African Religions

A presente dissertacao tem como proposito apresentar os resultados obtidos por meio da analise de dezoito cancoes dos rappers Criolo e Emicida que fazem referencia direta aos orixas. Em relacao aos objetivos da pesquisa buscou-se identificar de que maneira os orixas presentes nas letras sao contextualizados e ressignificados por meio da linguagem do Rap, um estilo musical reconhecido por sua habilidade em tratar de diversos problemas sociais relacionados a pobreza, a desigualdade social e racial, ao racismo, entre outros. Para tal, foi aplicada a metodologia de Analise de Conteudo. A analise dos dados coletados e as categorias construidas a partir do metodo em questao contribuiram para o discernimento acerca do fenomeno investigado. Para alcancar uma melhor compreensao, foi buscado, tambem, como aporte teorico metodologico, o estudo de Representacoes Sociais, de Serge Moscovici, como forma de entender os processos de insercao e de ressignificacao dos orixas nas cancoes. Neste estudo...

Focusing on African Christian theology, this paper builds on the taxonomy of African political theology provided by Emmanuel Katongole whose conception of African political theology locates it within the context of the nation state. The paper however goes beyond Katongole's taxonomy to discuss other forms of political theology that are important in Africa today. It proposes a new form of political theology that goes beyond the nation state to encompass the planet and argues that the different forms of political theology in Africa should not be seen as mutually exclusive but rather as interconnected and mutually enriching.

In the Sukuma language of the Sukuma Ethnic Group  in Western Tanzania there is a proverb: "Mbuli ya kitambo ikachaga yumela."  The English translation is: "The sacrificial goat dies while screaming in anguish."  This proverb can be used to demonstrate what inculturation of the Gospel in Africa is all about.  This and other proverbs and examples of African oral literature (sayings, riddles, stories and songs) are a very powerful way to explain the sometimes complex ideas of theology, catechesis, morality and spirituality in an African context.  This process can be a real African contribution to the World Church.

        This article treats:

I.  The First African Synod's Call for Inculturation
II.  History and Explanation of the Sukuma Proverb
III.  Parallels Between the Sukuma Tradition and the Christian Tradition
IV.  Christian Teaching on the Eucharistic Sacrifice

For years, self-identified witches have demanded the public acknowledgement of witchcraft as “religion” in Nigeria. These political debates are reflected in a long-ongoing scholarly discussion about whether “witchcraft” in Africa should be regarded as religion or not. At its core, this discussion concerns the quest for African meanings. I argue that we should focus on the translingual practice as the reason for today’s perception of “African” and “European” differences as incommensurable. Tracing back today’s understanding of witchcraft among the Yoruba (àjé), the Alatinga anti-witchcraft movement of the early 1950s becomes the nodal point of Yoruba witchcraft history. Discussing the Alatinga as translingual practice, I understand Yoruba witchcraft concepts as products of a global religious history. Only in the aftermath of the Alatinga, a hybrid movement, did the need arise to demarcate “African” and “European” meanings. Thus, Yoruba translingual practice has also affected European understandings of religion and witchcraft today.

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This book is an in-depth, comparative study of two of the most popular and influential intellectual and spiritual traditions of West Africa: Tijani Sufism and Ifa. Employing a unique methodological approach that thinks with and from—rather than merely about—these traditions, Oludamini Ogunnaike argues that they contain sophisticated epistemologies that provide practitioners with a comprehensive worldview and a way of crafting a meaningful life.

Using theories belonging to the traditions themselves as well as contemporary oral and textual sources, Ogunnaike examines how both Sufism and Ifa answer the questions of what knowledge is, how it is acquired, and how it is verified. Or, more simply: What do you know? How did you come to know it? How do you know that you know? After analyzing Ifa and Sufism separately and on their own terms, the book compares them to each other and to certain features of academic theories of knowledge. By analyzing Sufism from the perspective of Ifa, Ifa from the perspective of Sufism, and the contemporary academy from the perspective of both, this book invites scholars to inhabit these seemingly “foreign” intellectual traditions as valid and viable perspectives on knowledge, metaphysics, psychology, and ritual practice.

