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Power Relations and Breakaway in Pentecostal/Charismatic Denominations in Africa Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2024-01-10 Samson Oluwatope Ijaola
Pentecostal denominations are undoubtedly spreading in Africa. While the proliferation of Pentecostal churches appears to be the resultant effect of church planting strategies and the works of the Holy Spirit, it is rather struggles from the power relations that serve as the underlying force behind the spread of these denominations. This is connected to the fact that Pentecostal churches govern themselves
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The Role of the Colonial State in the Spread and Strengthening of Christianity in Colonial Tanganyika, Circa 1890–1961 Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2024-01-10 Somo M.L. Seimu, Yustina Samwel Komba
This paper makes an essential contribution by arguing that shifts in German colonial educational policy, which continued under British control, consistently favoured the spread of Christianity over Islam in Tanganyika. The paper also looks at how the two colonial powers used Article 6 of the Berlin Act 1884–1885, Article 438 of the Versailles Treaty, and Article 22 of the League of Nations Covenant
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Worship, Culture, and the Contested Past Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2024-01-10 Chigemezi Nnadozie Wogu
This article is a product of an empirical study that argues that denominational worship praxis is a contested issue among Seventh-day Adventists (SDA s) in Nigeria today. Using analysis from fieldnotes and interviews, this article shows that there are some congregants who prefer to do worship as it was practiced by their denominational pioneers. This group keeps this memory sacred. Another group of
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Haunted by Reconciliation? Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2023-10-21 George J (Cobus) Van Wyngaard, Rachel C. Schneider
Conversations about race in South Africa continue to be shaped by a religious-redemptive narrative of reconciliation that emerged in the democratic transition. However, there is a history of critical Black and liberation theological voices questioning whether the religious/ethical ideal of reconciliation adequately addresses the injustices of systemic racism. These questions gained new resonance in
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Religion, Religious Climate, and Students’ Sense of Belonging in a South African University Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2023-10-21 Yaw Owusu-Agyeman, Semira Pillay
Informed by a social constructionist approach, this study examines the relationship between religion, institutional religious climate, and students’ sense of belonging in a university in South Africa. Data were gathered and analysed from a sample of 2026 students who completed a survey that included an open-ended section. The results revealed that students’ perceptions of institutional religious climate
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The Rhetoric of Ghanaian Religious Communication Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2023-10-21 Daniel Appiah Gyekye
This paper examines the rhetoric of Ghana’s religious communication. Meta-analysis of the rhetorical situation of Ghanaian religious communication was conducted to examine how rhetoric has been used in Ghanaian society. Thus, the paper analyzed the effectiveness of religious rhetoric as a tool for religious propagation. It examined various forms of communication such as preaching, singing, dancing
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Mꜣꜥt ‘Maat’, Death and the Afterlife: Abstract Ideal and/or Lived Practice? Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2023-09-18 Joseph Aketema, Ọbádélé Bakari Kambon
This study sets out to demonstrate how in classical and traditional Afrikan thought one’s afterlife on physical and spiritual planes is thought of as being commensurate with one’s adherence to Mꜣꜥt ‘Maat’ in terms of lived practice rather than simply as an abstract ideal. As such, we will interrogate textual examples from classical Kmt ‘The Black Nation/Land of the Blacks’ and attested lived examples
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Inclusive Cultural and Religious Pluralism as an Indispensable Worldview for Peace in Africa: How the Bible, the Qura’n, and African Traditional Religions Honor this Worldview Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2023-08-09 Marinus Chijioke Iwuchukwu†
Historically Africa has accommodated multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, and multi-religious peoples. Hospitality is imbedded in the DNA of Africa especially in the sub-Saharan parts of the continent. Sadly armed conflicts and violence are becoming quintessential to the African nomenclature. As a result, suffering, poverty, refugees, and emigration are also becoming endemic to the continent. This article
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Socioreligious Aspects of 217 Women’s Letters in Egypt, 300 BC–AD 800 Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2023-06-26 Luigi M. De Luca, Laura Armey
