Pub Date : 2023-01-20DOI: 10.1163/15700666-12340257
Martin Lindhardt
{"title":"Learning Morality, Inequalities, and Faith. Christian and Muslim Schools in Tanzania, written by Dilger, Hansjörg","authors":"Martin Lindhardt","doi":"10.1163/15700666-12340257","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12340257","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45604,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF RELIGION IN AFRICA","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135251121","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-20DOI: 10.1163/15700666-05301000
{"title":"Front matter","authors":"","doi":"10.1163/15700666-05301000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700666-05301000","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45604,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF RELIGION IN AFRICA","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135251124","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-18DOI: 10.1163/15700666-12340253
E. 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 of specific societies. In Tanzania the linkages between biodiversity and the worldview of a society have partly been acknowledged but remain unexplored. This paper applies a mixed research approach to studying sacred forests among the Bena community of Njombe in Tanzania. Rather than looking exclusively at the sacred forests in themselves as places, the paper underscores the linkage of human-nature-spirituality as key in explaining the history of sacred forests. It establishes that, among the Bena, the sacredness of a place was founded on the relationship between the visible and the invisible worlds – relations that led to the formation of various mystical-religious homelands’ sacred places that are protected through mythologies.
{"title":"The Meaning, Spiritual Foundation, and Mythology of African Sacred Landscapes","authors":"E. Mgaya","doi":"10.1163/15700666-12340253","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12340253","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In 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 of specific societies. In Tanzania the linkages between biodiversity and the worldview of a society have partly been acknowledged but remain unexplored. This paper applies a mixed research approach to studying sacred forests among the Bena community of Njombe in Tanzania. Rather than looking exclusively at the sacred forests in themselves as places, the paper underscores the linkage of human-nature-spirituality as key in explaining the history of sacred forests. It establishes that, among the Bena, the sacredness of a place was founded on the relationship between the visible and the invisible worlds – relations that led to the formation of various mystical-religious homelands’ sacred places that are protected through mythologies.","PeriodicalId":45604,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF RELIGION IN AFRICA","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48350158","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-11DOI: 10.1163/15700666-12340254
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 a blatant betrayal of dreams. Just like the African governments that succeeded colonial governments, religious organizations continue to promise poverty eradication by divine means to their adherents, whose numbers keep exploding across the continent. The Pentecostal variant of African Christianity is particularly renowned for its promises of wealth, health, and prosperity through supernatural divine power: in the Bible, God has promised to deliver immense material goods to those who believe in Jesus Christ. The expediency of these promises to alleviate poverty and bring about social transformation is debatable. Some scholars argue that African Pentecostalism is an elaborately complex increase in religious activities devoid of social structural transformation, while others opine that it contributes positively to development. In asking whether African Pentecostal Christianity is a move toward or a distraction from development, this article broadly explores discourses on Pentecostalism and development in Africa. Arguably, in the endeavor to preach and live out the experiential power of the Holy Spirit, Pentecostal Christianity in Africa inadvertently plays a role in the broader ongoing development discourse. Although they do not view themselves as ‘religious’ or ‘religion’, Pentecostal churches’ attempts to make the teachings of Jesus Christ relevant to the mundane help individual believers cope with life’s stresses and vulnerabilities. However, it does not transform the social conditions that create problems for individuals. The liberating hope of African Pentecostal Christianity lies in theologically nuancing its discourses to meaningfully engage in global development discourses.
