Religion In Africa News

The Nigerian online publication Vangaurd reports that Muslims have reached out to Christians in Nigeria’s ancient city of Kano.  It is the first time that anyone can remember that Muslims paid a solidarity visit to Christians in their various places worship.

Nigeria has been plagued with bombings and killings by the jihadist terrorist group Boko Haram for more than a year.  In recent weeks some Mosques and Islamic schools have been burned in retaliation.  There is widespread fear in the Nigeria that full on civil war could be right around the corner.

This act of kindness by Muslims from Kano can go a long way in reminding Nigerians that the far and away majority of Muslims and Christians are peace loving people.

The Muslims visited five denominations of the Christian faith.  They included Our Lady Of Fatima, ECWA (Hausa service), Baptist Church, Cherubim and Seraphim, and Calvary Life Assembly.  All of these churches are in the Sabon Gari district of Kano.

There have been text messages and tweets circulating frightening people that their homes and places of worship were soon to be torched.  The face to face visits led the  former National President of PENGASSAN, Bashir Is’haq Bashir.  The current head of the Kando branch of  the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Reverend Ransom Bello told reporters and Christians that he appreciated the gracious jester by the Muslim faithful.

Bashir said, “we are here to deliver a message, a message of peace, a message of hope, a message of peace, a message of solidarity that all Muslims all over Kano are with you, that they are not a source of threat to you but a source of security and in them you have a dependable ally”.

He went on to stress that, there is a verse in the Quran that says “I have made you Nations and tribe so that you may appreciate one another , and the best among you in the sight of Allah is he who is best in conduct”

Christians responded with loud chants of  “Hallelujah.”

Bishop Bello proclaimed this was the beginning of new era, “its a sign of positive thing come.”

In the United States athletes prepare for their at-bat or race by kissing a symbol of their religious belief or a good luck charm.  After a success US many US athletes point to the heavens and shout, “thank you Lord!”

In Africa, religion has a similar yet much more all encompassing, powerful role in sports, especially when that religion is a local form of African Traditional Religion.  I remember in the years that I lived in Kenya seeing the photos of the various club teams with their spiritual advisers who would bless the teams and fetishes that they would wear around their necks on in their shoes. There were even sports editorials claiming that a team won the match because their shaman arrived the night before and placed some potion in the ground under the goal.

Then there is the case of Cameroon footballer Rigobert Song who on 5th September 2009, was with his national team in a match against Gabon in a Fifa World Cup 2010 qualifier in Libreville.   Sébastien Bassong had taken Song’s starting role on the side, but Bassong took a hard tackle and asked to be substituted. The coach replaced him with Rigobert Song, who finished the match relatively well.  After the match, the Cameroonian football website (camfoot.com) was filled with fans accusing Song of having employed sorcery to put an evil spell on Bassong to hurt himself and allow Song to return to his position.

Then there is this BBC audio story from Benin:

Here is a video about African Traditional Religion practitioner specializing in football in South Africa among Zulus.

The four groups hold in common a heritage of born out of a militant, religious zeal for local concerns.   All want to have the state to institutionalize their particular religions laws.

Despite being religious based these terrorists are extremely violent.

Three are Muslim jihadist groups who wage war against the infidels (non-Mulims).   Two claim connections with al-Qaeda.  Below is a brief summary of each terrorist group.  See more detailed information on each and their current activities at Terrorism In Africa website.

Al-Shabaab, is a Somalia based jehadist group wanting to institute Sheria in Somalia.  The are currently fighting Kenyan troops in South Somalia and Northern Kenya.  Over the past few months they have abducted tourists and aid workers forcing humanitarian agencies to abandon huge camps of refugees from the fighting.  Al-Shabaab is responsible comings in Kenya and a World Cup Final night bombings in Kampala leaving 79 dead.

The Lord’s Resistance Army is a radical and heinously violent Christian section formed to protect the Acholi people, purify Uganda and overthrowing the government.  Having not achieved their goals in Uganda these terrorists have killed villagers in the Congo and Sudan.

