in the existence of a mystical, invisible, hidden, spiritual power in the universe. OLUPONA: If we lose traditional African religions, we would also lose or continue to seriously undermine the African practice of rites of passage such as the much cherished age-grade initiations, which have for so long integrated and bought Africans together under a common understanding, or worldview. GAZETTE: What will Africa lose if it loses its African indigenous worldview? Conflict is a universal phenomenon that is inevitable in human interaction. Ronald M. Green of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, a non-African scholar of African religion, has also written about African Traditional Religion and about religion and morality in Africa. SIMILARITY AND DIFFERENCE, CONTEXT AND TRADITION, IN https://doi.org/10.1017/S0001972016000565, Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. Instead of God keeping his distance from man, He, throughout history and today reaches down in love to draw humans toward him. Priests undergo vigorous training in the arts of medicine, divination and other related disciplines and are, therefore, consulted on a more regular basis by the public. All rights reserved. Modernity has not put a total stop to its influence. This order, established by God, guides the functioning of the universe, preventing it from falling into chaos; and it ensures the continuance of life and the universe itself. %PDF-1.5 } The Yoruba diviners, for example, draw on this extensive indigenous knowledge every day by consulting Ifa, an extensive literary corpus of information covering science, medicine, cosmology, and metaphysics. The ordering of the universe and its continuance depends on God. African spirituality is truly holistic. This leads him into the whole area of theology of religions, in which the relationship between Christianity and other religions is currently the focus of lively debate. (+1) 202-419-4300 | Main In addition, roughly a quarter or more of the population in 11 countries say they believe in the protective power of juju (charms or amulets), shrines and other sacred objects. These act as Gods associates, assistants, and mediators, and they are directly involved in human affairs. The defining line between deities and ancestors is often contested, but overall, ancestors are believed to occupy a higher level of existence than living human beings and are believed to be able to bestow either blessings or illness upon their living descendants. 1 Their central thrust is to emphasize the similarities rather than the differences between current movements in the world religions, particularly Christianity and Islam, but I answered two, The paper discusses the state of traditional African religion in post-apartheid South Africa. Some of these African diaspora religions include Cuban Regla de Ocha, Haitian Vodou, and Brazilian Candomble. As a universal religion, Christianity has to find an, This article engages with the notion of Ndembu traditional eco-masculinities which was conceptualised in a framework of sacrifice as ground for manliness. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts. 2017. Exodus 20:3-5 tells us not to make or worship images ofanything in heaven or on earth. Anthony Chiorazzi, who has an M.Phil. Traditional African religion advocated for bird and animal sacrifices whenever peoplewent to worship God. 3 0 obj Diviners who go through a long educational and apprenticeship program hold the history, culture, and spiritual traditions of the African people. Hence, it cannot be avoided in the interaction between Christianity and African Traditional Religion. The Igbo traditional religious worldview maintains a polytheistic religious view, unlike the monotheistic outlook of the Christian religion. To understand African tradition, one needs to understand the position of African Traditional Religion on God, the human person, and creation. Second, Africans believe in a moral order given by God, stipulated by the ancestors in the past. Green points out that there is a rational basis to African Traditional Religion that shows, in Kantian terms, that there is a deep structure of universal moral and religious reason to it. The three requirements of reason at the heart of this structure are: first, a basic rule or procedure of moral choice; second, a metaphysic grounding the possibility of strict moral retribution; and third, . <> Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Barrenness is, therefore, considered a great misfortune because it prevents ancestors from returning to life. However, the reasons for the growth of Christianity in Africa significantly include the way the Africans have attempted to deal with their threatening fears, especially witchcraft. These images could be of a lion or another animal carvedfrom a tree to represent a god. ;;m]mB"DTSUD[j*3l D{k7@tB0cg]Er+e)skf6cRUiu,WdmlA#OLs81/#qs v(a6lA`O/HvX*3SME_qv&oMm?