Introduction

Africa is a big continent, and so has a varied religious background. It has also interacted with other continents, and in some cases shared their religious heritage.

Historical background

The earliest historically recorded religion in Africa is that of the ancient Egyptians. It is recorded in inscriptions and archaeological excavations of ancient temples has shown something of what the ancient Egyptians believed.

Egypt, like other countries in the Mediterranean, was a centre of trade, and the parts, especially, had a cosmopolitan population, and so religions from other parts of the ancient world were also represented there. There was trade with the Mesopotamian civilisation in what is now Iraq, though what historians have called �the Fertile Crescent� of the Middle East.

There were the ancient Hebrews, ancestors of the Jews, who took refuge in Egypt times of famine and war. The Persians conquered Egypt on occasion. In the 4th century BC Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, and the great city of Alexandria is named after him. Greek dynasties ruled Egypt and it also became the home of Greek philosophy and the cults of Greek gods, and there was mutual influence with the Egyptian religion. Roman conquest added another strand to the religious tapestry of north-eastern Africa.

Christianity entered Africa in the first century, first when the holy family took refuge in Egypt from the persecution of Herod, and then about 40 years later when St Mark the Evangelist planted the first Christian church in Alexandria. Over the next few centuries Christianity spread not only in Egypt, but along the North African coast, and south into Ethiopia and what is now known as Sudan, but then as Nubia.

By the end of the second century AD Christian literature was being translated into the local languages of Egypt, and spread rapidly among the indigenous Egyptian population, and within a century or two it had entirely replaced the ancient Egyptian religion. Egypt was still part of the Roman Empire and Christians were persecuted there as elsewhere, and some of the most severe persecutions of the third century took place in Africa. Some Christians fled to the desert to escape persecution, and even when the persecution abated some remained in the desert to pray and engage in spiritual struggles. From this grew the monastic movement, which soon spread beyond Africa. St Anthony of Egypt was one of those who helped to discipline and develop the early monastic movement.

When the Emperor Constantine came to power in the early 4th century Christians in Africa enjoyed three centuries of peace from external enemies, but unfortunately quarrelled a lot among themselves.

Africa contributed to world Christianity in other ways. A 4th century theological dispute in Africa eventually led to the formulation of the Symbol of Faith, otherwise known as �the Nicene Creed�, which has, with some variations, become the best-known and most widespread statement of Christian beliefs. One who played a major role in this was St Athanasius of Alexandria.

Two fourth-century African Christians therefore had a major influence on Christianity, not merely in Africa, but throughout the world.

A 5th century dispute had less happy consequences, however, and led to a split in the Church that persists to this day, between those who accept the Council of Chalcedon (451) and those who do not.

The 7th century saw the rise of Islam in Arabia and the conquest of Egypt and much of North Africa by Arab Muslims. Christianity dwindled rapidly in north-western Africa (the Maghreb) but persisted in Egypt, and in Ethiopia, which remained independent. Islam became the dominant religion in northern Africa.

Sub-Saharan Africa

In Africa south of the Sahara, and especially eastern and southern Africa, religions were predominantly tribal and familial. The gods that were worshipped were mostly those of the household or clan, and watched over cattle and crops and protected against natural and human evil, such as disease and witchcraft. In some places, especially in West Africa, there were religions that were more universal, though not on the scale of Christianity or Islam.

Islam was brought to the East African coast mainly by Arab traders sailing from southern Arabia, and establishing trading posts at the coastal ports. Christianity was brought to the West African coast in a similar fashion from Western Europe, initially by the Portuguese. Both Arabs and Portuguese, however, traded mainly in spices and slaves. Portuguese naval victories made them dominant in the Indian Ocean as well. Other western Europeans followed the Portuguese � the Dutch, the British, the French and others, and Christian missionaries from those countries spread their own national varieties of Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa.

The western Europeans also brought slaves and indentured servants from their Asian colonies to Africa. The Dutch brought slaves from Indonesia to Cape Town, and they brought Islam to southern Africa. The British brought Indian labourers to Natal and East Africa, and they brought Hinduism, and the labourers were followed by traders, some of whom were also Muslims.

Religion and colonialism

At times religions spread in Africa through conquest and colonialism. Two such conquests have had a lasting effect on the religious demography in Africa today: the Arab conquest of the 7th century, and the Western European conquests of the 17th-19th centuries. As a result of these, the northern part of Africa is largely Muslim, and the southern part largely Christian, with the dividing line being roughly the latitude of 10� north.

Islam and the Arab conquest

In the seventh century Muslim Arabs invaded Egypt, which was then largely Christian, though the Christians were divided. In the course of the next fifty years they gradually conquered North Africa as far as the Atlantic Ocean, and crossed over into Europe and conquered Spain as well. Within a few hundred years, North-Western Africa was entirely Muslim, though Christians remained in Egypt, and the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia remained unconquered.