Egyptian women’s religious expressions in papyrus letters (Bagnall and Cribiore, 2006) were divided into five categories: None, no god(s) mentioned; Pray, containing “Pray” without gods; Gods, for Greek Gods; Sarapis/local Gods/προσκυνήµα for letters containing prayers in which obeisance before a God is expressed in the Egyptian reverential manner, a προσκυνήµα; Θεός/Κύριος/Χριστός letters to the Christian
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Contested Religious and Cultural Issues: An Encounter between Western Missions and African Cultures and Religions in South Africa in the Nineteenth Century Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2023-06-13 Henry Mbaya
This article discusses the encounter between the missionaries of the Glasgow Missionary Society (Free Church of Scotland, hence Presbyterians), and the Wesleyans (Methodists) in the nineteenth century and the AmaXhosa in the Eastern Frontier of the Cape Colony. It specifically highlights the AmaXhosa’s contestations of some European Christian teachings, cultural values, and a way of life, which the
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Traditions of the Origin and Growth of Indigenous Prophetic Church Movements in Nigeria: The Cases of Garrick Sokari Braide and Joseph Ayodele Babalola, 1915–1930 Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2023-06-07 Kanayo Nwadialor
Indigenous prophetic church movements constitute a significant portion of Christianity in Africa and a unique spirit in African Christianity. Garrick Braide was the first to lead such a group in Nigeria in 1915. The Christ Apostolic Church is an ancient indigenous church in Nigeria; however, it appears that the church faces problems generated by the apparent confusion about the origin of the church
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Religious Conversion, Proselytization, and the Marginalisation of Indigenous Religions in Ghana Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2023-06-02 Abamfo Ofori Atiemo, Seth Tweneboah
This paper probes the intricate connection of conversion, proselytization, and the state of Ghana to achieve three overarching goals. First, it unravels how colonialism, Christianity, and Islam have historically and collectively marginalised African indigenous religions. Second, it demonstrates a clever state maneuver to continue the historic joint colonial and missionary projection of Christianity
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Globalization and Islamic Music (Asalatu) in Nigeria Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2023-05-18 Olayinka Akanle, O. Omoniyi
This article explores Asalatu, a form of Islamic music among Yoruba Muslims in Nigeria, against the backdrop of globalization and the impact of Western music. The article points to observed changes in the music and musical possibilities within increasing secularization. Drawing on ethnographic data, the article illuminates tangential issues such as the use of the mother tongue for Islamic music as
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Teaching and Preaching: Missionary Education and Colonial Subjects in Italian Eritrea (1890–1935) Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2023-05-16 Temesgen Tesfamariam
During European colonial times in Africa and elsewhere, missionary education was an integral part of the colonial instruments for political domination, economic exploitation, and cultural assimilation. This paper aims to investigate the process of making colonial subjects through missionary education that was mainly provided by Catholic and Evangelical mission schools during the Italian colonial period
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Fetha Negest and the Existing Federal Laws of Ethiopia: A Comparative Analysis on the Appointment of Federal Judges Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2023-03-28 Adane Mandie Damtew
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the contribution of Fetha Negest to the development of Ethiopia’s legal system and to evaluate the present judges’ appointment law of Ethiopia in line with indigenous sources. It focuses particularly on Fetha Negest, which had a significant impact on Ethiopia’s judicial system until the early 1940s. To this effect, the research for this paper discovered chapter
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The Impacts of Teachings of a Neo-Prophetic Church on Adolescents’ Well-being and Character Development: An Exploratory Qualitative Study in Ghana Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2023-03-28 Joana Salifu Yendork
Neo-Prophetic churches in Ghana are the fastest growing churches and have been highly criticised, but little is known about their teachings and potential impacts on adolescent congregants. The present study explored the content and impacts of the teachings of a Neo-Prophetic church on the well-being and character development of adolescent congregants. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with
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The Missionaries’ Engagement with Science and Technology in Colonial Kenya, 1887–1963 Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2023-03-28 Julius Gathogo
