He was an authority, and pioneering researcher, on West African indigenous religions.
Parrinder was Professor of the Comparative Study of Religion in the University of London.
After ordination (1936) he spent twenty years teaching in West Africa and Studying African religions, before becoming the founder member of the Department of Religious Studies in University College of Ibadan, Nigeria.
He traveled widely in Africa, and in India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Burma, Israel, Jordan and Turkey and held lecturing appointments in Australia, India and America and at Oxford.
He worked as a missionary in Benin and Côte d'Ivoire for nearly two decades beginning in 1933, and became an authority on indigenous West African religions.