Diviners who go through a long educational and apprenticeship program hold the history, culture, and spiritual traditions of the African people. 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. Conflict is a universal phenomenon that is inevitable in human interaction. The worship can be direct , but is done (mostly) indirectly through divine agents like the gods or divinities (abosom in Akan , legbaa in Ewe ) and the ancestors. These act as Gods associates, assistants, and mediators, and they are directly involved in human affairs. Therefore, these traditional theologians condemned those who said, ATR and similar non-western religions are followed by irrational or foolish people who in their stupidity bow down to stones, trees and rivers instead of the Creator who created such objects and themselves. The conviction that people will be reborn in this world again and again tends to be more common among Christians than Muslims. When Christians are sickthey do not go to magicians or traditional healers. Neglect, it is believed, might spell doom. Featured Image:Edo people, Queen Mother Pendant mask, circa 16th c.; Source: Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0. 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. degree at Harvard Divinity School. Christians do not believe in the existence of any other godapart from the Supreme Being. 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. Both have initiation rites into full membership. 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. GAZETTE: It sounds like African indigenous religions are dynamic, inclusive, and flexible. psC68k}(`eMTO} }3sUO?JH`dMQois6I{r[}Doq?L0}ze^WZ\|r?3Z %g~bs_*@F`b, vw`qRk3xnnH6NSKF vFK](S?I.$@\$OC(N#a6oJc!0 sm!$!'TGzmSvw)+Na?1s K{o?!I Christianity forbids human sacrifices in worshipas it is murder. 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. Below is the article summary. An important preoccupation of Mbitis work has been to show that knowledge of God and the worship of God have been staples of African life from the earliest times on the continent. This order, established by God, guides the functioning of the universe, preventing it from falling into chaos; and it ensures the continuance of life and the universe itself. Who Should Christians Worship? Journal of Biblical Unitarianism 1:1, 5-33, 2014. What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S. 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. 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. God, the ancestors, and the spirits are all moral powers whose actions affect human life in various ways and to various degrees. I told my father that I was coming home, he recalled. While some African cosmologies have a clear idea of a supreme being, other cosmologies do not. <>/ExtGState<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageB/ImageC/ImageI] >>/Annots[ 9 0 R] /MediaBox[ 0 0 595.32 841.92] /Contents 4 0 R/Group<>/Tabs/S>> GAZETTE: What will Africa lose if it loses its African indigenous worldview? Secondly, there is moral and religious order. &RcIX6Wa). Human beings are the link between the heavens and the earth, between the visible and the invisible universe. 2017. The continued influence of traditional African religion is also evident in some aspects of daily life. GAZETTE: Are ancestors considered deities in the traditional African cosmology? 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. Such activities include the making of sacrifices and the pouring of libations. 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." Devoid of essential personal characteristics they represent the essence of what might be called structural personality. 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. He later earned both an M.A. by Richard Chowning [ ATR Topics Page | Africa Missions Research and Strategy Page | Africa Missions Main Page | Help ] [ QuickStart ] Creator God The supreme being in most African Traditional Religions is seen as the creator of humans and all other living things. Moreover, the religions developed in the Americas impact Africa in that devotees of the African diaspora have significant influence on practices in Africa. Mission Manual Pages Section A Biblical Basis of Mission 1 20, E-journal of Religious and Theological Studies, TITLE A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SALVATION IN ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY: TOWARDS DEVELOPING AN EVANGELISTIC MODEL IN SPECIAL REFERENCE TO TUENSANG DISTRICT CHAPTER ONE, Baptism and Original Sin in the Early Church : contributions of Tertullian, THE UNIQUELY CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW - Ethington Book, CHRISTIANITY AND AFRICAN TRADITIONAL RELIGION IN KUMASI: A COMPARATIVE STUDY Department of General Art Studies, SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY @BULLET An Introduction to Bible Doctrine @BULLET, Monotheism in the Qur'an and in the New Testament: Comparative Theological Explorations of the Role of Prophets and the Covenants. All work unless implicitly stated is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. For example, an African amulet might have inside of it a written verse from either the Koran or Christian Bible. [D@dIS(P]y`ne]y:fjGZ3yEAVOI QFY- In the part two of my writing, l will expand on the world populated by spirits called Vodou alongside that of the Akan. In the Ewe thought they are called Vodou (Vodu or Vudu in Benin and Togo; also Vodon, Vodoun, Voudou, or other phonetically equivalent spellings. stream 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. The Christian idea of church has similarities with African traditional life in which brotherhood and the extended family play a central role. Consequently, traditional Africans have different ideas on what role the ancestors play in the lives of living descendants. