In this paper, I engage in a critical discussion of Francophone African philosophy focusing on its history, the influences, and emerging trends. Beginning the historical account from the 1920s, I examine the colonial discourses on racialism, and the various reactions generated leading to the Négritude movement in Francophone African intellectual history. I explore the wider implications of the debate on Négritude as an integral component of ethnophilosophy in postcolonial Francophone African philosophy. Finally, I argue that in spite (...) of the apparent linguistic divides/boundaries between Francophone African philosophy and the philosophical traditions in Anglophone and Lusophone Africa, there are robust interactions and critical exchanges of ideas converging and reconnecting with other philosophical orientations outside Africa. Keywords: African Philosophy, Colonialism, Francophone, Anglophone, Lusophone, Négritude, Ethnophilosophy. (shrink)

This essay argues that the inherent value of Indigenous African Religions, which ensures that the belief in different gods does not eclipse the fact of common humanity might be of importance to contemporary Africa plagued by ceaseless conflicts. The IAR ideology contrasts, for example, with that of Christianity which views the Christian God as the one true God and regards those who worship a different God as pagans and gentiles. It also contrasts with the ideology of Islam, which (...) views Allah as the one true God and regards those who worship different God as infidels. The essay claims that social orientation in contemporary Africa is mostly influenced by the divisive ideologies of these two foreign religions that have come to dominate. These divisive ideologies are to a large extent, indirectly responsible for some of the violent conflicts on the continent. This divisive religious orientation bifurcates humanity into in and out-groups that are extended to the social sphere where people from different religious, ethnic and linguistic groups are treated as outsiders and are made targets for attacks like in South Africa and Nigeria today. Further, if we interpret such violent conflicts as evil and consider its source in light of the perennial problem of evil, what would be our response? Using the conversational method, the essay argues that both good and evil are part of the universe, and that if we want more good, then a change from a divisive to a complementary orientation based on the relational values of the IARs is imperative. (shrink)

The history of the concept of “religion” in Western tradition has intrigued scholars for years. This important collection of eighteen essays brings further light to the ongoing debate. Three of the invited participants, W.C. Smith, M. Despland and E. Feil, has each previously written impressive books treating this subject; the last two acknowledged the impact and continuing influence of Smith’s work, The Meaning and End of Religion. An introduction and a recapitulation of Smith’s contribution as a scholar set the stage (...) for a retrospective look at the published literature. Contributors then examine the transformation of words (the classical religio to the modern religion), particularities of religion in nineteenth-century France, Troeltsch’s concept of religion, the study of religion from an Asian point of view and the categorization of “World Religions.” The concluding essays elaborate contemporary anthropological, cross-disciplinary, semiological, deconstructive and psychoanalytical methodological approaches to the concept and study of “religion.” Exploring critically different aspects of the concept and study of religion, these provocative essays typically reflect the methodological pluralism currently existing in the field of Religious Studies. Of interest to scholars and students alike, this collection also contains a complete bibliography of W.C. Smith’s publications. (shrink)

This critique thoroughly examines the scholarly article "African Philosophy of Religion from a Global Perspective: Deities, Ancestors, Relationality, and the Problem of Evil" written by Luís Cordeiro-Rodrigues and Jonathan Chimakonam. The main aims of this critique are to examine the article's impact on African Philosophy of Religion and evaluate its merits and limitations. Employing a qualitative research methodology, this critique examines the complex dynamics that exist between deities, ancestors, relationality, and the issue of evil within the African (...) religious framework. In assessing the article's impact on the discipline, the critique analyses the novelty of the authors’ perspectives and their capacity to propel philosophical discussions on African religious ideology. Furthermore, the paper evaluates its strengths and weaknesses, emphasizing its thorough examination of important subjects while acknowledging potential shortcomings in the portrayal of many African religious traditions. The primary objective of this critique is to present a comprehensive and well-informed evaluation of the scholarly influence of the paper in the wider context of African Philosophy of Religion. It seeks to provide valuable insights for future research and academic involvement on this particular topic. (shrink)

This collection demonstrates the strong influence that humanism and freethought had in developing the history and ideals of black intellectualism. Most people are quick to note the profound influence that religion has played in African-American history: consoling the downtrodden slave or inspiring the abolitionists, the underground railroad, and the civil rights movement. But few are aware of the role humanism played in shaping the black experience: developing the thought and motivating the actions of powerful African-American intellectuals. Section One (...) of this book offers biographical sketches of such prominent black humanists as Frederick Douglass, Cheikh Anta Diop, W.E.B. DuBois, Hubert H. Harrison, and Richard Wright. Section Two features essays by black humanists: Douglass, DuBois, Charles W. Faulkner, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Ishmael Jaffree, Claude McKay, Melvin B. Tolson, and Bruce Wright. Section Three offers the views of contemporary black African humanists: Freda Amakye Ansah, Emmanuel Kofi Mensah, Nkeonye Otakpor, Franz Vanderpuye, and Kwasi Wiredu. Section Four contains interviews conducted by Allen on the subjects of black humanist activism, the Afroasiatic roots of classical civilization, and the Harlem Renaissance with: Martin G. Bernal, Charles Faulkner, Leonard Harris, Norman Hill, and Alaine Locke. (shrink)