The AQIM (Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) is militant Sunni sect born in Algeria but presently active throughout North Africa and the Sahel.  A recently formed splinter group fo AQIM has set an agenda of carrying out attacks in Sub-Saharan West Africa.

The most active terrorist group on the planet is Nigeria’s Boko Haram.  The claimed credit for the bombing of churches and security facilities on Christmas day.  While a local militant, jihadist group, there is fear they will expand their area of operations.

Nigeria is showing all the signs of being on the verge of a all out battle between Muslims and Christians.  Evangelical leaders are calling their sheep to protect themselves, a signal of a growing militancy in the Christian community that has felt vulnerable and unprotected by the security forces.  The Nigerian situation could be just a precursor to similar religious fights in Kenya (Nairobi’s Eastleigh district and the coast).

Will Africa’s reputation for peaceful coexistence among religions survive?  Current events are pointing in another direction.  There are rough religious times ahead.

Religion In Africa:
Voodoo?

Today I came across a tweet on Twitter stating, “and actually voodoo is based upon catholic ideologies..voodoo is not an African religion. its a slave religion.” I have heard other people contend that voodoo originated in the Caribbean. Now, which is it? Is it African? Or, is voodoo even a religion?

When we discuss such a topic we must state weather we are talking about origins or current practices, weather we are talking about practices in New Orleans, Ouidah (Benin), or Brazil.

The word “voodoo” is used as a designation for many things. Even our modern, standard, go-to place for definitions, Wikipedia, knows that the term voodoo has many meanings. There is a jet fighter called F-101 voodoo, then there is voodoo music, and also a voodoo ride at a theme park in Pennsylvania. But, we are not referring to any of those.

Where does the term voodoo originate? It is an Anglicized form (English rendering of a foreign word) of the word “vodoun” which is common to the Gbe languages of Benin and Togo. It means “god”. There are plenty, I mean hundreds, of vodoun in West Africa: Mami (referred to in the west as Mimi Wata), Legba, Hebiezo, Edan and many more. The religion (beliefs and practices) around each of these gods is unique.

I lived in Benin for 9 years and have seen shrines to the gods (vodoun) and watched coven members (vodushi) to these gods work themselves into trances to communicate with these gods. Each god and each coven have their own beliefs and practices.

The city of Ouidah in Benin is said, by some, to be the seat of voodoo, yet even in this city there are shrines to many of these gods. It is from the history of this city that some may make the connection between voodoo and slavery. Ouidah is the place where voodoo “worshipers” from around the world come on Benin’s holiday traditional religion. It is one of the main cities for spiritual powers of the Fon people. Ouidah is also the ancient port city from which slaves last walked on their homeland.

Voodoo, at least in the origin of the term, is not a religion. However, in the Caribbean, Brazil and New Orleans, where the slaves landed, their are religions that have some clear similarities to the beliefs and practices of various West African covens. Just as the vodoun in West Africa, the “voodoo” in different regions of the world a distinct, in specifics, to that place.

Yet, I would say that none of the above are a religions. Santeria is a religion in Brazil that has some vestiges of the West African “vodoun”, but the religion is much more comprehensive than what most people think of when they hear the world voodoo. Mami Wata is consulted and scarified to in some of the voodoo practices in New Orleans, but again it a part of a larger belief system with its accompanying practices.

The traditional religions of West Africa are certainly not “voodoo.” Their origin is not from slaves, nor Catholicism.

Religions and Beliefs in Africa

The Pope recently visited Benin. He has been there before, due to the fact that a trusted, African Cardinal, the late Bernardin Gantin, was from this West African country.

During his visit the Pope commented on his view of the strength of the church in Africa.  He seemed to be making the same evaluation that some evangelical missionaries have been speaking and writing about.  He believes that too often African Christians view the common life challenges in Africa such deaths, hunger, accidents, diseases, conflicts, poverty, among others, as the result of witchcraft.   He said, “The African is helpless under the great force of witches.”
The Pope went on to say, that African Christians “must fight against some very dangerous beliefs and superstitions.”  He sees witchcraft beliefs simultaneously undermine Africa’s civilization and make the African uncivilized and self-destructive.
The troubling African witchcraft problem is the focal point of African human stories, as Pope Benedict XVI said in Benin. Witchcraft has become a “social drama.”