The study of religion and literature is an emerging field of academic interest. Although some work has been done on religion and African literature, research in this area tends to be fragmented and dispersed over various fields and disciplines. Reviewing available scholarship in this area, this article explores what engaging with African literary writing brings to the table of the study of religion in Africa. Focusing on postcolonial and contemporary African literature, it identifies a threefold contribution: first, the creative representation of religious traditions and dynamics; second, the critique of religious beliefs and institutions; third, the imagination of alternative religious possibilities. It illustrates these contributions by specifically focusing on issues of (neo)colonialism, gender and sexuality. Hence the article foregrounds the importance of engaging with religion for interpreting African literary texts, and the significance of literary writing for understanding religion as part of African social and cultural life.

This study stages an analysis of religious politics in Dar es Salaam and Tanzania from below. At its heart is an original account of Muslim political mobilisation in Tanzania that foregrounds the everyday lives of urban actors in Kariakoo, a super-dense market district at the centre of Dar es Salaam.

Under British colonial rule, Kariakoo was Dar es Salaam‟s principal African residential neighbourhood; the beating heart of the city's lively cultural scene and the cradle of Tanganyika‟s African nationalist movement. Today, Kariakoo has grown into one of the most important commercial districts in the East African region. In 2012 and 2013, it was also the site of episodes of Muslim mobilisation which led to clashes with state police and armed forces.

Drawing on rich data derived from fifteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in the neighbourhood, I ask what the everyday life of Kariakoo reveals about religious politics in Tanzania. More specifically, I use it to investigate the intersections between Muslim mobilisation, informal livelihood practices developed by urban users in response to escalating conditions of economic precarity, and popular discontent concerning entrenched inequalities and uneven development along religious lines.

By drawing together several innovative research trajectories in the fields of religious and urban studies, I am able to hold together the notions of the religious and the urban in a manner that spotlights just how integral religion is to Kariakoo as an urban ecology. The subsequent discussion reveals the remarkable dynamism of Muslim social practices and modes of affiliation when considered as numbering among the everyday livelihood practices that are employed by urban users in Kariakoo.

This study brings a more nuanced explanatory frame to bear on the contemporary realities of Muslim activism and religious politics in Tanzania and beyond than those that prevail in much academic and media commentary.

This symposium issue will collect papers from conference on Law and Religion in Africa: Comparative Practices, Experiences, and Prospects was held 14-15 January 2013 at the University of Ghana in Legon, Ghana. Scholars, legal professionals, and religious leaders from Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierre Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, the United Kingdom, and the United States gathered in Legon for the two-day event.  Following a set of plenary lectures, six panels contained papers on Religion and Constitutionalism, Indigenous Religions, Religion-State Relations, Religion-State Tensions, Politics and Pluralism, and State Responses to Religious Minorities.

Sexual imagery in the earliest Central Saharan rock art is extremely rare. Except for a few scenes of a probable sexual intercourse, the art focused on rituals , masked figures, body decoration and representation of wild animals. Only in the oldest phase of the art, the engraved and painted male figures are abundantly depicted with penis. This feature disappeared completely in the later stages of the art, where the penis became a prerogative of privileged individuals.

Neo-Pentecostal or born-again language and understandings are highly prominent in Kenya. They were especially visible during the general election of 2013 in which the victorious Jubilee coalition campaigned using a narrative according to which the nation was being washed clean of past sins, redeemed, and born again. This was attractive to and reflected the desires of Kenyans seeking to move beyond the horrors of the postelection violence that occurred in 2007-2008. This provides an invaluable lens for
conceptualising current Kenyan understandings of African Christianity and how these relate to politics and contemporary socioeconomic conditions. More specifically, this paper argues that in 2013 a popular desire for health and wealth, and deference to authority came together with personal but abstract repentance and forgiveness narratives. This contributed to a peaceful election but restricted the means through which criticism might be voiced and helps to maintain structural inequality and impunity.