{"title":"Breaking the Spirit of Poverty in African Pentecostal Christianity","authors":"Elias Kiptoo Ng’etich","doi":"10.1163/15700666-12340254","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12340254","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Poverty 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 a blatant betrayal of dreams. Just like the African governments that succeeded colonial governments, religious organizations continue to promise poverty eradication by divine means to their adherents, whose numbers keep exploding across the continent. The Pentecostal variant of African Christianity is particularly renowned for its promises of wealth, health, and prosperity through supernatural divine power: in the Bible, God has promised to deliver immense material goods to those who believe in Jesus Christ. The expediency of these promises to alleviate poverty and bring about social transformation is debatable. Some scholars argue that African Pentecostalism is an elaborately complex increase in religious activities devoid of social structural transformation, while others opine that it contributes positively to development. In asking whether African Pentecostal Christianity is a move toward or a distraction from development, this article broadly explores discourses on Pentecostalism and development in Africa. Arguably, in the endeavor to preach and live out the experiential power of the Holy Spirit, Pentecostal Christianity in Africa inadvertently plays a role in the broader ongoing development discourse. Although they do not view themselves as ‘religious’ or ‘religion’, Pentecostal churches’ attempts to make the teachings of Jesus Christ relevant to the mundane help individual believers cope with life’s stresses and vulnerabilities. However, it does not transform the social conditions that create problems for individuals. The liberating hope of African Pentecostal Christianity lies in theologically nuancing its discourses to meaningfully engage in global development discourses.","PeriodicalId":45604,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF RELIGION IN AFRICA","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-01-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46766368","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-11DOI: 10.1163/15700666-12340252
H. Boiro, J. 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 for their role within the spiritual, educative, and social spheres. Community members, entrenched in complex discriminatory relations within their ethnic group and beyond, perceive them as their saviours, while politicians, high-ranking officers and traders compete for their endorsement. Criminalising the cernos is unsuccessful; to safeguard the interests of children, the children and their community members, including the cernos, should be put at the heart of the safeguarding measures. Despite complex layers of coloniality, the religious leaders are the masters of the game, and their imprisonment is challenging.
{"title":"The Emergence of the Bissau-Guinean Fula Cernos","authors":"H. Boiro, J. Einarsdóttir","doi":"10.1163/15700666-12340252","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12340252","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000International 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 for their role within the spiritual, educative, and social spheres. Community members, entrenched in complex discriminatory relations within their ethnic group and beyond, perceive them as their saviours, while politicians, high-ranking officers and traders compete for their endorsement. Criminalising the cernos is unsuccessful; to safeguard the interests of children, the children and their community members, including the cernos, should be put at the heart of the safeguarding measures. Despite complex layers of coloniality, the religious leaders are the masters of the game, and their imprisonment is challenging.","PeriodicalId":45604,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF RELIGION IN AFRICA","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-01-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42816213","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-05DOI: 10.1163/15700666_12340244a
None The Editor
{"title":"Retraction Notice","authors":"None The Editor","doi":"10.1163/15700666_12340244a","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700666_12340244a","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45604,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF RELIGION IN AFRICA","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135405746","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-29DOI: 10.1163/15700666-12340250
I. 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 as identification, ordination as imitation, and schism as reproduction. I engage with the idea in the anthropology of Christianity that Protestants desire a certain type of originality and therefore shun repetition. I argue the opposite, namely that Ngidi’s story shows us how Protestants seek out replicated relations.
{"title":"Protestant Replications: The Conversion, Ordination, and Schism of a Zulu Bishop in Colonial Natal","authors":"I. Hovland","doi":"10.1163/15700666-12340250","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12340250","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This 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 as identification, ordination as imitation, and schism as reproduction. I engage with the idea in the anthropology of Christianity that Protestants desire a certain type of originality and therefore shun repetition. I argue the opposite, namely that Ngidi’s story shows us how Protestants seek out replicated relations.","PeriodicalId":45604,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF RELIGION IN AFRICA","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48806799","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-29DOI: 10.1163/15700666-12340251
E. 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 objective is to offer a panorama of the literature, a sense of its evolution, and identify some areas for further research.
