No description available.

Bibliography: leaves 231-241. / This thesis is an attempt to find out how much justified the missionaries and some local authors are in identifying Molimo with their Christian God (Sky-Divinity). A critical analysis of various Basotho cultural elements and what the early Basotho told the missionaries reveal that Molimo as an ultimate object of worship in the traditional religion of the Southern Sotho, is Water-Divinity, namely, Water Snake and not a celestial being or Sky-Divinity.

Thesis advisor: Richard Lennan / Thesis advisor: Dominic Doyle / Religion is central and vital for an Igbo person. No Igbo person exists in isolation from his/her community. An indigenous and traditional Igbo society is communal; it does not entertain any sense of individuality. But the coming of the missionaries broke into this communal bond with a new religion that threatened the traditional society when it began to exalt the individual soul. The Nigerian author, Chinua Achebe, in his book Things Fall Apart, portrays a situation in which an African indigenous missionary (Mr. Kiaga) succeeds in separating a son (Nwoye) from his African parent (Okonkwu) so that the son can become a Christian and be saved. But alone? As the son leaves his parents’ house for the mission compound the missionary quotes the Bible, “Blessed is he who forsakes his father and mother for my sake…” Achebe’s story depicts a situation in which the family is utterly divided as a result of the parents’ or their children’s conversion to Christianity. At this point, things fall apart. The pivotal core of the traditional Igbo society cannot hold again. The majority of the missionaries saw African religion from within their Western understanding and concluded that it was heathen, anti-Christian, and repulsive. African societies started to disintegrate when traditional religion was attacked. A rift occurs between the family and the extended family. Instead of bringing reconciliation and understanding, Christianity in this case brings division. This is because converts were instructed to leave everything behind, including families, for the sake of the gospel. But the Igbo Traditional Religion looked at life in a holistic way. There was no contradiction between sacred and profane, hence many people were horrified when the first converts wanted to set themselves apart, away from other members of the community. This is why inculturation is important, as it enables the Igbo Christian to see and experience life in a holistic manner without doing needless violence to cultural values. The failure of the early missionaries to inculturate the cultural values of the people is the conundrum. The result raises some theological problems. In the attempt to ascertain a balance, most times, the Christians in Africa, particularly in Igboland, find themselves oscillating between Christianity and African Traditional Religion (ATR). The need for a reconciliation is long overdue. It is best given a lasting, concrete and a dialogical chance through inculturation. / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

No abstract available / Dissertation (MA (Practical Theology))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Practical Theology / MA / unrestricted

Thesis advisor: Catherine Cornille / Thesis advisor: Margaret Guider / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

Bc. Veronika Vopelková The Fate of Witches: Animism and Traditional Healing in Cameroon Abstract Traditional culture and religion disappear and assimilate into the dominant cultures around the world. Globalization has affected all ethnic groups in Africa. Cameroonian Grassfield is still among those which have been preserved diverse customs and rituals. In the past, the Fondom Kedjom Keku - today, village Big Babanki became the focus of this anthropological work. The aim is to understand and describe the current state of the traditional religion of the inhabitants of this village. For comparison with the original form of each religious phenomena serves a number of publications, researches and interviews with witnesses. This work is based on my field research, participatory observation, interviews and questionnaires. My attention is fixed on a belief in Kedjom gods, spirits, souls of ancestors and contemporary celebration of death, magic and witchcraft, supernatural power of amulets, spiritual power of twins and secret societies. Considering the frequency of allegations of witchcraft, this theme is also elaborated in general view with regard to the Kedjom Keku people and the whole Grassfield. Since the connection with the supernatural world is not the only domain of wizards and witches, but this power can be...

<p>This study focuses on a small ethnic group in the western part of Igboland called Asaba. It describes how the religious and socio-political role of women has changed, due to colonialism, modernisation, Western education and Christianity, which were brought by the groups of Europeans and Americans, who penetrated Africa in the nineteenth century. One of the major points of the thesis is that the freeborn women in the traditional “dual-sex”society of the Igbo lost their previous power to speak for themselves when the Igbo were Christianised. However, the women of slave origin happily adopted the new, more egalitarian faith.</p><p>The dissertation is divided into three parts. The first part is the traditional aspect, which highlights the role of women in Igbo traditional society. The second is a theoretical and historical part. This part deals with the socio-economic and political changes, which took place between 1830 to 1910 in Asaba society, due to colonialism, modernization, Western education and Christianity, and the impact of these forces of change on Asaba women. The third part deals with the role of women in the Catholic Church in Asaba. It analyses the various women's organisations in the Catholic Church in Asaba and the roles, which they play in the church. </p><p>The major conclusion arising from the present analysis is that with the coming of forces of change, such as colonialism, modernization, Western education and Christianity, the religious and socio-political roles of women changed in Asaba society.</p>