Christianity and colonialism

Christianity did not at first enter Africa through colonialism. Christianity was at first a minority religion in the multinational and pagan Roman empire, and it spread through the empire through unofficial channels, sometimes tolerated, sometimes persecuted. After the Arab conquest in the 7th century Christianity continued with this status.

The Arab empire was later conquered by the Turks, who themselves, however, became Muslims. They controlled the trade between Asia and Western Europe, and imports to Europe from Asia were very expensive.

By the late 16th century, however, improved ship-building techniques made it possible for Western European merchants to sail around Africa to India and beyond, thus avoiding the high tariffs imposed by the Turks. At first they were not especially interested in Africa, but when they established colonies in North and South America the British and Portuguese began the human traffic in African slaves to work in their American colonies.

Other European powers, including the French and the Dutch, became interested in this trade, and there were wars and rivalries between them. Whichever power could control the sea route around Africa could control the trade as well. This led to the �scramble for Africa� at the end of the 19th century, as the British, French, Germans and Italians tried to gain control of as much African territory as they could, not merely on the coast, but inland as well. Christian missionaries wanted to enter the territories thus conquered, and sometimes willingly, sometimes under pressure, they collaborated in the conquest and control of the many parts of Africa.

Sometimes Christian missionaries entered territories not under colonial control. British Protestant and French Catholic missionaries, for example, went to Uganda, and each tried to gain the favour of the king of Buganda for their own version of Christianity. They were soon to call upon their countries to protect them from each other. German missionaries entered what is now Namibia, and eventually facilitated the German conquest of that country.

Negative effects of religion

There is a sense in which this heading is a misnomer. Most people in Africa are influenced by religion in one form or another, and for most their moral values are shaped by religion. So whether their judge things as positive or negative is often determined by their religious values. It is also difficult to speak of �religion� as such in Africa.

The concept of �religion� is itself a product of the Western Enlightenment, and has spread to the rest of the world through Western modernity (Harrison 1990). Thus in looking at the negative effects of �religion�, it is best to concentrate on the negative effects of one�s own religion. If one discusses the negative effects of �religion� in general, one can easily slip into the relatively undemanding exercise of confessing other peoples� sins. So it is important to recognise that the means by which we measure the negative and positive effects of religion are usually themselves the product of religion. At first sight this might not seem to apply to people like atheists. We cannot debate that in detail here except to note that very often the ethical values of atheists are themselves based on those of a society whose ethical values been shaped by religion.

Religion, modernity and colonial conquest

We have mentioned that Islam spread across North Africa by means of conquest. After the conquest the Christian population faced discrimination and were treated as second-class citizens.

In Africa south of the Sahara, however, the spread of Western Christianity was slightly different. Though it was not as directly related to military conquest as Islam was in North Africa, there was nevertheless an indirect connection. Islam, too, was not connected with modernity, but Western Christianity was almost inextricably connected with modernity a thousand years later. The Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment had become inextricably linked with Western Christianity in both its Catholic and Protestant strands (the Catholic �Counter-Reformation� was in fact a revolution as far-reaching as the Protestant Reformation).

Christian missionaries from Western Europe sometimes preceded, and sometimes accompanied, colonial conquerors. Where they preceded, they found a barrier: African culture was premodern, and the missionaries came from a culture that was steeped with modernity. Premodern Christian missionaries had been very different. One can read about them in the mountains of Ethiopia, in the forests of northern Russia, on the moors of Yorkshire: there were far fewer cultural barriers between them and those they evangelised than there were between 19th century European missionaries and the people of sub-Saharan Africa.

Many of the Western missionaries to premodern Africa therefore concluded that before people in Africa could receive the Christian gospel, they had to be �civilised�: that is, they had to accept the worldview of Western modernity.

The old premodern Christian missionaries were like Moses and Aaron. When the magicians of Pharaoh threw down their sticks and turned them into snakes, Moses and Aaron turned their sticks into a bigger snake that swallowed all the shapely wisdom of the magicians of Pharaoh. The modernising Western missionaries had a different solution: they built schools to teach the Africans that sticks do not turn into snakes.

And even where Christian missionaries did not play a direct role in conquest, it was conquest that brought them converts. There were few Zulu Christians before the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, though Christian missionaries had been toiling among the Zulus for 50 years. There were few Herero Christians before the Herero-German War of 1904, though Christian missionaries had been toiling among the Herero for 70 years. With conquest came conversion. Some of the more belligerent missionaries encouraged and applauded the conquest. Others were less enthusiastic, and some deplored the brutality of the conquest, but all reaped the reward of greater receptivity of the people to the Christian gospel.

But the �reward� did not last long. Though all Western missionaries were influenced, to a greater or lesser extent, by modernity, the Protestant ones, especially, translated the Bible into vernacular languages and taught people to read. And the African Christians found that the Bible was a thoroughly pre-modern book, and its message was far more accessible to them directly than it was through the spectacles of modernity supplied by the missionaries. The result was hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands of African Initiated Churches (AICs).

