My doctoral studies in New Testament eschatology led me also to the field of Christology. The WCCs very existence as a council of churches is a living hope. Traditional African religious beliefs, such as belief in the protective power of sacrifices to ancestors, Traditional African religious practices, such as owning sacred objects. This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie Brock. Updates? There are also secret societies, called Bizango or Sanpwl, that perform a religio-juridical function. National Center for Biotechnology Information - PubMed Central - Vodou's role in Haitian mental health, Learn Religions - An Introduction to the Basic Beliefs of the Vodou (Voodoo) Religion, Ancient Origins - The Origins of Voodoo, the Misunderstood Religion, LiveScience - Voodoo: Facts About Misunderstood Religion, Vodou - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Vodou - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). Moreover, the religions developed in the Americas impact Africa in that devotees of the African diaspora have significant influence on practices in Africa. A calendar of ritual feasts, syncretized with the Roman Catholic calendar, provides the yearly rhythm of religious practice. Orthodox Christianity, although influenced by other religions, generally looked negatively upon these syncretistic movements. Important lwa are celebrated on saints days (for example: Ogou on St. Jamess Day, July 25; Ezili Danto on the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, July 16; Danbala on St. Patricks Day, March 17; and the spirits of the ancestors on All Saints Day and All Souls Day, November 1 and November 2). Ethiopia's Christian population, at 6 million in 1900, will grow to a projected 100 million in 2050. African religions, Indigenous religions of the African continent. Author of. The unseen world is populated by lwa (spirits), myst (mysteries), anvizib (the invisibles), zanj (angels), and the spirits of ancestors and the recently deceased. Then was he not there in other times and in such places as Mount Fuji and Mount Kenya, as well as Mount Sinai? 0000001519 00000 n The continued influence of traditional African religion is also evident in some aspects of daily life. Corrections? 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. There is no centralized hierarchy, no single leader, and no official spokesperson, but various groups sometimes attempt to create such official structures. Some individuals have criticized these books -- and no book is perfect. These impinge upon their daily life- and experience of the Christian faith. <> As a resident fellow, Sherman will teach a study group on negotiation and diplomacy this semester. Animism is a common feature of African religions, and misfortune is often attributed to witchcraft and sorcery. "For us in Africa, God is not dead" -- and that applies whether or not there is a written record of his relations with and concern for people. (+1) 202-857-8562 | Fax Vodou represents a syncretism of the West African Vodun religion and Roman Catholicism by the descendants of the Dahomean, Kongo, Yoruba, and other ethnic groups who had been enslaved and transported to colonial Saint-Domingue (as Haiti was known then) and partly Christianized by Roman Catholic . Much of Oluponas work is an attempt to provide a fuller understanding of the complexity and richness of African indigenous thought and practice by viewing it not as a foil or as a useful comparative to better understand Western religions, but as a system of thought and belief that should be valued and understood for its own ideas and contribution to global religions. Yet consider that in 1900 most Africans in sub-Saharan Africa practiced a form of indigenous African religions. For terms and use, please refer to our Terms and Conditions The first and most intriguing topic that immediately engaged my attention was the thinking of African peoples about God. There is even a community deep in the American Bible Belt in Beaufort County, S.C., called Oyotunji Village that practices a type of African indigenous religion, which is a mixture of Yoruba and Ewe-Fon spiritual practices. An old African adage says: The sky is large enough for birds to fly around without one having to bump into the other.. In most of the 19 countries surveyed by the Pew Research Centers Forum on Religion & Public Life, 90% or more of the respondents say they belong to one of these faiths. These were not empty names. When we identify the God of the Bible as the same God who is known through African religion (whatever its limitations), we must also take it that God has had a historical relationship with African peoples. 9_r'v>#z2"syiBm?mry8%;m8v L,WNHitMJk#RZwEl+M3N1n[nt4]C$i2y]_6Iasrt One African theologian, Gabriel Setiloane, has even argued that the concept of God which the missionaries presented to the Sotho-Tswana peoples was a devaluation of the traditional currency of Modimo (God) among the Sotho-Tswana. Islam And Christianity Christianity came first to the continent of Africa in the 1st or early 2nd century AD. GAZETTE: What will Africa lose if it loses its African indigenous worldview? Vodou, also spelled Voodoo, Voudou, Vodun, or French Vaudou, a traditional Afro-Haitian religion. 