explore the things that fall in between"adiaphora", which the proponents of contextual Christianity may have overlooked with regard to the African cultural and religious heritage. 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. Jacob Olupona, professor of indigenous African religions at Harvard Divinity School and professor of African and African-American studies in Harvards Faculty of Arts and Sciences, recently sat down for an interview about his lifelong research on indigenous African religions. 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. Religion informs everything in traditional African society, including political art, marriage, health, diet, dress, economics, and death. Itis made of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit working together as one. In the part two of my writing, l will expand on the world populated by spirits called Vodou alongside that of the Akan. The understanding of God normally needs some refining when one comes from African Traditional Religion to be a Christian. They did this as theyoffered libation by pouring water or any other drink to the ground. This article concerned itself with the modern encounter between Christianity and African Indigenous Religion (AIR) in Africa. Since Christianity came in contact with the traditional religion, there has always been a sharp conflict between traditionalists and Christians. These laws are controlled by God directly or indirectly through Gods intermediaries. } They do so by going to the hospital. stream 4 0 obj Updated: 10 . This paper uses a qualitative research approach in the form of document analysis to critically explore the religious intersectionalities between Christianity and African Traditional. An important area Green points to has to do with the role of God in these two systems of thought. Some of these myths explain the origin of the universe, the nature of the relationship between creation (including humanity) and God, and the source and cause of the human predicament and of evil in general; they also provide a synopsis of the forces comprising the African moral conception of the universe. Religious rituals provide ameans by which the community seeks redress and repairs wrongs that have been committed and that call down calamities and afflictions from spiritual beingsall this to restore the status quo ante or even to maintain the existing good status quo that society or an individual may be enjoying., In the hierarchically ordered world of African Traditional Religion, God is the ancestor, par excellence. Before you discuss on how somebody is doing something, it is also good to look at the reason why the person is doing that thing, so that you can be in a better position to educate the person properly. Indigenous African spirituality today is increasingly falling out of favor. Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer. I told my father that I was coming home, he recalled. Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer, By Anthony Chiorazzi Harvard Correspondent. Holding or maintaining to a uniform doctrine is not the essence of indigenous African religions. <>>> For myself, I negotiate between my Yoruba and Christian identity by, for example, affirming those aspects of African culture that promote good life and communal human welfare. Nevertheless, they also display enough family resemblances for us to be able to delineate their main features and to a very reasonable extent fall on them to represent the whole. 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. Traditional Africans communicated to God through ancestors. 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. The African Traditional Religion, which is still in place today, can be compared to Christianity through their similarities and differences. 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.. They are not mutually exclusive. So, basically, to speak of African tradition is to talk about African Traditional Religion. Pp. Palmi, Stephan 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. It is essentially a postcolonial approach to what AIR and its essential characteristics is: God and humanity, sacrifices, afterlife and ancestors. as a burnt offering. Since God is seen as the Creator, various aspects of the universe are permeated by the sense of the sacredthe religious mentality affects the way people see the universe. 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). A third scholar of interest to us here is Laurenti Magesa, the central thesis of whose book on African religion is captured quite succinctly in the subtitle: African religion constitutes a tradition of abundant life. 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. 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. University of Notre Dame, McGrath Institute for Church Life Belief in the ancestors presents the idea of reciprocity in the African traditional moral world. Ritual sacrifices and witchcraft beliefs are still common. Philosophers, sociologists, theologians, The conversion of indigenous converts to Christianity is often perceived as a linear process, which marks individuals rebirth and assumption of a new identity as they are assimilated into the, In the early 19th century, missionaries flocked to Central and Southern Africa to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 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. GAZETTE: How have ancestors played a role in traditional societies? This chapter includes information on: Traditional African religious beliefs, such as belief in the protective power of sacrifices to ancestors Traditional African religious practices, such as owning sacred objects Download chapter 3 in full (3-page PDF, <1MB) Photo credit: Sebastien Desarmaux/GODONG/Godong/Corbis Because many diseases are believed to have spiritual causes, traditional priests sometimes act as doctors or herbalists. To achieve its goal, the paper adopts the method of . Since Christianity came in contact with the traditional religion, there has always been a sharp conflict between traditionalists and Christians. I wont pray to an orisa, but I will affirm the importance of my connection with members of my age group. It is a counter culture in response to the, The move towards contextual Christianity in Africa is an essential venture if Christianity is to communicate with the African cultural heritage. Marshall, Ruth Christian teaching forbids making of any kinds ofimages to represent God. The recipient of many prestigious academic honors and research fellowships, Olupona also received the 20152016 Reimar Lust Award for International and Cultural Exchange, considered one of Germanys most prestigious academic honors. This power is not accessible to everyone, and in most cases it is inborn, but the person has to learn how to use it. In African Traditional Religion, they do believe in a genderless god with the three names: Umvelingqangi, uNkulunkulu, and uThixo (Badoian, 2014). endobj For example, followers can seek spiritual direction and relief from healers, medicine men and women, charms [adornments often worn to incur good luck], amulets [adornments often used to ward off evil], and diviners [spiritual advisers]. 