PDF | This paper focuses on the conicts between African Traditional Religion and Christianity. The historical fact is that Christianity came to Africa before it came to Europe and North America. “The European missionaries were obviously spreading Christianity to the Africans on one hand Christianity did not precede the working of God and the Holy Spirit among Africans. These are some of the areas where the two religions conflict. London: Hurst, 1983. The latter confirms that African culture is predominently patriarchal. Egypt, for instance, was not so much an African nation as it was a Mediterranean nation and in the same, the North Africa was part of the Mediterranean civilization as well. White men arrived in Africa as traders, missionaries and administrators. It is the burden of this essay therefore, to assess the impact of Christianity and Western culture on the Cultural values of Esan people. Christianity frowns at such practices and warns its members never to partake in them. Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life / Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa www.pewforum.org ii While sub-Saharan Africa has almost twice as many Christians as Muslims, on the African continent Africa's influential university departments of religion have usually approached the theme in terms of establishing correlations between Christianity and Africa's traditional religions. The Impact Of African Culture On Christianity In Christ Apostolic Church Ile-ife Osun-state.. Project Material in PDF & Doc But it is not the only ingredient of culture. 8 The Coptic, Catholic, Protestant and Pentecostal churches in Africa agree that the apostle Mark was the first apostle to Africa. Africans. Religion is definitely embedded in African culture. Horizontal change, across the whole range of concepts and practices of life African Traditional Religion, Islam, and Christianity African Traditional Religion, Islam, and Christianity are three extremely different religions that have very different belief systems. The novel shows us the impact of a western culture on the Igbo society and how the citizens have to adapt to the new changes and beliefs. I shall start by first examining the key words in the title of this article, and by briefly discussing the phenomenal growth of Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa. CHRISTIANITY AND CULTURE: An African Experience Israel K. Katoke Introduction The missionaries who brought Christianity , rid Africa of all its traditional values and religious concepts in order to have a clean plate on which to put the new faith/1 This was not an event unique to Africa. 7 For the founding of Christianity in Africa, I am very much dependent on the magisterial work of Baur (1994) and also the work of Onyinah (2007). Yet wherever we turn to enrich our lives, we continue to encounter the lasting historical realities of … This two-part article on "Christianity in Nigeria" traces the historical development of … The African was taught to abhor everything African and to accept a new way of living, a new way of life, a new order that alienated them from who they originally were. Crises of Life in African Religion and Christianity already started. International Journal of African Society, Cultures and Traditions Vol.5, No.2, pp.13-20, September 2017 I am not saying that converts to Christianity from African traditional beliefs practice polygamy, I am presuming your original purpose is to clarify what is acceptable and workable within Christianity for the purpose of dialogue and what is not. We have always been a deeply religious people. The tenets of the religion is This challenge is for an unprecedent-edly complex triple change: 1. African theology is Christian theology from the perspective of the African cultural context. Christianity has contributed to the formation of customary laws. By the end of the 2nd century it had reached the region around Carthage.In the 4th century, the Aksumite empire in modern-day Eritrea and Ethiopia became one of the first regions in the world to adopt Christianity as an official religion and the Nubian kingdoms of Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia followed two centuries later. African soil, but their origins are lost in antiquity. This was so long before the advent of Christianity and the African world view is at many points more consistent with the biblical world … In contrast, most Christian missionaries adopted an exclusive and insensitive approach to African culture and religiosity. Whenever two or three cultures meet, there is potential conflict but if it is practised within the culture of the people, it lasts long and develops very rapidly. They believe different things about life after we die on earth, they believe that different things are and are not God, and they believe different types of people are and are not prophets and priests. There were reasons for this, it took 10 days to sail from Carthage, North Africa to Italy, by land it took 140 days, shipping a ton of grain from Egypt to Rome costs the same amount of shipping at 75 miles by oxcart. From the above conflicts, we can see that although Christianity has made some impact on Igbo people, it has not totally changed their worldview. and sensitive to the culture and religion of the