{{n Animism is a common feature of African religions, and misfortune is often attributed to witchcraft and sorcery. They do so by going to the hospital. In four countries, for instance, half or more of the population believes that sacrifices to ancestors or spirits can protect them from harm. In the part two of my writing, l will expand on the world populated by spirits called Vodou alongside that of the Akan. In respect and honor of my culture, I also dress in my traditional Nigerian attire when Im in my country. Both believe that God is the creator ofhumankind. In African Traditional Religion, they do believe in a genderless god with the three names: Umvelingqangi, uNkulunkulu, and uThixo (Badoian, 2014). This should make it clear why some African intellectuals would question the relevance of Christianity on the continent. An old African adage says: The sky is large enough for birds to fly around without one having to bump into the other.. (I myself have consulted with several diviners for my research on specific academic topics regarding African culture and history; consequently, if we were to lose Africas diviners, we would also lose one of Africas best keepers and sources of African history and culture. OLUPONA: I was raised in Africa during the 1960s, when the Yoruba community never asked you to chose between your personal faith and your collective African identity. This is called a tithe. I also celebrate and honor the kings festivals and ceremonies in my hometown and other places where I live and do research. The religious activities of chiefs and lineage heads are generally limited to the more routine biweekly and annual festivities, but traditional priests given their association with specific shrines are regarded as specialized practitioners through whom the spirits of the gods may grant directions. The reasons for this shift are varied and complex. OLUPONA: Your question underscores an important facet about African spirituality: It is not a closed theological system. Because many diseases are believed to have spiritual causes, traditional priests sometimes act as doctors or herbalists. Whenever. 1 0 obj OLUPONA: Yes, and the pluralistic nature of African-tradition religion is one of the reasons for its success in the diaspora. The other very big difference between African Traditional Religion and Christianity is the worship. The worship can be direct , but is done (mostly) indirectly through divine agents like the gods or divinities (abosom in Akan , legbaa in Ewe ) and the ancestors. As I have discussed elsewhere in Morality Truly Christian, Truly African, for example, some African societies are so conscious of the implications of crossing the line on some ethical matters, like adultery, incest, and murder, that anyone who engages in these acts is considered automatically to be putting the very survival of the community in danger. These included interviews he conducted with pastors, exorcists, traditional priests, so-called witches and delivered witches. Yet consider that in 1900 most Africans in sub-Saharan Africa practiced a form of indigenous African religions. By Greens own admission, and as we shall see later, there are as many divergences on the architectonic hinge of these deep structuresGod, the human person, and the materialworldas there are similarities. OLUPONA: No, this type of binary thinking is simplistic. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. Mission Manual Pages Section A Biblical Basis of Mission 1 20, E-journal of Religious and Theological Studies, TITLE A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SALVATION IN ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY: TOWARDS DEVELOPING AN EVANGELISTIC MODEL IN SPECIAL REFERENCE TO TUENSANG DISTRICT CHAPTER ONE, Baptism and Original Sin in the Early Church : contributions of Tertullian, THE UNIQUELY CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW - Ethington Book, CHRISTIANITY AND AFRICAN TRADITIONAL RELIGION IN KUMASI: A COMPARATIVE STUDY Department of General Art Studies, SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY @BULLET An Introduction to Bible Doctrine @BULLET, Monotheism in the Qur'an and in the New Testament: Comparative Theological Explorations of the Role of Prophets and the Covenants. Victor Christianto, Veli-Matti Karkkainen, International Journal of African Catholicism, Stan-William Ede, Dominic Okoye, Anselm Jimoh, Gregory Ekene Ezeokeke, Louismary Ocha, Overlaps between Judeo-Christian theology and traditional African religions, Vehicles of Divine Mystery: Paul's Danielic Self-Understanding in Ephesians 3, Teach us to number our days: an