The missionaries’ engagement with science and technology in colonial Kenya (1887–1963) is evidentially seen through the use of the post-industrial revolution’s breakthroughs of the eighteenth century, which included: advancement in science and mass production, steam engines, and the rise of digital technology. The tendency to rely heavily on post-industrial innovations and inventions were critical
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Sufi Feminism: Women Leaders in African Sufi Movements Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2023-02-13 Hamdy A. Hassan
Men founded and have ruled over Sufi orders since their inception, and thus the position of Khalifa or shaykh has been traditionally held by men. However, this study argues that in some Islamic mystical traditions women have assumed a senior leadership role with all the power that such a prominent position entails. More research is needed to understand the challenges Sufi women have faced in legitimizing
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The Meaning, Spiritual Foundation, and Mythology of African Sacred Landscapes: The Case of Sacred Forests among the Bena of Njombe, Tanzania Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2023-01-18 Edward Simon Mgaya
In various cultures around the world, past and present, many natural and cultural sites are deemed sacred. What are sacred landscapes? What are the spiritual foundations for their formation? How are they formed? How are they protected? The answers to these questions help frame a discussion of sacred landscapes within the context of their meaning, origin, and management processes as lived experiences
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Breaking the Spirit of Poverty in African Pentecostal Christianity: A Traction or A Wither? Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2023-01-11 Elias Kiptoo Ng’etich
Poverty is one of Africa’s most intractable problems. Decades of deliberate and strategic socioeconomic policies have not yielded considerable concrete results to eradicate it. Upon succeeding the brutal colonial administration, the burgeoning African governments promised their citizens material well-being through socioeconomic development. A half century later the continent is perpetually witnessing
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The Emergence of the Bissau-Guinean Fula Cernos: Domination, Resistance, and Liberation Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2023-01-11 Hamadou Boiro, Jónína Einarsdóttir
International agencies and non-governmental organisations classify Quranic schoolboys who beg on behalf of their teachers as victims of child trafficking. The aim here is to understand why no Bissau-Guinean Fula religious leader, referred to as cerno, has been sentenced to prison, despite accusations of child trafficking. The findings show that community members hold religious leaders in high esteem
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A Historiographical Overview of Mission and Politics in Twentieth-Century Angola and Mozambique Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-12-29 Eric Morier-Genoud
Academic studies of mission and politics in Angola and Mozambique began in earnest in the late 1980s. This article describes what the literature built on, what debates it engaged in in the 1990s, and how the literature has evolved since. It looks at writings and discussions about politics, African Christianity, anthropology, photography, the ‘boomerang effect’, and Pentecostalism, among others. The
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Protestant Replications: The Conversion, Ordination, and Schism of a Zulu Bishop in Colonial Natal Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-12-29 Ingie Hovland
This article examines the story of Mbiyana Ngidi and his five-decade conversion career, leading up to his establishment of an Ethiopianist church in 1890 – the first African Initiated Church in the Colony of Natal in Southern Africa. I focus on three events in his life – conversion, ordination, schism – and suggest that one way of reading these events is as different forms of replication: conversion
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Pentecostal Conceptions of Warfare Prayer among the Yoruba in Southwestern Nigeria Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-11-18 Olufikayo Kunle Oyelade, Ayokunle Olumuyiwa Omobowale
Warfare prayer is a common ritual practice among Yoruba Pentecostal adherents in southwestern Nigeria. It entails visualization of a supposed enemy or battle and the utilization of warfare prayers, songs, and Bible verses to supposedly neutralize opposing forces. In fact, scholars have established that the continued growth of Pentecostalism and the proliferation of Pentecostal churches in sub-Saharan
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The Preslavery Praxis and Ethos of the Religion of West African People Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-11-17 Kefas Lamak
Compared to other world religions such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism, West African Traditional Religion (WATR) has been misunderstood, misinterpreted, and misrepresented in Euro-American society since the colonial encounter of Africans and Europeans. Sadly, the colonial naming and categorizing of West African religion as savage, animism, and idol worship continues in the popular