Traditional African societies tend to favor a theocentric and anthropocentric conception of the universe, with God at the top of the hierarchy of being, in which the human sphere is a major center of influence and meaning. God is sometimes conceived in the traditional theistic sense and attributed with superlative qualities of omnipotence, omniscience, and benevolence. On the other hand, a more critical study of oral sources of African traditional religious thought constrains the traditional theistic interpretation and presents (...) the idea of a limited God. This chapter will provide an overview of the issues and questions that have driven debates in African philosophy of religion. Specifically, this chapter will critically engage the question of the existence of God and the problem of evil from the perspective of African philosophical thought. This chapter will highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the approaches to the problem of evil adopted by African philosophers. In the process of reconciling the transcendental and immanent conceptions of God in African religious thought, this chapter will provide an outline of an African theodicy as a basis for further explorations of African theodicies formulated beyond the limit of traditional African thought. (shrink)

In this paper, I compare the philosophy of Augustine with the philosophy of relevant African traditions: Donatists, Manichees, and African traditional religions. I try to demonstrate that Augustine’s religious thought was partly influenced by local African religions or movements, but also differed from them substantially. I will carry out this comparative work looking at two important issues: the problem of evil and the existence of other supernatural entities, such as ancestors, and their relationship with humans. (...) These comparisons lead to a new understanding of evil in Augustine’s thought; namely, evil as an inevitable world phenomenon. (shrink)

A majority of South Africans agrees that when science and religion conflict, religion is always right. Is this an indication the public is anti-science or does the question wording hide a more complex relationship? We examined the relationship between science and religion in South Africa using quantitative data from the World Values Survey and qualitative data from face-to-face interviews. As research on the potential conflict between science and religion is predominantly focused on Western countries, the present study focuses on Africa (...) and compares results with those of two Western countries. Findings show that almost 76% South Africans agree that religion is always right and religious belief, social trust and education were significant predictors of this perception. Comparing findings with data from Zimbabwe, the United States and Germany, we found that while the influence of religiosity is significant across countries, comparatively, trust seems to be more of an African issue. The qualitative interviews, however, provided an elaboration of the relationship between science and religion in South Africa, indicating that choosing either science or religion is not always an outright rejection of the other. The relationships were classified as those informed by cognitive dissonance, often expressed in hierarchical associations, and those influenced by cognitive polyphasia, a complementary and transformative coexistence. (shrink)

Did Chinese mysticism vanish after its first appearance in ancient Taoist philosophy, to surface only after a thousand years had passed, when the Chinese had adapted Buddhism to their own culture? This first integrated survey of the mystical dimension of Taoism disputes the commonly accepted idea of such a hiatus. Covering the period from the Daode jing to the end of the Tang, Livia Kohn reveals an often misunderstood Chinese mystical tradition that continued through the ages. Influenced by but ultimately (...) independent of Buddhism, it took forms more various than the quietistic withdrawal of Laozi or the sudden enlightenment of the Chan Buddhists. On the basis of a new theoretical evaluation of mysticism, this study analyzes the relationship between philosophical and religious Taoism and between Buddhism and the native Chinese tradition. Kohn shows how the quietistic and socially oriented Daode jing was combined with the ecstatic and individualistic mysticism of the Zhuangzi, with immortality beliefs and practices, and with Buddhist insight meditation, mind analysis, and doctrines of karma and retribution. She goes on to demonstrate that Chinese mysticism, a complex synthesis by the late Six Dynasties, reached its zenith in the Tang, laying the foundations for later developments in the Song traditions of Inner Alchemy, Chan Buddhism, and Neo-Confucianism. (shrink)

Purpose: The purpose of this article is threefold: First, to present the African traditional ritual concept of salvation. Second, to demonstrate that this concept subconsciously forms the worldview through which African Christians interpret biblical narratives and salvation. Third, to access if certain ecclesiastical practices are influenced by the African salvific expressions. Methodology: The methodology used is exploratory, where aspects of African salvific rituals and selected ecclesiastical practices are explored. Part one of this article deals with (...) class='Hi'>African expressions of salvation. Three aspects of salvation in the African Traditional Religion (ATR) are; one- traditional rituals that ward-off evil, two- continuity of life through genealogies and three- consciousness of ancestral spiritual world/living dead. Findings: The findings are that these three are the hallmarks of African worldview as expression of salvation. Part two of the article deals with ecclesiastical interventions, specifically on contextual biblical hermeneutic(s) expounded in worship praxis paved by African worldview. The typological and allegorical hermeneutical theories of biblical interpretation are enriched by traditional African concept of salvation in African Christianity. Contribution to Theory and Practice: In practice the African Church ought to spread the salvation of Jesus Christ through contextually interpreted biblical rituals. (shrink)