exegetical and theological analysis of Psalm 90, The Faith Journey of Paul: An Exegetical Analysis of Philippians 3: 1-14, The Concept of God in the Traditional Religion of the Akan and Ewe Ethnic Groups Compared the Bible, Comparing the Concept of Spirit and Soul in the Traditional Religion of the Akan and Ewe Tribes to that of the Bible, Entries. Some scholars have rightly observed that the centre of gravity of Christianity is shifting from the West to the two-thirds world, that is Asia, South America and Africa. GAZETTE: What else would we lose if we lost traditional African Religions? degree at Harvard Divinity School. The idea is that the traditional African practitioner who constructed that amulet believes in the efficacy of other faiths and religions; there is no conflict in his mind between his traditional African spirituality and another faith. In the Akan and Ewe ethnic groups the above phenomenological conception of ATR called for education in the light of the scriptures. Maybe this is why I am not an Anglican priest. Published online by Cambridge University Press: . Updated: 10 . Content may require purchase if you do not have access. Religion is part and parcel of daily life. As a resident fellow, Sherman will teach a study group on negotiation and diplomacy this semester. Today Christians worship Godmainly in churches. Some traditional African societies like the Yoruba believed in the existence of lessergods. inequality and class divide, dreams and interpretation, names and religious identity. Below is the article summary. He then reflects on five "essential aspects" of. Acts are wrong if they hurt or damage relationships or if they are discovered to constitute a breach of custom or regulation. To buttress his point Mbiti states that in certain African societies to sleep with someone elses wife is not considered evil if these two are not found out by the society which forbids it, and in other societies is in fact an expression of friendship and hospitality to let a guest spend the night with ones wife or daughter or sister. Mbitis assertions must be read as a limited reference to some African societies and in some limited settings. It also taps into a common lay attitude to what might be called a secular common sense, which feels impatience or distaste for all forms of what it considers religious extremism, while at the same time shying away from regarding any one religion as more prone to extremism than others. These differences, I will argue, have significant impact not just on the way people conceive of the moral world or with regard to moral intentions, but also on moral practices. O?+dOw\eOoHc_o~ Q:c qeM1ehb/j|-Xyy#=g vnxX,o"\4/I+{U40f_dX!y2#i.7Xi0}zi*_Qk({_8D2M"09E%kR`O"}Ec#O3+lwP/z[r=]jPh!eC6Ci{FKnW4 It is essentially a postcolonial approach to what AIR and its essential characteristics is: God and humanity, sacrifices, afterlife and ancestors. This includes five countries (Cameroon, Chad, Guinea Bissau, Mali and Senegal) where more than half the population uses traditional healers. INTRODUCTION Man considers life worth living because he finds certain things intrinsically valuable; hence value in its simple connotation means a thing of worth. Mbiti emphasizes that Africans view the universe religiously. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Odozor's Morality Truly Christian, Truly Africanpublished by theUniversity of Notre Dame Press. This is a universal belief among Africans. While Islam and Christianity tend to be overtly resistant to adopting traditional African religious ideas or practices, indigenous African religions have always accommodated other beliefs. Despite the presence of Christianity, traditional religions in Ghana have retained their influence because of their intimate relation to family loyalties and local mores. Magesa discusses the African tradition in its various manifestations: its understanding of the human person and of life in general; aesthetics, politics, ethics, and of course religion, which he shows to be the architectonic basis of these other expressions or manifestations of African tradition. Updates? In lieu of these traditional African ways of defining oneself, Christianity and Islam are gradually creating a social identity in Africa that cuts across these indigenous African religious and social identities. So, basically, to speak of African tradition is to talk about African Traditional Religion. 