Together with Ulysses, Abraham is the earliest culture hero in the Western world. More precisely, as Kierkegaard, who called him ‘the knight of faith,’ reminds us, he has remained, throughout the centuries, the prototype of the religious man, of the man of faith. The wandering Aramean from the Book of Genesis, who rejected his parents’ idols and native Mesopotamia to follow the call of the One God to the land of Canaan, started a saga reverberated not only in early Jewish literature, but also in the New Testament (Galatians 3: 6-8), and in early Christian literature.
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African religions cover a diverse landscape of ethnic groups, languages, cultures, and worldviews. Here, Jacob K. Olupona, author of African Religions: A Very Short Introduction shares an interesting list of 15 facts on African religions.
By Jacob K. Olupona
- African traditional religion refers to the indigenous or autochthonous religions of the African people. It deals with their cosmology, ritual practices, symbols, arts, society, and so on. Because religion is a way of life, it relates to culture and society as they affect the worldview of the African people.
- Traditional African religions are not stagnant but highly dynamic and constantly reacting to various shifting influences such as old age, modernity, and technological advances.
- Traditional African religions are less of faith traditions and more of lived traditions. They are less concerned with doctrines and much more so with rituals, ceremonies, and lived practices.
- When addressing religion in Africa, scholars often speak of a “triple heritage,” that is the triple legacy of indigenous religion, Islam, and Christianity that are often found side by side in many African societies.
- While those who identify as practitioners of traditional African religions are often in the minority, many who identify as Muslims or Christians are involved in traditional religions to one degree or another.
- Though many Africans have converted to Islam and Christianity, these religions still inform the social, economic, and political life in African societies.
- Traditional African religions have gone global! The Trans-Atlantic slave trade led to the growth of African-inspired traditions in the Americas such as Candomblé in Brazil, Santería in Cuba, or Vodun in Haïti. Furthermore, many in places like the US and the UK have converted to various traditional African religions, and the importance of the diaspora for these religions is growing rapidly. African religions have also become a major attraction for those in the diaspora who travel to Africa on pilgrimages because of the global reach of these traditions.
- There are quite a number of revival groups and movements whose main aim is to ensure that the tenants and practice of African indigenous religion that are threatened survive. These can be found all over the Americas and Europe.
- The concerns for health, wealth, and procreation are very central to the core of African religions. That is why they have developed institutions for healing, for commerce, and for the general well-being of their own practitioners and adherents of other religions as well.
- Indigenous African religions are not based on conversion like Islam and Christianity. They tend to propagate peaceful coexistence, and they promote good relations with members of other religious traditions that surround them.
- Today as a minority tradition, it has suffered immensely from human rights abuses. This is based on misconceptions that these religions are antithetical to modernity. Indeed indigenous African religions have provided the blueprint for robust conversations and thinking about community relations, interfaith dialogue, civil society, and civil religion.
- Women play a key role in the practice of these traditions, and the internal gender relations and dynamics are very profound. There are many female goddesses along with their male counterparts. There are female priestesses, diviners, and other figures, and many feminist scholars have drawn from these traditions to advocate for women’s rights and the place of the feminine in African societies. The traditional approach of indigenous African religions to gender is one of complementarity in which a confluence of male and female forces must operate in harmony.
- Indigenous African religions contain a great deal of wisdom and insight on how human beings can best live within and interact with the environment. Given our current impending ecological crisis, indigenous African religions have a great deal to offer both African countries and the world at large.
- African indigenous religions provide strong linkages between the life of humans and the world of the ancestors. Humans are thus able to maintain constant and symbiotic relations with their ancestors who are understood to be intimately concerned and involved in their descendants’ everyday affairs.
- Unlike other world religions that have written scriptures, oral sources form the core of indigenous African religions. These oral sources are intricately interwoven into arts, political and social structure, and material culture. The oral nature of these traditions allows for a great deal of adaptability and variation within and between indigenous African religions. At the same time, forms of orature – such as the Ifa tradition amongst the Yoruba can form important sources for understanding the tenants and worldview of these religions that can serve as analogs to scriptures such as the Bible or the Qur’an.
Jacob K. Olupona is Professor of African Religious Traditions at Harvard Divinity School, with a joint appointment as Professor of African and African American Studies in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. A noted scholar of indigenous African religions, his books include African Religions: A Very Short Introduction, City of 201 Gods: Ilé-Ifè in Time, Space, and the Imagination, Òrìsà Devotion as World Religion: The Globalization of Yorùbá Religious Culture, co-edited with Terry Rey, and Kingship, Religion, and Rituals in a Nigerian Community: A Phenomenological Study of Ondo Yoruba Festivals. In 2007, he was awarded the Nigerian National Order of Merit, one of Nigeria’s most prestigious honors.
