Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions PDF Download

Author: Emefie Ikenga Metuh
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Africa
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Author: Elia Shabani Mligo
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1621898245
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 102

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Book Description
African Traditional religion (ATR) is one of the world religions with a great people and a great past. It is embraced by Africans within and outside the continent despite the various ethnic religious practices and beliefs. This book highlights and discusses the common elements which introduce African Traditional Religion as one unified religion and not a collection of religions. The major focus of the book is discussing the need for studying ATR in twenty-first-century Africa whereby globalization and multi-culture are prominent phenomena. Why should we study the religion of indigenous Africans in this age? In response to this question, the book argues that since ATR is part of the African people's culture, there is a need to understand this cultural background in order to contextualize Christian theology. Using some illustrations from Nyumbanitu worship shrine located at Njombe in Tanzania, the book purports that there is a need to understand African people's worldview, their understanding of God, their religious values, symbols and rituals in order to enhance meaningful dialogue between Christianity and African people's current worldview. In this case, the book is important for students of comparative religion in universities and colleges who strive to understand the various religions and their practices.

Author: Jacob K. Olupona
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199790582
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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This book connects traditional religions to the thriving religious activity in Africa today.

Author: Essien, Essien
Publisher: IGI Global
ISBN: 1799825752
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 521

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The contemporary conflict scenarios are beyond the reach of standardized approaches to conflict resolution. Given the curious datum that culture is implicated in nearly every conflict in the world, culture can also be an important aspect of efforts to transform destructive conflicts into more constructive social processes. Yet, what culture is and how culture matters in conflict scenarios is contested and regrettably unexplored. The Handbook of Research on the Impact of Culture in Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding is a critical publication that examines cultural differences in conflict resolution based on various aspects of culture such as morals, traditions, and laws. Highlighting a wide range of topics such as criminal justice, politics, and technological development, this book is essential for educators, social scientists, sociologists, political leaders, government officials, academicians, conflict resolution practitioners, world peace organizations, researchers, and students.

Author: Anthony Ephirim-Donkor
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761853294
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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African religion is ancestor worship; that is, funeral preparations, burial of the dead with ceremony and pomp, belief in eternal existence of souls of the dead as ancestors, periodic remembrance of ancestors, and belief that they influence the affairs of their living descendants. Whether called Akw?sidai, Homowo, Voodoo, Nyant?r (Aboakyir), CandomblZ, or Santeria in Africa or the African Diaspora, ancestor worship centers on the ancestors and deities. This makes it a tenably viable religion, because living descendants are genetically linked to their ancestors. The author, a traditional king and professor, studies the Akan in Ghana to demonstrate that ancestor worship is as pragmatic, systematic, theological, teleological, soteriological — with a highly trained clerical body and elders as mediators — and symbolic as any other religion in the world. Ancestor worship follows prescribed rites and rituals, formulas, precepts for ritual efficacy, and festivities of honor with music and dances to provoke ancestors and deities into joining in the celebration.

Author: Jacob Olupona
Publisher: Paragon House
ISBN: 9780892260799
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Once relegated to the realm of "primitive" and stigmatized as "pagan," today there is a new acknowledgment of the importance of African traditional religions, especially in its stress on folk practices, communal values, and personal relationships. This volume of fourteen chapters examines the nature, structure, and significance of African traditional religion(s) as dynamic, changing tradition(s). It analyzes and interprets several significant aspects of African religions and explores their possible contributions to national development and the modernization process. It also examines the impact of social change on African religion today. The contributors are scholars from several disciplines (anthropology, sociology, history of religions, theology, literature and the arts); yet, in analysis and interpretation of their data, they all take transcendence and the sacred in African thought very seriously. The newness of this approach is in treating African traditional religion not as a fossil but rather as one of the most important building blocks of modern African life.

Author: Molefi Kete Asante
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1412936365
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 473

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Collects almost five hundred entries that cover the African response to spirituality, taboos, ethics, sacred space, and objects.

Author: J.D.Y. Peel
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520285859
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s open access publishing program for monographs. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. The Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria are exceptional for the copresence among them of three religious traditions: Islam, Christianity, and the indigenous orisa religion. In this comparative study, at once historical and anthropological, Peel explores the intertwined character of the three religions and the dense imbrication of religion in all aspects of Yoruba history up to the present. For over 400 years, the Yoruba have straddled two geocultural spheres: one reaching north over the Sahara to the world of Islam, the other linking them to the Euro-American world via the Atlantic. These two external spheres were the source of contrasting cultural influences, notably those emanating from the world religions. However, the Yoruba not only imported Islam and Christianity but also exported their own orisa religion to the New World. Before the voluntary modern diaspora that has brought many Yoruba to Europe and the Americas, tens of thousands were sold as slaves in the New World, bringing with them the worship of the orisa. Peel offers deep insight into important contemporary themes such as religious conversion, new religious movements, relations between world religions, the conditions of religious violence, the transnational flows of contemporary religion, and the interplay between tradition and the demands of an ever-changing present. In the process, he makes a major theoretical contribution to the anthropology of world religions.

Author: Carolyn M. Jones Medine
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137498056
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 509

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Book Description
Contemporary Perspectives on Religions in Africa and the African Diaspora explores African derived religions in a globalized world. The volume focuses on the continent, on African identity in globalization, and on African religion in cultural change.

Author: Harvey J. Sindima
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781569026014
Category : Africa
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Currently, there is no book on the theories and methods in African religious systems. This book fills that lacuna. The development of theories is discussed extensively and it includes some biographical information about the theorists themselves, concentrating on their intellectual history and influences, their particular contribution to the development of theories, and their reactions to the theories of other scholars in the discipline.