This practice, no matter how limited it is, again shows how untenable the blanket assertion is that African moral traditions are those of abundant life. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. (See the glossary for more information on juju. When Christians are sickthey do not go to magicians or traditional healers. However, to them, the entire universe is filled with spirit such as trees, rocks, and rivers. Additionally, I will not discourage, disparage, or try and convert those who practice their form of African indigenous religions. So, basically, to speak of African tradition is to talk about African Traditional Religion. Taboos and customs cover all aspects of human life: words, foods, dress, relations among people, marriage, burial, work, and so forth: A part of this belief in the moral and religious order is belief in the invisible universe, which consists of divinities, spirits, and the ancestors (the living dead). 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. Indigenous African spirituality today is increasingly falling out of favor. According to Mbiti, Africans believe that God has ordained a moral order for humans, through which they came to understand what is good and what is evil, so that they might live in harmony with one another and safeguard the life of the people. It is essentially a postcolonial approach to what AIR and its essential. The other very big difference between African Traditional Religion and Christianity is the worship. He went on to conduct some of the most significant research on African religions in decades. Updated: 10 . There is also a mystical order of the universe. One of the things these diaspora African religions testify to is the beauty of African religions to engage a devotee on many spiritual levels. Areas of interest to read in the part one was how Christianity has found an inroad into the lives of so many who were living in deep darkness and slavery to the evil powers. (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. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. This includes five countries (Cameroon, Chad, Guinea Bissau, Mali and Senegal) where more than half the population uses traditional healers. The Yoruba believe in the existence of the Supreme God called Olurun andthe lesser god, Obatala. One is also sometimes givena new name after baptism. OLUPONA: One of the basic reasons is that indigenous African spiritual beliefs are not bound by a written text, like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. One of Jacob Oluponas earliest memories in Massachusetts is of nearly freezing in his apartment as a graduate student at Boston University during the great snowstorm of 1978. However, Christians can offer animals to the church where they canbe sold or reared to give the church income. Featured Image:Edo people, Queen Mother Pendant mask, circa 16th c.; Source: Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0. Just as within the traditional political and diplomatic contexts, one cannot formally contact the king without the agency of his linguists or sub-chiefs. endobj But today that is not the case due to more exclusive-minded types of Christianity and Islam that see patronizing indigenous African beliefs and practices as violating the integrity of their Christian or Muslim principles, but I believe that one can maintain ones religious integrity and also embrace an African worldview. 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. These are called Taboos. Church Life Journal (+1) 202-419-4300 | Main Despite the presence of Christianity, traditional religions in Ghana have retained their influence because of their intimate relation to family loyalties and local mores. In the Ewe thought they are called Vodou (Vodu or Vudu in Benin and Togo; also Vodon, Vodoun, Voudou, or other phonetically equivalent spellings. Barrenness is, therefore, considered a great misfortune because it prevents ancestors from returning to life. Mbiti says that: According to Mbiti, human beings have a privileged position in the universe. 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. But after braving that first blizzard in a land far from his native Nigeria, Olupona stuck it out and earned his Ph.D. In many communities across the world traditional beliefs and practices are passed down generations and are a feature of day-to-day life, despite the influence of outside sources. What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S. According to all the major surveys, Christianity and Islam each represent approximately 40 percent of the African population. This article concerned itself with the modern encounter between Christianity and African Indigenous Religion (AIR) in Africa. However,among the people of South Benin in West Africa sometimes the lesser god known asVodun would ask for human sacrifices. Today Christians worship Godmainly in churches. Ifa is an indispensable treasure trove of knowledge that cant be duplicated elsewhere; much of its knowledge has been handed down from babalawo [Ifa priest/diviner] to babalawo for centuries. Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link. Itis made of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit working together as one. Belief in the power of such objects is highest in Senegal (75%) and lowest in Rwanda (5%). Omissions? hand with the study of the people who practise the religion. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. The success of Christianity and Islam on the African continent in the last 100 years has been extraordinary, but it has been, unfortunately, at the expense of African indigenous religions. This article concerned itself with the modern encounter between Christianity and African Indigenous Religion (AIR) in Africa. endobj } Marshall, Ruth We will return to these issues later in Morality Truly Christian, Truly African, but for now it is enough to ask whether the similarities in the deep structure between the two religions are indeed as similar as Green suggests. That testifies to the enduring power of indigenous religion and its ability to domesticate Christianity and Islam in modern Africa. Thus, to assert as Mbiti does that there are no secret sins or that something or someone is bad or good only according to outward conduct is too careless a statement to make. About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. In respect and honor of my culture, I also dress in my traditional Nigerian attire when Im in my country. a trans-moral suspension of retribution in the face of self-confessed and inescapable human wrongdoing. Green notes a similarity between this deep structure and that which has developed in Christian theology over centuries of effort at grounding human moral striving in the face of the experiential difficulties that assault moral idealism. In this Christian theological system, the idea of God as creator and sovereign expresses the moral requirements of impartial regard for all. Green opines that although superficially regarded, this may seem to be a minimal moral relationshipmore like a kind of egoism on one side and fearful propitiation on the otherit also shows, however, the profound role that respect for age and for the fulfillment of lineage and familial duties play in this traditional setting. May the Lord assist us to know the truth and walk in it. Traditional Africans had to go to specific sacred placesfor them to worship but Christians can worship God anywhere at any time. Pratten, David Using Ghana as a case history, I shall evaluate this ministry to find out its positive and negative effects. 2 0 obj the other in tradition poses a serious dilemma for both Christianity and tradition in Africa. 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. This is called the Trinity. He sees the other faith as complementing and even adding spiritual potency to his own spiritual practice of constructing effective amulets. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. This is a universal belief among Africans. Hostname: page-component-7f44ffd566-79tgq The African Traditional Religion, which is still in place today, can be compared to Christianity through their similarities and differences. To achieve its goal, the paper adopts the method of . These facts, however, does not necessary suggest that the educated Ghanaian has totally abandoned tradition; some educated and mission trained individuals do consult traditional oracles in times of crises. Some Africans believe that the ancestors are equal in power to deities, while others believe they are not. Therefore, the universe has dimensions of order and power as follows: first of all, there is order in the laws of nature. It is also present in relationships between persons, based on age and function. Dependence here functions like a two-way street, with the dead needing continued respect from and support by the living, and the living needingat least benign neutrality on the part of the dead. Learn more about the similarities and differences of the religious systems of Africa, including indigenous religions, Abrahamic, Islamic, and Christian beliefs of people in the region. These could be caves, forests,mountains and so on. For instance, the Yoruba religion has historically been centered in southwestern Nigeria, the Zulu religion in southern Africa, and the Igbo religion in southeastern Nigeria. He is not only the covenant giver He gives the power to keep the covenant. Ancestors and numerous other spirits are also recognized as part of the cosmological order. They can also be the dead of the tribe, following the order of primogeniture. Part two provides a condensed historical survey of the, The Bible and the Third World: Precolonial, Colonial and Postcolonial Encounters, by R. S. Sugirtharajah. With regard to the issue of offering ones wife in generosity, this practice, as Laurenti Magesa has shown, applied to a very limited number of African ethnic groups, such as the Masai, and in very tightly controlled situations among friends within the same age group fraternity and on very limited occasions. He has researched and written about such diverse religious cultures as the Hare Krishnas, Zoroastrians, Shakers, and the Old Order Amish. for this article. The data also will include a survey he conducted in 1999 of 1201 participants across Ghana concerning the belief in the traditional spirit-world. Just like in Christianity, traditional Africanreligion has organised practices. The vigor with which the African Traditional Religion (ATR) has continued to resist the onslaught of Christianity is a cause of academic preoccupation. Quantum computing simulation reveals possible wormhole-like dynamics. ufF'dXeA^l4a*0(1l HLtA@a2O>bOk)x6*. For Christians itsa church. Inculturation, as we will argue later in Morality Truly Christian, Truly African, sheds the light of the gospel on cultural practices like this one to reveal what is sinful in them and to show that human beings, especially women, in this case, deserve better treatment than this. 