Download or read book African Traditions in the Study of Religion in Africa written by Ezra Chitando and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-01 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The historiography of African religions and religions in Africa presents a remarkable shift from the study of 'Africa as Object' to 'Africa as Subject', thus translating the subject from obscurity into the global community of the academic study of religion. This book presents a unique multidisciplinary exploration of African traditions in the study of religion in Africa and the new African diaspora. The book is structured under three main sections - Emerging trends in the teaching of African Religions; Indigenous Thought and Spirituality; and Christianity, Hinduism and Islam. Contributors drawn from diverse African and global contexts situate current scholarly traditions of the study of African religions within the purview of academic encounter and exchanges with non-African scholars and non-African contexts. African scholars enrich the study of religions from their respective academic and methodological orientations. Jacob Kehinde Olupona stands out as a pioneer in the socio-scientific interpretation of African indigenous religion and religions in Africa. This book is to his honour and marks his immense contribution to an emerging field of study and research.
Download or read book Traditionalists Muslims and Christians in Africa written by Prince Sorie Conteh and published by Cambria Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As is the case for most of sub-Saharan Africa, African Traditional Religion (ATR) is the indigenous religion of Sierra Leone. When the early forebears and later progenitors of Islam and Christianity arrived, they met Sierra Leone indigenes with a remarkable knowledge of God and a structured religious system. Successive Muslim clerics, traders, and missionaries were respectful of and sensitive to the culture and religion of the indigenes who accommodated them and offered them hospitality. This approach resulted in a syncretistic brand of Islam. In contrast, most Christian missionaries adopted an exclusive and insensitive approach to African culture and religiosity. Christianity, especially Protestantism, demanded a complete abandonment of African culture and religion, and a total dedication to Christianity. This attitude is continued by some indigenous clerics and religious leaders to such an extent that Sierra Leone Indigenous Religion (SLIR) and its practitioners continue to be marginalised in Sierra Leone's interreligious dialogue and cooperation. Although the indigenes of Sierra Leone were and continue to be hospitable to Islam and Christianity, and in spite of the fact that SLIR shares affinity with Islam and Christianity in many theological and practical issues, and even though there are many Muslims and Christians who still hold on to traditional spirituality and culture, Muslim and Christian leaders of these immigrant religions are reluctant to include Traditionalists in interfaith issues in the country. The formation and constitution of the Inter-Religious Council of Sierra Leone (IRCSL), which has local and international recognition, did not include ATR. These considerations, then, beg the following questions: - Why have Muslim and Christian leaders long marginalized ATR, its practices, and practitioners from interfaith dialogue and cooperation in Sierra Leone? - What is lacking in ATR that continues to prevent practitioners of Christianity and Islam from officially involving Traditionalists in the socioreligious development of the country? This book investigates the reasons for the exclusion of ATR from interreligious dialogue/cooperation and ATR's relevance and place in the socioreligious landscape of Sierra Leone and the rest of the world. It also discusses possible ways for ATR's inclusion in the ongoing interfaith dialogue and cooperation in the country; this is important because people living side by side meet and interact personally and communally on a regular basis. As such, they share common resources; communal benefits; and the joys, crises, and sorrows of life. The social and cultural interaction and cooperation involved in this dialogue of life are what compel people to fully understand the worldviews of their neighbours and to seek out better relationships with them. Most of the extant books and courses about interreligious encounters and dialogue deal primarily with the interaction between two or more of the major world religions: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. This book fills a gap in the study of interreligious dialogue in Africa by taking into consideration the place and relevance of ATR in interreligious dialogue and cooperation in Sierra Leone. It provides the reader with basic knowledge of ATR, Islam, and Christianity in their Sierra Leonean contexts, and of interfaith encounters and dialogue among the three major faith traditions in Africa. As such, it provides for the first time a historical, chronological, and comparative study of interreligious encounters and dialogue among Traditionalists, Muslims, and Christians in Sierra Leone. Traditionalists, Muslims, and Christians in Africa is an important reference for scholars, researchers, religious leaders, missionaries, and all who are interested in interfaith cooperation and dialogue, especially among all three of Africa's major living religions-ATR, Islam, and Christianity.