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. In the end, I believe that Africans can make room for a plurality of religious points of view without one religious point of view excluding or compromising the other. We have already noted that the overseas missionaries did not bring God to Africa. 0000001586 00000 n In Nigeria, the population in 1900 included 4.2 million Muslims and 180,000 Christians. Maybe this is why I am not an Anglican priest. Syncretistic movements in the Orient, such as Manichaeism (a dualistic religion founded by the 3rd-century-ce Iranian prophet Mani, who combined elements of Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and Buddhism) and Sikhism (a religion founded by the 15th16th-century Indian reformer Guru Nnak, who combined elements of Islam and Hinduism), also met with resistance from the prevailing religions of their respective areas. << /Length 5 0 R /Filter /FlateDecode >> Black Americans who identify with a religion are most likely to say belief in God is essential to what their faith means to them (84%), while large majorities say the same about opposing racism (76%) and sexism (71%). I had it. In this case, so-called "salvation history" must widen its outreach in order to embrace the horizons of other peoples histories. In its place there emerged the word "also." Omissions? (See the glossary for more information on juju. The introduced religions of Islam (in northern Africa) and Christianity (in southern Africa) are now the continent's major religions, but traditional religions still play an important role, especially in the interior of sub-Saharan Africa. Christianity in Africa dates to the very inception of the church. It publishes a journal Anthropologica and has reclaimed the name of its former journal, Culture for its occasional online bulletin. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. I cannot claim that I have witnessed much progress in that quest at the organizational level, but perhaps I had expected too much. Nevertheless, I am convinced that the World Council of Churches is a great witness of the Christian response to the prayer of our Lord that we may all be one. The God described in the Bible is none other than the God who is already known in the framework of our traditional African religiosity. But for many Africans, religion can never be separated from all these. Chapter 1: Religious Affiliation. Abstract. Since the Bible tells me that God is the Creator of all things, his activities in the world must clearly go beyond what is recorded in the Bible. The concept of the church as the body of Christ in the whole world is another growing development for me. GAZETTE: But yet you said its a mixed bag? Religious pluralism serves peace | D+C - Development + Cooperation Indigenous African religions are by nature plural, varied, and usually informed by ones ethnic identity, where ones family came from in Africa. Indigenous African spirituality today is increasingly falling out of favor. APUSH Unit 1 Flashcards | Quizlet www.ej-theology.org Christianity and Indigenisation in Africa 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.. Ritual sacrifices and witchcraft beliefs are still common. Below is the article summary. colonization_terms_apush.docx - ` Units 1 and 2 Vocabulary There is some regional difference in ritual practice across Haiti, and branches of the religion include Rada, Daome, Ibo, Nago, Dereal, Manding, Petwo, and Kongo. Rituals are aimed at maintaining a harmonious relationship with cosmic powers, and many have associated myths that explain their significance. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. At many points I see intriguing parallels between the biblical record and African religiosity. This chapter includes information on: Download chapter 1 in full (6-page PDF, <1MB), 1 The Horn of Africa is a peninsula in the easternmost part of North East Africa, on the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. I want to make a pilgrimage into Christ. Afro-American Religious Syncretism in Brazil and the United States: A 0000005714 00000 n In the other case no such written record exists. God was not a stranger to African peoples. A semi-annual journal, it publishes peer-reviewed articles in both French and English devoted to social and cultural issues whether they are pre-historic, historic, contemporary, biological, linguistic, applied or theoretical in orientation. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts. During religious rites, believers sometimes enter a trancelike state in which the devotee may eat and drink, perform stylized dances, give supernaturally inspired advice to people, or perform medical cures or special physical feats; these acts exhibit the incarnate presence of the lwa within the entranced devotee. (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. His research has helped to introduce and popularize new concepts in religious studies, such as the term reverse missionaries, referring to African prelates sent to Europe and the United States. Unlike in Europe and the United States, very few people in sub-Saharan Africa say they are unaffiliated with a particular faith. No doubt there still remain much research and reflection to be done in order to work out a consistent theological understanding of the issues entailed here. Currently I am about to complete a book on this question of the encounter between the biblical faith and African religion. Revelation is given not in a vacuum but within particular historical experiences and reflections. That is anathema to the fundamentalist faith movements that have been gaining momentum in recent decades. 