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Africans who follow a traditional religion rely on no scriptures, canonical texts, or holy books to guide them. In African traditional religions guidance is provided through myths, which are handed down orally. Elders, priests, and priestesses have served as guardians of the sacred traditions.
African religion has encountered other religions, notably Christianity and Islam, and other cultures, especially Western. Many of its adherents convert to Christianity or Islam. But conversion does not mean abandoning the world of traditional religiosity. On the contrary, many Christians derive rich spirituality from African religion.
At the theological level, African religions contain both monotheistic and polytheistic principles. The concept of a supreme God is widely known in tropical Africa and existed before the coming of Christianity and Islam. The idea of a supreme God expresses the element of ultimacy, fate, and destiny, which is part of most African religions.
AFRICAN RELIGIONS: HISTORY OF STUDY In his The Invention of Africa (1988) the Congolese philosopher Valentin Mudimbe noted that there is a remarkable continuity in the Western representation of Africa as a place without history and without religion. These images, he argued, played a central role in the legitimization of the Atlantic slave trade ...
AFRICAN CULTURE AND ISLAM. Islam, an Afro-Asiatic faith, has long been known to be a religion of great synthesis that has interacted with local cultures, enriching them and being enriched by them. It has impacted on African society in various ways for almost a millennium, if not longer, adding to the fabric of these cultures.
New York, 1951. George Eaton Simpson (1987) Encyclopedia of Religion. CARIBBEAN RELIGIONS: AFRO-CARIBBEAN RELIGIONS Most West Indians of African descent are affiliated, at least nominally, with a historic Christian denomination or with one of the newer sects. In many areas of the West Indies, however, a number of hybrid religions have attracted ...
New York, 1996. John Middleton (1987) Revised Bibliography. EAST AFRICAN RELIGIONS: AN OVERVIEW East African religions do not form a single coherent body of beliefs and practices. They show great diversity in myths and cosmologies and in beliefs about the nature of spiritual powers; in kinds and authority of ritual experts; in the situations ...
Slave Churches. Black ministers were crucial figures in the development of African American religion and culture. They were uniquely situated to combine elements of European Christianity, African rituals and traditions, and the actual experience of the slaves. Over time slave communities began to establish congregations, served by local slave ...
African American religions can be studied analytically and historically. Since American religion is a broad phenomenon, the term African American religion must be defined. Although Christianity is the predominant African American religion in the New World and blacks have joined every major Christian denomination, they also practice other faiths ...
POLITICS AND RELIGION: POLITICS AND AFRICAN RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS. Africa is home to nearly 600 million people. Christianity and Islam are leading religious traditions — each has in excess of 250 million followers in Africa. As a result, there are declining numbers of followers of traditional indigenous religions and very few atheists or ...