Download or read book African Traditions in the Study of Religion in Africa written by Dr Afe Adogame and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2013-06-28 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The historiography of African religions and religions in Africa presents a remarkable shift from the study of 'Africa as Object' to 'Africa as Subject', thus translating the subject from obscurity into the global community of the academic study of religion. This book presents a unique multidisciplinary exploration of African traditions in the study of religion in Africa and the new African diaspora. The book is structured under three main sections - Emerging trends in the teaching of African Religions; Indigenous Thought and Spirituality; and Christianity, Hinduism and Islam. Contributors drawn from diverse African and global contexts situate current scholarly traditions of the study of African religions within the purview of academic encounter and exchanges with non-African scholars and non-African contexts. African scholars enrich the study of religions from their respective academic and methodological orientations. Jacob Kehinde Olupona stands out as a pioneer in the socio-scientific interpretation of African indigenous religion and religions in Africa. This book is to his honour and marks his immense contribution to an emerging field of study and research.
Download or read book Religion in Africa written by Thomas Dustin Blakely and published by James Currey. This book was released on 1994 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first major collection for over a decade on the subject of African religion. It is part of a continuous stock-taking solidly grounded in archival and field research in Africa and the African diaspora. This book provides the views of some of the most distinguished academics in the context of African history, anthropology, archaeology, politics, comparative religion, health and healing, languages and literatures, and the visual and performing arts.
Download or read book African Religions A Very Short Introduction written by Jacob K. Olupona and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-14 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are African religions? African Religions: A Very Short Introduction answers this question by examining primarily indigenous religious traditions on the African continent, as well as exploring Christianity and Islam. It focuses on the diversity of ethnic groups, languages, cultures, and worldviews, emphasizing the continent's regional diversity. Olupona examines a wide range of African religious traditions on their own terms and in their social, cultural, and political contexts. For example, the book moves beyond ethnographic descriptions and interpretations of core beliefs and practices to look at how African religion has engaged issues of socioeconomic development and power relations. Olupona examines the myths and sacred stories about the origins of the universe that define ethnic groups and national identities throughout Africa. He also discusses spiritual agents in the African cosmos such as God, spirits, and ancestors. In addition to myths and deities, Olupona focuses on the people central to African religions, including medicine men and women, rainmakers, witches, magicians, and divine kings, and how they serve as authority figures and intermediaries between the social world and the cosmic realm. African Religions: A Very Short Introduction discusses a wide variety of religious practices, including music and dance, calendrical rituals and festivals, celebrations for the gods' birthdays, and rituals accompanying stages of life such as birth, puberty, marriage, elderhood, and death. In addition to exploring indigenous religions, Olupona examines the ways Islam and Christianity as outside traditions encountered indigenous African religion. He shows how these incoming faith traditions altered the face and the future of indigenous African religions as well as how indigenous religions shaped two world religions in Africa and the diaspora. Olupona draws on archaeological and historical sources, as well as ethnographic materials based on fieldwork. He shows that African religions are not static traditions, but have responded to changes within their local communities and to fluxes caused by outside influences, and spread with diaspora and migration.
Download or read book Inculturation as Dialogue written by Chibueze C. Udeani and published by Rodopi. This book was released on 2007 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although Africa is today often seen, because of its large number of Christians, as the future hope of the Church, a closer examination of African Christianity, however, shows that the Christian faith has not taken deep root in Africa. Many Africans today declare themselves to be Christians but still remain followers of their traditional African religions, especially in matters concerning the inner dimensions of their lives. It is evident that, in strictly personal matters relating to such issues as passage rites and crises, most Africans turn to their African traditional religions. As an incarnational faith, part of the history of Christianity has been its encounter with other cultures and its becoming deeply rooted in some of these cultures. The central question remains: Why has the Christian faith not taken deep root in Africa? This volume is concerned with answering this question.