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Ilé L’àbọ̀ Simi Oko: Cogitations and Reflections about Homeland, Maxim and Theoretical Propensity for Yorùbá Religion Influences between Ọ̀yọ́, Sábę and Ifè̩-Ana Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-11-11 Abiodun Olasupo Akande
This study employs the Yorùbá canonical maxim Ilé làbọ̀ simi oko and its antonymous equivalents as theoretical propensities and models for religion and material exchanges between the Ọ̀yó̩-Yorùbá, Sábę-Yorùbá, and Ifè̩-Ana Yorùbá communities. After centuries of independent existences, the Sábę and Ifè̩-Ana Yorùbá communities have continued in the practice of traditional Yorùbá religion and its attendant
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Fá Divination, Well-being, and Coolness in Bénin, West Africa Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-10-27 Timothy R. Landry
For more than 40 years the relationships that exist between divination and knowledge have become central to anthropology’s understanding of African religious practice. This paper deemphasizes the commonly mobilized ‘divination as knowledge’ trope in favor of highlighting its role in achieving well-being. Indeed, I argue that by focusing on divination as a way of knowing ethnographers have inadvertently
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Christianity and the Gendering of Personal Names among the Bette in Southeastern Nigeria Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-10-24 Romanus Aboh, Eyo Mensah, Idom Inyabri, Lucy Ushuple
Contributing to extant debates on the juncture of naming and gender(ing), this study interrogates naming practices among Bette-Christians of northern Cross River, Southeastern Nigeria, and how they enhance understanding of the relation between naming and the enunciation of religious identity as well as how gender is enacted. With analytical insights from socio-onomastic theory, which explores the relationship
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On the Colonial History of the Ideas of God(s) in Africa Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-10-24 Diana Lunkwitz
This contribution examines contested ideas of god(s) as held by Protestant missionaries and the German explorer Hugo Zöller in the early colonial period of Cameroon and in neighbouring West African countries in the 1880s. While many present studies on African Traditional Religion(s) tend to perpetuate an understanding of religion around one supreme god, Zöller’s reports included discontinuities and
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Politics of Spiritual Warfare Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-10-24 Päivi Hasu
This article examines the transformation of Pastor Josephat Gwajima of the Glory of Christ Tanzania Church in Dar es Salaam into a Pentecostal Big Man characterized by neopatrimonialism and clientelism. It argues that Pastor Gwajima’s status rests first, on religious mediation and individual as well as collective deliverance, and second, on the long-term creation of a Christian electorate. The paper
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Decolonising the Theologico-Political Problem Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-10-19 Siphiwe Ignatius Dube
The theologico-political problem, traditionally concerned with the question of the seat of authority or sovereignty in the West (rendered through the metaphor of Jerusalem vs Athens or Revelation vs Reason), has been brought to the fore of late in a number of nation-states in Africa. To the end of rethinking the theologico-political problem or decolonising it, this article draws on Achille Mbembe’s
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[RETRACTED] Inscribing Agency in Religious Change: The Rise of Messianism in Pokot, Kenya Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-10-07 Karani Shiyuka
In the wake of the cultural turn, there has been a gradual shift in the theorization of African religions, from the static structural-functionalist oriented models, towards the insertion of agency. This new approach foregrounds the intentional actions of individuals, or collective actors, to create meaning when confronted with external cultural ideas. The African, therefore, is treated as an active
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Decolonising African Divine Episteme Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-09-16 Charles Prempeh
The goal of this paper is to decolonise Akan divine episteme from undue Euro-Christian influence. Since the 1920s, cultural anthropologists have argued that the Akan concept of Twereduampon Kwame is because God either revealed himself to the Akan on a Saturday or the Akan worshipped God on that day. Employing in-depth interviews and a secondary data research approach that incorporates analysis of extant
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From the Ruins of Empire Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-09-16 José Ramón Rodríguez Lago
