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1
Taringa, Nisbert, and Clifford Mushishi. "Mainline Christianity and Gender in Zimbabwe." Fieldwork in Religion 10, no. 2 (March 29, 2016): 173–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/firn.v10i2.20267.
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This research aimed to find out the actual situation on the ground regarding what mainline Christianity is actually doing in confronting or conforming to biblical and cultural norms regarding the role and position of women in their denominations. It is based on six mainline churches. This field research reveals that it may not be enough to concentrate on gender in missionary religions such as Christianity, without paying attention to the base culture: African traditional religio-culture which informs most people who are now Christians. It also illuminates how the churches are actually acting to break free of the oppressive biblical traditions and bringing about changes regarding the status of women in their churches. In some cases women are now being given more active roles in the churches, but on the other hand are still bound at home by an oppressive traditional Shona patriarchal culture and customs. Through a hybrid qualitative research design combining phenomenology and case study, what we are referring to as phenomenological case study, we argue that Christianity is a stimulus to change, an impetus to revolution, and a grounding for dignity and justice that supports and fosters gender equity efforts.
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Taringa, Nisbert. "How Environmental is African Traditional Religion?" Exchange 35, no. 2 (2006): 191–214. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157254306776525672.
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AbstractThis article examines some of the beliefs and practices underlying traditional African religion's attitudes to nature with reference to Shona religion of Zimbabwe. At the theoretical level, assuming a romantic view of Shona attitudes to nature, it is possible to conclude that Shona traditional religion is necessarily environmentally friendly. The strong beliefs in ancestral spirits (midzimu), pan-vitalism, kinship, taboo and totems have the potential to bear testimony to this. The aim of this article is to critically examine the extent of the claims that Shona traditional religion is environmentally friendly. It shows that Shona attitudes to nature are in fact discriminative and ambivalent. I argue that the ecological attitude of traditional African religion is more based on fear or respect of ancestral spirits than on respect for nature itself. As a result we need to re-examine Shona attitudes to nature if Shona traditional religion is to re-emerge as a stronger environmental force in the global village. After introductory remarks the article gives an overview background about the Shona focusing on their socio-political organization, world-view and religion. An examination of Shona attitudes to nature focusing on the land, animals, and plant life and water bodies follows. After this there is a reflection on the ethical consequences of Shona attitudes to nature. The last part considers the limits of the romantic view of Shona attitudes to nature.
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Thomas, Norman. "Authentic Indigenization and Liberation in the Theology of Canaan Sodindo Banana (1936–2003) of Zimbabwe." Mission Studies 22, no. 2 (2005): 319–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157338305774756540.
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AbstractAfrican theologies are most often classified as either theologies of inculturation, or of liberation. Canaan Banana was one of few African theologians who combine authentic indigenization and liberation in their thought. The author, who knew Rev. Banana personally, based his analysis on Banana's writings and on interpretations by other scholars. Banana's theology was influenced by his ecumenical leadership as a Methodist minister, studies in the United States, involvement in the liberation struggle, and national leadership as the first President of Zimbabwe. Banana's liberation perspective, in contrast to those of most South African black theologians, dealt with issues of class rather than of color. His political theology, articulated when he was president of Zimbabwe, focused on the relation of socialism and Christianity. For him liberation involved struggle and even armed struggle. In his last decade former President Banana began to articulate a prophetic "Combat Theology." Banana stimulated a heated discussion on biblical hermeneutics in southern Africa by proposing deletion from the Bible of passages used to justify oppression. Believing that God is revealed also through creation and African culture, he found creative myths and images of Jesus in the cultures of his own Shona and Ndebele peoples. His contribution is a theology that can help Christianity to be both indigenous and socially relevant in 21st century Africa.
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Chekero, Tamuka, and Shannon Morreira. "Mutualism Despite Ostensible Difference: HuShamwari, Kuhanyisana, and Conviviality Between Shona Zimbabweans and Tsonga South Africans in Giyani, South Africa." Africa Spectrum 55, no. 1 (April 2020): 33–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0002039720914311.
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This ethnographic study explores forms of mutuality and conviviality between Shona migrants from Zimbabwe and Tsonga-speaking South Africans living in Giyani, South Africa. To analyse these forms of mutuality, we draw on Southern African concepts rather than more conventional development or migration theory. We explore ways in which the Shona concept of hushamwari (translated as “friendship”) and the commensurate xiTsonga category of kuhanyisana (“to help each other to live”) allow for conviviality. Employing the concept of hushamwari enables us to move beyond binaries of kinship versus friendship relations and examine the ways in which people create reciprocal friendships that are a little “like kin.” We argue that the cross-cutting forms of collective personhood that underlie both Shona and Tsonga ways of being make it possible to form social bonds across national lines, such that mutuality can be made between people even where the wider social context remains antagonistic to “foreigners.”
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Samanga, T., and V. M. Matiza. "Depiction of Shona marriage institution in Zimbabwe local television drama, Wenera Diamonds." Southern Africa Journal of Education, Science and Technology 5, no. 1 (August 28, 2020): 53–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/sajest.v5i1.39824/sajest.2020.001.
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Marriage is a highly celebrated phenomenon among the African people. It is one of the important institutions among the Shona and Ndebele people in Zimbabwe as expressed in the saying ‘musha mukadzi’ and ‘umuzingumama’ (home is made by a woman) respectively. However with the coming of colonialism in Zimbabwe, marriage was not given the appropriate respect it deserves. This has given impetus to this paper where the researchers in the study through drama want to bring out the depiction of marriage institution in a post -independence television drama, Wenera Diamonds (2017). This paper therefore, aims to show the impact of neo-colonialism on Shona marriage institution. The neo colonial period is characterised with the perpetuation of Western imperial interests through protocols of diplomatic relations, treaties and existing bilateral agreements which marked a new phase of relationships with former colonisers. The aim of this article therefore is to depict marriage institution in neo colonial Zimbabwe in Wenera Diamonds (2017), a Zimbabwean television drama. Using qualitative research methodology, the research employs content analysis to elucidate the depiction in the said performance. Guided by the Africana womanist perspective, the article argues that the indigenous knowledge needed for African social development is rendered irrelevant by a dysfunctional set of values of the western hegemony. Against that, the paper establishes that the depiction of marriage institution in Wenera diamonds is a reflection of imperialist colonial forces on the black person hence the need to go back to basics and resuscitate their culture.
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SAMBISA, WILLIAM, SIAN L. CURTIS, and C. SHANNON STOKES. "ETHNIC DIFFERENCES IN SEXUAL BEHAVIOUR AMONG UNMARRIED ADOLESCENTS AND YOUNG ADULTS IN ZIMBABWE." Journal of Biosocial Science 42, no. 1 (October 1, 2009): 1–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021932009990277.