ABSTRACT & RÉSUMÉ:
The analysis of African occult belief systems provides a unique example for demonstrating that seemingly outdated and exotic African modes of thought, such as the belief in magic and witchcraft, are modern and have significant impact on social, economic and political structures. Official approaches, designed to cope with the problems of witchcraft violence in Africa, have since the advent of colonial rule been based on eurocentric views and colonial jurisdiction, legitimised by Western social science. These answers are inadequate; in fact, they constitute part of the problem itself. African religions could provide a framework for valuable indigenous solutions to actual problems of contemporary life, including the problem of witchcraft violence. Besides, they might, under certain conditions, provide the outside world with an inspiring new dimension of philosophic thought and emancipative action, for example, within the realm of conflict resolution and reconciliation. However, even in the case of the ‘domestication’ of witchcraft violence, this holds only in so far as appropriate African answers can be shielded against the negative impact of globalised liberal capitalism. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RÉSUMÉ:  [ Sur la renaissance des modes de pensée africains - L'exemple de la croyance en magie et la sorcellerie ] - L'analyse des systèmes de croyances occultes africains offre un exemple unique pour démontrer que les modes africains de la pensée apparemment obsolètes et exotiques, comme la croyance en la sorcellerie, sont très modernes. Ils ont un impact décisive sur des structures sociales, économiques et politiques africaines. Les approches officielles, visant à faire face aux problèmes de la violence de la sorcellerie en Afrique, ont depuis l'avènement de la domination coloniale, été fondés sur des opinions eurocentriques et la juridiction coloniale, qui étaient légitimées par la science sociale occidentale de ces temps. Ces réponses sont insuffisantes, en fait, ils font partie du problème il-même. Religions africaines pourrait fournir un cadre pour des solutions autochtones précieux, ainsi que pour résoudre les problèmes réels de la vie contemporaine, y compris la question de la sorcellerie. Outre cela, ils pourraient, sous certaines conditions, fournir au monde extérieur avec une nouvelle dimension inspirante de la philosophie et de l'action émancipatrice, par exemple, dans le domaine de la résolution des conflits et de la réconciliation. Cependant, même dans le cas de la « domestication » de la sorcellerie, ce ne détient au mesure que les réponses appropriées africaines peuvent être protégés contre l'impact négatif du capitalisme libéral mondialisé.

Grand philosophe de la décolonisation, Franz Fanon a mis au coeur de sa pensée la question de l'émancipation de toutes les formes de domination de l'homme par l'homme. Bien que moins connue que ses théories sur la domination politique ou culturelle, sa pensée sur les formes de domination religieuse est particulièrement féconde et intéressante pour comprendre des dynamiques qui se produisent encore aujourd'hui en Afrique et au Moyen-Orient.

The trope of fetishization is central to Latin American liberation philosophy and its proposal for an “anti-fetishist” method. In this essay, I offer a genealogy of the trope of fetishization in the work of the Argentine-Mexican philosopher of liberation Enrique Dussel. Engaging recent work in cultural anthropology that demonstrates how the notion of “fetishism” develops out of a one-sided Eurocentric anthropology of religion that misrepresents elements of Afro-Atlantic religions, I argue that without a serious revision of the metaphysical premises of “anti-fetishism,” liberation philosophy risks perpetuating a Eurocentrism that runs counter to the interests of epistemic decolonization to which it is committed. This essay therefore concludes by outlining the prospects of a decolonial “anti-fetishist” method that might overcome the Eurocentric misapprehension of Afro-Atlantic religions.

