uAfrica religion

Religion means the beliefs, practices, identities, artefacts and ceremonies that a society uses to connect their unborn, living, deceased and spiritual beings.

The religion of Africa is called uAfrica or huAfrica), that is put together, the beliefs, practices and ceremonies of Africa are called uAfrica or huAfrica.

It is derogatory, demeaning, colonial and not ok to call Africa religion ‘traditional‘, ‘traditional religion‘, traditional Africa religion or ATR, just call it what it is Africa religion or uAfrica or huAfrica. Every religion is traditional where it originated.

All people of Africa have one or more aspects of Africa religion, including those who have converted to Abraham religion. No Black African can claim to be 100% Christian or Muslim, this is naturally and spiritually impossible.

80% of Africans may have accepted some elements of Abraham religions in their life but this does not mean they are 100% Christian or Muslim.

Aspects of Africa religion

Africa religious beliefs, practices, artifacts and ceremonies can not be understood outside their environment and history. Africa religion is embedded in politics, art, marriage, health, diet, dress, economics and death. Africa religion is not separate from family, community, society, environment and spirituality. Africa religion can not be separated from Africa philosophy, Ubuntu. The fact that some people and some writers have used these derogatory words and still do so today, does not make them right.

12 key values of Africa religion

1. Ukama – relations or familyhood. Good family relations are more valued than prayer and worship.
2. Ujamaa – Communityness. Good community relations are more valued than going to church or mosque.
3. Justice – being just practically is valued.
4. Respecting life and societal rules is more valued than knowing the rules.
5. Living human beings are more valued than dead, spiritual or worshiped beings.
6. Human life is more important than anything else.
7. Reciprocity is important.
8. Hospitality is important.
9. Parents and Elders are important.
10. Your permanent home, land and country are important.
11. Your identity – names, ‘totem’, skin colour and hair are important.
12. Your future – generations and heritage is more important than the present.

African names for the Supreme Being

Missing names in the table: Zimbabwe/Zambia (Leza, Mlimo, Mudzimumukuru, Mzimonkulu)

Ceremonies, festivals and rituals

Ceremonies in Africa religion include:

Family ceremonies

1. Birth ceremony
2. Naming ceremony
3. Puberty ceremony
4. Age group initiation rites (young, mid-age and aged)
5. Marital ceremony
6. Death ceremony
7. Ancestorship ceremony

Community ceremonies:

1. Harvest ceremony
2. Planting ceremony
3. Hunting ceremony
4. Aged ceremony/Eldership ceremony

Society ceremonies

1. New moon ceremony
2. Fruits ceremony

Spirituality

Spirituality is the physical benefit of religion, for example, happiness, self-worth, wellbeing, security, protection, fulfilment, hope, age-connectedness, community-connectedness and identity.

Sources of spirituality include:

1. Spiritual advisors
2. Healers
3. Medicine people
4. Charms [adornments often worn to incur good luck]
5. Amulets [adornments often used to ward off evil]
6. Diviners [spiritual advisers]
7. Connectedness with spiritual environment
8. Dress

“African spirituality simply acknowledges that beliefs and practices touch on and inform every facet of human life, and therefore African religion cannot be separated from the everyday or mundane” (Olupona).

Key religious questions

1. Where did the world come from? Among the San people, the world was created after a large rock fell and exploded (same as Big Bang Theory)
2. Why are we here?
3. Why do bad things happen to good people?
4. What happens to us when we die?
5. How do we relate with the environment?
6. How far should religious law be used?

Comparing values of Africa religion to other religions

1. Ukama – relations or familyhood. Good family relations are more valued than prayer and worship.
2. Ujamaa – Communityness. Good community relations are more valued than going to church or mosque.
3. Justice – being just is more valued than reading the bible or quran.
4. Respecting life and societal rules is more valued than knowing the rules in the bible or quran.
5. Living human beings are more valued than dead, spiritual or worshipped beings.
6. Human life is more important than anything else.
7. Reciprocity is more important than wearing church or mosque robes.
8. Hospitality is more important than baptism.
9. Parents and Elders are more important than prophets, priests, imams, rabbi and evangelists.
10. Your permanent home, land and country are more important than heaven.
11. Your identity – names, ‘totem’, skin colour and hair are more important than a foreign identity.
12. Your future – generations and heritage is more important than the present.