This volume focuses on African indigenous women legends and their potential to serve as midwives for gender empowerment and for contributing towards African feminist theories. It considers the intersection of gender and spirituality in subverting patriarchy, colonialism, anthropocentricism, capitalism as well elevating African women to the social space of speaking as empowered subjects with public influence. The chapters examine historical, cultural, and religious African women legends who became champions of liberation and their approach to social justice. (...) The authors suggest that the stories of resistance featured hold great potential for building justice-loving Earth Communities. The book will be of interest to scholars of religion, gender studies, Indigenous studies, African studies, African-Indigenous Knowledges and postcolonial studies. (shrink)

Idioms of African religion have enabled African men and women to respond to Christianity and to place their hopes in it. The idioms and new ideas of missions had a tremendous influence on the prophetic, spiritual African churches, helping to ensure that they would emerge as Christian churches rather than as re-statements of African religion. Some African churches did advocate the performance of ancestral rituals but stressed the need for dignity and sobriety in worship on (...) the one hand and the acknowledgement of the cen-trality of preaching and the Bible on the other hand. Noisy ill-disciplined enthusiasm was strongly disapproved and yet the historic mission churches were not averse to experimenting with new ideas of inculturation. (shrink)

Ethiopianism conceptually shaped modern Africa. Perceivably, this has been deduced from distinguished events in Ethiopian history. This investigation explored Ethiopianism as a derivate of the multifaceted narrative of Ethiopian religious political dynamics. Ethiopianism has arguably been detached from the entirety of the Ethiopian Christian political establishment, being deduced separately from definitive events such as the Battle of Adwa 1896. This research reconnected Ethiopianism to a wholistic religious–political matrix of Ethiopia. Therefore, it offers an alternative interpretation of Ethiopianism, as a derivate (...) of Africanism and Apocalypticism, also correspondingly as a factor of Islamic Jihad and Jesuit Catholicism. The research was accomplished mainly through document analysis and compositely with cultural historiography. This study was a revisionist approach to Ethiopianism as a concept, deriving it from the chronological narrative of Ethiopian Christianity’s religious and political self-definition. Consequently, this realigned Ethiopianism as a derivate of multiple influences. Ethiopianism was possibly a convolution of the Donatist biblical appeal to the nativity, Judaic apocalypticism, Islamic attacks and Jesuit missionary diplomacy. Throughout the narrative of the Ethiopian Christian establishment, autonomy and independence are traceable; in addition, there is an entrenched enculturation of native Christianity and synergy with the political establishment. This formulates a basis for Ethiopianism as an ideology of African magnanimity. Parallel comparisons of Ethiopianism against Donatism and Zionism decode the nationalistic matrix of Ethiopia. Dually encultured native religious practice coupled with theocratic symbiosis of politics and religion fostered resistance from Islamisation and Jesuit Catholicisation. Further enquiry of Ethiopian Christianity as an index of the Ethiopian political establishment, from which Ethiopianism is derived, is qualified. (shrink)

Religion mediates and shapes how people negotiate and navigate their existential realities. Christianity accentuates the belief in Jesus Christ and prescribes how that belief should influence the worldview and actions of people. One of the challenges of the reception of Christianity in Africa is that African Traditional Religion remains the cosmic lens through which Christians confront their spiritual and ethical dilemmas and choices vis-à-vis the exhortations of the Bible message. This paper examines the force of the Christian message for (...) African Christians. It looks at how the Christian message was presented, how African Christians appropriate the gospel message and how they fill the ‘gaps’ in their practice of Christianity. As movies bring to bear stories about lived realities and shape attitudes and behaviour, this paper also examines the reception of the Biblical message by reviewing a selection of African movies. I argue that Christianity must provide answers to the critical questions and unmet needs essential to Africans. To achieve this would require paying attention to what Michel Foucault describes as the ‘insurrection of subjugated knowledges,’ which take into account naïve knowledges operating at local or regional levels but serve as the local discursivities that amplify how the ‘subjugated knowledges’ influence the reception of the Biblical message in the African cultural matrix. Contribution: This paper reveals the enduring cross-pressures of Africans as they are invited to subjugate their primordial knowledges and practices to the orthodoxy of mainstream Christianity. It cites the examples of neo-Pentecostal and para-Christian enactments as offering possible insights into a need for Christianity to be more responsive and functionally relevant to the African reality. Such an approach resonates with the orientation of HTS Teologiese Studies (HTS) towards scholarship that is discursively dynamic and contextually sensitive to the multilayered contexts, cultures and cosmologies of the African Christian. (shrink)