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SummaryUnderstanding the social and cultural contextual determinants of sexual behaviour of adolescents and young adults is an essential step towards curtailing the spread of HIV. This study examined the effects of one cultural factor, ethnicity, on sexual abstinence, faithfulness, condom use at last sex, and risky sex among young people in Zimbabwe. Data from the cross-sectional, population-based 2005–06 Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey were used. Net of the effect of sociodemographic and social–cognitive factors, and using multinomial logistic regression, ethnicity was found to have a strong and consistent effect on sexual behaviour among youth. In addition, the study found that there were ethnic-specific and within-gender differences in sexual behaviour, for both men and women. Shona youth were more likely to be abstinent than Ndebele youth. Compared with Shona youth, Ndebele youth were more likely to have engaged in risky sex. However, Ndebele men were more likely have used condoms at last sex, compared with Shona men. For both men and women, sexual behaviour was more socially controlled. School attendance and religion exerted protective effects on sexual abstinence. For men only, those living in rural areas were less likely to be faithful and more likely to have engaged in risky sexual behaviour than those living in urban areas. The study attests to the fact that ethnic norms and ideologies of sexuality need to be identified and more thoroughly understood. In addition, the study provides evidence that in order to promote safe and healthy sexuality among young people in Zimbabwe, cultural, social and gender-specific approaches to the development of HIV prevention strategies should be seriously considered. Current success in the Abstinence, Being faithful and Condom use (ABC) approach could be strengthened by recognizing and responding to cultural forces that reproduce and perpetuate risky sexual behaviours.
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Chitando, Ezra. "‘Faithful Men of a Faithful God’? Masculinities in the Zimbabwe Assemblies of God Africa." Exchange 42, no. 1 (2013): 34–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1572543x-12341249.
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Abstract Many scholars have examined masculinities in African societies. However, these examinations cannot be generalised across Africa, given the socio-cultural, economic, political and historical factors that infringe with religious beliefs. This article offers a case study of masculinities in a specific religious context, the Zimbabwe Assemblies of God Africa (zaoga), a Pentecostal church. It utilises zaoga’s teachings on masculinities against the background of Shona religion and culture (the dominant ethnic group in Zimbabwe). The analysis specifically focuses on the role of the Jesus-figure in the discourse on masculinity in zaoga, exploring whether Jesus presents a model of ‘redemptive masculinity’ or rather reinforces hegemonic notions of masculinity. The article highlights the ambiguity of Pentecostal masculinity and offers an overall critique of the effects of masculinities upon Pentecostal faith and practice.
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Ochiai, Takehiko. "Ryo Ogawa Stategraphy: People and Religion in a Modern African State." Journal of African Studies 1998, no. 53 (1998): 41–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.11619/africa1964.1998.53_41.
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Byerman. "Talking Back: Phillis Wheatley, Race and Religion." Religions 10, no. 6 (June 25, 2019): 401. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel10060401.
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This essay examines the means by which African American poet Phillis Wheatley uses her evangelical Christianity to engage issues of race in revolutionary America. In her poetry and other writings, she addresses and even instructs white men of privilege on the spiritual equality of people of African descent.
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Makaudze, Godwin. "TEACHER, BOOK AND COMPANION: THE ENVIRONMENT IN SHONA CHILDREN’S LITERATURE." Commonwealth Youth and Development 13, no. 2 (June 1, 2016): 100–109. http://dx.doi.org/10.25159/1727-7140/1150.
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Contemporary society has had running battles with citizens, trying to force them to be aware and appreciative of the importance of relating well with, and also safeguarding the environment. Modern ways of child socialisation seem in mentoring youngsters about the being, nature and significance of the environment (both natural and social) in life. Today, society it has largely become the duty of non-governmental organisations and law enforcement agents to educate and safeguard against the abuse of the social environment and the degradation, pollution and extinction of crucial facets of the natural environment. Using the Afrocentricity theory, the article explicates the position of the environment in Shona children’s oral literature (folktales, songs, riddles and taboos), showing that it was presented, viewed and taken as a teacher, book and close companion whose welfare was to be guarded jealously. The article advocates the adoption and adaptation of African ways of child socialisation, which subtly but effectively build a positive and healthy relationship between people and their environment.
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Nhemachena, Artwell. "Hakuna Mhou Inokumira Mhuru Isiri Yayo: Examining the Interface between the African Body and 21st Century Emergent Disruptive Technologies." Journal of Black Studies 52, no. 8 (June 15, 2021): 864–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/00219347211026012.
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Colonially depicted as a region distinctive for fables and fabrications, Africa has ever since not been allowed to reclaim anything original. Dispossessed of their original wealth, Africans have been forced to live in fabled and fabricated houses, eating fabled, and fabricated food—closer to animals. Similarly, dispossessed of their original human identities, Africans have been forced to adopt fabricated identities. With the 21st century not promising any return to original African human identities, Africans are set to be further nanotechnologically (using tiny nanoparticles) fabricated into cyborgs that speak to ongoing posthumanist and transhumanist experiments with emergent disruptive technologies. Inhabiting not only fabricated houses but also increasingly inhabiting nanotechnologically fabled and fabricated bodies, Africans should learn to, in terms of the Shona (a people of Zimbabwe) proverb, hakuna mhou inokumira mhuru isiri yayo (no cow lows for a calf that is not its own), repossess original mastery over their own lives.
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Barasa Simiyu, Japheth, Ruth Imbuye, Susan Wandukusi, Patrick Barasa, David Loeseps Risper Konzolo, John Masinde, Stephen Mukubuyi, Patrick Olutwati, and Florance Chemayiek. "THE EFFECTS OF WESTERN CHRISTIANITY AND AFRICAN TRADITIONAL RELIGION ON CULTURAL AND MORAL DEVELOPMENT IN TRANS NZOIA COUNTY, KENYA." International Journal of Advanced Research 8, no. 11 (November 30, 2020): 1169–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.21474/ijar01/12114.
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The purpose of this study was to establish effects of Western Christianity and African Traditional Religion on moral and cultural development of the people of Trans Nzoia County. Morals and core values play a very important role in the upbringing of the youth in any given community in any given Geographical part on this planet. The study will be guided by the following objectives: Establish effects of Christianity on moral development, Determine effects of African Traditional Religion on moral development, Compare and contrast effects of moral development of Western Christianity and African Traditional Religion and to determine the role played by morals and core values in both Christianity and African Traditional Religion. Mixed Research method combined both qualitative and quantitative was employed in the study to unearth the hidden truth underlying in the study. The target population was 500 people which gave a sample size of 50Bishops and Pastors of 50 Churches. The researcher employed purposive and simple random sampling techniques. The researcher used two guiding theories in the study: the theory of Atonement on the Christian part and the theory of dual allegiance on the part of African Traditional Religion. Data was collected by use of Questionnaires and Interview schedules. The raw data was analyzed and descriptively availed for facilitation of research objectives and research questions. Computer program SPSS was employed to give the final accurate and precise results of Research findings. The findings indicate that the intrusion of foreign cultures in Trans Nzoia County has helped water down the quality of African morals on one part and the other part there is improvement on cultural and core values of the people of Trans Nzoia County. The conclusion on the same is that since communication and mobility has been so much developed in these resent times, it is easy for people from different parts of the world to meet and interact at any time at any given Geographical zone on the planet. The study recommends that the citizens of Trans Nzoia should be careful enough in considering the kind of morals to be applied in this county since the county is an Agricultural hub where people from different parts of the Earth converge either for commercial purposes or for learning Agri-business techniques.