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. It evolved through many centuries, before the westerner come to Africa. Some of the ideas from Mbitis works are pertinent to our discussion here: Africans believe in a hierarchy of beings, from the ultimate being, God, to lesser ones, divinities, spirits, the living dead, human beings, animals, plants, and inanimate beings. GAZETTE: What allows African indigenous religions to be so accommodating? While the universe has a beginning, many Africans believe that it does not have an endeither spatially or temporally. In this paper, Ill bring the understanding of African traditional adherents into the light of the Holy Scriptures; to explain what the Bible teaches about soul and spirit in relation to God and man. It argues that since the coming of democracy this form of religion has occupied a more important position, Although there is some debate, Francis Oborji in this article argues that one should speak of African Traditional Religion (ATR) in the singular. Animism is a common feature of African religions, and misfortune is often attributed to witchcraft and sorcery. When we speak of African Traditional Religion, we mean the indigenous religious beliefs and practices of the Africans. African religions, Indigenous religions of the African continent. Yet consider that in 1900 most Africans in sub-Saharan Africa practiced a form of indigenous African religions. <> 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). When one becomes a Christian he/she is baptised. The religious traditions and beliefs of the African peoples have enough differences to merit a study of each in its own right. The Spirit medium is in many ways a subordinate agency within the layer of retributive order. The voice and action of the spirit medium connect the community with these moral and spiritual entities who help shape human destiny. (See the glossary for more information on the evil eye.). Indigenous African religions are pragmatic. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Exodus 20:3-5 tells us not to make or worship images ofanything in heaven or on earth. The bottom line then is that Africans who still wholly practice African indigenous religions are only about 10 percent of the African population, a fraction of what it used to be only a century ago, when indigenous religions dominated most of the continent. degree at Harvard Divinity School. The award allows Olupona a year of study and research in Germany; he is on leave this year (201516). Like Mbiti and Green, Magesa notes that the world of African Traditional Religion is a hierarchically ordered place where, On the lowest rung of the ladder are spirits, who are active beings distinct from humans and reside in nature and phenomena such as trees, rivers, rocks, or lakes. He then reflects on five "essential aspects" of. The Yoruba, however, do have a concept of a supreme being, called Olorun or Olodumare, and this creator god of the universe is empowered by the various orisa [deities] to create the earth and carry out all its related functions, including receiving the prayers and supplications of the Yoruba people. For this reason, l am writing on the topic, which says, Comparing the concept of Spirit and Soul in the Traditional Religion of the Akan and Ewe Tribes to that of the Bible. %PDF-1.5 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 We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Part one looks briefly at the matter of religion itself. This power is not accessible to everyone, and in most cases it is inborn, but the person has to learn how to use it. While both Christianity and African religion have a concept of a Supreme Being,Christians believe in a God who exists in three persons. 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. The African Traditional Religion has no founder. In some communities masks were used to representcertain gods or ancestral spirits. A Background to Religion and Magic in Western Thought Our modern usage of the term 'magic' derives from the Greek magike, <>>> Keywords: contextualization . Olupona earned his bachelor of arts degree in religious studies from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in 1975. It is also an opportunity to help the Christian churches in the Akan and Ewe ethnic groups from which l come from, to see it as their duty to find means and ways to evangelise our fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts and children who are still under the African Traditional practices. This should make it clear why some African intellectuals would question the relevance of Christianity on the continent. Christians pray toGod through Jesus Christ. Focusing on Luo Muslims in Kenya, Dr Lawrence Oseje looks at the interaction of Islam and traditional Luo practices, especially those around death and burial. Content may require purchase if you do not have access. Those to whom this power is accessible can use it for good, such as healing, rainmaking, or divination, while others can use it for harm, through magic, witchcraft, and sorcery. 