This book critically explores indigenous sub-Saharan African agrarian thought. Indigenous African agrarian philosophy is an uncharted and largely overlooked area of study in the burgeoning fields of African philosophy and philosophy of nature. The book shows that wherever human beings have lived, they have been preoccupied with exploring ways to ensure the sustainable management of limited resources at their disposal, to attain to their basic needs: food, shelter, and security. The book also shows that agriculture and the (...) way people relate with nature are an essential, but generally neglected, determinant of the emergence and orientation of all philosophical traditions. In traditional, pre-colonial African culture, it was difficult to separate agriculture from African relational ontology. Agriculture and the use of natural resources were at the centre of community life and influenced the social, political, economic, and spiritual worldviews of the people. In their contact with nature through agriculture, different beliefs, knowledge systems, norms, moral outlooks, cultural practices and institutions emerged and have been valorized to guide societies on how to sustainably manage the environment. As a way of life, then, agriculture was deeply connected with indigenous beliefs, values, and practices which transcended a wide range of issues related to ecological ethics, food ethics, religion, traditional medicine, political economy, social organisation, biological reproduction and species survival, indigenous knowledge, and property rights. This book will thus be a valuable resource for policy makers and researchers in diverse fields such as philosophy, geography, sociology, anthropology, and development studies. (shrink)

Violent conflicts in emerging democracies or societies in transition threaten the stability of state governance institutions, which brings about insecurity of lives, property and deepens the vicious cycle of poverty and criminality in Africa. The first responsibility of any government is to provide security of lives and property. At no time since Nigeria’s civil war has the country witnessed the resurgence of violence and insecurity that claims hundreds of lives weekly. It is a sectarian insurgence of multiple dimensions. This article (...) makes the case that Boko Haram is not just a religious phenomenon but a reflection of a so- cio-political, economic and ethnic problem caused by bad governance. As a result, Boko Haram has witnessed a cross-border influence and impact which has expanded its frontiers beyondNigeriato neighboring countries in the West African region. The theoretical framework employed in this article posits that Boko Haram has its roots fundamentally in poverty caused by bad governance in the Northern Moslem bend, in Nigeria and the West African Region where corruption, human rights violations, marginalization of cultural, political and religious groups have created the situation whereby weak state structures have abysmally failed to deliver on the development promises made during elections. So the emergence of Nigeria’s Boko Haram violence, as a result of the street poverty and the rise of unemployed street beggars, popularly known as Almajiris, and their use for electoral and party violence, was encouraged by the neglect and abandonment of the masses by the governors and other elected leaders. The expansion and consolidation of the Boko Haram insurgence to other parts of the country and neighboring West African nations was made possible by the already existing failed state institutions, bad governance and corruption and the existing band of small criminal sectarian groups that depend upon their survival on aids from Al Quaeda, drug gangs and sea piracy. The religious dimension is a marginal factor fueled by fundamental socio-economic and political variables which have been thrown up in the first place by bad governance and leadership in Nigeria. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:VIOLENCE AS INSTITUTION IN AFRICAN RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE: A CASE STUDY OF RWANDA Malachie Munyaneza UnitedReform Church, London I. Introduction Violence is a phenomenon. It is multidimensional and multifarious. It is physical, geographical, spiritual, psychological, sudden or latent. It is metaphysical, because for some religious beliefs, it involves the deed-consequences scheme in terms of rewards and punishments, even beyond this world into the otherworldly life. It is an instrument (...) used in one's own life (suicide), in the simple family, in the small-scale societies, as well as in the multi-ethnic social settings. It can be a national, multinational and universal phenomenon. It presents some contradictions, because, though it is abhorred in general, some individuals or states use it as a means to achieve ultimate good or misuse it for their own selfish interests. It becomes more of a repulsive mystery when it is seen as institutional and integral partofreligionwhich fundamentallyshould avoid it. Between April and July 1994, the media ofthe world brought images ofthe mostviolent episode ofRwandan history into the living rooms ofthis planet's population. The magnitude ofthe genocide of 1994 was unprecedented in this century. Up to one million of people are estimated to have been killed within only one hundred days. It is difficult to understand the magnitude ofthis violence. Tribal conflicts in Rwanda, colonial powers, political manipulations and economic problems alone are not enough to explain whathas happened. Political analysts, sociologists, anthropologists have tried to understand whetherthe political instability ofthe late 80s, the malfunction of political institutions, the October War (1990-94) and the 40Malachie Munyaneza consequent war atrocities could have necessarily culminated in the genocide the world witnessed. Fundamental questions about the whole philosophy oflife and religion in the history ofRwandaand its relationship to violence are to be addressed too, because they touch the inner being of the outward physical person. People have the right to know what has gone wrong all along in all areas of their life. This paper will try to look at religious beliefs and violence as institution in ancient and modern Rwanda in its magico-religious context and its implications in the social structure. As I am only a debutante Girardian, I will discuss only the key terms ofhis theory—mimesis, desire and scapegoating—as they guide my reflections.?. Religious beliefs and violence Generally, Rwanda is viewed as a monotheistic country. All Rwandan ethnic groups believed in the only one heavenly Superior Being called Imana. Though Rwandansrecognized Imanaasthe SupremeBeing, Creator and Sustainer ofall life, they did not have a special service ofworship to him at a central place. They thought it was temerity to try and please or influence God because ifyou try you would not find enough to match his greatness and his merits. A Rwandan saying tells that you cannot handle God because ifyoutryyou would paydearly.1 Imana is the Ancientofdays as it is expressed in the name "Habiyakare"(He is before the first dawn). He is all-knowing as in the name "Bizimana" (they [all things] are known by God). He rules over everything as King, Judge and Master as expressed in the name "Hategekimana" (everywhere it is God who rules). Unfortunately Rwandans believedthatwhatever befell them was pre-ordained by God and most ofthe time fatalism dominated their lives. They confronted violence or fate with resignation thinking that the origin is in God's will or from angry spirits they did not control. Rwandans also believe in the existence ofa spiritual realm. The spirits of the dead lived further and roamed about. They would come back to trouble their relatives, especially when they felt some duties due to them were neglected. They could even kill through sickness, insanity or provoke infertility. They hold people under the siege ofconstant mental terror. The spirits most feared were the ones from those who had died in unfortunate 1St Paul expressed the same idea in his discourse at Athens and said: "The god who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by the human hands, as ifhe need anything..." (Acts 1 7, 24-25). Violence as Institution in... (shrink)