After Spain lost its overseas territories, Spanish priests increased their presence in Africa. From an analysis of the bibliography and the press of the time as well as of the different documents issued by the nunciature of Madrid, the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, and the Secretariat of State of the Vatican, it is possible to draw some significant conclusions about the evolution
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‘I Got the Call – Not Him’ Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-09-16 Marie-Luise Frost
This paper examines how the call to found their own churches has allowed and enabled women to subvert and challenge prescribed gender roles. It focuses on African Initiated Churches including both African Independent and Pentecostal Charismatic churches. While the importance of women in these churches is widely acknowledged, less attention has been given to the question of how female church founders
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Jaime Gonçalves Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-09-16 Silas Fiorotti
This paper emphasizes the trajectory of Jaime Pedro Gonçalves (1936–2016) and especially the perspectives of this Mozambican bishop on some facts regarding the recent history of Mozambique. The hypothesis defended is that the trajectory approach is very important for understanding several aspects of Mozambique’s recent history, and that the bishop’s perspectives challenge and point to the limits of
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The Making of Religion Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-09-16 João Ferreira Dias
This essay aims to focus on the concept of religion and its conceptual implications in the observation of African religions, taking the Yorùbá and Candomblé religious attitudes and beliefs as case studies. I intend to trace a new itinerary in the conceptualization of African religious experiences, using native structures as the setting for theory. I point out that African-Yorùbá religious experience
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The Paradox of the Margins Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-09-16 Gabriel Masfa
The early growth prospects of the American-Based Seventh-day Adventist Church in Africa were blurry because of challenges that early missionaries encountered. However, against all odds, the denomination on this continent shook off setbacks related to its difficult beginnings in the 1900s. Through the investigation of familiar and unfamiliar themes, this article seeks to raise awareness about new dynamics
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Religion and Subjective Well-being Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-09-16 Ben-Willie Kwaku Golo, Ernestina E. Novieto
The relationship between religion and subjective well-being has received research attention in recent decades with mixed results, particularly related to life satisfaction, fewer traumatic outcomes, and happiness. With the assumption that the connection between religion and subjective well-being depends on the context and the religious certainty of participants and considering that majority of religion-well-being
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Rwandan Perceptions of Jews, Judaism, and Israel Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-09-16 Jonathan R. Beloff
Religious studies of Rwanda typically focus on Christi26662531anity’s involvement before, during, and after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, also referred to as the Rwandan Genocide. Rwanda’s postgenocide reconstruction has witnessed new and changing political and social commitments by previously established religious organisations such as the Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Adventist Churches
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The Transformation of the Religious thought of the Pokot of Northwestern Kenya, c.1800–1900 Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-09-16 Karani Shiyuka
Historical studies have indicated that African religions, in the pre-colonial period, were dynamic and multilayered with long histories of contradictions, contestations, and synthesis. Using the Pokot of north-western Kenya as a case in point, this contribution attempts to demonstrate the fluidity that was inherent in African religions. The Pokot originally were an agro-pastoral group inhabiting the
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‘Wash and Pray’ Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-09-16 Tenson Muyambo, Nomatter Sande, Jane Tendere
‘Continue to wash your hands, continue to wear your mask, continue to sanitize, continue to maintain social distance, and lastly continue to pray’. These were the closing remarks of a pastor who was preaching online to his congregants in the context of the second and third waves of COVID-19 variants. This article focuses on the church’s utilisation (or lack) of both religion and science under the ‘wash’
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Ambivalent Belonging: Born-Again Christians between Africa and Europe Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-07-05 Leslie Fesenmyer