The Pope’s solution: “Being a regional problem, a joint effort of the ecclesial community would be important to counter this calamity, trying to determine the deep meanings of these practices, to identify the risks for pastoral and social development, and to find a method leading to its definitive eradication, with the cooperation of governments and civil society.”

It is fitting to note that the Pope made these statements in Benin, which is the seat of worldwide voodoo and a country that observes a federal holiday for Voodoo Day.

The Pope made some good points about syncretism – the mixing of Christian and traditional beliefs and practices – in Africa.  However, it would be a mistake to think that most African Christians are mixing the two.  For sure, most Africans would grant that witchcraft and spiritism exist, but that is far from believing that their faith in Jehovah God is impotent before such forces.

African Christians, like Western Christians, wrestle with their human existence and their desire to live godly lives.  Yet, African Christians, many of them, die for their faith each year.  Many more have been shunned or ridiculed for their faith.

Muslims Call for Peace

An former army officer and former leader of Islamic Jihad, Aboud al-Zomour, has called Egyptian Muslims to refrain from violence against Coptic Christians.  Al-Zomour was imprisoned for 30 years for taking part in the assassination President Anwar Sadat.  He now sees himself as a proclaimer of peace.  He says, “the uprising that led Mr. Mubarak to step down was the work of all elements of society, Muslims and Christians, even women.”  So all should work together to maintain peace.  Click here to see the entire story.

The call for peace comes after twelve people were killed and 186 people injured outside a Coptic church Saturday in Imbaba.  Muslims were enraged when they heard rumors that a Christian women was being held against her will because she wanted to convert to Islam. Members of the crowd began throwing firebombs and stones, setting some nearby buildings on fire.

Security forces have arrested 190 people in connection with the incident.

Religions and Beliefs Database

The Pew Foundation maintains an extremely comprehensive database on religion in 19 Sub-Saharan Africa countries.  The data was collected  from  twenty-five thousand face-to-face interviews in vernacular languages.  The countries in the study cover more that three quarters of the population of sub-Saharan Africa.

The Database is conveniently connected to a map for easy reference.   See the database at http://features.pewforum.org/africa/

Religion in Africa

An often quoted phrase really raises my blood pressure.  It goes like this, “In Africa, faith is a mile wide and a half inch deep.”  I wish I could track down the exact origin of the statement.  I would question what the writer was really attempting to do.

Africans have used it to rebuke those who mix Christianity and African traditional religion.  Non-Africans use it to chastise Christian leaders for their lack of in-depth discipleship training.  It bothers me either way.  It is simply not a statement that characterizes the majority of African Christians.

There were a couple of articles that ran in Christianity Today a decade back that centered around the issue of some African Christians offering libations to ancestors and even a few pastors and priests endorsed the practice.  The articles I am speaking about are:

• Let Africans Honor Ancestors with Blood Libations in Mass Says Bishop
• Debate Continues on Incorporating Animal Sacrifices in Worship

While there might have been some lively debate about these issues in Christianity Today, there is no debate among the majority of African Christians.  Far more African Christians have suffered some form of persecution for not offering such sacrifices, than those who would endorse them.

The faith of most of the African Christians I have known over the past forty years has challenged my own.

Syncretistic practices and religions (the mixing of Christian and traditional religion resulting in something different than either, do exist in Africa, just as they do in all parts of the world.  The are often spawned when Christian teaching and practice that predominantly deals with life after death and not successfully dealing with some crucial, pressing problem of life such as healing sickness, protecting from evil powers, or bringing rain.  It is a matter of allegiance to the Lord in all aspects of life, which is at times a challenge to all of us.

Religion in Africa

African Religions and Beliefs

Differences between African Traditional Religion and Christianity

For centuries, African Traditional Religion in its myriad of forms was practiced by the majority of Africans, but in the last fifty years Christianity and Islam have become more prominent.  West African contains the largest populations that are still following African Traditional Religion.  There are differences and similarities between African Traditional Religion and Christianity.  To see some similarities between them, click here.