1630-1633), HEBREWS' CHRISTOLOGY AND ITS CONTEMPORARY APPREHENSION IN AFRICA 1, New Mind, New Heart, New Strength (A Paradigm on the New Man), Dissertation ETD Libermann and EA in Dialogue Dec 2013, Pentecostalism and Shamanism in Asia and Beyond: An Inter-disciplinary Analysis. A classicatory system which attempts to distinguish the principal responses The position I critique in this paper is really a complex of closely overlapping positions, some more theoretically sophisticated or better grounded empirically than others. In the Ewe thought they are called Vodou (Vodu or Vudu in Benin and Togo; also Vodon, Vodoun, Voudou, or other phonetically equivalent spellings. Islam has experienced a similar rapid growth. endobj It is the religion which resulted from the sustaining faith held by the forebears of the present Africans, and which is being practised today in various forms and various shades and intensities by a very large number . Rooted in the belief in God as the Creator, Africans believe in various dimensions of the created universe, such as visible and invisible (the spiritual realm), heavenly (skyward) and earthly (and in some ethnic groups there is a belief in the underworld). Authoring or editing more than half a dozen books on religion and African culture (including the recent African Religions: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press), Olupona has researched topics ranging from the indigenous religions of Africa to the religious practices of Africans who have settled in America. Christians do not have regard for their powers because they believethat they overcome all evil through the name of Jesus. psC68k}(`eMTO} }3sUO?JH`dMQois6I{r[}Doq?L0}ze^WZ\|r?3Z %g~bs_*@F`b, vw`qRk3xnnH6NSKF vFK](S?I.$@\$OC(N#a6oJc!0 sm!$!'TGzmSvw)+Na?1s K{o?!I Christianity forbids human sacrifices in worshipas it is murder. Interrogating identity: Frantz Fanon and the postcolonial prerogative, 3. Itis made of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit working together as one. Different fathers played a role in the development of this religion. x + 306. The religious traditions and beliefs of the African peoples have enough differences to merit a study of each in its own right. Thus, for example, older persons not only possess a more powerful vital force but a greater responsibility in society and more intense mystical powers. ABSTRACT PART II: Comparing the concept of Spirit and Soul in the Traditional Religion of the Akan and Ewe Tribes to that of the Bible By Godwin Kwame Ofosuhene In the part one of my writing, with the titled The concept of God in the traditional religion of Akan and Ewe ethnic groups compare to the Bible - dated 31st May 2006, l explained how the Akan and Ewe ethnic groups of Ghana understood God in their traditional religious practices. African Traditional Religion appears to be a self-sufficient system, both from atheological point of view, in that it provides answers to questions of ultimate reality and meaning, at least to its adherents; and from the point of view of morality, in that it provides the moral rules, norms, and instruction in virtues by which human beings can live upright moral lives. x\s6Q|jyLd*{-Jb"$e~ $@ 6G"F@w? African spirituality simply acknowledges that beliefs and practices touch on and inform every facet of human life, and therefore African religion cannot be separated from the everyday or mundane. Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer, By Anthony Chiorazzi Harvard Correspondent. Indigenous African practices tend to be strongest in the central states of Africa, but some form of their practices and beliefs can be found almost anywhere in Africa. But it is also the strict commitment, to the observance of certain (written or unwritten) divinely inspired moral prescriptions or codes of ethics, promulgated by the religious authorities and enforced by sanctions. Our duty is to preach the Word of God and trust the saving grace of Jesus Christ for conversion of souls. African communities at the time but was also poised to become a site of religious and cultural conflict both within and between different communities in postcolonial South Africa. Highlights of the first writing were, the African Traditional Religion, the life of the ethnic groups in Ghana; their beliefs, customs, ritual and taboos. Moral culpability is always on the shoulders of humanity. The same hierarchy evident in the relationship between God, the ancestors, and humanity is also present in the relationship between the animate and the inanimate world, the former being superior to the latter. There is also a mystical order of the universe. For instance, if we were to lose indigenous African religions in Africa, then diviners would disappear, and if diviners disappeared, we would not only lose an important spiritual specialist for many Africans, but also an institution that for centuries has been the repository of African history, wisdom, and knowledge. One of the things these diaspora African religions testify to is the beauty of African religions to engage a devotee on many spiritual levels. 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