Readings on Religion and Culture in Africa

Readings on Religion and Culture in Africa PDF Author: I. Ejizu
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN: 9785431169
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
This is a book of reading on religion and culture in Africa comprising ten papers by experts in religion and cultural matters and an introductory note by the editor himself. Covered in the volume are papers covering: the impact of secularisation and urbanisation on a most cherished socio-cultural practice of the extended family system of the Isoko people in Nigeria; the traditional medical practices in Urhobo with particular focus on the use of local herbs to treat ailments; the socioreligious as well as the political significance of Obiri (family hall) in Ikwerreland; the rationale behind the use of the concept Dunamis in the Gospel According to Staint Mark. Although his paper does not focus on African (traditional) religion, its inclusion here is based purely on the theological significance of the concept of Dunamis; the extent to which evil spirits and mysterious forces have influenced the religion and culture of the Urhobo people of Nigeria; the significance of festivals in the traditional African society; John Wesleys innovations in Christendom and their implications for Africa; the recent unprecedented upsurge in the assumed use of religious powers to cast out evil spirits as well as for prayer healing among Muslims in Nigeria; the culture of alienation, anxiety and violence, drawing inspiration from the Fall Story of Genesis 3; and the widowhood practices of some areas in Nigeria.

Readings on Religion and Culture in Africa

Readings on Religion and Culture in Africa PDF Author: Ejizu, Chris I.
Publisher: M & J Grand Orbit Communications
ISBN: 9785420868
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
This is a book of reading on religion and culture in Africa comprising ten papers by experts in religion and cultural matters and an introductory note by the editor himself. Covered in the volume are papers covering: the impact of secularisation and urbanisation on a most cherished socio-cultural practice of the extended family system of the Isoko people in Nigeria; the traditional medical practices in Urhobo with particular focus on the use of local herbs to treat ailments; the socioreligious as well as the political significance of Obiri (family hall) in Ikwerreland; the rationale behind the use of the concept ‘Dunamis’ in the Gospel According to Staint Mark. Although his paper does not focus on African (traditional) religion, its inclusion here is based purely on the theological significance of the concept of ‘Dunamis’; the extent to which evil spirits and mysterious forces have influenced the religion and culture of the Urhobo people of Nigeria; the significance of festivals in the traditional African society; John Wesley’s innovations in Christendom and their implications for Africa; the recent unprecedented upsurge in the assumed use of religious powers to cast out evil spirits as well as for prayer healing among Muslims in Nigeria; the culture of alienation, anxiety and violence, drawing inspiration from the Fall Story of Genesis 3; and the widowhood practices of some areas in Nigeria.

Religions in Contemporary Africa

Religions in Contemporary Africa PDF Author: Laura S. Grillo
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351260707
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Religions in Contemporary Africa is an accessible and comprehensive introduction to the three main religious traditions on the African continent, African indigenous religions, Christianity and Islam. The book provides a historical overview of these important traditions and focuses on the roles they play in African societies today. It includes social, cultural and political case studies from across the continent on the following topical issues: Witchcraft and modernity Power and politics Conflict and peace Media and popular culture Development Human rights Illness and health Gender and sexuality With suggestions for further reading, discussion questions, illustrations and a list of glossary terms this is the ideal textbook for students in religion, African studies and adjacent fields approaching this subject area for the first time.

Introduction to African Religion

Introduction to African Religion PDF Author: John S. Mbiti
Publisher: Waveland Press
ISBN: 1478628928
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
In his widely acclaimed survey, John Mbiti sheds light on the survival and prosperity of African Religion in different historical, geographical, sociological, cultural, and physical environments. He presents a constellation of African worldviews, beliefs in God, use of symbols, valued traditions, and practices that have taken root with African peoples throughout the vast continent. Mbiti’s accessible writing style sympathetically portrays how African Religion manifests itself in ritual, festival, healing, the human life cycle, and interplay with the mystical and invisible world. The account embraces foundational traditions, while touching on elements that spawn transitions, including migration, the spread of Christianity and Islam, political-economic development, and modern communication. This popular introduction leaves readers with informed knowledge of the riches of African heritage.

Religion and the Making of Nigeria

Religion and the Making of Nigeria PDF Author: Olufemi Vaughan
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822373874
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
In Religion and the Making of Nigeria, Olufemi Vaughan examines how Christian, Muslim, and indigenous religious structures have provided the essential social and ideological frameworks for the construction of contemporary Nigeria. Using a wealth of archival sources and extensive Africanist scholarship, Vaughan traces Nigeria’s social, religious, and political history from the early nineteenth century to the present. During the nineteenth century, the historic Sokoto Jihad in today’s northern Nigeria and the Christian missionary movement in what is now southwestern Nigeria provided the frameworks for ethno-religious divisions in colonial society. Following Nigeria’s independence from Britain in 1960, Christian-Muslim tensions became manifest in regional and religious conflicts over the expansion of sharia, in fierce competition among political elites for state power, and in the rise of Boko Haram. These tensions are not simply conflicts over religious beliefs, ethnicity, and regionalism; they represent structural imbalances founded on the religious divisions forged under colonial rule.