Below are list some of the major differences between Christianity and African Traditional Religion.

God

• Most practitioners of African Traditional Religion have an understanding of a creator God, but this normally refined and broaden when one becomes a Christian.
• In African Traditional Religion creator God is distant from man.
• In Christianity God has been close to the human race throughout history and today reaches down in love to draw humans toward him.
• In African Traditional Religion, man has often made covenants with God.
• In Christianity God is the covenant maker and He gives the power to keep the covenant.

Eternal Rest of the Soul

• Many forms of African Traditional Religion teach that the spirits of the dead can be born back into the realm of the living.
• The Biblical teaching is that human have one life on earth, a single judgment, and then everlasting rest or punishment of the soul.

Indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God

• There are many forms of spirits in African Traditional Religion, some can possess the living.
• In African Traditional Religion when a spirit possesses a person there are negative consequences.
• In African Traditional Religion one can be possessed in order to gain some privileged knowledge.
• Christianity promises that the Holy Spirit of God comes into the lives of all believers.
• In Christianity possession of the Holy Spirit of God is both the sign of being “sons of God” and the source of power and comfort.

Christianity is for All Ethnic Groups

• African Traditional Religions are specific to each ethnic group on the continent.
• No ethnic group is motivated to teach another ethnic group its forms of religion and convert them.
• The evangelistic mandate of Christianity, and the very nature of Jehovah God, encompasses all ethnic groups on the planet for all time.
• The Christian message calls people out of earthly kingdoms into the Kingdom of God.

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.
• These spirit do not carry the desires of humans to the Creator God.
• Christ Jesus, God’s own son, takes the “groaning” of humans to God.
• Christ was tempted in all the ways men were tempted, so He is a sympathetic mediator.

Definition of Sin

• Sin in African Traditional Religion is mostly concerned with transgression of morals or community norms.
• In African Traditional Religion there is a difference in the severity or degree of a sins.  If one does harm to someone in your his own ethnic group, it a more serious sin than if one commits it against someone of another group.
• In the Christian sin is against and in rebellion to God.
• In Christianity all sins are equal.

Forgiveness

• Sacrifices are offered in African Traditional Religion in order placate, appease, or ask favors of the spirits.
• They are often offered when a wrong is committed.
• The will of God, as revealed in the Bible, is that all people be forgiven and saved through the sacrifice of His son.

Religion In Africa

Muslim and Christian relationships

Without a doubt Christians and Muslims have at times clashed violently.  Over-all, according to a PEW foundation study in 2010, tolerance characterizes Christian Muslim relations in Sub-Saharan Africa.  The study is the result of face to face interviews with 25,000 people from 19 Sub-Saharan African countries.

Researchers and students of African religion, or just those wanting to broaden their knowledge of the peoples of Africa will benefit from reading this entire report (Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, April 10, 2010.).  I have included belo:

• some important facts from the Preface
• Executive Summary
• Links to Reviews and Commentary on the PEW report

Some important facts in the Preface to the document:

• Sub-Saharan Africa now is home to about one-in-five of all the Christians in the world (21%) and more than one-in-seven of the world’s Muslims (15%).

• The survey findings suggest that many Africans are deeply committed to Islam or Christianity and yet continue to practice elements of traditional African religions.

• Since northern Africa is heavily Muslim and southern Africa is heavily Christian, the great meeting place is in the middle, a 4,000-mile swath from Somalia in the east to Senegal in the west.