ABSTRACT & RÉSUMÉ:
The political economy of occult belief in Africa can highlight hidden social and political conflict in times of transition which remain otherwise undetected. This has been demonstrated in taking the development of witchcraft accusations over time as indicator, and the Nupe of Northern Nigeria as an example. A tentative long-term study on the growth of the Nupe state since pre-colonial times points towards a close relationship between the content and form of witchcraft accusations and the mode of production under which the stakeholders used to life and work. Over time, witchcraft accusations among the Nupe apparently served different, even antagonistic ends, depending on the mode of production in which they were embedded. Much confusion in literature on the apparent contradiction between ‘emancipating’ and ‘oppressive’ functions of witchcraft beliefs could be avoided by considering this articulation between modes of production, witchcraft accusations, and the underlying vested interests of the ruling powers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
RÉSUMÉ:  [ Sur l'articulation de la sorcellerie et de modes de production parmi les Nupe, dans le nord du Nigéria ] - L'économie politique de la croyance occulte en Afrique peut mettre en évidence des conflits sociales et politiques cachés en période de transition qui restent autrement inaperçus. Cela a été démontré à prendre le développement des accusations de sorcellerie au fil du temps comme indicateur, et les Nupe du Nigeria du Nord comme un exemple. Une étude préliminaire à long terme sur la croissance de l'État Nupe depuis l'époque précoloniale pointe vers une relation étroite entre le contenu et la forme des accusations de sorcellerie et le mode de production en vertu de laquelle les parties prenantes ont travaillés. Au fil du temps, les accusations de sorcellerie parmi les Nupe ont apparemment servis différents, voire antagonistes objectives, selon le mode de production dans lequel ils ont été intégrés. Beaucoup de confusion dans la littérature sur la contradiction apparente entre des croyances de sorcellerie « émancipateur » et des fonctions plutôt « oppressives » pourrait être évité en prenant en compte cette articulation entre les modes de production, les accusations de sorcellerie, et les intérêts sous-jacents des puissances dominantes.

ABSTRACT & RÉSUMÉ & ZUSAMMENFASSUNG: The belief in occult forces is still deeply rooted in many African societies, regardless of education, religion, and social class of the people concerned. According to many Africans its incidence is even increasing due to social stress and strain caused (among others) by the process of modernization. Most often magic and witchcraft accusations work to the disadvantage of the poor and deprived, but under particular circumstances they become a means of the poor in the struggle against oppression by establishing "cults of counterviolence." Magic and witchcraft beliefs have increasingly been instrumentalized for political purposes. Apparently they can be used to support any kind of political system, whether despotic or democratic. The belief in occult forces has serious implications for development cooperation. Development projects, which constitute arenas of strategic groups in their struggle for power and control over project resources, are likely to add further social stress to an already endangered precarious balance of power, causing witchcraft accusations to flourish. In addition, witchcraft accusations may serve as indicators of hidden social conflicts which are difficult to detect by other methods. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  RÉSUMÉ :  [ La magie et la sorcellerie : conséquences pour la démocratisation et l'aide à la réduction de la pauvreté en Afrique ] - La croyance en forces occultes est encore profondément enracinée dans des nombreuses sociétés africaines, indépendamment de l'éducation, de la religion et de la classe sociale des personnes concernées. Selon des nombreux Africains, son incidence augmente encore en raison du stress social et de la tension causée (entre autres) par le processus de modernisation. Le plus souvent, les accusations de magie et de sorcellerie font mal aux pauvres et aux personnes défavorisées, mais dans des circonstances particulières, elles deviennent un moyen pour les pauvres dans la lutte contre l'oppression en établissant des « cultes de contre-violence ». Les croyances magiques et sorcelleries ont de plus en plus été instrumentées à des fins politiques. Apparemment, ils peuvent être utilisés pour soutenir tout type de système politique, qu'il soit despotique ou démocratique. La croyance en forces occultes a de sérieuses implications pour la coopération au développement. Les projets de développement, qui constituent des arènes de groupes stratégiques dans leur lutte pour le pouvoir et le contrôle sur les ressources du projet, sont susceptibles d'ajouter un stress social supplémentaire à un équilibre de pouvoir précaire déjà menacé, ce qui entraînera des accusations de sorcellerie. En outre, les accusations de sorcellerie peuvent servir d'indicateur de conflits sociaux cachés qui sont difficiles à détecter par d'autres méthodes. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------     
ZUSAMMENFASSUNG: [Magie und Hexerei: Implikationen für Demokratisierung und armuts-lindernde Entwicklungshilfe in Afrika]  -  Der Glaube an okkulte Mächte ist immer noch fest verankert in vielen afrikanischen Gesellschaften, unabhängig von Ausbildung, Religion und sozialer Klasse der betroffenen Menschen. Viele Afrikaner glauben sogar, dass Hexerei weiter zunimmt durch die wachsenden gesellschaftlichen Gegensätze im Rahmen der Modernisierung. In der Regel wirken Hexenanschuldigungen zum Nachteil der Armen und Entrechteten. Aber unter bestimmten Umständen können sie durch die Etablierung von ‚Kulten der Gegengewalt‘ auch zum Mittel der Armen in ihrem Kampf gegen Unterdrückung werden. Der Glaube an Magie und Hexerei wird in Afrika zunehmend für politische Zwecke instrumentalisiert. Augenscheinlich kann er zur Unterstützung jeglicher politischer Systeme, ob despotisch oder demokratisch, genutzt werden. Aus dem Glauben an okkulte Mächte ergeben sich gravierende Implikationen für die Entwicklungszusammenarbeit. Entwicklungsprojekt, die auf lokaler Ebene Schauplatz strategischer Gruppen in ihrer Auseinandersetzung um Macht und Kontrolle über Projektmittel bilden, sind dazu angetan, weiteren sozialen Stress zum ohnehin schon prekären Machtgleichgewicht hinzuzufügen, und heizen Hexenanschuldigungen damit an. Davon abgesehen, können Hexenanschuldigungen als Indikator für versteckte soziale Konflikte dienen, die durch andere Methoden der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit kaum aufzudecken sind. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   
CARTOON on the modernity of witchcraft-belief in Sub-Saharan Africa. Credit: Le Monde, Paris, 11 Dec. 1987 / Serguei, Sergio Goizauskas, https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serguei - From newspaper-article: „Le retour des sorciers - Désenchantement et traditions en Afrique“, Jacques de Barrin, Le Monde, 11. 12. 1987, p. 44