{"title":"A Historiographical Overview of Mission and Politics in Twentieth-Century Angola and Mozambique","authors":"E. Morier-Genoud","doi":"10.1163/15700666-12340251","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12340251","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Academic 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 objective is to offer a panorama of the literature, a sense of its evolution, and identify some areas for further research.","PeriodicalId":45604,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF RELIGION IN AFRICA","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44235246","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-17DOI: 10.1163/15700666-12340247
K. 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 culture of Euro-America. This paper aims to demonstrate with clear examples how West African Traditional Religion of the 1400s is similar to any other world religion. West African Traditional Religion is better understood alongside African culture and history than as an independent subject. Disagreeing with European missionaries’ claim that they were the ones who taught West Africans about the supreme God, this paper explains how West Africans in precolonial periods had constructive knowledge of supreme deities and other beliefs.
{"title":"The Preslavery Praxis and Ethos of the Religion of West African People","authors":"K. Lamak","doi":"10.1163/15700666-12340247","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12340247","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 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 culture of Euro-America. This paper aims to demonstrate with clear examples how West African Traditional Religion of the 1400s is similar to any other world religion. West African Traditional Religion is better understood alongside African culture and history than as an independent subject. Disagreeing with European missionaries’ claim that they were the ones who taught West Africans about the supreme God, this paper explains how West Africans in precolonial periods had constructive knowledge of supreme deities and other beliefs.","PeriodicalId":45604,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF RELIGION IN AFRICA","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47070467","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-11DOI: 10.1163/15700666-12340249
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 liturgical artefacts that they took with them from Ọ̀yó̩-Yorùbá, their original homeland. Using ethnography, history, and iconography, this research identifies practices such as Ifá, Sàngó, and egúngún,ìbejì, and respective paraphernalia such as ọpó̩n Ifá, agere Ifá, ìróké Ifá, osé Sàngó, ère egúngún, and ère ìbejì as artefacts shared between the three communities. The research avers that the deep-rooted Yorùbá cultural beliefs as encapsulated in ilé l’àbọ̀ simi oko and its antonymous maxims account for the people’s thoughts about their homeland and consequent adherence to the homeland religions as memorials of and communion with the homeland.
本研究采用Yorùbá规范格言il làbọ simi oko及其同义词作为Ọ yó -Yorùbá、Sábę-Yorùbá和Ifè -Ana Yorùbá社区之间宗教和物质交流的理论倾向和模型。在独立存在了几个世纪之后，Sábę和Ifè ? -Ana Yorùbá社区继续实践传统的Yorùbá宗教及其伴随的礼仪文物，这些文物是他们从Ọ ? yó ? -Yorùbá(他们的原始家园)带走的。利用民族志、历史和图像学，本研究确定了伊夫、Sàngó和egúngún、ìbejì等做法，以及各自的用具，如ọpó æ n伊夫、agere伊夫、ìróké伊夫、os Sàngó、伊夫egúngún和伊夫ìbejì，作为三个社区之间共享的人工制品。研究认为，《il l ' àbọ ' ' simi oko》及其反义格言所蕴含的根深蒂固的Yorùbá文化信仰解释了人们对家园的思考，以及由此产生的对家园宗教的坚持，作为对家园的纪念和与家园的交流。
{"title":"Ilé L’àbọ̀ Simi Oko","authors":"Abiodun Olasupo Akande","doi":"10.1163/15700666-12340249","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12340249","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This 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 liturgical artefacts that they took with them from Ọ̀yó̩-Yorùbá, their original homeland. Using ethnography, history, and iconography, this research identifies practices such as Ifá, Sàngó, and egúngún,ìbejì, and respective paraphernalia such as ọpó̩n Ifá, agere Ifá, ìróké Ifá, osé Sàngó, ère egúngún, and ère ìbejì as artefacts shared between the three communities. The research avers that the deep-rooted Yorùbá cultural beliefs as encapsulated in ilé l’àbọ̀ simi oko and its antonymous maxims account for the people’s thoughts about their homeland and consequent adherence to the homeland religions as memorials of and communion with the homeland.","PeriodicalId":45604,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF RELIGION IN AFRICA","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48229193","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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