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Beyers, Jaco, and Lize Kriel. "John Muafangejo’s How God Loves His People All Over the World as Material Religion." Religion and the Arts 24, no. 4 (October 26, 2020): 379–98. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15685292-02404002.
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Abstract The artworks produced at the Evangelical Lutheran Church Art and Craft Centre at Rorke’s Drift, KwaZulu-Natal, have been highly appraised and appreciated in South African art-historical circles, not in the least so as African expressions of postcolonial and anti-apartheid resistance. The work of Namibian artist John Muafangejo (1943–1987) is prominent amongst these. In this article, while borrowing generously from the methods of art historical research, our interest is primarily in works of art as objects of material religion. Erwin Panofsky introduced iconology as a way of determining the meaning of art. Iconology wants to enable the seeing of the unseen; seeing the transcendence—making it most applicable to the study of religion as a cultural practice. This article investigates in a critical way how iconology can assist in the study of material religion, especially as applied to the study of religious art. Because meaning is contextual, the conditions under which religious objects are made and interpreted are as important as the work itself. A discussion of a specific work by John Muafangejo originating from the Rorke’s Drift Centre will be conducted by testing the potential of iconology as an analytical tool in this African Christian environment.
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Matiza, Vimbai Moreblessing, and Limukani T. Dube. "The Cultural and Historical Significance of Kalanga Place Names in Midlands Province of Zimbabwe." Journal of Law and Social Sciences 4, no. 2 (June 30, 2020): 21–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.53974/unza.jlss.4.2.470.
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The discipline of onomastics is still at its infancy yet it constitutes a very important aspect of the day to day survival of a people in the society. Naming is part of oral tradition in African societies, people were never used to write and record things but rather their names. This means that names are a historical record that would carry some aspects of a people's way of life which include their history, beliefs and customs among others. On the same note, Midlands Province constitute of people from different backgrounds mainly Shona and Ndebele. Of interest to this research is the presence of the Kalanga people through some toponyms that are found in the area. In light of this view, this study therefore seeks to identify and unlock the culture and history embedded in these names by looking at the significance of Kalanga place names in Midlands Province. The study argues that place names or toponyms of any people carry with them a history, meaning and significance to particular people that name the places, thus studying the place names in this community can be a valuable tool of unpacking the history surrounding the Kalanga people in Midlands Province in Zimbabwe. Guided by the Afrocentric paradigm, specifically nommoic creativity tenant, the study seeks to explore the cultural and historical significance of Kalanga toponyms in Midlands Province.
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Prickett, Pamela. "Complexity Beyond Intersections: Race, Class, and Neighborhood Disadvantage among African American Muslims." Social Inclusion 6, no. 2 (June 22, 2018): 98–106. http://dx.doi.org/10.17645/si.v6i2.1416.
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This study uses the case of African American Muslims to examine the intersection of religious inequality with other forms of disadvantage. It draws on more than six years of ethnographic and historical research in an African American Muslim community in a poor neighborhood in Los Angeles, comparing the experiences of community members with existing research on first- and second-generation Muslim immigrants. It addresses the three most prominent axes of difference between African American and immigrant Muslims—race/ethnicity, class, and neighborhood disadvantage—to explicate the ways in which religion may compound existing inequalities, or in some cases create new forms of difference. It also shows how identifying as native-born Americans allows African American Muslims to claim religion as a cultural advantage in certain situations. Religion is complex not only when different forms of inequality intersect but when these intersections create a different way of understanding what religion means for people of faith.
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Smith, Katherine. "African Religions and Art in the Americas." Nova Religio 16, no. 1 (August 1, 2012): 5–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/nr.2012.16.1.5.
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This print symposium of Nova Religio is devoted to African religions and arts in the Americas, focusing specifically on devotional arts inspired by the Yoruba people of West Africa. The authors presented here privilege an emic approach to the study of art and religion, basing their work on extensive interviews with artists, religious practitioners, and consumers. These articles contribute an understanding of devotional arts that shows Africa, or the idea of Africa, remains a powerful political and aesthetic force in the religious imagination of the Americas.
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Akitoye, Hakeem A. "Islam and Traditional Titles in Contemporary Lagos Society: A Historical Analysis." International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences 25 (March 2014): 42–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.18052/www.scipress.com/ilshs.25.42.
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Lagos, an area basically inhabited by the Yoruba speaking people of South Western Nigeria and by extension some other parts of West Africa where Islam, Christianity and the African Traditional Religion are still being practised side by side till date with the Africans still being converted to the new faiths without dropping their traditional religion or cultural affiliations. This ideology is very common to the average African who still believes in his culture which has always tainted his way of life or as far as his religion is concerned should not interfere with his culture as the religion as not tacitly condemned some of these practices. This paper intends to examine the extent to which the Yoruba Muslims have been involved in syncretism especially as regards the introduction of the conferment of titles into the Muslim community.
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Jeffries, Bayyinah S. "Black Religion and Black Power: The Nation of Islam’s Internationalism." Genealogy 3, no. 3 (June 29, 2019): 34. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genealogy3030034.
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The Nation of Islam’s influence has extended beyond the United States. This Black American Muslim movement has used the intersection of race and religion to construct a blueprint of liberation that has bonded people of African descent throughout the Diaspora. Their transnational dimensions and ideas of freedom, justice and equality have worked to challenge global white imperialism and white supremacy throughout the 20th century and beyond.
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Otiso, Richard Ondicho. "RELIGION AND THE SOCIAL INTEGRATION OF EAST AFRICAN PROTESTANT CHRISTIAN IMMIGRANTS IN FINLAND." European Journal of Sociology 3, no. 1 (November 16, 2020): 1–10. http://dx.doi.org/10.47672/ejs.493.
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Religion has been highlighted majorly in many scholarly works of sociologists as a key component of social integration. As people migrate from their countries of origin to different countries, they are often faced with difficulties of adapting into the new host society. As much as a lot of emphasis has been put on religion to be a positive influence in the process of social integration, it is not always the case. This article sought to point out the role of religion in social integration of protestant Christian immigrants in Finland as both a facilitator for social integration and a hindrance to social integration with focus on the experiences of East African Protestant Christian immigrants. Religious beliefs of the immigrants from respective countries of origin and the religiosity of the Finnish society serve as a foundation for the immigrant’s settlement and integration into the host society. This study described the process of social integration in a two dimensional approach whereby the first approach focused on the positive role of religion in immigrants integration and secondly the hindrance of religion in social integration. The study found out that religion is a major link in social integration and that it can facilitate social integration and as well hinder social integration, depending on the position it occupies within a host society. Such findings go a way to provide explanations as to why societies are different and why it is easy for religious immigrants to settle in certain societies than others.