What is not there is Africa religion

1. Drinking of wine representing blood of a person e.g. Jesus
2. Eating of bread representing a body of a person e.g. Jesus
3. Worshipping another person e.g. Jesus
4. Coercion of other religions to convert (colonisation)
5. Degrading and disrespect of other religions
6. Individualising, personalising churches
7. Commercialising religion
8. Reverence of ancestors you are not related to, e.g. Abraham, Joseph, Sarah, Mary
9. Religious celibacy
10. Killing in the name of religion e.g. Israel, Jihads
11. Patriarchy
12. Core valuing one family (that of Jesus or Muhammad)
13. Valuing the history, stories and traditions of others – Jews, Arabs and Romans (at the expense of ours).
14. No valuing family and community, or valuing them last.
15. Not valuing your land and environment.
16. There is no difference between sacred and secular or material and spiritual.
17. “There is no final judgment, no reincarnation, no heaven, no paradise, and no resurrection of the dead” Mbiti.
18. Powerful men and women of God and religious institutions who are not accountable to families, the community, the indigenous leadership and the state

Colonisation of Africa religion

Religion was one of the fronts of colonisation, together with education, law, welfare, land, uprooting (e.g. slavery) and governance. Africa religion was colonised in several ways. The main colonisers were western adventurers, missionaries (religion colonisers) and land colonisers. Their work was multiplied by African theologians whom they trained.

1. Zungu people (Arabs, Europeans and Americans ) said “Religion is a an individual choice, person should choose a religion of his or her choice’. This was opposite to Africa religion teaching, which said ‘religion is communal, familial and societal, spiritual and environmental’.
2. Limiting the spiritual environment to a few deceased prophets and their families.
3. Separating religion and governance or leadership.
4. Separating religion and the family.
5. Separating religion and the environment.
6. Untouchable people who perform miracles for money, wealth, fame and influence.
7. The belief that common sense is replaced by spirit sense.
8. The belief that prophets, pastors, evangelists, churches, Jesus, Mary and Abraham others can be responsible for our material and spiritual lives.
9. Even if they knew and witnessed Africa religion, Zungu people (Arabs, Europeans and Americans) said ‘Africa has no religion’
10. While people of Africa adopts other religions, people from other religions do not adopt Africa religion.
11. They made the bible and quran new sources of religion, and ensured that these were not challenged but treated as holy and worshipped. Some people believe that, and are taught that holding these books make someone special, spiritual, holy and protected.
12. Accusing anyone who criticisms the foreign religion as blasphemy and sinful.
13. Promising hell to people who do not convert to the foreign religion.
14. Africa religion is open and adaptable but has been forced to the rigid religion of Abraham (one name of Creator, one ‘holy’ book, one holy figure e.g. Jesus or Muhammad
15. Competition of religions was brought to Africa, competition between bible and quran, Jesus and Muhammad.
16. The separation of secular life and religious life.
17. Disconnects people from land and environment, and creates no need to protect land and the environment, creating room for colonisation and migration.
18. Creation of new positions e.g. priests to advice individuals, families, communities and government.
19. Those converting to Christianity or Islam were forced to change first names and even surnames.
20. Africa ceremonies (e.g weddings, rites of passage etc) were demonised, and colonisers sought to replace them with their ceremonies, such as Christmas (supposed to be the birth of Jesus but it is not), Easter (supposed to be the birth of Christ) and others.
21. Colonial spirituality – that well-being comes from changing your religion, name, surname, beliefs, language etc
22. That you can borrow another religion.
23. Religion is an individual choice not a community choice.
24. Sought to divide Africans into believers and non-believers – Things fell apart, divide and conquer.
25. Believing that all problems – social, economic, colonial, medical, environmental, financial, psychological, political etc will be solved by Jesus or God. 
26. Waiting for the second coming of Jesus.
27. Waiting for the day of judgement to enter paradise.
28. ‘Lord’s prayer’ was said to be universal.

“The success of Christianity and Islam on the African continent in the last 100 years has been extraordinary, but it has been, unfortunately, at the expense of African indigenous religions,” said Jacob Olupona, professor of indigenous African religions at Harvard Divinity School and professor of African and African-American.