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts. Most African communities offered animals and not humans as sacrifices. One scholar who has written extensively on African Traditional Religion is John Mbiti, a Kenyan whom many consider the dean of living African theologians. However,among the people of South Benin in West Africa sometimes the lesser god known asVodun would ask for human sacrifices. 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. This dissertation will attempt to explore how deliverance ministry has replaced the anti-witchcraft shrines and the exorcistic activities of the African Indigenous Churches. 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. There is also a mystical order of the universe. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Green points out that there is a rational basis to African Traditional Religion that shows, in Kantian terms, that there is a deep structure of universal moral and religious reason to it. The three requirements of reason at the heart of this structure are: first, a basic rule or procedure of moral choice; second, a metaphysic grounding the possibility of strict moral retribution; and third, . Thus, for example, older persons not only possess a more powerful vital force but a greater responsibility in society and more intense mystical powers. 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. Christians practice baptism. These spirit do not carry the desires of humans to the Creator God. 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. Holding or maintaining to a uniform doctrine is not the essence of indigenous African religions. Traditional Africans worshipped in shrines. 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. Even though their differences outnumber their. 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. Sign up for daily emails to get the latest Harvardnews. 4 0 obj 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. 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). The vigor with which the African Traditional Religion (ATR) has continued to resist the onslaught of Christianity is a cause of academic preoccupation. Traditional African religion does not show any belief in the Trinity. Keywords: contextualization . The religious functions, especially of chiefs and lineage heads, are clearly demonstrated during such periods as the Odwira of the Akan, Hogbetsotso / Tedudu of the Ewe, the Homowo of the Ga-Adangbe, or the Aboakyir of the Efutu (coastal Guan), when the people are organized in activities that renew and strengthen relations with their ancestors. 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. This bitter conflict has led to wanton destruction of lives and property, and this has become a source of great worry to the writers. 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. Christ is the Mediator between Humans and God In African Traditional Religion ancestral spirits, and lesser gods, are usually the spirits that communicate with humans on earth. A network of mutual relationships and responsibilities links the duals worlds of the mundane and the sacred. These include the pragmatic nature of the African cultural and religious heritage, and the African traditional methods of healing. The missionaries succeeded in spreading Christianity in Africa at a time when tribal religions were ignored or denigrated. African spirituality has always been able to adapt to change and allow itself to absorb the wisdom and views of other religions, much more than, for example, Christianity and Islam. 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. Barrenness is, therefore, considered a great misfortune because it prevents ancestors from returning to life. hand with the study of the people who practise the religion. x + 306. Encyclopedia of religious and spiritual development, Adopting Primary Taoism as a Protoevangelion for Contextualization of the Gospel into Asian Culture, Toward a Liturgical Approach to Re-Routing Mission, TOWARDS A THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE MYSTERY OF SUFFERING IN THE MIDST OF PROSPERITY THEOLOGY WITHIN THE PENTECOSTAL AND EVANGELICAL CHURCHES IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA, PARTICULARLY YANGORU, Mission in the Spirit: Towards a Pentecostal/Charismatic Missiology (with Julie C. Ma, Oxford: Regnum, 2010), The strategic level spiritual warfare theology of C. Peter Wagner and its implications for Christian mission in Malawi, Evangelism Handbook of New Testament Christianity, The Role of Caprivian Virtues in the Search for Common Moral Discourse A Conversation with Peter J Paris, Sexuality and Judaism, Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion (pg. as a burnt offering. 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. 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 An old African adage says: The sky is large enough for birds to fly around without one having to bump into the other.. M!eJ/"0Nq"3_ad!+;\4C2-0"+5qu|Rw!9KkC~V3M$ 2d yFT!Jf"ez:~ U S dE{hbaERVTGeqBzk2^oP)R}7Qv#.dQF4^%y+X-o"wr+l+B?{lb="akK;qurpDB ~O` Hn5~:D]xDS-V3tVgP`Axx8Mi2.O4g5=t DTW?ne![Cc?"C+E|o&Ks0`7_BiXHyJ8;B>7AfvuPTZV(3JW|/+Ywy"EtBEVYlNFc[5%X8@o|^DHD\*=z.)P??6`! Witchcraft was also feared and witchdoctors were respected as they had power tocurse, make people get sick or end their life. Both religions believe that God revealsHimself to people through dreams, propheciesand other special events. Christians give a tenth of all their earnings to God. Christianity, African traditional religions, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism. According to Mbiti, Africans came to believe in God by reflecting on their experience and through observation of the created universe. Both believe that God is the creator ofhumankind. And if these shrines are not properly cared for by the designated descendant, then misfortune in the form of illness might befall the caretaker. The religious traditions and beliefs of the African peoples have enough differences to merit a study of each in its own right.