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. Religious syncretism - Encyclopedia Britannica | Britannica Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Prayers and sacrificial offerings are usually directed toward secondary divinities, who are intermediaries between the human and sacred realms. For six years I worked with the World Council of Churches in Geneva. In four countries (Chad, Guinea Bissau, Nigeria and Tanzania), the number of Christians and Muslims is more equally divided, with a ratio of less than two-to-one in either direction.2 The other countries surveyed are predominantly Christian with Muslim minorities of varying sizes. settlements formed by African slaves who ran away from imprisonment the Americas (back to text), 2 The World Religion Database estimates that roughly four-in-ten people in Guinea Bissau are Muslim and approximately one-in-ten are Christian, with the rest of the population associated with traditional African religions. Its aim is to develop an extensive library of resources, representing many different points of view, but all written from the perspective of sound scholarship. X0#J++?U;_3_gmx9[F\"{,Um1yu 9 ?ce%9EG`N: &U0EHC$p4=$'=DlX6M_7,--" %%EOF This number has since grown rapidly, to the point that in 1980 there are estimated to be 200 million Christians (or about 45 per cent of the population). But, it has been a sorrowful, disappointment to me to experience the fact that some individuals who exercise great power in the council are not angels: they sometimes practice the exact contrary of those values and goals to which the council is committed. Since Christianity and Islam spread across Africa, many people there have observed a mixture of religious practices. In 1900 there were an estimated 9 million Christians (accounting for about 7 per cent of the population of Africa). Mozambique, Botswana and South Africa are the only countries surveyed where a significant number of people (roughly one-in-ten) describe their religion as atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular. In all the other countries, the figure is closer to zero. He sees the other faith as complementing and even adding spiritual potency to his own spiritual practice of constructing effective amulets. The council made me aware, perhaps even frightfully so, of the problems of our world. Religion Online is designed to assist teachers, scholars and general seekers who are interested in exploring religious issues. I want to see his healing hand, to hear his word that exorcises evil spirits. Sign up for daily emails to get the latest Harvardnews. Par consquent, Mbali-Dieu est la rponse crative des Biras une rencontre religieuse syncrtique. In one case the thinking and experience of the people produced a written record of Gods dealings with the Jewish people in particular. GAZETTE: How do you balance your Christian and indigenous African identity? GAZETTE: In trying to understand African spirituality, is it helpful to refer to it as polytheistic or monotheistic? 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. 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. Following a period of parish work in England, I went to teach at Makerere University, Uganda, where I remained for ten years until 1974. Vodou is a worldview encompassing philosophy, medicine, justice, and religion. OLUPONA: No, this type of binary thinking is simplistic. In respect and honor of my culture, I also dress in my traditional Nigerian attire when Im in my country. Since Christianity came in contact with the traditional religion, there has always been a sharp conflict between traditionalists and Christians. Instances of religious syncretismas, for example, Gnosticism (a religious dualistic system that incorporated elements from the Oriental mystery religions), Judaism, Christianity, and Greek religious philosophical conceptswere particularly prevalent during the Hellenistic period (c. 300 bcec. Updates? 0000003641 00000 n Spiritual activities like prayer, thanksgiving, and the making of sacrifices were well-established facts of life for the existence and continuation of the community. Vodou represents a syncretism of the West African Vodun religion and Roman Catholicism by the descendants of the Dahomean, Kongo, Yoruba, and other ethnic groups who had been enslaved and transported to colonial Saint-Domingue (as Haiti was known then) and partly Christianized by Roman Catholic missionaries in the 16th and 17th centuries. Islam has experienced a similar rapid growth. The councils programs in response to these problems are impressive. He later earned both an M.A. Corrections? Indigenous Religion (AIR) in Africa. Some people tried to involve Africa in the debate. For over 200 years, Africans, largely from the west coast of Africa, were brought to the United States in the slave trade.
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