indigenes who accommodated them and offered them hospitality. Perhaps in order to appreciate the changes that have taken place, it is crucial to examine the period when the Christian faith was introduced to parts of Africa untouched by Christianity in the Christianity has to address the African holistic/organic view of the world, which is governed by the law of harmony. Africa, politically but also in Christian witness. The aim of this article is to describe the impact of Christianity on sub-Saharan Africa. Language is one of the most important aspects of a people's identity because it is the most common medium of communication. This study concentrates on exploring the encounter between AR and Christianity The study of African Religion so far Many of the general books on AR give surveys or indications of how it has been treated and presented. Also, Christianity is fast becoming one of Nigeria’s biggest export as Nigerian pastors and preachers are planting large churches in Europe, Asia and the Americas. African literature - African literature - The influence of oral traditions on modern writers: Themes in the literary traditions of contemporary Africa are worked out frequently within the strictures laid down by the imported religions Christianity and Islam and within the struggle between traditional and modern, between rural and newly urban, between genders, and between generations. Section Two provides an introduction to covering issues of religion, culture and tradition, and their impact on women™s ability to access their basic human rights. Christianity achieved a major thing in Africa: to teach the black Africans to forsake all their traditions and to facilitate colonialism. In discussing African culture and values, we are not presupposing that all African societies have the same explanation(s) for events, the same language, and same mode of dressing and so on. Christianity in Africa arrived in Egypt in the middle of the 1st century. Christianity is not an exception. West African Christianity: The Religious Impact. The European Contribution To The Spread Of Christianity In Sub-Saharan Africa The Portuguese attempted to introduce a Catholic-influenced form of Christianity between the 16th and 18th centuries in the Kongo Kingdom, but it did not last for long. The European missionaries had no sympathy for the culture of the Africans but rather impose the European Culture on the Africans alongside with Christianity which ought not to be so at all. E-mail Citation » This text by a notable scholar of both Christianity and Islam concentrates on the religious dimensions of West African Christianity and the roles of both missionaries and Africans in its spread and development. It is a religion that has no known founder and scripture unlike Christianity and Islam. Impact of Christianity in Africa By EMORY Ross AFRICANS south of the Sahara in our day face a challenge not be-fore put to so large a group of people. Orthodox Church in African Christianity. We can look at its study in two phases. Christianity and the African Cultural Heritage798 J.N.K. The impact of Christianity on culture continues to deepen till today. Download full-text PDF. Download full-text PDF Read full-text. Missiologists have worked more broadly on a correlation of Christianity with African culture as a whole, speaking in terms of an ethnotheology. Christianity is making remarkable strides, not only in numerical growth but in deepening theological maturity of many outstanding leaders. African Christianity has undergone immense transformation since the 1970s to the present time. Here, Christianity faces, not a specific religious belief, but a philosophical worldview that is expansive and covers the totality of life, both in the human world and in the spirit world. However, Christianity in most of the areas of North Africa was wiped out with the advent of Islam. This approach resulted in a syncretistic brand of Islam. This task is carried out with the consciousness that whereas there is a difference between the Christian Religion and Western culture and civilization, on one hand, it is impossible to separate one from the other in the context of our present discussion. If there is a huge famine or reports of genocide in Africa, most people in other cultures are unconcerned. Roman Ajayi, (1981) describes it,” as those beliefs and practices that are indigenous to Africans which according to Mbiti (1969), has permeated every facet of the peoples life”. D'Souza points out: "This is our culture's powerful emphasis on compassion, on helping the needy, and on alleviating distress even in distant places. Early African Christianity Regrettably, some scholars of African culture and religion have acquired a persistent habit of assuming that Christianity began in Africa only a couple of centuries ago. But Christianity is not a recent arrival in Africa. I seek, in this article, to contest the claim that the Christian faith, as one of the major religions in Africa, predominantly fosters negative effects (like conflicts, laziness, fear, lack of curiosity/creativity and violence), and argue that Christianity has been a contributor to progress and development and also a force for more peaceful societies in Africa and the world. 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