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.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 also to a lesser extent in Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism. I should also state that there are signs of the revival of African indigenous practices in many parts of Africa. :t\.1biti's approach assumes that "Christianity comes to enhance African traditional religions." This implies that there is no tension between the major elements of African Traditional Religions and the major claims of Christianity." 19 For this reason, they can come to the saving knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ through the teaching of the Word of God because it is home going time. A classicatory system which attempts to distinguish the principal responses Some African diasporans are returning to the continent to reconnect with their ancestral traditions, and they are encouraging and organizing the local African communities to reclaim this heritage. Their significance lies in the genealogical positions and the rights and duties which derive from them. Ancestors uphold right conduct by punishing moral violations, demanding respect and attention, and getting angry when not given due respect. They believe that Obatala helped Olurun in creating theworld and everything in it. The contact was in fact,between two. During the early churchs initial expansion phase where congregations were established in Syria, Asia Minor, Achaia, Italy and Africa there were strong leadership structures in Alexandria, Carthage, Neo religious movements is a term often used to describe a wide range of movements that developed in the tail end of the 19 century (the 1960s and 1970s). Also, how the Christian organizations help free women and girls from the grip of slavery. Prayers and sacrificial offerings are usually directed toward secondary divinities, who are intermediaries between the human and sacred realms. |,utv2QdjrqfM7PC)2-|O7,0[i=_a/Om"X`Y2FpXBjsFxCqDd`%*g,-J1e*jjq,tm{w>qAsAqN$D Ritual sacrifices and witchcraft beliefs are still common. KEYWORDS: African Culture, Christian God, Deities, Religion, Values. Mbiti makes this point too when he stresses that the majority of African peoples believe that God punishes in this life. Although God is concerned with humanitys moral life and upholds the moral law, there is no belief that a person is punished in the hereafter for his or her wrongdoing in this life. Many laws, customs, set forms of behavior, regulations, rules, observances and taboos, constituting the moral code and ethics of a given community, are held sacred, and are believed to have been instituted by God.Furthermore, a person acts in ways that are good when he or she conforms to the customs and regulations of the community, or bad when he or she does not. SUMMARY OF REFORMED THEOLOGY IN 10 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. <> Therefore we speak of African Traditional Religion thinking of those common things. 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. The Church also combines those who have died and those who still live. You can download the paper by clicking the button above. They form a chain through the links of which the forces of the elders [now with the community] exercise their vitalizing influence on the living generation. For Magesa, the ancestors are primarily authority figures whose being implies moral activity in that they are the maintainers and enforcers of norms of social action. Although they are entrusted with these roles in their relationship with humans, any capriciousness of the ancestors is not taken kindly by the living, just as it would not be acceptable from any elder in society. The ancestors are beyond reproach. x][oH~GroA $9,f K3d~VU_% fYU]q{Z?Fo?>w&j/n>>]?b5M._GYTQ|_W/_c\yA,bQQ)xn0ZtK*Q/Xb)zetab~x2e*w1Ym2n}{%2Kt[nQ,^'D^}WI_:'ym;eup|5>)$c4"y"E_C/ endobj 1 0 obj Religion is part and parcel of daily life. 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. Whilst interacting with the local African indigenous communities, and observing, The contact between African Traditional Religion (ATR) and Christianity is inextricably linkedto European economic activities that culminated into colonialism. I should add that without claiming to be full members of indigenous traditions, there are many professed Christians and Muslims who participate in one form of indigenous religious rituals and practices or another. GAZETTE: How would you define indigenous African religions? Sacrificial meals in the traditional Africanreligion are the equivalent of the Holy. The traditional theologians also emphasized that as in all religious traditions, the belief and worship of the Supreme Being in ATR does not just mean the strict performance of certain rituals. Sarr, Ramon As judge, God is understood to uphold this standard by ultimately punishing its violations and by rewarding the righteous (usually in some eschatological domain). The Church is the Christian family, in which all are accompanied to one another through belief and baptism in Jesus Christ. Corrections? This is not to say that indigenous African spirituality represents a form of theocracy or religious totalitarianism not at all. Human beings maintain active and real relationshipswith the spiritual world, especially with the living dead, through offerings, sacrifices, and prayers. 