This study focuses on a small ethnic group in the western part of Igboland called Asaba. It describes how the religious and socio-political role of women has changed, due to colonialism, modernisation, Western education and Christianity, which were brought by the groups of Europeans and Americans, who penetrated Africa in the nineteenth century. One of the major points of the thesis is that the freeborn women in the traditional “dual-sex”society of the Igbo lost their previous power to speak for themselves when the Igbo were Christianised. However, the women of slave origin happily adopted the new, more egalitarian faith. The dissertation is divided into three parts. The first part is the traditional aspect, which highlights the role of women in Igbo traditional society. The second is a theoretical and historical part. This part deals with the socio-economic and political changes, which took place between 1830 to 1910 in Asaba society, due to colonialism, modernization, Western education and Christianity, and the impact of these forces of change on Asaba women. The third part deals with the role of women in the Catholic Church in Asaba. It analyses the various women's organisations in the Catholic Church in Asaba and the roles, which they play in the church. The major conclusion arising from the present analysis is that with the coming of forces of change, such as colonialism, modernization, Western education and Christianity, the religious and socio-political roles of women changed in Asaba society.

The African Initiated Churches (AICs) are the custodians of the African Traditional Religion (ATR). In the South African census, the AICs are classified as Christian. Africans claim that long before the Christian faith came through missionaries there was some form of worship of God by Africans. This means Africans practiced ATR outside Christianity and after Christianity came through missionaries, they started practising it as Christians One of the reasons given for the Africans moving out of the missionary churches to start their own was a search for an African identity. There was a hunger for a place where the African culture could be accommodated. One of the features of African culture is the worship of ancestors. The question of monotheism encountering polytheism does arise in this kind of discussion. The doctrine of the Trinity is uniquely Christian. There is a historical background concerning the teaching and the foundation thereof. As the AICs responded to a situation, so did the Early Church Fathers who faced question of monotheism encountering polytheism. There was a need to redefine Jewish monotheism within the Christian faith in reference to the event of Jesus Christ. The Church Fathers struggled to defend and grappled with the Christian faith with reference to the scriptures in the light of Jesus Christ. They took the gospel from the Jewish setting into the Greek setting. Their efforts benefited the church throughout history. One may say the writings and the teachings of the early church stood the test of time. One may also say the writings and the teachings were based on the solid foundation being of Jesus Christ and the authority of the scriptures. Juxtaposition is the approach employed in this thesis. Two traditions are being critically assessed based on the notion of Perichoresis by the Cappadocian Church Fathers and the notion of Ubuntu in the ATR. Chapter one deals with the theological background with specific focus on the African church and contextualisation. Chapter two, deals with the debate concerning the position and nature of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. It also investigates the origin of the Nicene Creed. Chapter three investigates the terminology within the doctrine of the Trinity, while Chapter four explores the term ecumenical and communion with reference to Ubuntu. Chapter five analyses the work of Zizioulas, and the conclusion attempts to find an appropriate approach for the African church. Therefore the study concludes that the reference for Ubuntu should be found in the relationship with God through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit and not in the veneration and worship of the ancestors. The benefits of the relationship with God through Jesus supersede all other relationship with any deity in the now and the future. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Dogmatics and Christian Ethics / unrestricted

In many African traditional societies, the felt needs of people are usually met by the services of the shaman or other traditional medicine specialists. These needs vary and they could include the need for protection against witchcraft and evil spirits. Another need in Africa is for physical and psychical health. These needs are felt by many Africans inside and outside ecclesiastical structures. Despite centuries of western influence and teaching by missionaries, these felt needs have not gone away. The sensitivity to the spirit world and its impact on the human and material word still remains a firm belief in the African socio-spiritual reality. In its missiological responsibilities in the past and now, the church in Africa continues to display a theological deficiency in addressing this vacuum in African spirituality. Consequently, many African Christians are trapped in the dual, two-tier or split-level Christianity. This shows itself in times of existential crises in which many committed and respectable African Christians revert to traditional religious practices as a means of meeting their spiritual needs, due to the church’s inability to do so. This observed lack of traditional Christian theology and its irrelevancy to African life, has left many African Christians in a dilemma. It is this lacuna in Christian theology and practice that the researcher seeks to address in this study. By analysing documents on spirits in the first-century Jewish world and the two-volume work of Luke-Acts, the researcher endeavours to show the relevance and possible appropriation of the New Testament message to African spiritual realities. This is based on the understanding that the world of the first-century Jews and other communities in the Mediterranean region at the time, has more in common with Africans than the extremely naturalistic, rationalistic and abstract-oriented worldview of the early western missionaries who initially brought the gospel to Africa. Central to the researcher’s thesis, is the argument that, if early Christians, as exemplified by the Lucan audience, could respond to the fears, problems and realities of the spirit world by using God-ordained, spiritual and biblically acceptable means and not magical ways, African Christians, too, who find themselves in similar situations, can do the same. The contention in this study is that the rediscovery of the aspect of the spirit world of the New Testament message will go a long way towards resolving the problem of split-level Christianity in Africa. This task remains a theological imperative for New Testament scholarship in order for the church to present a holistic message to the masses of Africa and to demonstrate how the immanence of the Christian God in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit, relates to the daily needs of spirit-sensitive Africans – a message that Luke tried so hard to convey to his readers in the first century. / Thesis (PhD (New Testament Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / New Testament Studies / unrestricted