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Segell, Glen. "Neo-colonialism in Africa and the Cases of Turkey and Iran." Insight on Africa 11, no. 2 (July 2019): 184–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0975087819845197.
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Africa is suffering from neo-colonialism for the same reasons that it suffered from colonialism. Neo-colonialism is the regressive impact of unregulated forms of aid, trade and foreign direct investment; and the collaboration of African leaders with foreign leaders to ensure that the interests of both are met with little concern for the development, sustainability and poverty reduction and wellbeing in African countries. The relationship is asymmetrical or at the cost of African states and their people, who are dependent rather that inter-dependent and do not profit through development or sustainability. They face destruction of their culture, religion and education through continued advancement of foreign culture, religion and language to supplant the African and growing radicalisation of the population. This is elaborated thematically under four headings: Africa the colonial dream, the emergence of neo-colonialism, the proponents of neo-colonialism and the element of religion. Evidence of Middle East states are shown as neo-colonialists in Africa discussed under the cases of Turkey and Iran. The motivation of the former is for the purposes of economics and the latter is for the purposes of religion. Both benefit also through status by projecting their influence as growing global actors. The breakdown of African nations rather than their positive construction and development is increasingly visible. The conclusions are that neo-colonialism is active.
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Johnson-Odim, Cheryl. "Mirror Images and Shared Standpoints: Black Women in Africa and in the African Diaspora." Issue: A Journal of Opinion 24, no. 2 (1996): 18–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0047160700502297.
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Let me begin by defining two terms that I use in the title. By “mirror images” I mean people who look alike based on certain physical characteristics they have in common. These characteristics may not be exactly the same, but they are close enough that people are both self-identified and other-identified as looking the “same.”By “shared standpoints” I mean that people who have these are commonly enough situated in a set of circumstances or conditions due to shared factors such as ‘race,’ class, ethnicity, religion, sex etc. that they have a common perspective vis-á-vis a number of issues. People can have a shared standpoint on the basis of any one of these factors in common, or, a combination of them.
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Ottenberg, Simon. "Religion and ethnicity in the arts of a Limba Chiefdom." Africa 58, no. 4 (October 1988): 437–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1160351.
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Opening ParagraphThis article examines the major visual and performing arts of one society and explores what changes have occurred to them over roughly one hundred years as a consequence of external religious and ethnic forces. This is a holistic, processual view of a people's arts in a particular region, providing a model to balance the excellently detailed studies of specific art forms which now exist for Africa. Using a holistic view we will raise certain issues concerning changes in African art. One of the most significant is the interrelationship of ethnicity and religion. Scholars (Bravmann, 1974, 1983; Prussin, 1986) have written extensively on the influence of Islam on African art, but have not seriously raised the question of the ethnic factor associated with Islam, which is equally important. In the case of Islam and its carriers there is a delicate intermixing of religion and ethnicity which is at issue and needs exploration. Further, the holistic approach employed here brings to the fore the reasons behind the wide range of responses to change of the various art forms of a people. Why do some syncretise, some disappear and others remain unchanged? Again, the holistic view allows us to ask to what extent the arts of a people merely reflect forces of change, or do they play roles in leading and directing it? The approach requires considerable background history, which is presented below.
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Zoeteman, Corbin. "Religion in The Central African Republic Is Not the Problem, But Could be the Solution." Political Science Undergraduate Review 1, no. 2 (February 15, 2016): 98–106. http://dx.doi.org/10.29173/psur25.
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This paper examines the current conflict in the Central African Republic. I first outline the history of the region, beginning with its colonialization, showing that generations of its citizens have never experienced a stable and just government. I suggest this has lead its people to identify more with their religion instead of their collective nationality. Next I examine the religious undertones of the current conflict, emphasizing that religion is not the source of the problem, but rather a tool used by political factions to justify their destructive actions. I then examine religious peacebuilding exercises used in other conflicts and how they could be applied in the Central African Republic. Finally, I examine how religious leaders are already attempting to unite the country through religion. Overall I believe reconciliation between the factions is possible, and that peacebuilding exercises will lead to a stable and unified democratic government.
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Smith, Mitzi J. "Howard Thurman and the Religion of Jesus." Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 17, no. 3 (October 25, 2019): 271–91. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/17455197-01703003.
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This essay examines Howard Thurman’s interpretation of the historical Jesus and the religion of Jesus in his 1949 book Jesus and the Disinherited (jatd). Thurman interprets Jesus within his first century CE socio-historical context and from the perspective of disinherited African Americans. He articulates the significance of the religion of Jesus, versus religion about Jesus, for the disinherited and how it can ensure their survival. Since jatd addresses race/racism and class/classism but not the intersection of race, gender, and class, I place jatd in conversation with black feminist Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider, womanist theologian Delores Williams’ Sisters in the Wilderness, and Angela Sim’s Lynched, who focus on the survival of black women (Lorde and Williams) and the resilience of black people living in a culture of fear.
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Parsitau, Damaris Seleina. "LAW, RELIGION, AND THE POLITICIZATION OF SEXUAL CITIZENSHIP IN KENYA." Journal of Law and Religion 36, no. 1 (April 2021): 105–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jlr.2021.12.
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AbstractIn Kenya, debates about sexual orientation have assumed center stage at several points in recent years, but particularly before and after the promulgation of the Constitution of Kenya in 2010. These debates have been fueled by religious clergy and by politicians who want to align themselves with religious organizations for respectability and legitimation, particularly by seeking to influence the nation's legal norms around sexuality. I argue that through their responses and attempts to influence legal norms, the religious and political leaders are not only responsible for the nonacceptance of same-sex relationships in Africa, but have also ensured that sexuality and embodiment have become a cultural and religious battleground. These same clergy and politicians seek to frame homosexuality as un-African, unacceptable, a threat to African moral and cultural sensibilities and sensitivities, and an affront to African moral and family values. Consequently, the perception is that homosexuals do not belong in Africa—that they cannot be entertained, accommodated, tolerated, or even understood. Ultimately, I argue that the politicization and religionization of same-sex relationships in Kenya, as elsewhere in Africa, has masked human rights debates and stifled serious academic and pragmatic engagements with important issues around sexual difference and sexual orientation while fueling negative attitudes toward people with different sexual orientations.
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Almeida, Nadi Maria de. "TOWARDS A CHRISTIAN APPROACH TO AFRICA TRADITIONAL RELIGION." INTERAÇÕES 16, no. 1 (March 28, 2021): 118–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.5752/p.1983-2478.2021v16n1p118-131.
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Inter-Religious dialogue is a demand for the mission. Based on the theological investigation of scholars who explore and write on the subject, the article analyses the theological challenge of Inter-Religious dialogue especially in approaching African Traditional Religions. The discussion concerns the Christian theology of religious pluralism with the local religion in Africa looking at the theological progress, not just from the abstract world of books, but also, from connecting with the life of the people, appreciating and connecting points of convergences with the local culture and religions. Still, a long way to go on the reflection and there needs to open wider our vision concerning the action of the Spirit that has been always present in Africa.