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Image Credit: A map of the Africa, showing the major religions distributed as of today. Map shows only the religion as a whole excluding denominations or sects of the religions, and is colored by how the religions are distributed not by main religion of country etc. By T.L. Miles via Wikimedia Commons via the Public Domain.
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The Coven (Sweep, #2), by Cate Tiernan on GoodreadsRelease Date: March 22nd, 2007 (1st published on 2001)
Age Group: Young Adult
Publisher: Puffin
Overall: 5 Monkeys
Interest: Series
Categories: Paranormal, Witchcraft, Religions, Wicca, Family Issues
Other Titles Reviewed in TCM: Book of Shadows (Sweep, #1)Challenge: 100 Books in a Year Read in March 2011Summary from Goodreads:Cal, now Morgan's boyfriend, helps her accept the truth: Wicca is in Morgan's blood. As Morgan learns more about Wicca, she realizes that she needs to find out more about her parentage. The answers are there, but she doesn't know how to find them.
My Opinion:Another great Sweep book!
In this one, Morgan learns more about herself and her heritage, about why she's such a strong witch. Her character is beautifully written, a shy and insecure girl who turns into a powerful witch when in circles.
I loved the relationship between the characters; Cal, Morgan, Bree, Selene, they were all amazing. Morgan's friends are completely believable, Cate does an amazing job of giving each of them their own personality, and that is a hard thing to do!
There's so much going on, it keeps you on the edge of your seat the entire time! Definitely a book worth reading!
It's such a short/quick read, that I don't have much else to say, because I don't want to ruin it for those of you who want to read it.
You can now buy bind-ups of these books, they come three books per bind-up, meaning the first three books, that were first published individually, are now one bind-up, and so on.
Book of Shadows (Sweep, #1), by Cate Tiernan on GoodreadsRelease Date: March 22nd, 2007
Publisher: Puffin
Age Group: Young Adult
Categories: Paranormal, Witchcraft, Religions, Wicca, Family Issues,
Source:Web
Overall: 5 MonkeysRead on January 2011
Summary from Goodreads: Morgan thinks witchcraft is laughable when her best friend Bree drags her to a meeting of the Cirrus Coven. But during a cermony led by Cal, Morgan's long-time crush, Morgan feels a shock. Suddenly everything looks brighter, clearer. Morgan doesn't want to get involved with witchcraft-but she feels like witchcraft is choosing her.
My Opinion: This is an old book, that was first released back in 2001, but it's like reading about today or last year. Nothing much has changed since then, "high-school-wise", in terms of cliques and such.
BoS is like reading a diary of a girl who makes the transition from Catholic (or Protestant, it didn't say or I don't remember) to Wicca, the witches' religion. And by Witchcraft, I don't mean devil-worshipping or pinning needles into a voodoo doll. I mean, a completely tolerant and nature-focused religion. I know about it because I've been reading about Wicca for a year now. So when you hear the words Wicca, Witchcraft and witch all in one conversation, don't jump to the conclusion, "Oh, so she/he's gone dark and from now on will be wearing black and listening to satanist rock bands," because that couldn't be more off the point.
But this isn't a lesson on Wicca or Paganism, or History, for that matter.
Morgan (conveniently named that, since Morgana was a powerful witch in the Arturian era) is a sixteen year old girl. Simple, the my-best-friend-is-prettier-than-me type, who knows nothing about witches... until Cal comes along.
Cal is your typical hot new boy in school, but there's something else about him. He's a witch (not a wizard -that's in Harry Potter only, people!- nor a warlock -that's in Charmed!-, but a witch. In Wicca, there's no distinction between male and female when speaking of witches.)
This book is a visual feast of children in religions around the world as they pray, sing and participate in rituals. Faith by Maya Ajmera, Magda Nakassis and Cynthia Pon showcases the similarities between the world religions in sections such as:
- We pray
- We celebrate with festivals
- We mark the important events of our lives
- We respect others, making friends and building peace.
All three authors are associated with the Global Fund for Children. The group's mission is to advance the dignity of children and youth around the world by making small grants to groups working with the world's most vulnerable children. Read more
here.Full of delightful, engaging children, the books clearly demonstrates that people of the world are more similar than different. The book can be used as a teaching tool or just to share with your favorite young reader. Globalization in the 21st century is pushing the countries of the world closer together. This book is a good way to introduce youngsters to their future as global citizens who care for and respect the differences of others. Kudos to Charlesbridge publishing and the Global Fund for Children.