There is increasing research on the inclusion and exclusion of people with disabilities in African spaces, which are perpetuated by religious and cultural fear. Decision to shun or embrace people is defined by the politics of the body and influenced by the religion and culture of fear. In politics of the body, women are discriminated against because their bodies are often controlled and put under surveillance. Women with disabilities experience this discrimination more than their able-bodied counterparts and men with (...) disabilities. Written from the perspective of the ethic of ubuntu, this article examines the fear of disability among the Ndebele of Matetsi in Zimbabwe, as well as how the politics of the body are used by women with disabilities to denounce this fear. These women described how they used and and still use their bodies to call for inclusion in their communities. The article employs findings from the politics of the body emerging from the narratives of women with disabilities to propose an African women’s theology of disability.Contribution: The article problematises fear of disability as a cause of discrimination and exclusion of differently abled people particularly women with. It therefore proposes an African women’s theology of disability that is informed by the interdisciplinary approach of Ubuntu promoting the inclusion of all people including women with disabilities into the web of life. (shrink)

Critical thinking plays a role in African judgement. Here, factors that influence judgement are: culture, communalism, wisdom of elders, revelation from the gods, and observation. Factors that obstruct judgement include: colonialism, modernization, and new religions. However, thanks to Kant's critical philosophy, only objectively valid knowledge is actually knowledge in African traditional thought.

In Interplay of Things Anthony B. Pinn theorizes religion as a technology for interrogating human experiences and the boundaries between people and other things. Rather than considering religion in terms of institutions, doctrines, and creeds, Pinn shows how religion exposes the openness and porousness of all things and how they are always involved in processes of exchange and interplay. Pinn examines work by Nella Larsen and Richard Wright that illustrates an openness between things and traces how pop art and readymades (...) point to the multidirectional nature of influence. He also shows how Ron Athey's and Clifford Owens' performance art draws out inherent interconnectedness to various cultural codes in ways that reveal the symbiotic relationship between art and religion as a technology. Theorizing that antiblack racism and gender- and class-based hostility constitute efforts to close off the porous nature of certain bodies, Pinn shows how many artists have rebelled against these attempts to counter openness. His analyses offer a means with which to understand the porous, unbounded, and open nature of humans and things. (shrink)

Although African philosophy has become a part of the world philosophic heritage that can no longer be neglected, no comprehensive history of it is available yet. This lacuna is due to the numerous problems that affect any attempt to outline such a history. Among these problems are those inherent in the historiography of philosophy in general and many others specific to African philosophy. They include the absence of scholarly unanimity over the exact nature of philosophy and, by extension, (...) African philosophy; the dispute over the beginning of philosophy in Ancient Egypt, as well as the Afrocentrist assertion of the origin of Greek philosophy in Egypt; the problem of periodization; the status of ethnophilosophy, etc. These difficulties do not make a comprehensive history of African philosophy an impossible or irrelevant task. On the contrary, such a history is a necessity that promises to exert an enormous positive influence on the future development of African philosophy. (shrink)

Much is said about Middle Eastern and North African publics opposing gender equality, often referring to patriarchal Islam. However, nuanced large-scale studies addressing which specific aspects of religiosity affect support for gender equality across the MENA are conspicuously absent. This study develops and tests a gendered agentic socialization framework that proposes that MENA citizens are not only passively socialized by religion but also have agency. This disaggregates the influence of religiosity, highlights its multifacetedness, and theorizes the moderating roles that (...) gender and sociocognitive empowerment play via gendered processes of agentic dissociations. Using 15 World Values Surveys and multilevel models, our analyses show that most dimensions of religiosity fuel opposition to gender equality. However, the salience of religion in daily life is found to increase women’s support for gender equality and cushion the negative impact of religious service attendance. Also, gender and education moderate the impacts of several religiosity dimensions; for instance, women’s support for gender equality more sharply declines with increased service attendance than men’s. Altogether, this study finds that religious socialization is multifaceted and gendered, and that certain men and women are inclined and equipped to deviate from dominant patriarchal religious interpretations. (shrink)

