Religion in Africa
Today, the continent's various populations and individuals are mostly adherents of Christianity, Islam, and to a lesser extent several traditional African religions.
[5] Though often referred to in singular terms, Africa is a vast continent with many nations, each possessing complex cultures, numerous languages, and various dialects.
Some distinctions between West African and East or Hornn religion often includes considering the supernatural and natural or tangible as being one and the same, and using this stance to incorporate divination.
[14] The most prominent indigenous deity among Cushitic Horners is Waaq, which continues to be manifested into the modern era with religions such as Waaqeffanna and Waaqism.
[23]) In the first few centuries of Christianity, Africa produced many figures who had a major influence outside the continent, including St Augustine of Hippo, St Maurice, Origen, Tertullian, and three Roman Catholic popes (Victor I, Miltiades and Gelasius I), as well as the Biblical characters Simon of Cyrene and the Ethiopian eunuch baptised by Philip the Evangelist.
Although the Bible refers to them as Ethiopians, scholars have argued that Ethiopia was a common term encompassing the area South-Southeast of Egypt.
[clarification needed] All accounts do agree on the fact that the traveller was a member of the royal court who succeeded in converting the Queen, which in turn caused a church to be built.
[25] Some experts predict the shift of Christianity's center from the European industrialized nations to Africa and Asia in modern times.
The faith's historic roots on the continent stem from the time of Muhammad, whose early disciples migrated to Abyssinia (hijira) in fear of persecution from the pagan Arabs.
All three individual heads of the religion, Bahá'u'lláh, `Abdu'l-Bahá, and Shoghi Effendi, were in Africa at various times.
[40] On the other hand, Sub-Saharan Baháʼís were able to mobilize for nine regional conferences called for by the Universal House of Justice 20 October 2008 to celebrate recent achievements in grassroots community-building and to plan their next steps in organizing in their home areas.
that the irreligious comprise 20% in South Africa, 16% in Botswana, 13% in Mozambique, 13% in Togo, 12% in Ivory Coast, 10% in Ethiopia and Angola, 9% in Sudan, Zimbabwe and Algeria, 8% in Namibia and 7% in Madagascar.
[50] Kwesi Yankah and John Mbiti argue that many African peoples today have a 'mixed' religious heritage to try to reconcile traditional religions with Abrahamic faiths.
"[53] Syncretism in Africa is said by others to be overstated,[54] and due to a misunderstanding of the abilities of local populations to form their own orthodoxies and also confusion over what is culture and what is religion.
[citation needed] Others state that the term syncretism is a vague one,[55] since it can be applied to refer to substitution or modification of the central elements of Christianity or Islam with beliefs or practices from somewhere else.
However, communities in Africa (e.g. Afro-Asiatic) have many common practices which are also found in Abrahamic faiths, and thus these traditions do not fall under the category of some definitions of syncretism.