Birgit Meyer's Sensational Movies brings together some of the signal themes that have defined her scholarly career at the intersection of Pentecostalism in Africa and the material mediation of religious life. Her ethnographic study of the burgeoning Ghanaian film industry focuses on the ways in which film not only reflects the local moral imagination at a time of social change but also helps to shape and literally produce new forms of imagination that combine, for example, the dualistic Pentecostal ethos with self-conscious stylistic modernism and contested nostalgia for the rural African past. Meyer carefully details both the market forces that constrain film-makers to produce certain kinds of films and the contested cultural politics of African self-representation. The result is a model ethnography for dealing with the complexities of modern cultural production while managing to avoid the all-too-easy collapse into fashionable postmodern solipsism. Meyer does not ignore the films or the filmic imaginary, but she pays attention to the people and sociopolitical contexts behind film production as well. This is crucial, because it allows Meyer to weigh in on some of the major theoretical issues running through today's anthropology of religion. Sensational Movies is the work of a mature scholar who has learned to cut through the Gordian knots of protracted scholarly debate in just a few elegant sentences. While she clearly is interested in the lived experience that transcends mere interpretation of cultures, for

ABSTRACT & RÉSUMÉ:
The strange collusion between occult belief systems and different trans-national social networks, embedded in specific transformations of local and global modes of production, results in unique but reinforcing modifications of witchcraft belief, its underlying structures and its impact on the process of democratisation. The amazing range of possible results has been indicated by the analysis of two outstanding examples of witchcraft violence in South Africa in times of transition: in the former homelands of Venda and Lebowa, seemingly 'traditional' elements of witchcraft accusations, mediated by a misguided struggle for liberation, stimulated the sympathetic attention of stakeholders beyond the local setting. On the other hand, the occult base of violence in the Transkei became so blurred by involvement of 'modern' elements of globalised markets of violence that it was hardly visible any more, although undercover its repressive effects were still very much alive. These different roots of witchcraft violence had serious repercussions on conflict resolution and genuine reconciliation, the base for any sustainable democratisation and development. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
RÉSUMÉ:  [ La Sorcellerie et les espaces sociales transnationales - la sorcellerie, la réconciliation et le développement dans le processus de transition de l'Afrique du Sud ] - La collusion étrange entre les systèmes de croyances occultes et les différents réseaux sociaux transnationaux, intégré dans les transformations spécifiques des modes de production locaux et mondiaux, à contribuer au renforcement de croyance de la sorcellerie, ainsi que à la modifications de ses structures sous-jacentes et de son impact sur le processus de démocratisation. L'incroyable éventail de résultats possibles a été indiqué par l'analyse de deux exemples remarquables de la sorcellerie en Afrique du Sud en période de transition : dans les anciens homelands du Venda et Lebowa, des éléments « traditionnels » de l’accusation de sorcellerie, médiée par une lutte malavisée pour la libération, ont stimulé l'attention sympathique des parties prenantes au-delà du cadre local. D'autre part, la base occulte de la violence dans le Transkei est devenue tellement floue, à cause de la participation des éléments «modernes» de la mondialisation des marchés de violence, qu'il était à peine plus visible, bien que ses effets répressifs couvert étaient encore très vivante. Ces différentes racines de violence de la sorcellerie ont eu des répercussions graves sur la résolution des conflits et la réconciliation véritable, qui constituent la base de toute démocratisation et du développement durable.  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
Image: National Conference on Witchcraft Violence in South Africa, 1998. Source: front page of conference report, Commission on Gender Equality, 1999 (cover of the final report)

In Africa, religion shows no sign of disappearing or diminishing as development theorists have generally supposed. Africans have certain religious values which are sources of inspiration and strength. If incorporated, they can greatly contribute to development initiatives in their planning, implementation and monitoring stages. The book shows that Euro-Western development practitioners excluded consideration of the religious dimension in formulating development policies towards Africa resulted in failure of their development strategies. Furthermore, the book emphasized that once indigenous African religion is rehabilitated as an important concept and variable in the understanding and implementation of social change and progress, development strategies will be assured to be successful. Therefore, the incorporation of religion(s) of the indigenous peoples should be given the desired attention. Moreover, to buttress the importance of religion(s) of the indigenous peoples of Africa, the...

"O Festival Mundial de Ifá é realizado todos os anos, nos primórdios do mês de junho, na Sede do Ilé Òrúnmìlà Barami Àgbonmìrègún, também chamado Ilé Ifá Àgbáyé (Templo Mundial de Ifá). O Festival, como todos os anos, foi feito na montanha (Òkè) Ìtasè, cidade de Ilé-Ifè, estado de Òsun, Nigéria, como parte das celebrações do Ano Novo dos praticantes da Religião Tradicional Yorùbá. Durante o festival é apurado o Odù Ifá que regerá o novo ano, o qual será sacado pelo Bàbáláwo mais novo.
O Odù sacado este ano foi Òdí Ogbè (Édi Ogbè, Édi Gbèmí, Ìdí Èkúté, Ìdí Iwinlara, Ìdíngbémi), sendo que o Odù se manifestou de forma negativa, com tendência a doenças (Àyèwò Àrùn). Mesmo sendo um Odù que representa muito sucesso, a negatividade manifesta pode atrair doenças.
Resolvemos, então, trazer ao público brasileiro a tradução do texto divulgado pelo Olúwo Pópóọla, a fim de que os praticantes da tradição de Ifá e Òrìṣà possam ter informações daquilo que devem ou não fazer neste ano. "

This yet unpublished manuscript sheds light on the relationship between the ethnologist Leo Frobenius (1873-1938) and the philologist Walter F. Otto (1874-1958). Frobenius and Otto became close friends a couple of years after their first “official” contact in 1924 (when Otto made possible the transfer of Frobenius’ Forschungsinstitut für Kulturmorphologie from Munich to Frankfurt, as well his appointment to honorary professor in 1932 and, in 1935, to director of the municipal Museum für Völkerkunde). Their personal friendship was at the core of the “Religionswissenschaftliche Frankfurter Schule”, in which eminent scholars took part in the decade 1924-1934. The scientific and personal background of the relationship Frobenius-Otto is well documented in this manuscript, which strikes both for its immediacy and scholarly interest.