Reincarnation has received substantial treatment in African philosophy. The dominant view of African scholars and researchers on the subject is that it is a belief that prevails in African culture. The task of this paper is to revisit Innocent Onyewuenyi’s “philosophical reappraisal” of this African belief. Onyewuenyi’s position is that the African communion with ancestors and their influence on their living descendant’s has been incorrectly labeled “reincarnation” by Western anthropologists. But whereas Onyewuenyi portrays the problem (...) as being one of semantics, I shall in this paper argue that the challenge of explaining African cultural phenomenon is one of hermeneutics. The question is a question of hermeneutics, because its focus is not on whether ancestors are metaphysical entities, but rather on what they mean within African existence. The paper adopts the conversational method of African philosophy endorsed by the Conversational School of Philosophy. It aims to show how conversationalism as a procedure of philosophical discourse plays out within the context of its specific canons. In the final analysis the paper promotes the thesis that there is not a belief in reincarnation in African culture strictly speaking, but a belief in the regeneration of life. For the African, life is not cyclical, it is rather eternal. Keywords: Innocent Onyewuenyi, reincarnation, conversationalism, hermeneutics, African metaphysics, living-dead, regeneration of life. (shrink)

Nigeria, as a geographical entity is replete with various ethnic and cultural identities that have continued to evolve from pre-colonial times to recenttimes. Granted that civilizations from Europe and Arabia have dictated almost all spheres of living, both in the Northern and Southern geographies of the country and eroded nearly all traditional values that would have assisted in curbing social and filial tensions; it is pertinent to inquire into the social relations before this ‘encounter.’ This is important as this research (...) seeks to invoke some aspects of the past that can be relevant for contemporary utility. Hence, through the method of critical analysis, this study takes a look at the socio-economic norms among the pre-colonial cultures that eventually evolved into Nigeria, paying attention to the place of slaves and women and laying emphasis on the filial and communal nature which allowed for a not too wide the gap between the rich and the poor. Even when this study is not unaware of the positive roles of foreign influence, it recounts the deficits of this presence and suggests that aproper way is to explore some indigenous ideas and apply them for contemporary living. Keywords: Culture, Family, Moral Values, Nigeria, Pre-colonial. (shrink)

Why do human beings believe in divinities? Why do some seek eternal life, while others seek escape from recurring lives? Why do the beliefs and behaviors we typically call "religious" so deeply affect the human personality and so subtly weave their way through human society? Revised and updated in this second edition, Eight Theories of Religion considers how these fundamental questions have engaged the most important thinkers of the modern era. Accessible, systematic, and succinct, the text examines the classic interpretations (...) of religion advanced by theorists who have left a major imprint on the intellectual culture of the twentieth century. The second edition features a new chapter on Max Weber, a revised introduction, and a revised, expanded conclusion that traces the paths of further inquiry and interpretation traveled by theorists in the most recent decades.Eight Theories of Religion, Second Edition, begins with Edward Burnett Tylor and James Frazer--two Victorian pioneers in anthropology and the comparative study of religion. It then considers the great "reductionist" approaches of Sigmund Freud, Emile Durkheim, and Karl Marx, all of whom have exercised wide influence up to the present day. The discussion goes on to examine the leading challenges to reductionism as articulated by sociologist Max Weber and Romanian-American comparativist Mircea Eliade. Finally, it explores the newer methods and ideas arising from the African field studies of ethnographer E. E. Evans-Pritchard and the interpretive anthropology of Clifford Geertz. Each chapter offers biographical background, theoretical exposition, conceptual analysis, and critical assessment. This common format allows for close comparison and careful evaluation throughout. Ideal for use as a supplementary text in introductory religion courses or as the central text in sociology of religion and courses centered on the explanation and interpretation of religion, Eight Theories of Religion, Second Edition, offers an illuminating treatment of this controversial and fascinating subject. (shrink)