Download or read book Religious Encounter and the Making of the Yoruba written by John David Yeadon Peel and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2003-02-21 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Peel is by training an anthropologist, but one possessed of an acute historical sensibility. Indeed, this magnificent book achieves a degree of analytical verve rare in either discipline." —History Today "[T]his is scholarship of the highest quality. . . . Peel lifts the Yoruba past to a dimension of comparative seriousness that no one else has managed. . . . The book teems with ideas . . . about big and compelling matters of very wide interest." —T. C. McCaskie In this magisterial book, J. D. Y. Peel contends that it is through their encounter with Christian missions in the mid-19th century that the Yoruba came to know themselves as a distinctive people. Peel's detailed study of the encounter is based on the rich archives of the Anglican Church Missionary Society, which contain the journals written by the African agents of mission, who, as the first generation of literate Yoruba, played a key role in shaping modern Yoruba consciousness. This distinguished book pays special attention to the experiences of ordinary men and women and shows how the process of Christian conversion transformed Christianity into something more deeply Yoruba.
Download or read book Religion Culture and Spirituality in Africa and the African Diaspora written by William Ackah and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-10-05 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religion, Culture and Spirituality in Africa and the African Diaspora explores the ways in which religious ideas and beliefs continue to play a crucial role in the lives of people of African descent. The chapters in this volume use historical and contemporary examples to show how people of African descent develop and engage with spiritual rituals, organizations and practices to make sense of their lives, challenge injustices and creatively express their spiritual imaginings. This book poses and answers the following critical questions: To what extent are ideas of spirituality emanating from Africa and the diaspora still influenced by an African aesthetic? What impact has globalisation had on spiritual and cultural identities of peoples on African descendant peoples? And what is the utility of the practices and social organizations that house African spiritual expression in tackling social, political cultural and economic inequities? The essays in this volume reveal how spirituality weaves and intersects with issues of gender, class, sexuality and race across Africa and the diaspora. It will appeal to researchers and postgraduate students interested in the study of African religions, race and religion, sociology of religion and anthropology.
Download or read book Readings in African Traditional Religion written by Emele Mba Uka and published by Peter Lang Group Ag, International Academic Publishers. This book was released on 1991 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book consists of classic articles on African Traditional Religion by eminent scholars in the field. It has six sections. The first one deals with definitions and how the African perceives his world; the second looks at ATR in terms of its academic, historical, western and methodological perspectives. The third examines some vital elements of the theology, spirituality, ethics and salvific value of ATR. Section four reviews the impact of ATR in its environment as it bears on family life, nation building, education and health. Section five examines the encounter of ATR with world missionary religions like Christianity and Islam. The final section, which ends with a selected bibliography on the subject considers the future and the way forward for ATR. The book is designed as a resource and reference material for anyone interested in the field of Religion. It will also appeal to both scholars and students in the field of Religious studies, Sociology of Religion, Comparative study of Religions and «Mission» studies.
Download or read book Honest to God written by John A. T. Robinson and published by SCM Press. This book was released on 2014-09-16 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On first publication in the 1960s, "Honest to God" did more than instigate a passionate debate about the nature of Christian belief in a secular revolution. It epitomised the revolutionary mood of the era and articulated the anxieties of a generation.
Download or read book African Traditional Religion Encounters Christianity written by John Chitakure and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2017-11-07 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Right from the beginning of humankind, God has never deprived a people of his grace and revelation. In fact, God uses people's environment and culture to communicate his will. There is no single religion that can claim to have the exclusive possession of God's revelation, for God is too immense to be confined within one faith. Hence, it was erroneous, blasphemous, and misleading for some of the early Christian missionaries to Africa to claim that they had brought God to Africa, a mentality that implied the non-existence of God in Africa before their arrival. Of course, God was already in Africa, but the missionaries either failed to discern his presence or just disregarded the traces of his existence. This book explores the religious beliefs, practices, and values of the indigenous people of Africa at the time of the early missionaries' arrival, with particular reference to the Shona people of Zimbabwe. It also evaluates the extent of the missionarie's successes and challenges in converting Africans to Christianity. It finally surveys how African Christians have remained attached to the indigenous religious beliefs that used to provide answers to their existential questions.