Myths, or sacred narratives, have been underexplored in mainstream philosophy of religion, which has also had little to say about African indigenous religions. These lacunae impoverish the philosophy of religion by diminishing its coverage both of the range of human religious possibilities and of the diverse modes through which religious ideas and worldviews are conveyed. With particular attention to Yorùbá religion, this article promotes and exemplifies a pluralistic narrative approach that draws upon mythology to facilitate philosophical reflection upon a wider array of religious traditions, for the dual purpose of doing conceptual justice to those traditions while also furthering the discipline’s conceptual enrichment.

In the concluding pages of A Spirit of Revitalization, Kyama M. Mugambi takes his readers through central Nairobi on a Sunday morning in 2018. Within a tight radius of five hundred meters, a colorful diversity of living congregations collectively represents the history of Christianity in Kenya as European-initiated and African-initiated movements alike hold their services. “This small area in Nairobi,” Mugambi says, “acts as a microcosm of African Christianity,” not only in urban Kenya but in many other places around the continent (p. 287).

This article engages the work of two prominent but recently deceased scholars of African Christianity-the Gambian Lamin Sanneh and the Cameroonian Fabien Eboussi Boulaga. It argues that their reinterpretation of Christianity is designed to develop an imagination of resistance in the context of western domination in Africa. Sanneh approaches the matter from a historical perspective through which he narrates the emergence of a new form of Christianity, leading to his important distinction between "world Christianity" and "global Christianity." Boulaga approaches the issue from the perspective of philosophical theology, through which he developed the "Christic model" as central to appropriating the Christian faith in Africa. The paper argues that one can hardly understand why Sanneh distinguishes between global and world Christianity and why Boulaga develops the radical Christic model, if one fails to locate their work within the framework of problematizing dynamics of western domination in Africa.

This article builds on my recent engagement with James Cone’s binary view of Africanness and Christianity which focused on his Western locus of enunciation and the criticism he received from his African American colleagues. I believe that analogical questions regarding Christian theology’s attitude towards Africanness in general and African religiosity in particular present themselves to us who live in and try to make sense of South African reality today, including white people like myself. I start by introducing a decolonial perspective as it manifests itself through the recent #MustFall student movements. In this context, I offer three theses regarding the decolonial perspective on African religiosity, each of which constitutes a more or less direct critique of Cone’s ambivalent attitude towards Africanness, and African Traditional Religions in particular. The first thesis concerns the distinction between postcoloniality and decoloniality; the second thesis concerns engaging African religiosity as a requirement for decolonising Christian theology; and the third thesis concerns problematising the relationship between the categories of blackness and Africanness.

Presuming that such themes as diaspora and migration pertain to Africana peoples of the Indian Ocean world no less than they do to those of the better-known Atlantic, this special issue opens the study of Africana religions to an expanded geographic range and the insights that come with such an expansion. This introductory essay clarifies the special issue’s rationale, sketches the relevant historical and geographic contexts, and proposes three analytic frames through which to assess the interventions made by the contributors. The value and variety of those interventions underscore the importance, if not necessity, of taking a truly global approach to Africana religious studies.

The introduction to this issue explores some complications in identifying religion and violence in the indigenous imaginations of Africa.  The meaning of both terms can be contested when applied to sub-Saharan Africa, where “reenchanted traditions” (Mbembé 2002) have emerged as features of African regional wars.  Examples show the necessity for expanded perspectives on religion and violence, beyond European categories of thought.  Then the introduction summarizes the essays within issue 4.1. 
https://www.pdcnet.org/jrv