In the 20th century Christian missiologists re-examined the relation between Christian mission and colonialism, and came to a more negative assessment of it.

There were also reversals. One example is of the African Orthodox Church in Kenya. It was an African Initiated Church (AIC) established in the 1930s, and in 1946 it united with the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa. It was brutally suppressed by the British colonial government during the �Mau Mau� rebellion of the 1950s. Archbishop Makarios, the leader of the anti-colonial struggle in Cyprus, was exiled by the British to the Seychelles for a year, and on his return from exile passed through Nairobi. This led to a friendship with Jomo Kenyatta, leader of the anti-colonial struggle in Kenya, and eventually led to the Church of Cyprus helping the struggling Orthodox in Kenya to rebuild after their suppression in the colonial period.

Religion and poverty

One result of colonialism was that Africa became part of a world economy, and was exploited by countries in other continents for its resources, and therefore poverty became endemic.

There had always been poverty in Africa: wars, natural disasters like droughts, floods, locusts or disease impoverished people. But usually people were able to recover. People lived by subsistence agriculture or had a pastoral economy. Bad years were followed by good years, and people recovered.

The traditional religions helped people to cope with such disasters. Most believed that the disasters were caused by neglect of their ancestors, and the element of ancestor veneration in African traditional religion helped strengthen kinship ties, and this provided a supportive network that helped people to deal with poverty.

Christianity helped people to cope with the new globalising economy and urbanisation. Vilakazi has shown how in one rural community for the Christians the church provided the supportive network that helped them cope with life�s difficulties.

Thus far, this may not seem to be one of the �negative� effects of religion, but rather a positive one. There have, however, been negative effects.

Offering of financial support

As urbanisation, industrialisation and globalisation proceeded, poverty became endemic in many parts of Africa. Natural and man-made disasters continued to occur, but they tended to affect people who were already poor, rather than plunging them into poverty from a relatively comfortable life.

The teachings of religions such as Islam and Christianity promote care of the poor and charitable donations, and members of these religions and others have often donated food, clothing and money in response to needs that have been drawn to their attention. In times of disasters, this kind of help is much needed: shelter and food for the homeless, the hungry and thirsty are urgently needed, lest the people die.

But sometimes where the needs are less urgent and less obvious, giving food or clothing can be counterproductive. Donations that are urgently needed as a short-term solution in a crisis situation can become debilitating and disempowering in other circumstances, breeding dependence, and thus exacerbating the situation of endemic poverty. People can become parasites and spongers, going from one religious organisation to the next, to see which one will provide them with the most money or goods.

Proselytism

Proselytism is also a negative effect of religion, and can lead to many evils, including violence.

We need to distinguish between proselytism and evangelism, at least in the Christian context. Some religions neither proselytise nor do they evangelise. Most African traditional religions are based on kinship groups, the family, the clan, the tribe. They do not desire to recruit outsiders as members of their religious group, unless the outsiders marry or are adopted into the family.

Christianity and Islam do recruit new members, however. Christians do so by evangelism, proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ, and healing the sick etc. But proselytism goes beyond evangelism. Evangelism proclaims the good news, leaving people free to respond in any way they wish. Proselytism, on the other hand, attacks other religions, seeking to portray them as bad, and urging people to leave them. It has been said that evangelism is �one beggar telling another beggar where to get bread�. Proselytism is saying, in effect, �my religion is better than yours, therefore you should leave your religion and join mine.�

In some parts of Africa, this has led to violence. In West Africa there have at times been riots and violence between Muslims and Christians. In Uganda there was violence sparked by conflicts between early Catholic and Protestant missionaries. There has also been persecution or discrimination against members of minority religions in some places, often with the aim of proselytising.

Positive role of religion

We have already pointed out the positive role of religion in helping people to cope with disasters and social change. Religion has provided support networks for people who are suffering.

Uniting people

Most religions teach that people should support each other and help each other. Though some may interpret this as meaning mainly supporting and helping members only of their own religious or ethnic or kinship group, in most religions values such as compassion and charity are inculcated.

In Africa, religion is not, for the most part, seen as something divisive, but rather encouraging people to care for one another. In Southern Africa this is called �ubuntu�, which means �humanity�.

Improving their condition of life

The kind of positive things mentioned above usually do result in improved conditions of life for people. Where people treat each other with compassion and respect, and work together and support one another, their conditions of life do improve.

In many cases, however, religious groups can do more to improve conditions of life for their own members, and for the wider community. Where there have been obvious disputes and conflicts, religious leaders have often south to solve them by bringing together those at enmity.

In South Africa, for example, there was, in the 1980s, a very acrimonious and public dispute between a prominent political leader and the archbishop of the church that the political leader belonged to. Clergy of that church, and of other Christian denominations, undertook shuttle diplomacy between them in order to try to promote peace. They did not necessarily expect them to agree on all points, but rather that they could agree to disagree peacefully, without acrimony.