Download or read book Transforming Encounters and Critical Reflection African Thought Critical Theory and Liberation Theology in Dialogue written by Justin Sands and published by MDPI. This book was released on 2018-12-04 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Transforming Encounters and Critical Reflection: African Thought, Critical Theory, and Liberation Theology in Dialogue" that was published in Religions
Download or read book Worlds of Memory and Wisdom written by Jean Halpérin and published by World Council of Churches. This book was released on 2005 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reflects a fascinating chapter in a genuinely intercultural dialogue, conducted on an equal footing, at the highest level of intellectual integrity. The texts come out of three Jewish-Christian consultations held in Africa, all focusing on subjects pointing to a commonality of concerns and purpose. Any topic that could hint at suspicion of superiority, precedence or domination was carefully avoided, and the dialogue was shaped along different lines than those usually followed in similar Jewish-Christian consultations held in Europe and America over the past half-century. In Nairobi, discussions were devoted to ancient wisdom in both cultures and its value for contemporary life; the understanding of scripture; and creation in both cultures. In Johannesburg, debate centered on family, community and tradition as a way to the future and dealt with fundamental questions common to both cultures: the encounter with the age of modernity, preserving traditional family life, sustaining a sense of community, maintaining and reinforcing religious heritage and cultural tradition in the face of disintegration and dissipation. The third consultation, in Yaound�, looked at memory and experiences of violence, and the challenge of peace-building.
Download or read book Shaping the Society Christianity and Culture written by Pastor Stephen Kyeyune and published by Author House. This book was released on 2012-05-03 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: African theology involves theology that reflects the original thinking of African people. Many African have expressed a need for the theology that reflects the original thinking of African peoples. Some theologians have recklessly labeled every aspect of African culture to be evil whereas others have expressed contempt regarding Christianity wrapped in Europeans culture. Having stayed away from my culture for more than twenty years, I have encountered several cultural shocks. My personal experience has induced me to invest time into intensive researching on the issue of culture and Christianity in anticipation to help somebody puzzled and drowned in confusion. I mean somebody who will not draw a diving line between the two aspects of lives. Within every cultural background setting, there is a godly culture that is not in conflict with Christianity. The culture of man apart from God equals to corruption. God created culture and He sent His Son to restore and to preserve the moral values of the cultures. The godly culture of man should therefore not be in conflict with the culture of the Bible. This topic has been produced in a series of teachings in different volumes of books for deeper clarification. I advise you to read all of the series available for your spiritual growth. Pastor Stephen Kyeyune
Download or read book Dreaming Religion and Society in Africa written by M.C. Jedrej and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-11-20 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contributors to this investigation of dreaming in a diversity of African cultures and settings have each approached the matter with a respect for an indigenous discourse which does not necessarily subscribe to Western evaluations of the objective and subjective. The matter of dreaming is not so much a psychological constant as ultimately sociological and historical. Dream discourse as a strategy deploys contingencies in the elaboration of social relationships and the defence, restoration and promotion of identities. Dreaming is therefore prominent in such critical settings as sickness and healing, artistic inspiration and craftwork, election to religious office, conversion to Islam or Christianity.
Download or read book The Ongoing Encounter Between Christiantuy and African Culture written by Cephas Narh Omenyo and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Muslim Christian Encounters in Africa written by Benjamin Soares and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2006-09-01 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This timely collection offers new perspectives on Muslim-Christian encounters in Africa. Working against political and scholarly traditions that keep Muslims and Christians apart, the essays in this multidisciplinary volume locate African Muslims and Christians within a common analytical frame. In a series of historical and ethnographic case studies from across the African continent, the authors consider the multiple ways Muslims and Christians have encountered each other, borrowed or appropriated from one another, and sometimes also clashed. Contributors recast assumptions about the making and transgressing of religious boundaries, Christian-Muslim relations, and conversion. This engaging collection is a long overdue attempt to grapple with the multi-faceted and changing encounters of Muslims and Christians in Africa.
