In its place there emerged the word "also." 93 0 obj The missionaries who introduced the gospel to Africa in the past 200 years did not bring God. This is in sharp contrast with the religious composition of the region about 100 years ago, when, according to a Pew Forum analysis of historical information from the World Religion Database, less than a quarter of the population identified as either Christian or Muslim. Corrections? Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Religion informs everything in traditional African society, including political art, marriage, health, diet, dress, economics, and death. Its about getting tangible results. 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. Vodou is a worldview encompassing philosophy, medicine, justice, and religion. In 1988 the society changed its name to the Canadian Anthropology Society to clarify its identity and emphasize its role as an anthropology association. This approach is intended to shed further light on the problem of African cultural influence and . But after braving that first blizzard in a land far from his native Nigeria, Olupona stuck it out and earned his Ph.D. Today most Zairians belong to either the Catholic or Protestant church, and the Bira themselves are predominantly Catholic. There is no room to describe them, and I can mention only two or three of them briefly. I simply and honestly answered him that "for us in Africa, God is not dead." Some Africans believe that the ancestors are equal in power to deities, while others believe they are not. At Makerere University I taught New Testament, African religion and other courses. Indigenous African religion is primarily an oral tradition and has never been fully codified; thus, it allows itself to more easily be amended and influenced by other religious ideas, religious wisdom, and by modern development. 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. The fusion of cultures that was effected by the conquest of Alexander the Great (4th century bce), his successors, and the Roman Empire tended to bring together a variety of religious and philosophical views that resulted in a strong tendency toward religious syncretism. I am tantalized by the fact that my vision cannot cope with that horizon. One important task, then, is to see the nature, the method and the implications of Gods revelation among African peoples, in the light of the biblical record of the same revelation. (1981) and Ph.D. (1983) in the history of religions from Boston University. A calendar of ritual feasts, syncretized with the Roman Catholic calendar, provides the yearly rhythm of religious practice. (+1) 202-419-4300 | Main I told my father that I was coming home, he recalled. 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. It sensitized my thinking in many areas, one of these being the quest for Christian unity. This was an extremely liberating word in my theological thinking. In Africa the traditional religions are a major source for the study of the African experience of God. He has researched and written about such diverse religious cultures as the Hare Krishnas, Zoroastrians, Shakers, and the Old Order Amish. For six years I worked with the World Council of Churches in Geneva. Vodou, also spelled Voodoo, Voudou, Vodun, or French Vaudou, a traditional Afro-Haitian religion. OLUPONA: One of the basic reasons is that indigenous African spiritual beliefs are not bound by a written text, like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. OLUPONA: Yes, and the pluralistic nature of African-tradition religion is one of the reasons for its success in the diaspora. Unlike in Europe and the United States, very few people in sub-Saharan Africa say they are unaffiliated with a particular faith. Muslim populations are especially concentrated in a large geographic belt running west to east from Senegal to the Horn of Africa.1 Southern Africa is predominantly Christian. {PB,`s 0000003641 00000 n With it, one began to explore afresh the realm of Gods revelation and other treasures of our faith. Vodou is an oral tradition practiced by extended families that inherit familial spirits, along with the necessary devotional practices, from their elders. African religions, Indigenous religions of the African continent. 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. Updates? Dr. Mbiti is on the staff of the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey, Switzerland. I have seen the quest more sharply. 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. Africans consequently played a crucial role in establishing the doctrines and theology of the early church. Read our research on: Congress | Economy | Gender. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. in social anthropology from Oxford University, is studying for a master of theological studies (M.T.S.) 0000001198 00000 n The rural Bira of northeastern Zaire have been exposed to the Christian message for well over half a century. But whatever the shortcomings of these and my other publications, the materials that went into these two have raised extremely important issues for me that have continued to engage my reflection. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). But I have discovered that there is also the fundamental factor of African religion, without which this phenomenal expansion of Christianity would not be a reality. But to the disappointment of those theological exporters, this fish was not attracted by the bait. This includes five countries (Cameroon, Chad, Guinea Bissau, Mali and Senegal) where more than half the population uses traditional healers. "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. I should also state that there are signs of the revival of African indigenous practices in many parts of Africa. In 1900 there were an estimated 9 million Christians (accounting for about 7 per cent of the population of Africa). The award allows Olupona a year of study and research in Germany; he is on leave this year (201516). I am very excited, for example, by the estimate that in 1987 there will be a statistical balance of Christian population between the north (Europe, Soviet Union and America) and the south (Latin America, Africa, Asia and Oceania). But in practical terms, there is a Christian Yes to African religiosity. Overall, however, Christians outnumber Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa by about two-to-one. (+1) 202-419-4372 | Media Inquiries. In Nigeria, the population in 1900 included 4.2 million Muslims and 180,000 Christians. 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. 75 19 Of course, behind all these factors is the Holy Spirit working through them. In most countries surveyed, at least three-in-ten people believe in reincarnation, which may be related to traditional beliefs in ancestral spirits. African development. They derive from traditional African religions with some influence from other religious traditions, notably Christianity and Islam . 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. (+1) 202-857-8562 | Fax My doctoral studies in New Testament eschatology led me also to the field of Christology. 0000002505 00000 n These were not empty names. 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. Ethiopia's Christian population, at 6 million in 1900, will grow to a projected 100 million in 2050. AR-Ndhdnn}H\{%jC!a,]c8F`1LE(3%"w+tj}](q w[,p8i$dd$GrMRD K4wLG4@h\WfPY Corrections? Oxford: Clarendon, 1994. 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). 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. Amen. Prayers and sacrificial offerings are usually directed toward secondary divinities, who are intermediaries between the human and sacred realms. In contrast, witchcraft beliefs persist. GAZETTE: It sounds like African indigenous religions are dynamic, inclusive, and flexible. 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. OLUPONA: No, this type of binary thinking is simplistic. My research into and teaching of African religion has led to another important area of development. That finished the interview. An old African adage says: The sky is large enough for birds to fly around without one having to bump into the other.. For example, sickness in the indigenous African worldview is not only an imbalance of the body, but also an imbalance in ones social life, which can be linked to a breakdown in ones kinship and family relations or even to ones relationship with ones ancestors. OLUPONA: Yes, its a mixed bag because in the African diaspora mostly due to the slave trade starting in the 15th century indigenous African religions have spread and taken root all over the world, including in the United States and Europe. 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. 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. The Pew Forums survey found 52% of the population is Muslim. 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. Did he then reveal himself only in the line of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Samuel and other personalities of the Bible? 4 0 obj It doesnt have a fixed creed, like in some forms of Christianity or Islam. Its aims were to encourage formal and informal dissemination of knowledge through an annual conference and publications; promote relations with other academic and professional associations, aboriginal groups, and governments; and publicize ethnological research and activities to further understanding of ethnological practices. They constitute an important channel of the churchs prophetic witness today. 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. Nevertheless, since 1900, Christians in Africa have grown from approximately 7 million to over 450 million today. Some of these African diaspora religions include Cuban Regla de Ocha, Haitian Vodou, and Brazilian Candomble. That testifies to the enduring power of indigenous religion and its ability to domesticate Christianity and Islam in modern Africa. 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. 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. GAZETTE: How do you balance your Christian and indigenous African identity? The statistical expansion of the Christian faith in Africa in this century is one of the considerations that led me back to the issue of its relation with African religion. This re-ligion is found in almost all the activities of the African man. 75 0 obj Oral tradition says the first Muslims appeared while the prophet Mohammed was. He went on to conduct some of the most significant research on African religions in decades. As for the belief in God, it appears that the Bira have utilized Christianity to make their traditional God Mbali less remote and more caring, a change which has also made the Christian God more compassionate and forgiving of sins. Many other familial feasts (for the sacred children, for the poor, for particular ancestors) as well as initiations and funerary rituals occur throughout the year. Since Christianity came in contact with the traditional religion, there has always been a sharp conflict between traditionalists and Christians. 0000005714 00000 n Below is the article summary. Diviners who go through a long educational and apprenticeship program hold the history, culture, and spiritual traditions of the African people. GAZETTE: What else would we lose if we lost traditional African Religions? Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. In the cities, local hierarchies of priestesses or priests (manbo and oungan), children of the spirits (ounsi), and ritual drummers (ountgi) comprise more formal societies or congregations (sosyete).