Every human person is a cultural being. Each culture has incomplete knowledge of reality, and the sharing of viewpoints makes for mutual enrichment, hence the need for intercultural perspectives. Even in a human being, body and spirit, emotion and reason reciprocally influence on each other. Life is dialogical. Action gives flesh to theory, and the abstract reason is exemplified in real things, which is what embodiment of reason is all about. Principles govern all things and public reason, as a causal (...) principle, regulates the affairs of embodied homogeneous communities. African embodiment of reason is self-evident in names and allegories wherein rational thoughts and ideas are personified the way sentient robots embody or personify Artificial Intelligence. In this treatise, we shall use allegory, nomenclature, traditional songs, apophthegms, etc., to show how Africans wisely incarnate ideas in things. As it is analogous to modern-day AI, we shall not only highlight the African approach to public reason and embodied community but also tangentially discuss the effect of AI on the global community, of which Africa is a subunit. In conclusion, we shall caution against the empowering of robots with logical reasoning, and the disempowering and denaturalizing of humans. Keywords: Reason, Embodiment, Philosophy, Principle and Community. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article delves into the advent of Chinese Buddhism in Africa and its entanglement with politics and the contemporary Chinese transnationalism. It explores the previously uncharted territory of the endeavours of Chinese Buddhist organisations and the transnational elements of Chinese religions in Africa. Drawing on ethnographic data from South Africa, Tanzania, Botswana and Malawi, this article examines the mobility of transnational Chinese Buddhism, probes retrospectively into its origins and drives, and investigates its connections with the evolving China–Africa/taiwan–africa engagements. (...) We argue that contemporary Chinese Buddhism in Africa is a product of connections and competitions between states, African politics, and the multi-layered Chinese diaspora. The political, social and cultural influences of transnational Chinese Buddhists in Africa warrant further exploration and analysis. (shrink)

Americans claim to be the most religious people in the Christian world. Religion has informed their politics ever since the Pilgrim Fathers, who began the tyranny of the majority which Tocqueville outlined in Democracy in America (1985), his version of Aristotle's ‘ochlocracy’. In recent times this has taken the form of the ‘moral majority’ institutionalized by Jerry Falwell and the fundamentalists who set out to capture the Republican Party under Nixon and Reagan. In fact, it was never a majority: ‘born (...) again’ Christians, not all of the right‐wing in politics, were less than one fifth of a national sample in 1980 ‐ a third of African Americans, who voted ten to one against Reagan. Nonetheless they influenced every President from Eisenhower to Bush, and they are the major force behind the move to impeach Clinton. Since they failed, they may now give way for a more moderate politics of Christian forgiveness. (shrink)

Ethics and Time investigates how temporal orientation influence social-ethics. Re-conceptualizing temporal orientation as the production of new temporalities that allow humans to manifest their potentialities and creatively resist obstacles that impede their flourishing, it shows how a social group's orientation to time frames, informs, and drives its politics and religion. It uses an African culture as a practical case study to concretely illustrate the form and dynamics of the interconnections.

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 ...

This research examines whether religious conceptions of guilt in Protestant and Roman Catholic groups account for constructive or non-constructive guilt-reactions and for different guilt-frequency. Participants in three groups filled in the Leuven Guilt and Shame Scale, the Leuven Emotion Scale and the Post Critical Belief Scale. Protestants were expected to experience more non-constructive guilt than Catholics, who were expected to experience more constructive guilt. Both were expected to have a higher frequency of guilt experience than the control group. Differences between (...) the groups were found: Catholics show more constructive guilt reactions than the other groups. Differences in non-constructive guilt reactions were not found. The Protestant and Catholic group experienced guilt more frequently than the control group. (shrink)

Calling you out to something new. Something whole. Something healed There's no doubt that every individual experiences a very unique journey, and the common things we encounter and are largely unprepared for, are in fact the waiting seasons and all that come with it. God does care about how your waiting journey turns out. This is to call you out into a beautiful, set apart unveiling journey like no other. We hope to change your mind about God [if you had (...) walked away from him], introduce you to God, and most importantly let you know that God cares about your hearts desires concerning a spouse and marriage.Allow us to walk with you and share bits and pieces of our life that will hopefully trigger something in you. Something new. Something whole. Something healed. (shrink)

The content of Christian spirituality that made waves since the inception of the early church soon took on different contours as the faith got adapted to different gentile contexts. The expression of this faith, along with its liturgical symbolism and sacramental observances, is still gaining momentum in African Christianity. The emerging practice of the use of ‘anointing oil’ in its religious expression is receiving more attention than the Christ of the Gospel. In this article, we argue that against its (...) primitive intent, the use of the ‘anointing oil’ by the African Church is a mere display of fetish ancestral religion that expresses its unique African traditional religious root rather than a true expression of Christian spirituality. Our thesis is framed on the basis that the manner in which some African churches apply the purported ‘anointing oil’ is discriminatory vis-à-vis its ancient understanding and purpose. In our attempt to address this damaging practice to true Christian spirituality, also standing as a huge challenge for pastoral theology, we undertook a careful historical–theological analysis of the extant biblical data and its contextual interpretation vis-à-vis its distortion today. We concluded that what pastoral theologians have to deal with within the Christian community in Africa is offering the right biblical perspective against the distorted mode of the application of the contemporary purported ‘anointing oil’ that is falsely projecting the Christian faith and belief in a bad light. Contribution: The application of the anointing oil in contemporary Christian religion in Africa is, to say the least, not an inherent textually prescribed requisite criterion for Christian spirituality, but merely an outburst of fetish ancestral religious worldview that stands contra the hermeneutics of the biblical text and its ancient tradition. That no Old Testament prophet, not even Jesus nor Paul, mentioned the subject, makes its contemporary application textually and theologically suspect, and therefore, heretically infectious for the spiritual health of the community of faith. These insights sit quite well with the textual hermeneutics within the mainline transdisciplinary religious and multidisplinary theological perspective of this journal. (shrink)