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Bompani, Barbara. "Religion and Development from Below: Independent Christianity in South Africa." Journal of Religion in Africa 40, no. 3 (2010): 307–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157006610x525435.
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AbstractMost of the literature on African independent churches (AICs) in South Africa has not paid much attention to their economic and developmental role. In contrast, this article will show how AICs are involved in important economic activities such as voluntary mutual benefit societies, savings clubs, lending societies, stokvels (informal savings funds), and burial societies that control millions of South African rand. In light of firsthand empirical research, this article investigates these kinds of activities, and analyses independent churches’ developmental role. This will allow us to better understand how these communities play a strong and supportive function among Africans in a deprived economic situation. In a period of socio-political transformation in South Africa, AICs are able to answer the needs of the people and their hunger to rebuild an identity. My major critique of classical research on AICs is the failure of the literature to address ‘social change’ in a theoretically adequate way, as something more than just descriptions of ‘traditional’ social structures away from interpretations of modernity.
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Nweke, Kizito Chinedu. "The Renaissance of African Spiritualities vis-à-vis Christianity: Adopting the Model of Mutual Enrichment." Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 48, no. 2 (June 2019): 237–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0008429819830360.
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Christianity has been dominant in many parts of Africa especially since its colonial contact. Recently, however, there is a surge of interest in reviving indigenous spiritualities among Africans, both in Africa and in the diaspora. In Lagos, Nigeria, for example, shrines compete with churches and mosques for adherents and positions. Among the Igbos, a form of convenient interreligiousness has been developed in the society. When issues of practical expediency arise, the Christian would have the option of referring back to his/her traditional religion. Beyond Africa, the rise of African spiritualities has become conspicuous. For various reasons, ranging from Afrocentrism to anti-religious tendencies to the popular religions, from racial animosity to politico-economic ideologies, a lot of people, Africans and non-Africans, are embracing the neo-African spiritualities. This article is a study addressing this revival, by critically analyzing the reasons for its re-emergence, the challenges that have accompanied the revival and the implications of it in the Christian–African spirituality relationship. Can this renaissance in African spirituality bring forth or support a renaissance in Africa? Africa has about 450 million Christians, about 40% of the continent’s population. People of African origin equally make up a good number of Christians outside Africa. In other words, Christianity is decisive, ideologically and structurally, not just as a religion but also in the socio-political life of Africans. Finding a way to harmonize Christianity and African spiritualities, especially in the face of this renaissance, for the growth of Africa, is the aim of this article. Hence, it suggests the model of “Mutual Enrichment.”
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Wells-Oghoghomeh, Alexis. "Race and Religion in the Afterlife of Protestant Supremacy." Church History 88, no. 3 (September 2019): 767–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0009640719001902.
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In her book Christian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World, Katharine Gerbner offers a rich history of Protestant planters’ efforts to tether Christian identity to free status and European descent in the American colonies, and missionaries’ answering attempts to reconcile African and indigenous conversion with enslavement. Gerbner's concept of Protestant Supremacy names the sociopolitical function and economic utility of “religious belonging,” specifically how Christian institutional, discursive, and ritual spaces demarcated boundaries between the enslaved and their enslavers, prefiguring race in the process. In this history of Atlantic slavery, religion is not subsidiary to the punitive, legal, sexual, and economic systems that enabled the enslavement of African and indigenous peoples in the Americas. Rather, Gerbner argues that Protestant Christianity provided a metastructure for the race-based caste systems that emerged in Barbados and other British colonies in the Americas. Through an intense and extensive interrogation of correspondence, missionary accounts, and institutional records from across the Atlantic, she traces how Protestant emissaries established “Christian” as a “protoracial” term and hastened the legal and discursive codification of lineage-based American caste systems in the process. The linkage of Christian identity and nascent whiteness not only exposes the Protestant architecture of American racial logics, but also sparks nuanced questions about how African, indigenous, and creole people oriented themselves toward Protestantism in early America. In this way, Gerbner definitively situates religion at the center of ongoing conversations about racial formation in the Americas, while opening up avenues for fresh speculation and imaginative intellectual trajectories in studies of American religion and Atlantic slavery.
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S, Mrs Jeni, and Dr J. G. Duresh. "The Problematical Portrayal of Racial Discrimination in Jacqueline Woodson’s novel “The Brown Girl Dreaming”." Think India 22, no. 3 (September 27, 2019): 865–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.26643/think-india.v22i3.8406.
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African American Literature can be defined as writings by people of African decent living in the United States. The genre began during the 18th and 19th centuries with writers such as poet phillis Wheatley and Orator Frederick Douglass reached as an early highpoint with the Harlem Renaissance and continues with the authors such as Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou and Walter Mosley, James Baldwin etc. The themes and issues explored in African American literature are tradition, culture, racism, religion, slavery, segregation, migration, and feminism and more. This paper deals with the perspectives of clashes between black and white communities through the novel The Brown Dreaming girl by Jacqueline Woodson. It clearly explains about the Whites ill-treatment and how the blacks suffer under the hands of white people. The essential part of human kind is Identification and Freedom which has been completely wiped off from the hearts and minds of the black people.
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Garofalo, Leo J. "Conjuring with Coca and the INCA: The Andeanization of Lima’s Afro-Peruvian Ritual Specialists, 1580-1690." Americas 63, no. 1 (July 2006): 53–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0003161500062520.
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African diasporic communities throughout the Americas played important roles in creating colonial societies, providing both a population base and ways to organize everyday life as evidenced in subsistence activities, housing, language, religion, and artistic expression. In the Andes, Afro-Peruvian ritual specialists provide an example of black participation in forging a place in colonial society during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They earned both respect and fear, status and stigma, for their ability to solve a variety of problems and illnesses believed to be caused by the malice of other people or by supernatural forces. These ritualists also show how people of African descent helped invent widely-employed strategies to bridge cultures and link heterogeneous colonial populations in Andean cities.
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Kalkan, Kerem Ozan, Geoffrey C. Layman, and John C. Green. "Will Americans Vote for Muslims? Cultural Outgroup Antipathy, Candidate Religion, and U.S. Voting Behavior." Politics and Religion 11, no. 4 (June 6, 2018): 798–829. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1755048318000342.
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AbstractWe assess how likely Americans are to support political candidates who are Muslim, and the extent to which support for Muslim candidates is structured by “cultural outgroup antipathy”—generalized antipathy targeting cultural outgroups. We employ two survey experiments included in the 2007 and 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Studies that juxtapose a hypothetical state legislative candidate's Muslim faith with Arab ethnicity, African American race, and both Democratic and Republican party affiliation. Identifying a candidate as Muslim significantly reduces voter support and that reduction is largest among people with higher levels of cultural outgroup antipathy. The effect is consistent regardless of whether the candidate is also identified as being Arab or African American or is just presented as a Muslim. We also find that cultural outgroup antipathy diminished electoral support for same-party Muslim candidates among Democrats but not among Republicans.