The sad cost of religious colonisation is the division of Africa between Muslim and Christian converts. Another is having the converts fight their own religion and those who remain on the side of their true religion, and further, having Muslims and Christians kill each other. There was no religious competition before colonisation.

Key things to be done to overcome colonisation

1. Leave colonial religions
2. Pride in own religion
3. Rename, value own names and languages
4. Stop colonising beliefs, for example that we are sinners, we need salvation, Jesus died for us so we are indebted (to white people), Jesus is white so white people are Jesus or holy.
5. Stop valuing foreign artifacts – pictures of white people as prophets, saviours.
6. Stop believing in holy places outside your own, holy countries, holy graves.
7. Write our religion.
8. Create or recreate religious institutions and jobs, for example teachers of the religion, places of spirituality or worship.
9. Create or recreate Africa-wide religious events and ceremonies.
10. The Jews rejected Christianity, they are the most innovative today.
11. The Chinese rejected Abrahamic religions, they are among the richest today.
12. The British maintained their monarchy and changed Christianity to suit them, they are among the richest today. For example, they rejected the Roman church and created their own church of England.
13. Ensure religious leaders, workers, experts or professionals are available at all levels of practice:
    1. Family level
    2. Village level
    3. Community level
    4. County district level
    5. Societal/’country’ level
    6. Nation level
    7. Culture level (some cultures of Africa go beyond one nation)

The dangers of foreign religions in Africa

There are several reasons why decolonising religion has been difficult:

1. Christianity has become a big business in Africa, selling and production of bibles, holy water
2. Tithing is a source of income.
3. New fame and influence is found by prophets, priests, singers, church leaders etc
4. Disunity, others called heathens.
5. Whereas in Africa religion we socialise with our ancestors and Creator, in Christianity and Islam there is fear the bible, quran, Jesus, Muhamad, church, mosque and sabbath. These fears cause a lot of psychological suffering.
6. That sin and wrong-doing is forgiven by Jesus or God by just confessing or when one dies and that sin and wrong-doing is personal, it does not affect the family, community or future generations. – this has resulted in lawlessness.
7. Indoctrination and mass death.

The global influence of Africa religion

Africa religion should be understood as a system of thought and belief that should be valued and understood for its own ideas and contribution to global religions (Olupona). The focus should not be comparing it with other religions.

1. Africa religion has been instrumental in liberation, including in  slavery liberation, decolonisation, liberation wars and neo-decolonisation.
2. Africa religion has changed the way Abraham religion is practiced in Africa, for example, we can talk of African Christianity, African Islam and Africa Judaism. For example,
   1. Pentecostalism
   2. African Jews
   3. African Islam
3. Africa religion has been taken to America, Asia and the Caribbean and are practiced there and have motivated ceremonies like Kwanzaa and practices such as Cuban Regla de Ocha, Haitian Vodou, and Brazilian Candomble.
4. Reverse missions involve African missionaries going to the west to ‘bring then back’ to Christianity. These missions deal with western moral loss that has resulted in growth of homosexuality, immoral science and churchlessness.
5. All aspects of Africa have survived, some are practiced as they were before, some are practiced in secrecy and some have been embedded into Abraham religion.
6. While Muslims and Christians and jews rarely, interact and live together peacefully, Africa has families and communities who believe in Islam or Christianity of Judaism but live together in harmony. Marriages happen across the belief systems.