Readings in African Religion

Readings in African Religion PDF Author: Muhammad Wolfgang G. A. Schmidt
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3638263630
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 30

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Book Description
It is quite instructive to see how the concerned --- explaining religious debates on principal methodological concepts from there. Basically, this is a approaches and theoretical axioms correct approach and a methodological developed - approaches and basic prerequisite if you want to work concepts that seem to serve as a point objectively, neither being an of departure in the study of Traditional ethnocentrist or be prejudged by any African Religion. To me, it seems to confessional faith that you privately be the old Western type of “academic may hold. Both such subconscious disease” of putting everything into a factors conflict with the academic and well defined but strict set of categories scientific aim of being neutral and according to certain preconceived objective. Furthermore, it may have criteria and them make it work. In the first been the Early Marxists such as end, scholars and researches will find Marx himself and his close collaborator Engels who in the midst of the 19 th themselves caught up in their own trap century made the first attempts to they built. depart from the then prevalent dominating pattern of idealistic The instance of assessing the study of approach in science and advocating a Traditional African Religion from at more objective, neutral pattern of least two superficially conflicting points approach. It is what they called of view must give such an impression “materialist approach” opposing any to anyone following the recent prejudgment and preconception. To academic debates in the relevant them, prejudgment and preconception literature. Thus, it could only be a was to be found in the “transcendence” European, David Westerlund who in of Christian Religious Faith prevalent in his “INSIDERS AND OUTSIDERS IN the societies of those days. They were THE STUDY OF AFRICAN simply seeking for another alternative RELIGIONS. Notes on some Problems approach bringing about more of Theory and Method” (in: OLUPONA, objective and neutral standpoints not J.K. (ed.), “African Traditional Religions only in the study of society and the in Contemporary Society”, St. Paul, socio-economic factors underlying it 1991:15-24) raised the point. In but in any other sphere of academic addition to presenting a brief overview debate as well.

The Bible and African Culture

The Bible and African Culture PDF Author: Humphrey Waweru
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN: 9966040099
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
How can African theology survive the self-repetition of mere cultural apologia or contextualization-stereotypes, and mature into a critical theoretical discipline responding to the challenges of the postmodern world-order? Dr. Humphrey M. Wawe contributes here a sound theological reflection using the hitherto unused methodological paradigm of mapping the inroads in the transaction between the Bible and African culture.

Evil in Africa

Evil in Africa PDF Author: William C. Olsen
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253017505
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 405

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Book Description
William C. Olsen, Walter E. A. van Beek, and the contributors to this volume seek to understand how Africans have confronted evil around them. Grouped around notions of evil as a cognitive or experiential problem, evil as malevolent process, and evil as an inversion of justice, these essays investigate what can be accepted and what must be condemned in order to evaluate being and morality in African cultural and social contexts. These studies of evil entanglements take local and national histories and identities into account, including state politics and civil war, religious practices, Islam, gender, and modernity.

Readings in African Traditional Religion

Readings in African Traditional Religion PDF Author: Emele Mba Uka
Publisher: Peter Lang Group Ag, International Academic Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
This book consists of classic articles on African Traditional Religion by eminent scholars in the field. It has six sections. The first one deals with definitions and how the African perceives his world; the second looks at ATR in terms of its academic, historical, western and methodological perspectives. The third examines some vital elements of the theology, spirituality, ethics and salvific value of ATR. Section four reviews the impact of ATR in its environment as it bears on family life, nation building, education and health. Section five examines the encounter of ATR with world missionary religions like Christianity and Islam. The final section, which ends with a selected bibliography on the subject considers the future and the way forward for ATR. The book is designed as a resource and reference material for anyone interested in the field of Religion. It will also appeal to both scholars and students in the field of Religious studies, Sociology of Religion, Comparative study of Religions and «Mission» studies.

African Religions & Philosophy

African Religions & Philosophy PDF Author: John S. Mbiti
Publisher: Heinemann
ISBN: 9780435895914
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
"African Religions and Philosophy" is a systematic study of the attitudes of mind and belief that have evolved in the many societies of Africa. In this second edition, Dr Mbiti has updated his material to include the involvement of women in religion, and the potential unity to be found in what was once thought to be a mass of quite separate religions. Mbiti adds a new dimension to the understanding of the history, thinking, and life throughout the African continent. Religion is approached from an African point of view but is as accessible to readers who belong to non-African societies as it is to those who have grown up in African nations. Since its first publication, this book has become acknowledged as the standard work in the field of study, and it is essential reading for anyone concerned with African religion, history, philosophy, anthropology or general African studies.