AFRICAN RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

African Traditional Religion

Religion refers to the way of life of a given group of people in society.

According to Professor John. S. Mbiti, Africa traditional religion is the richest part of the African heritage that is found in all human life.

Mbiti added that African traditional religion has dominated the thinking of African people to the extent it has shaped their social life, cultures and their political and economic activities.

From the above, we can conclude that there no pagans in traditional Africa. All Africans were religious, the living and the living dead.

Wrong and derogatory understanding of African religion

Many people including the educated and Christian missionaries have failed to understand this religion because of a number of confusing things written and said about it.

Some people call it ancestral worship/ worship of the dead people which is only small part of it. Others call it superstition i.e. believing and fearing something without proper ground.

It is called paganism a wrong word used to refers to Africans who were not Christians and Muslims.

The religion is also called magic and witchcraft yet actually it is much more than that. Although witchcraft features in the traditional way of life, it is not right to equate African traditional religion to witchcraft.

There all sorts of false names given to the African traditional religion by those who do not understand it.

They misunderstood African initiation rituals as babyish yet to Africans it was means of worship.

The religion is also wrongly called fetishism, meaning “charms” worn by Africans.

The religion was termed as devilish and yet Africans worshipped gods as assistants to God.

Missionaries looked at Africans as primitive and back word.

They did not know that religion had penetrated into every department of African life, yet to Africans religion was accurate way of life.