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. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts. A Journal of the McGrath Institute for Church Life, by Paulinus Ikechukwu Odozor <> In most cases, the earth is conceived as a living thing, a goddess, Mother Earth. According to Mbiti, the earth is symbolically viewed as the mother of the universe, while the heavens/sky are seen as its male counterpart. 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. 1"7$X9Xyyyb GNpL!9I&mxo0++44cA@5c. 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. Again, it doesnt reflect the multiplicity of ways that traditional African spirituality has conceived of deities, gods, and spirit beings. An old African adage says: The sky is large enough for birds to fly around without one having to bump into the other.. 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. inequality and class divide, dreams and interpretation, names and religious identity. The conviction that people will be reborn in this world again and again tends to be more common among Christians than Muslims. Both religions believe that God revealsHimself to people through dreams, propheciesand other special events. This is the kind of interlocutor who will counter an observation about violent militancy in contemporary Islam in the context, let us say, of a discussion about Boko Haram with But what about the Crusades? He has researched and written about such diverse religious cultures as the Hare Krishnas, Zoroastrians, Shakers, and the Old Order Amish. The traditional cosmology expresses belief in a supreme being (referred to by the Akan as Nyame, or by the Ewe Mawu). 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. Traditional Africans had to go to specific sacred placesfor them to worship but Christians can worship God anywhere at any time. |,utv2QdjrqfM7PC)2-|O7,0[i=_a/Om"X`Y2FpXBjsFxCqDd`%*g,-J1e*jjq,tm{w>qAsAqN$D Christians do not believe in the existence of any other godapart from the Supreme Being. This supreme . African religions behavior is centered mainly on the human person and his or her life in this world, with the consequence that religion is clearly functional, or a means to serve people to acquire earthly goods (life, health, fecundity, wealth, power and the like) and to maintain social cohesion and order.. However, they do not seek the services of magicians orwitchdoctors. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. The writing of this paper is another opportunity given to me so that l would use my talents given by the Holy Spirit to help our relatives still under the worldview of Satan to see and come into the Light of Life. Nevertheless, since 1900, Christians in Africa have grown from approximately 7 million to over 450 million today. Religion informs everything in traditional African society, including political art, marriage, health, diet, dress, economics, and death. Therefore, the universe has dimensions of order and power as follows: first of all, there is order in the laws of nature. 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. Olupona earned his bachelor of arts degree in religious studies from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in 1975. But as we learnt in Unit One, Christians can also worship Him attheir homes or other places. These include the pragmatic nature of the African cultural and religious heritage, and the African traditional methods of healing. 1xxp~I7m#MWjxAqN,PT2^]R6C3Y'K~Bwv4-xwE@;5 African religions, Indigenous religions of the African continent. OLUPONA: We would lose a worldview that has collectively sustained, enriched, and given meaning to a continent and numerous other societies for centuries through its epistemology, metaphysics, history, and practices. endobj Keywords: contextualization . GAZETTE: It sounds like African indigenous religions are dynamic, inclusive, and flexible. :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 In most countries surveyed, at least three-in-ten people believe in reincarnation, which may be related to traditional beliefs in ancestral spirits. 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. / DI41@ tD}r;Y w,XVzwiA1JtvrlfFaD7E@s 00=L"q{Vf\}ioKy=lXS.P6ChX m% ~nUV)=vp%FBvy}+6,0+V8sG&>K_iBOntQvyCN[I'uvR;}hA/D|+I9Q$cL, Belief in the Trinity While both Christianity and African religion have a concept of a Supreme Being, Christians believe in a God who exists in three persons. In the Akan and Ewe ethnic groups the above phenomenological conception of ATR called for education in the light of the scriptures. Secondly, there is moral and religious order. 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. hand with the study of the people who practise the religion. (See the glossary for more information on juju. Ancestors can offer advice and bestow good fortune and honor to their living dependents, but they can also make demands, such as insisting that their shrines be properly maintained and propitiated. 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. 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. Such activities include the making of sacrifices and the pouring of libations. Just as within the traditional political and diplomatic contexts, one cannot formally contact the king without the agency of his linguists or sub-chiefs. The vibrancy of African Traditional Religion in these two aspectstheological and moralcreates a unique opportunity for Christianity in Africa, one that, as Bediako points out has been lost to Christian theology in the West, "for a serious and creative theological encounter between the Christian and primal traditions." To understand African tradition, one needs to understand the position of African Traditional Religion on God, the human person, and creation. Notre Dame, IN 46556 USA. 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