Historically entangled with nation, race, and religion, questions of belonging are pressing and affective ones in Africa and Europe. Against the backdrop of anti-migrant hostility, globalization, and autochthonous claims, I consider how born-again Christians in London negotiate belonging between Kenya, their country of origin, and the United Kingdom, their country of residence. As ‘migrants’ and ‘diasporans’
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Cultural Reconstruction of Ọzọ Initiation Rites in Igbo-Ukwu Southeast, Nigeria and Identity Preservation Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-07-05 Obiageli C. Okoye
Most aspects of Igbo culture were abandoned and some faced the threat of extinction as a result of colonialism and Christian religion. Ọzọ title taking, an exclusive title for honest and successful men was abandoned in Igbo-Ukwu because of its connection with Igbo traditional religion. The study employed qualitative approach to investigate the traditional ọzọ initiation ritual, the reconstructed version
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Expanding the Bounds of Christianity and Feminism Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-07-05 Rebecca C. Hughes
As headmistress of the London Missionary Society’s Girls’ Boarding School from 1915–1940 in Mbereshi, Zambia, Mabel Shaw (1889–1973) created an innovative educational programme that embraced local culture and empowered women. Shaw drew from theological, anthropological, and feminist perspectives to guide her understanding of Bemba culture. Shaw built upon fulfilment theology with its premise that all
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From the Ruins of Empire Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-07-05 José Ramón Rodriguez Lago
After Spain lost its overseas territories, Spanish priests increased their presence in Africa. From an analysis of the bibliography and the press of the time as well as of the different documents issued by the nunciature of Madrid, the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith and the Secretariat of State of the Vatican, it is possible to draw some significant conclusions about the evolution
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Inter-religious Demonisation and Its Persuasiveness Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-07-05 Ran Muratsu
This study investigates the Banamè Church, which has gained significant persuasive powers for conversion in Southern Benin, where the public is intensely afraid of witches and Pentecostal Charismatic Churches have expanded rapidly to fight against them. The Banamè Church claims that God came down and took the body of a girl called Parfaite and denies the authenticity of all other churches and religions
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Is the Church a Place of Solace or Frustration? Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-07-05 Elizabeth Anokyewaa Sarfo, Joana Salifu Yendork, Lily Kpobi
Religion is seen to have both positive and negative impacts on the individual and the society. The present study sought to investigate the impact of neo-prophetic Christianity on the members of neo-prophetic churches in Ghana. Eighty-six congregants of six neo-prophetic churches in Accra and Kumasi were sampled for this study. Methods used in the gathering of data included in-depth interviews, church
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Odù Ifá in Transition: Contemplating Boundary Mechanisms in Discursive and Critical Appreciation of the Ifá Corpus Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-07-05 Ibrahim B. Anoba
Some Ifá priests and scholars have argued that noninitiates should not engage the Odù Ifá corpus. They suggest that such an undertaking could be spiritually dangerous and lead to the corruption of Ifá’s messages that its practitioners have established. This article demonstrates why the Odù Ifá corpus should be open to engagement by noninitiates who are familiar with Òrìṣà logics and the intricacies
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Precolonial Beliefs in God, Nzambi, and Chthonic Beings: Evidence from Kongo Texts Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-07-05 Wyatt MacGaffey
Manuscripts in their own language by indigenous ethnographers at the beginning of the colonial period, not hitherto examined in detail, give unique insight into precolonial beliefs in the Kikongo-speaking region of what was then Belgian Congo, and the transition to Christianity. That transition depended in large part on translation, giving new meanings to old words. The texts suggest that Nzambi, now
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Travelling Gods, Ritual Memory, and Slavery in Contemporary Benin Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-07-05 Jung Ran Forte
For more than two centuries the Bight of Benin participated in the Atlantic trade. Today, along the same coastal region, it is possible to encounter Tchamba, the spirits of foreign slaves from the northern savannah. Tchamba ritual practice, part and parcel of the Vodun religion, narrates peculiar stories of domestic slavery and the Atlantic trade, of struggles for emancipation, love and trade, women
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Wollo: A Land of Religious and Ethnic Amalgamation Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-07-05 Misganaw Tadesse Melaku