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Djité, Paulin G. "From liturgy to technology." Language Problems and Language Planning 32, no. 2 (June 6, 2008): 133–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/lplp.32.2.03dji.
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Language is generally not perceived as playing a significant role in the causes of underdevelopment in Africa, and therefore not thought of or mentioned in trying to work out solutions to this situation. The absence of linguistic input in development planning in Africa is one of the key reasons why the majority of the African people are left “on the edge of road.” This paper argues for a language sensitive and linguistically informed approach to technology transfer and development problems. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can serve to promote African languages much better than religion ever did, and language policies and language-in-education policies in Africa need to be cognisant and take advantage of the opportunities the digital era offers the Continent. Whilst, according to Ferguson, “religion has been one of the most powerful forces leading to language change and language spread,” African languages have yet to overcome the linguistic barrier to participation in knowledge societies, and most of them have no interface with science and information technology (e.g. the Internet). Why can’t African languages be languages of technology? How can this be achieved?
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Majeed Kadhem, Suhaib. "Conflict between Tradition and Change in Chinua Achebe's postcolonial novel Things Fall Apart." Al-Adab Journal 1, no. 124 (September 15, 2018): 81–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.31973/aj.v1i124.115.
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In studying the history of Asian and African countries, the colonial period plays an important role in understanding their history, religion, tradition and culture. Things Fall Apart is an English novel by the Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, published in 1957, which shows the African culture, their religious and traditions through the Igbo society. This novel captures the colonial period and its effect on Igbo society. It is a response and a record of control of western colonialism on the traditional values of the African people. This paper treats the novel as a postcolonial text, by focusing on the clash between occupied and colonizers, the clash between tradition and change, and the clash between different cultures, The Europe Empire and the African natives
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Muhoza, Dieudonné Ndaruhuye, Annelet Broekhuis, and Pieter Hooimeijer. "Variations in Desired Family Size and Excess Fertility in East Africa." International Journal of Population Research 2014 (May 27, 2014): 1–11. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/486079.
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This contribution studies the variation in desired family size and excess fertility in four East African countries by analyzing the combined impact of wealth, education, religious affiliation, and place of residence. The findings show an enormous heterogeneity in Kenya. Wealthy and higher educated people have fertility desires close to replacement level, regardless of religion, while poor, uneducated people, particularly those in Muslim communities, have virtually uncontrolled fertility. Rwanda is at the other extreme: poor, uneducated people have the same desired fertility as their wealthy, educated compatriots, regardless of their religion—a case of “poverty Malthusianism.”. The potential for family planning is high in both countries as more than 50% of the women having 5 children or more would have preferred to stop at 4 or less. Tanzania and Uganda have an intermediate position in desired family size and a lower potential for family planning. Generally, the main factor that sustains higher fertility is poverty exacerbated by religious norms among the poor only.
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Kravchenko, Elena V. "The Matter of Race: Brotherhood of St. Moses the Black and the Retelling of African American History through Orthodox Christian Forms." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 89, no. 1 (March 1, 2021): 298–333. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfab025.
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Abstract This article looks at how contemporary African American converts to Orthodox Christianity, specifically the members of the Brotherhood of St. Moses the Black,1 use religion to understand and remember the struggle of Black people against racial discrimination in the United States. As I examine how practitioners interpreted and preserved African American history—the attempts to abolish slavery, the fight to end lynching, and the Civil Rights movement—through Orthodox forms of materiality, I demonstrate that African Americans drew on an established tradition to authorize new ways of practicing Orthodoxy and being Orthodox. I argue that by using icons of the Theotokos to tell stories about her intervention during a lynching, memorializing lives of Black American martyrs in cemetery stones, and engaging with relics of African American saints, these practitioners followed in the footsteps of other Orthodox people—who creatively adopted the ritual life of the Church to their own needs while making an effort to adhere to its traditional dogmatism—and therefore should be considered as a paradigmatic and not an exceptional example of Orthodox Christians.
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Pijl, Yvon van der. "Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity: African-Surinamese Perceptions and Experiences." Exchange 39, no. 2 (2010): 179–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/016627410x12608581119830.
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AbstractPentecostal-Charismatic Christianity (P/C) is one of the fastest-growing religions worldwide. Some scholars connect P/C’s success with broad processes of globalization. Others try to unravel more personal dynamics of conversion. This article seeks to understand both global forces and local cultural reasons to believe. It focuses first on the remarkable paradox that explains the movement’s popularity among African-Surinamese (Caribbean) believers: what appears as P/C’s rejection of their traditional religious system turns out to be a reinterpretation of beliefs and practices. From this line of argument I argue that P/C actually enables people, by ways of demonization, to express their spirituality and translate magico-religious conceptions into an acceptable framework. In conclusion, I put this Pentecostal paradox into larger perspective, stressing similarities with other religious movements and exposing an eclectic attitude towards religion that does not only meet personal belief experiences, but also challenges the hegemonic position of established Christian churches in Suriname.
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Harries, Jim. "Theology that Emerges from Cognitive Science: Applied to African Development." Open Theology 4, no. 1 (January 1, 2018): 15–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/opth-2018-0002.
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Abstract Recent developments in cognitive science are here interpreted as an apologetic for Christian theology. Naturalistic faiths are suggested to be dependent on the invention of ‘religion’, and domestication of the foreign through translation. A refusal to accept that a relationship with God is something that develops in the course of reflection, has added to his apparent invisibility. Advocates of embodied thinking who effectively undermine Descartes’ philosophy, open the door to theological reflection. A gender-based exploration reveals that means of predicting the embodied nature of thinking also point to the significance of God. Because human thinking is embodied, God also is perceived by people through his embodied impact - much as is the wind. That correct understanding of God brings human wellbeing, is here suggested to be as true for Africa as for Europe.
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Kuester, Volker. "Who, with whom, about what? Exploring the Landscape of Inter-Religious Dialogue." Exchange 33, no. 1 (2004): 73–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1572543041172666.
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AbstractIn this article the author presents a new way of approaching people adhering to other religions. After a discussion of the meetings and relationships between Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and those between Christianity and Hinduism, Buddhism or African religion he tries to create a new space between inclusivism and exclusivism. He calls this space the 'third space'. It is an 'in-between', a meeting place for the dialogue of life, a place of wisdom for the dialogue of the mind, and a place of spiritual experiences for the dialogue of the heart. Theologically speaking it is a space of transcendence that for each religion is filled in a distinct way.
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Swindell, Kenneth. "Faith, Work, Farming and Business: The Role of the Spiritual in West African Livelihoods." Journal of Asian and African Studies 54, no. 6 (April 25, 2019): 819–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0021909619840754.