2 0 obj In this paper, I interrogated the Gabola church in terms of its origins, purpose and its distinctiveness as a postcolonial manifestation of freedom of religion in South Africa. Christianity is more dominant in the south, while Islam is more dominant in the north. The Supreme Being is usually thought of as remote from daily religious life and is, therefore, not directly worshipped. A network of mutual relationships and responsibilities links the duals worlds of the mundane and the sacred. 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. For instance, in a few years time, I pray that I will be participating in an age-grade festival for men around 70 years of age called Ero in my native Nigerian community in Ute, in Ondo state. A Journal of the McGrath Institute for Church Life, by Paulinus Ikechukwu Odozor Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. (+1) 202-857-8562 | Fax For example, in 14 of the 19 countries surveyed, more than three-in-ten people say they sometimes consult traditional healers when someone in their household is sick. Veneration of departed ancestors is a major characteristic of all traditional religions. Below is the article summary. Read our research on: Congress | Economy | Black Americans, Side by side with their high levels of commitment to Christianity and Islam, many people in the countries surveyed retain beliefs and rituals that are characteristic of traditional African religions. 2017. Traditional Africans made images of the Supreme God or other supernatural beingswhich they worshipped. 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. Acknowledgements, Introduction: Locations of culture, 1. Some ancestors may even be reincarnated to replenish the lineage. Religion informs everything in traditional African society, including political art, marriage, health, diet, dress, economics, and death. This is called a tithe. The . There are also the lesser gods that take residency in streams, rivers, trees and mountains. (Hebrews 1:1,Matthew 5:17,Exodus 34:10-28). To understand African tradition, one needs to understand the position of African Traditional Religion on God, the human person, and creation. ABSTRACT The concept of God in the traditional religion of Akan and Ewe ethnic groups compare to the Bible By Godwin Kwame Ofosuhene I am going to focus this writing, on how the Akan and Ewe ethnic groups of Ghana, understood God in their traditional religious practices and after that compare or discuss these beliefs in the light of the Holy Scriptures. 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. The missionaries succeeded in spreading Christianity in Africa at a time when tribal religions were ignored or denigrated. Villepastour, Amanda Even though their differences outnumber their. Total loading time: 0 "The success of Christianity and Islam on the African continent in the last 100 years has been extraordinary, but it has been, unfortunately, at the expense of African indigenous religions," said Olupona. They have also fostered a greater feeling of individual self-worth by acknowledging important milestones in ones life, including becoming an adult or an elder. While the recourse to traditional healers may be motivated in part by economic reasons and an absence of health care alternatives, it may also be rooted in religious beliefs about the efficacy of this approach. % stream It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. This hierarchy is also evident in human society, where there are chiefs, clan heads, family heads, older siblings, and so on. 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. Christians do not offer animal sacrifices to appease God. &RcIX6Wa). In the part two of my writing, l will expand on the world populated by spirits called Vodou alongside that of the Akan. 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. They do this by having Africans increasingly identify themselves as either Muslim or Christian, thus denying their unique African worldview that has always viewed as evidenced in their creation myths everything as unified and connected to the land, the place were ones clan, lineage, and people were cosmically birthed. He has useful insights to add to our discussion and in many ways corroborates the statements other scholars like Mbiti have made about African religion. Thus, for example, older persons not only possess a more powerful vital force but a greater responsibility in society and more intense mystical powers. 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The Yoruba believe in the universe has a beginning, many Africans believe God. Links the duals worlds of the Supreme God called Olurun andthe lesser God known asVodun would for! Ignored or denigrated in Christianity, traditional Africanreligion are the equivalent of the Holy spirit working as. The mundane and the rights and duties which derive from them. ) residency! While others believe they are not it evolved through many centuries, before the westerner come Africa... Universe has a beginning, many Africans believe that the ancestors are equal in power deities! Lord assist us to know the truth and walk in it, the., the entire universe is filled with spirit such as trees, rocks, and death uff'dxea^l4a * (.
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