Wollo is a province in Ethiopia where many ethnic, religious, and cultural groups live in harmony. The religious demography of the province, which has an almost equal number of Muslims and Christians living together intermingled, made social interaction inevitable. As a result, the community has a unique history of tolerance, peaceful coexistence, and a strong sense of togetherness. The people share
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Conflict Mediation and Bungoma Activism in a South African Township Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-06-28 Bosco B. Bae
The following article draws on fieldwork with traditional African healers in an urban South African township and examines mediation sessions undertaken by a group of healers with a view to contemporary conflicts that emerged during their praxis. I argue that the healers’ mediation practices are a form of activism that addresses the hermeneutical and institutional gap between traditional healing and
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Family Resemblances in Action Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-06-28 Rijk van Dijk, Thomas G. Kirsch, Franziska Duarte dos Santos
The introduction to this special issue argues that in many countries in southern Africa a new phase in the entanglement between the religious and the political has set in. Increasingly, activists in political fields are borrowing from religious registers of discourse and practice, while conversely, activists in the religious domain are adopting discourses and practices originating in the political
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Managing Unruliness: The (Anti-)Politics of Volunteer Management Practices in Faith-Based Organizations Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-06-28 Thomas G. Kirsch
Based on an ethnographic analysis of volunteer management practices in faith-based organizations in Zambia, this article outlines the dilemmas that these organizations face when deploying volunteers. Due to financial constraints, most of these organizations have to rely on voluntary work from local residents in order to realize their goals. I show that when the volunteers’ work is concerned with social
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On Becoming and Being a ‘Living Testimony of Change’: Masculinity, Gender Activism, and Pentecostalism in South Africa Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-06-28 Franziska Duarte dos Santos
Building on ethnographic research, this article explores the significance of narrative accounts, namely testimonies and confessions, in the social project of creating reformed men in urban and peri-urban settings of present-day South Africa. By drawing attention to certain ‘family resemblances’ (Wittgenstein 1953) between Pentecostalism and gender activism, it analyses how gender activists use testimonies
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Pentecostalism and the Arts of Insistence: Examples from Botswana Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-06-28 Rijk van Dijk, Kim Molenaar
This contribution explores the significance of religious practices that put emphasis on encouraging people to hold their position when others question the ideological or dogmatic elements of their faith. Applying the term ‘religious insistence’, it investigates these practices with a view to the ways in which Pentecostals take a position vis-à-vis the challenges they confront in the sociopolitical
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Political Activism in Pentecostal Charismatic Evangelical Churches and the 2019 Elections in South Africa Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-06-28 Maria Frahm-Arp
This article examines the public messages of the leaders of six Pentecostal Charismatic Evangelical Churches (PCE) in South Africa during the six months leading up to the 2019 presidential elections in that country. All six leaders presented themselves as knowledgeable about politics and as having solutions to ‘fix’ the political corruption and the failing economy that plagued South Africa in 2019
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Tactical Activism Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-06-28 Rafael Cazarin
This article examines religious leaders’ engagements with gender transformative activism during prevention training workshops for sexual and gender-based violence. I draw on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in 2017 and 2018 in a South African NGO that promotes gender equality and human rights across Africa. My aim is twofold: to explore the tensions between the private and public dimensions of religious
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East African Religious Pluralism Journal of Religion in Africa Pub Date : 2022-04-21 Blair Alan Gadsby
For many recent generations the city of Mombasa, Kenya, on the east African coast (pop. 1.2 million) has been a cosmopolitan racial-cultural-religious milieu of the African, Arab, Indian-Asian, and European. The purpose of this paper is to clarify religious pluralism (r/p) in this urban context to see if there are any instructions to be drawn for the academic understanding of religion in keeping with