Our aims are to articulate some core philosophical positions characteristic of Traditional African Religion and to argue that they merit consideration as monotheist rivals to standard interpretations of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition. In particular, we address the topics of how God’s nature is conceived, how God’s will is meant to bear on human decision making, where one continues to exist upon the death of one’s body, and how long one is able to exist without a body. For each of these (...) topics, we note how Traditional African Religion posits claims that clash with mainstream Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and that, being prima facie plausible, indicate the need for systematic cross-cultural philosophical debate. (shrink)

In the recent Anglo-American philosophy of religion, significant attention has been given to the nature of faith. My goal is to show that some of the recent discussion of faith can be fruitfully brought to bear on a problem for a less globally well-known version of monotheism found in African Traditional Religion. I argue that African Traditional Religion could benefit from utilizing non-doxastic accounts of faith. For a significant number of Africans questioning authority or tradition, including the tenets (...) of African Traditional Religion is viewed as harmful to the community and hence beyond the pale. A non-doxastic account of faith would be helpful for adherents of African Traditional Religion who find themselves disbelieving yet wanting to continue in religious practice and maintain communal harmony. This is because a non-doxastic state such as hope is within one’s direct control and does not require as much evidential justification as rational belief. (shrink)

Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 8, August 2022.

The ancient Ethiopian Christian empire was an emergent and notable power in Eastern Africa and influenced its surrounding regions. It was itself influenced both religiously and politically. The ancient Christian narrative of North Africa has been deduced against a Roman imperial background. Whilst the preceding is congruent with the historical political dynamics, a consideration of the autonomy and uniqueness of ancient African Christianity and its regional influence is also relevant. This implied a revisionist approach to literature which was achieved (...) through document analysis. A review of the continual independent interaction of ancient African Christianity with Roman or Byzantine imperial orthodoxy reflected on the multi-factorial self-definitive development within African Christianity. Against the background of ecclesiastical polities and socio-ethnical dynamics, the relationship of Africa or Ethiopia with Byzantine orthodoxy provides a strong argument for an organic African orthodoxy. The Constantinian era ushered a new phase of imperial orthodoxy and imperial-ecclesiastical ties that became formative for an imperial policy; these were definitive of Byzantine orthodoxy and were reflected in Roman and Vandal Africa and also in the Ethiopian Christian empire. This consequently characterised the orthodox Christianity post 325 CE/Nicaea; introspection regarding the extent of its influence formed the basis of this study. A study of the Ethiopian empire in its immediate Judaic-Arabian environment enhances the understanding regarding the ethnically politically defined Christianity that characterised it. Correspondingly, the review of Ethiopian Christianity’s interaction with Byzantine orthodoxy and definitive features of ancient North African Christianity helped clear the ground for an organic orthodoxy. An establishment regarding a cooperative Ethiopian–Byzantine geopolitical policy, as opposed to theological divergence, helped change the narrative of African orthodoxy. (shrink)

In Children, Religion and the Ethics of Influence, John Tillson develops a theory concerning which kinds of formative influence are morally permissible, impermissible or obligatory. Applying this theory to the case of religion, he argues that religious initiation in childhood is morally impermissible whether conducted by parents, teachers or others. Tillson addresses questions such as: how we come to have the ethical responsibilities we do, how we understand religion, how ethical and religious commitments can be justified, and what makes children (...) ethically special. (shrink)

CITATION: Sanni, J. S. 2016. Religion : a new Struggle for African Identity. Phronimon, 7:71–83, doi:10.17159/2413-3086/2016/120.

This chapter contains sections titled: Works cited.

In this essay, we explore what the African Philosophy of Religion would look like from both a mono-disciplinary and comparative perspectives. To do this, a few concepts such as Gods, ancestorhood, relationality, and the problem of evil that appear in the essays in this special issue will be highlighted. Our aim here is not to provide a lengthy and rigorous analysis of the field of African Philosophy of Religion or even some of its main concepts, but to offer (...) a platform for continuing discussion and development of the field. (shrink)

In this essay, we explore what the African Philosophy of Religion would look like from both a mono-disciplinary and comparative perspectives. To do this, a few concepts such as Gods, ancestorhood, relationality, and the problem of evil that appear in the essays in this special issue will be highlighted. Our aim here is not to provide a lengthy and rigorous analysis of the field of African Philosophy of Religion or even some of its main concepts, but to offer (...) a platform for continuing discussion and development of the field. (shrink)