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Local religions, Islam and Christianity influence and shape West African livelihoods where for many spirituality is an integral part of work, time and making a living. For farmers the spiritual imbues their understanding of the natural world, as well as affecting the control and allocation of resources and their timely use. For the Sufist Mouride brotherhood of Senegal their work ethic nurtures agriculture and supports a diaspora of petty traders and businesses. Meanwhile, the Christian Pentecostal Church encourages myriad small businesses, and its promotion of a work ethic that has occasioned the contention of a Weberian-style transformation. The creation of sustainable networks of socio-economic change through religious adherence is not in doubt, but whether this will promote a general developmental shift is more contentious. Pentecostals emphasize education and literacy, a priority for most governments, but without job opportunities there is widespread discontent among the young, even the educated. Furthermore, the young are disenchanted by patrimonial-clientelist societies, and it is through religion that violent dissent is articulated. Assertions that religion per se is inimical to social and economic change in West Africa are difficult to substantiate. What is a problem for farmers and small businesses is the uncertainty not just of their immediate environments, but of the volatility and dysfunctional nature of the state, and a lack of enabling conditions. Thus, religion and spirituality provide help in difficult times for people, but also opportunities for improvement in their livelihoods and lifestyles.
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Grenham, Thomas G. "Reconstructing Christian Culture toward the Globalization of Gospel Vision: Identity, Empowerment, and Transformation in an African Context." Missiology: An International Review 31, no. 2 (April 2003): 223–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/009182960303100206.
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This essay explores the cultural phenomenon of globalization ushered in through worldwide economic market expansions, international travel, technological advances, and rapid Internet communications. These transformations are influencing and changing not only cultures and individual nation-states; they are also impacting religious meaning and faith everywhere. By examining the case study of the Sakalava people of Madagascar, who practice an indigenous religion known as tromba spirit possession, we can learn how this specific cultural and religious context copes with external economic, political, cultural, and religious forces. The research also explains how Christianity needs to interact with the Sakalava religion in reconstructing the Sakalava culture and discovering gospel values already present and active. This has worldwide implications for a Christian mission of evangelization. The article concludes by outlining some consequences for Christian evangelization that attend to the local and the universal impact of the gospel vision.
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Reuber, Alexandra. "Voodoo Dolls, Charms, And Spells In The Classroom: Teaching, Screening, And Deconstructing The Misrepresentation Of The African Religion." Contemporary Issues in Education Research (CIER) 4, no. 8 (August 15, 2011): 7. http://dx.doi.org/10.19030/cier.v4i8.5611.
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New Orleans voodoo, also called crole voodoo, is an amalgamation of an honoring of the spirits of the dead, a respect for the elderly and the spiritual life, African knowledge of herbs and charms, and European elements of Catholicism. It is a religion of ancestor worship that is unknown to us, and that we are not necessarily exposed to or included in. As such, it is something foreign to our own belief system. Being ignorant about what the religion entails, people in general stigmatize it as something not worthy to discuss, nor to practice. Unfortunately, popular novels like Voodoo Season (2006) and Voodoo Dreams (1995) by Jowell Parker Rhodes, and especially Hollywoods production of horror movies such as White Zombie (1932), I Walked with a Zombie (1943), The Serpent and the Rainbow (1987), Voodoo Dawn (1998) or Hoodoo for Voodoo (2006), do not provide the public with a truthful background of the African, Haitian, or New Orleanean voodoo tradition. All too often these fictional sources fuel the already existing misrepresentations of the religion and represent it as something shadowy, highly secretive, and fearful. This differentiated introduction to New Orleans voodoo via Iain Softleys film The Skeleton Key (2004) exposes students to the major characteristics of the religion, makes them aware of popular cultures falsified voodoo construct, and teaches them how to deconstruct it. This interactive approach is student centered, appeals to their individual intelligences and learning styles, promotes critical thinking, and trains analytical skills.
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Pacho, Titus Ogalo. "Impact of Globalisation on African and Its Implications to Education." Social Science, Humanities and Sustainability Research 1, no. 1 (May 13, 2020): p81. http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/sshsr.v1n1p81.
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Globalisation is one of the most powerful worldwide forces transforming society. It dominates today’s world as a major driver of change. Globalisation has brought about an agglomeration of cultures, where diverse cultures not only interact but also sometimes clash. It permeates through all spheres of life including the environment, politics, economy, prosperity, culture, religion, education, and human well-being in societies across the globe. The present “villagization” of the world has greatly affected many African countries in almost all aspects of life. It has done so in both positive and negative ways. With the emergence of a global society, social, cultural, economic, political, technological and environmental events in one part of the world quickly come to be significant for people in other parts of the world. This theoretical paper assesses the impact of globalisation for Africa and its implications to education.
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Johnson, Sylvester A. "The Rise of Black Ethnics: The Ethnic Turn in African American Religions, 1916–1945." Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 20, no. 2 (2010): 125–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/rac.2010.20.2.125.
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AbstractDuring the world war years of the early twentieth century, new African American religious movements emerged that emphasized black heritage identities. Among these were Rabbi Wentworth Arthur Matthew's Congregation of Commandment Keepers (Jewish) and “Noble” Drew Ali's Moorish Science Temple of America (Islamic). Unlike African American religions of the previous century, these religious communities distinctly captured the ethos of ethnicity (cultural heritage) that pervaded American social consciousness at the time. Their central message of salvation asserted that blacks were an ethnic people distinguished not by superficial phenotype but by membership in a heritage that reached far beyond the bounds of American history and geography. The academic study of these religions has largely moved from dismissal and cynicism to serious engagement with African American Jews and Muslims as veritable forms of religion. Despite this progress among scholars, some recent studies continue todenythat Matthew’s and Ali's communities were authentically Jewish and Islamic (respectively). When scholars dispense with theological or racial biases that bifurcate religions into ‘true’ and ‘false’ forms, the study of these black ethnic religions might best yield important insights for understanding the linkage among ethnicity, the nation-state, and religion. The religious reasoning of Matthew and Ali produced resourceful, complicated challenges to dominant colonial and racist paradigms for understanding agency and history. Their theology is appropriately discerned not as illusion, hybridity, or confusion but as thoughtful anticolonial expressions of Judaism and Islam that sought inclusion and honor through black ethnicity. At a time when African Americans were viewed as cultureless and without any legacy of inheritance except the deformities of slavery, the rise of black ethnics introduced religious traditions that demonstrated blacks were indeed a people with heritage.
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Basson, Ray. "Designing the Islamic Component of a Proposed World Religion Curriculum for South African State Schools." American Journal of Islam and Society 12, no. 4 (January 1, 1995): 518–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v12i4.2369.
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An aspect of curriculum policy-making under the past Nationalistgovernment had to do with policy being used to develop and impose thestate’s nationalist and religious ideology-Christian National Educationonall schools in South Africa after its assumption of power in 1948. Oneconsequence of this policy was that the rich diversity of South Africans asa people holding to multiple, positive, and idiosyncratic beliefs linked tovarious communal identities was sacrificed to a state-imposed pseudocommonality.Part of the challenge of educational reconstruction under thedemocratic government elected in April 1994 is to develop curricula thatboth recognize the diversity of positive ideals, beliefs, and faith whileremaining impartial, if not agnostic,’ toward any one belief and to contributeto the development of a new and shared national identity.Following ministerial approval, an “Accommodation Model” forteaching religion has been announced recently. In it, schools are allowedto choose between teaching “one . . . faith” as an academic curriculum, a“world religion” curriculum, or a “combination” of the two, as religiouseducation in the core curriculum and/or as an academic subject leading tocertification. We suggest that the impetus for a world religion curriculumhas to do with a desire to develop in all students an understanding of thediversity of faiths in the country and to move away from the solely Biblecenteredprograms of the past. In this article, we consider the design of theIslamic component for inclusion as one component in the proposed worldreligion curriculum. Its purposes are considered against the backdrop of ...
