The Impact of Christianity, Islam and Colonialism on Indigenous African Religion and Cultures

C Ugwukah Alexander ,I Ohaja Obinna

doi:10.7176/jpcr/41-04

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of foreign religions on the African Traditional Religion, their socio-political settings and culture. The work has equally endeavored to highlight the essence, content and raison d’etat for the religious practices of the Africans in precolonial times. With such evaluation, the work has been able to draw out the values and functions of the religion on the socio-political and cultural settings of the African people. Adequate effort was made to review and assess the circumstances which led to the adoption and establishment of these foreign religions on Africa as a whole. For obvious reasons especially that which is related to the human rights of men in their religious views and worship, the work does not make any pretensions as to exact any effort to place the West dominated misunderstanding of the African views of religion and spirituality above other considerations. Rather, this work has embarked on the presentation of the advantages of each of these religions and more importantly, the impact it had on the African people in the past and its continued tendencies in their history. The position of the work therefore is that Africans should rather cultivate in themselves a sense of self-confidence and assurance that the religious state of man in the African sense was the bedrock of the unique social values, morality, balance and order which regulated the society which was bereft of social ills. The work concludes that African traditional religion still remain a virtual instrument to reform our society today as it enforced obedience in the past and reverence to a supreme God as in the other religions who also is the chief moderator and administrator of the world, then, now and in the future. Keywords : Christianity, Islam, African Traditional Religion, Culture, Colonialism. DOI : 10.7176/JPCR/41-04

Highlights

Scholars in the nineteenth century, starting from the works of the father of anthropology, Edward B Taylor, created the impression that African indigenous religions was at the bottom of the religious evolution, they used such derogatory terms as fetish, idolatry, superstitious, heathenism, to describe the religious practices and ways of life of Nigerians and by extension to all Africans[1] As Ajayi has rightly pointed out, “it is not any gainsaying that the European Christian missionaries in Africa failed to appreciate the nature of the African pagan religion as something transcending mere personal beliefs and the forms of worship as a whole, social system encompassing the entire life and culture of the people , they saw in it no more than fetish idolatry and Juju”.2 They disagreed with the tenet of the African traditional religion and their entire traditional ways of life which was in the first place rooted in paganism required to be extirpated to make way for the white man’s cultural values.[3]
Upgrading African Culture The position of this paper once again comes to the reference of African culture as tolerative of its customs, practices and obligations which has been highly under the African traditional religion
The argument of the work is that African traditions are African, while the Christian faith of the Judeo-Greek-roman-western culture and Islam of the Arabian background have their own traditional basis as well, none of them should be degraded ahead of the other

Summary

Introduction

Scholars in the nineteenth century, starting from the works of the father of anthropology, Edward B Taylor, created the impression that African indigenous religions was at the bottom of the religious evolution, they used such derogatory terms as fetish, idolatry, superstitious, heathenism, to describe the religious practices and ways of life of Nigerians and by extension to all Africans[1] As Ajayi has rightly pointed out, “it is not any gainsaying that the European Christian missionaries in Africa failed to appreciate the nature of the African pagan religion as something transcending mere personal beliefs and the forms of worship as a whole, social system encompassing the entire life and culture of the people , they saw in it no more than fetish idolatry and Juju”.2 They disagreed with the tenet of the African traditional religion and their entire traditional ways of life which was in the first place rooted in paganism required to be extirpated to make way for the white man’s cultural values.[3]. In African traditional societies, there was a deeply rooted belief in the continuity of life, a life after death and a “community of interest between the living and the dead and the generation yet unborn.” There was a general belief that God who created the community, created a set of supernatural and spiritual forces capable of intervening in life in the physical world.

Results

Conclusion