Executive Summary

The vast majority of people in many sub-Saharan African nations are deeply committed to the practices and major tenets of one or the other of the world’s two largest religions, Christianity and Islam. Large majorities say they belong to one of these faiths, and, in sharp contrast with Europe and the United States, very few people are religiously unaffiliated. Despite the dominance of Christianity and Islam, traditional African religious beliefs and practices have not disappeared. Rather, they coexist with Islam and Christianity. Whether or not this entails some theological tension, it is a reality in people’s lives: Large numbers of Africans actively participate in Christianity or Islam yet also believe in witchcraft, evil spirits, sacrifices to ancestors, traditional religious healers, reincarnation and other elements of traditional African religions.2

Christianity and Islam also coexist with each other. Many Christians and Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa describe members of the other faith as tolerant and honest. In most countries, relatively few see evidence of widespread anti-Muslim or anti-Christian hostility, and on the whole they give their governments high marks for treating both religious groups fairly. But they acknowledge that they know relatively little about each other’s faith, and substantial numbers of African Christians (roughly 40% or more in a dozen nations) say they consider Muslims to be violent. Muslims are significantly more positive in their assessment of Christians than Christians are in their assessment of Muslims.

There are few significant gaps, however, in the degree of support among Christians and Muslims for democracy. Regardless of their faith, most sub-Saharan Africans say they favor democracy and think it is a good thing that people from other religions are able to practice their faith freely. At the same time, there is substantial backing among Muslims and Christians alike for government based on either the Bible or sharia law, and considerable support among Muslims for the imposition of severe punishments such as stoning people who commit adultery.

These are among the key findings from more than 25,000 face-to-face interviews conducted on behalf of the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life in more than 60 languages or dialects in 19 sub-Saharan African nations from December 2008 to April 2009. (For additional details, see the survey methodology.) The countries were selected to span this vast geographical region and to reflect different colonial histories, linguistic backgrounds and religious compositions. In total, the countries surveyed contain three-quarters of the total population of sub-Saharan Africa.

Other Findings

In addition, the 19-nation survey finds:

* Africans generally rank unemployment, crime and corruption as bigger problems than religious conflict. However, substantial numbers of people (including nearly six-in-ten Nigerians and Rwandans) say religious conflict is a very big problem in their country.

* The degree of concern about religious conflict varies from country to country but tracks closely with the degree of concern about ethnic conflict in many countries, suggesting that they are often related.

* Many Africans are concerned about religious extremism, including within their own faith. Indeed, many Muslims say they are more concerned about Muslim extremism than about Christian extremism, and Christians in four countries say they are more concerned about Christian extremism than about Muslim extremism.

* Neither Christianity nor Islam is growing significantly in sub-Saharan Africa at the expense of the other; there is virtually no net change in either direction through religious switching.

* At least half of all Christians in every country surveyed expect that Jesus will return to earth in their lifetime, while roughly 30% or more of Muslims expect to live to see the re-establishment of the caliphate, the golden age of Islamic rule.

* People who say violence against civilians in defense of one’s religion is rarely or never justified vastly outnumber those who say it is sometimes or often justified. But substantial minorities (20% or more) in many countries say violence against civilians in defense of one’s religion is sometimes or often justified.

* In most countries, at least half of Muslims say that women should not have the right to decide whether to wear a veil, saying instead that the decision should be up to society as a whole.

* Circumcision of girls (female genital cutting) is highest in the predominantly Muslim countries of Mali and Djibouti but is more common among Christians than among Muslims in Uganda.

* Majorities in almost every country say that Western music, movies and television have harmed morality in their nation. Yet majorities in most countries also say they personally like Western entertainment.

* In most countries, more than half of Christians believe in the prosperity gospel – that God will grant wealth and good health to people who have enough faith.

* By comparison with people in many other regions of the world, sub-Saharan Africans are much more optimistic that their lives will change for the better.

Links to Reviews and Commentary on the PEW report:

Faith In Africa by Elizabeth Dickinson in Foreign Policy Magazine, April 15, 2010

Many African Christians, Muslims Hold ‘Apocalyptic’ Beliefs
By Michelle A. Vu, in the Christian Post, Apr. 16 2010

Christians, Muslims almost equal in numbers in Africa, in Washington Times, April 16, 2010

Report shows broad tolerance among religions, by Kevin J. Kelly in New York Post and Reprinted in the Daily Nation (Nairobi, Kenya) April 16, 2010
Christian and Muslim Beliefs in Africa: Lessons for U.S. Foreign Policy, by Jeffrey Weiss, in Politics Daily, April 2010
A short video of a segment of the PEW study.

Christianity in Africa – CBN.com
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