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Kanu, Ikechukwu Anthony. "Igwebuike theology of Omenani and the missionary bifurcation of horizons." OGIRISI: a New Journal of African Studies 16 (October 2, 2020): 127–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/og.v16i1.8.
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African theology points to the fact that every particular situation or context calls for a particular theological reflection, that is, if the theological reflection is to make meaning within that unique circumstance. It is within this context that Igwebuike theology of Omenani emerges in relation to the understanding of culture as the Seed of the Word of God, which already pre-existed in Africa even before the emergence of the Western missionaries. The purpose of adopting this idea of culture as the Seed of the Word of God is to enhance the reconciliation between the African and Christian/Western ’worldhoods’. This piece presented the African culture as an important element in evangelization in Africa, as it is the spirit that animates the African people. It, therefore, located the Seed of the Word of God in the Omenani (the law of the land) of the African people through which they were able to achieve holiness even before the advent of the gospel. It observed that the failures of the missionary enterprise were majorly because of their lack of openness to the African religion and culture. The purpose of this study is to bridge the bifurcation created by the missionaries between the Christian and African ‘worldhoods’. The theoretical framework employed in this research is the Igwebuike sympathetic and non-derogatory framework, which emphasizes evangelization with a sense of understanding.
Keywords: Omenani, Logos Spermatikos, Culture, African, Igbo, Evangelization, Igwebuike
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Kallander, Samantha Watters, Rebecca Gordon, and Dina L. G. Borzekowski. "“People Will Continue to Suffer If the Virus Is Around”: A Qualitative Analysis of Sub-Saharan African Children’s Experiences during the COVID-19 Pandemic." International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18, no. 11 (May 25, 2021): 5618. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18115618.
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Children are particularly impressionable and at risk during a global public health crisis, making it important to examine their unique perspectives. To hear and understand sub-Saharan African children’s experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic, we conducted an exploratory qualitative analysis based on interviews with 51 children, ages 9 to 13, from Nigeria, Tanzania, and Sierra Leone. Applying the organization of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, we reveal how COVID-19 affected children’s daily lives and domestic challenges, schooling and neighborhood issues, media use (and its relationship to knowledge and fear of the disease), perceptions of the country and government response, and thoughts of religion and hope. Children’s responses differed greatly, but patterns emerged across sex, age, household size, religion, and country. This study offers guidance and recommendations for meeting the needs of children, especially in times of crisis.
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Maslova, O. V., and I. A. Dzhidaryan. "NOTIONS ABOUT LOVE AND CULTURE: RESULTS OF AN EMPIRICAL STUDY." Bulletin of Kemerovo State University, no. 2 (July 8, 2016): 114–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.21603/2078-8975-2016-2-114-119.
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This research focuses on the value-meaning aspect of love in different cultures. In this study, we looked at people from Central African Republic (CAR) and Russia, and tested the hypothesis on how much influence a culture has on the way love is viewed. 50 people from Central African Republic and 50 people from Russia took part in this research. Groups had equal gender representation (25 females and 25 males in each group) and comparable age. As a methodology, we used our questionnaire “Notions about love” and classical associative experiment. Comparative analysis of the data showed that notions of love even in such distant cultures have many more similarities than differences. In both groups (Russia and CAR), the idealization of this feeling (love) prevails. Love is seen as a power that helps people create, grow and overcome obstacles. Another similarity is that both groups associate love with dedication and the meaning of life. Data from the associative experiment confirms this commonality, because in both groups, love is associated with passion, friendship and patience. At the same time, the results of this experiment show that concept of love is ambivalent among the Russians: they associate love not only with positive feelings, but with suffering and selfsacrifice. Russians are more likely to agree with relatively negative statements about love. Notions about love among people from Central African Republic is mostly associated with religion and action-related components.
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Naty, Alexander, Morie Kaneko (ed.), and Masayoshi Shigeta (ed.). "The ak’aat k’aal movement among the Aari people of south-west Ethiopia." Aethiopica 9 (September 24, 2012): 49–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.15460/aethiopica.9.1.240.
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Students of African studies have reported a variety of religious movements under the rubric of independent churches. These include the Cherubim and Seraphim, the Church of the Lord, the Church of Simon Kimbangu, the Zionist and Ethiopianist’s independent churches in southern Africa. Most of these churches emerged in those countries that were under European colonial domination. Ethiopia did not experience European colonialism. Indeed, imperial Ethiopia conquered militarily less powerful kingdoms and chiefdoms that were located to the south and south-western of the then Abyssinia. The conquest of formerly independent populations in southern Ethiopia during the late nineteenth century introduced unequal power relations between the indigenous people and the new settlers. This paper examines the evolution of a religious movement referred to as ak’aat k’aal among the Aari people of south-west Ethiopia in the context of the indigenous forms of domination. Although the movement was short-lived, it was meant to enable the Aari to cope with the social psychological stress that the serfdom system generated. The Aari were not able to practice their traditional religion because of the serfdom. Therefore, they had to abandon their religion. However, doing this without finding a substitute was incompatible with Aari religious ideology. The ak’aat k’aal was a substitute just for a short period. ATTENTION: Due to copy-right no online publication is provided.
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Islam, Momtajul. "The Role of Native Weaknesses and Cultural Conflicts in Escalating Colonial Supremacy in the Igbo Society, as Perceived in Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe." International Linguistics Research 4, no. 2 (April 27, 2021): p19. http://dx.doi.org/10.30560/ilr.v4n2p19.
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The colonial invaders and their repressive means of governance in Africa were not the only reasons that could be solely held accountable for the fall of indigenous African society during the colonial invasion. Native weaknesses, socio-cultural conflicts and hegemony were equally responsible for the falling apart of native social setups when confronted with colonial alternatives. Native people had had their own covert religious and cultural limitations long before the colonizers entered their soil. The colonial powers cleverly used such inherent societal flaws of African people as excuses to impose European religion and traditions on them. Chinua Achebe does not blindly idealize native African traditions in his writings. He frequently narrates his doubts on flawed socio-cultural practices and moral dualities in the native society, too. This paper is an attempt to explore how innate weaknesses of native Igbo people, socio-cultural conflicts and domination in the native society have also made it easier for the colonial administration to prolong their supremacy in the Igbo land, as depicted in Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe. It also elaborates how Ezeulu, the chief priest of god Ulu, falls from dominance in his society because of his intent to execute personal desires which jeopardize his societal role in the Igbo land.