Christian teaching forbids making of any kinds ofimages to represent God. However, Christians can offer animals to the church where they canbe sold or reared to give the church income. I utilised this view as hermeneutical point. 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. Keywords: contextualization . Maybe this is why I am not an Anglican priest. They are not mutually exclusive. Christians acknowledge the existenceof magic and witchcraft. Christianity and Traditional African Heritage, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Total loading time: 0 ), In addition to expressing high levels of belief in the protective power of sacrificial offerings and sacred objects, upwards of one-in-five people in every country say they believe in the evil eye, or the ability of certain people to cast malevolent curses or spells. In most countries surveyed, at least three-in-ten people believe in reincarnation, which may be related to traditional beliefs in ancestral spirits. 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. 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. This is a universal belief among Africans. 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. Commonalities between Christianity and Africa Traditional Religion. The vigor with which the African Traditional Religion (ATR) has continued to resist the onslaught of Christianity is a cause of academic preoccupation. It is essentially a postcolonial approach to what AIR and its essential characteristics is: God and humanity, sacrifices, afterlife and ancestors. These act as a link between God and the human community. Indigenous African spirituality today is increasingly falling out of favor. Different fathers played a role in the development of this religion. between African traditional religion and the Christian faith. African Spirituality, Politics, and Knowledge Systems - Toyin Falola 2022-03-10 Focusing on the three leading religious traditions in Africa (African Traditional Religion, Islam, and Christianity), this book shows how belief in the supremacy of sacred words compels actions and influences practices in contemporary Africa. 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/ This view influences the way humans relate to the universe: on the one hand, they strive to maintain harmony between themselves and the invisible universe by observing the moral and religious order; at the same time, humans see the universe in a utilitarian way, from the point of view of what is beneficial or harmful to them. Part two provides a condensed historical survey of the, The Bible and the Third World: Precolonial, Colonial and Postcolonial Encounters, by R. S. Sugirtharajah. Peel, J. D. Y. Editorial Statement: This essay is a slightly modified excerpt from the section "Evaluating African Traditional Religion: The Descriptive Task" (98-107) in Fr. Additionally, I will not discourage, disparage, or try and convert those who practice their form of African indigenous religions. They claimed or argued strongly that in the light of the more objective or scientific study of religions, ATR can no longer be justifiably characterized as stupid, since the worshippers do not worship the said material objects per se, but the Spirit of the Creator reflected in them. 1 0 obj TraditionalAfricans gave offerings but they did not give tithes. That testifies to the enduring power of indigenous religion and its ability to domesticate Christianity and Islam in modern Africa. endobj Creative people have bypassed gatekeepers for centuries to distribute what they wanted to share so badly. They find common ground in Houghton Library exhibition. 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.. Both have initiation rites into full membership. 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. Christians do not have regard for their powers because they believethat they overcome all evil through the name of Jesus. SUMMARY OF REFORMED THEOLOGY IN 10 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. This power originates from God but is possessed hierarchically by divinities, spirits, and the living dead, and it is available to some people, in various degrees. I answered two, The paper discusses the state of traditional African religion in post-apartheid South Africa. A network of mutual relationships and responsibilities links the duals worlds of the mundane and the sacred. Human beings are the link between the heavens and the earth, between the visible and the invisible universe. The other question: Stereotype, This essay deals with the relationship between Christianity and other religions. endobj . GAZETTE: What is the state of indigenous African religions today? 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. I told my father that I was coming home, he recalled. 1xxp~I7m#MWjxAqN,PT2^]R6C3Y'K~Bwv4-xwE@;5 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. % It doesnt have a fixed creed, like in some forms of Christianity or Islam. February 21, 2019. It is worth noting that these animals areat no time offered as burnt offerings to God. 4 0 obj Some Africans believe that the ancestors are equal in power to deities, while others believe they are not. 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. Nevertheless, since 1900, Christians in Africa have grown from approximately 7 million to over 450 million today. Mbiti emphasizes that Africans view the universe religiously. Below is the article summary. Religion is part and parcel of daily life. Traditional theologians explained that one could not worship the Supreme Being formally, without the agency of the divinities or ancestors. Shrine visitation is strongest among the uneducated and in rural communities. 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. OLUPONA: My father, a faithful Anglican priest, was a good example. l| -O;l0bo?Ge_4=MQ=EO|`X\G~Ah,yyG]%,GmF/-w F%YX`Ip}( na~!e[X/K879 ,y?R'd&h. d?ZKS=h8\%M{h(5M=xUeQG:3Sp}#-%>KpC3`zI *vw() They consultedtraditional healers who used various herbs and charms to cure diverse illnesses. God, the ancestors, and the spirits are all moral powers whose actions affect human life in various ways and to various degrees. 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. 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. Specifically, by reflecting on the wonder and magnitude of the universe, they came to the conclusion that God must exist: they posited the existence of God to explain the existence and sustenance of the universe. Christians do not offer animal sacrifices to appease God. 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. While the universe has a beginning, many Africans believe that it does not have an endeither spatially or temporally. While both Christianity and African religion have a concept of a Supreme Being,Christians believe in a God who exists in three persons. Holding or maintaining to a uniform doctrine is not the essence of indigenous African religions. 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. Sacrificial meals in the traditional Africanreligion are the equivalent of the Holy. Most African communities offered animals and not humans as sacrifices. They do so by going to the hospital. As a resident fellow, Sherman will teach a study group on negotiation and diplomacy this semester. INTRODUCTION Man considers life worth living because he finds certain things intrinsically valuable; hence value in its simple connotation means a thing of worth. This happened in the past, and these codes were stipulated, considered sacred and binding, by the community leaders: The moral and religious order in the universe is articulated and expressed in a variety of taboos and customs that prohibit specific actions contravening such order. hand with the study of the people who practise the religion. Everything is said to center on them. In other words, he shows that the sense of the divine was not something introduced to Africa by missionaries or by anyone else; that the knowledge of God in African religion was not much different from the idea of God that Christian missionaries preached in Africa; and, more specifically to our purpose here, that belief in God engendered a moral response that for centuries before Christian arrival in Africa directed moral life and interaction on the continent and among its peoples. May the Lord assist us to know the truth and walk in it. He contends that although African Traditional Religion generally refers to God as creator and sustainer of the universe, morally good, omniscient, and caring toward humans, yet even where this is held to be true, the high god in Africa is very often regarded as distanced from human affairs. And even when he is considered benign, the high God is morally otiose, having little direct retributive relationship with humankind. 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