Four critical issues in Africa religion

There are four key critical issues in Africa religion. The first one is obvious, colonisation of Africa religion. Despite intense colonisation, the religion survived. The current phase of colonisation is self-propelling’ meaning that the people of Africa are now using the ‘aim’ of the coloniser to colonise their own religion. In short, we have become our own colonisers. It should not be hard to stop being Christians or Muslims, but every hour we are preaching to each other to convert. The second point is that the Creator can not be racist. The Abrahamic religion favours light skinned people, vazungu of the Middle East and Europe. Even if they were to choose Abrahamic religion, is it not a pain or obscene for Black families (or even Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese) to display a picture of Jesus or Muhammad in their houses or places of worship or to use a bible or quran curated by vazungu?  Related with this critical point is the incompatibility of Abraham religion with a universal religion. To begin with, the major sections of Abrahamic religion reject each other, and Muslims and Jews engage in bloody wars, so are Christians and Muslims who not only engage in war but hurt speech, insults and pray to the same God/Allah for the destruction of the other. Jews do not believe in Christianity, while Christians claim Judaism. Jews believe Abraham religion can’t be joined or converted into, but followers of Jesus and Muhammad believe otherwise, so they are busy preaching to convert. Another critical issue here is the unpredictability of Abrahamic religion, for example, Christianity and Judaism have somehow embraced homosexuality when it is clearly told in their religious stories that it is a sin. The religion favours violence when it suits them, for example the fighting between Palestine and Israel, who are historically brothers and sisters. The third critical point is the relationship of religion and social and development work. While historically, religion has been removed from social and development services because of a colonial history that sought to alienate other religions, it is now recognised that religion is tied to these services, and that the main element tying them is spirituality. The five major facets of social services in Africa are the family, community, society, environment and spirituality. The five facets emanate from Ubuntu philosophy, which is the philosophy of Africa, therefore, religion can not be left out if holistic well-being and development is to be achieved. The place of social work and development work in religion is one of mistrust. Social and development workers were compliment in colonisation, and many workers supported it, and were tools of social control. Social and development workers have for long been used to policy other religions and cultures and this has been called ‘progressive’ yet it is not.  In short, workers contributed to devaluing of other religions and promoted Abrahamic religion in the process. Have social and development workers recovered from this? The fourth and final critical point is the renaissance of Africa religion, which is the stage where it is revived, revalued and religious colonialism is defeated. The key motivation to the renaissance is that colonial religions will not take Africa out of poverty (it was not Jesus or Muhammad who took China, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong or Singapore out of poverty; even Israel and the Emirates needed innovation not salaah/prayer), or achieve holistic wellbeing for Africa’s people, just like modernisation has increased Africa’s problems, especially in urban areas where the rate of crime and other social crimes, insecurity, environmental pollution, homelessness, street living, inequality and family dysfunction make Africa urban spaces hard places to live or survive. Without the renaissance which brings back Ubuntu values of family, community, society, environment and spirituality, these problems will increase, new problems will emerge and spread to rural areas. The other motivator is that the ancestors of Africa, who cared for the land that we inherited and the Creator, who created the land, are not happy wit us abandoning them, and the land and life they gave us. They are not happy with the way we are managing the resources endowed to us and they are not happy with progress towards the renaissance. The renaissance will not be given to Africa, but people of the land have to work for it and we have to sacrifice the luxuries and traps of a westernised society. Renaissance is sacrifice for the future and for the survival of the Africa identity.

Supreme Beings and ancestors in world religions

Religion	Supreme Being	Ancestors (mediums and spirits)
uAfrica	Leza Mwari Mlimo Chukwu Chineke Ngai Katonda Mdali	Many from families, communities and society
Abrahamic (sects from this religion are Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Bahai)	God Allah Gd Yahweh	Many, for example, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Abraham, Mary etc and founders of churches
Hindu (sects from this religion are Budhism)	There are 3: Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Shiva the Destroyer Bhudha – Saumya or सौम्य (son of Moon)
Tao	Tao	Lao Tsu
Confucianism	–	K’ung Confucius (Master Kong) who founded the religion in 551-479 Before Common Era (BCE)
‘Pacific’ religion	Tangaroa, Tagaloa

Social development and religion

One of the domains of social work and development work is Understanding, Developing and Protecting Society and Nations (Socially, Economically, Politically and Spiritually). Spirituality is largely generated from religion. All the domains of social work and development work are:

1. Understanding, Developing and Protecting Families and their members
2. Understanding, Developing and Protecting Communities
3. Understanding, Developing and Protecting Society and Nations (Socially, Economically, Politically and Spiritually)
4. Understanding, Utilising & Protecting the Environment

Key acknowledgements about religion in social development

• Acknowledging that religion has played a role in colonisation, and it keeps doing so today.
• Acknowledging that Africa has its own religion, uAfrica or Africa religion.
• Acknowledging that the environment is an important part of religion, just as it is an important part of solving social problems.
• Acknowledging that Africa religion is the biggest source of African spirituality.
• Acknowledging that Africa religion, environment, family, community and society all contribute to human welfare.
• Acknowledging that the renaissance of Africa includes Africa religion.

Key benefits of religion in social development

1. Spirituality
2. Identity
3. Decolonising
4. Unity
5. An industry with jobs, training,
6. Values
7. Ethics