Muhammad Wolfgang G. A. Schmidt, Ph. D., M.A., M.R.S., Eccl D.

READINGS IN AFRICAN RELIGION

© by Author, Leipzig 2002

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Born in 1950, the author holds several academic degrees including majors in Linguistic Science, Chinese and African Studies, Theology and Religious Studies. He has rich teaching and research experience gained at several universities in Africa, Asia, and the USA and Europe. He has also published over 20 books in his special fields of expertise (Linguistic Science, Theory of Foreign Language Teaching, Translation Theory, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Religious Studies/Theology).

LIST OF CONTENTS

Major Issues in the Study of African Traditional Religion ... 4

Defining African Religion ... 7

Values in Traditional African Religion and Culture ... 9

Translating Biblical Concepts into African Languages ... 13

Sin and Salvation in Christianity and Animism ... 26

Major issues in the study of African Traditional Religion

It is quite instructive to see how the debates on principal methodological approaches and theoretical axioms developed – approaches and basic concepts that seem to serve as a point of departure in the study of Traditional African Religion. To me, it seems to be the old Western type of “academic disease” of putting everything into a well defined but strict set of categories according to certain preconceived criteria and them make it work. In the end, scholars and researches will find themselves caught up in their own trap they built.

The instance of assessing the study of Traditional African Religion from at least two superficially conflicting points of view must give such an impression to anyone following the recent academic debates in the relevant literature. Thus, it could only be a European, David Westerlund who in his “INSIDERS AND OUTSIDERS IN THE STUDY OF AFRICAN RELIGIONS. Notes on some Problems of Theory and Method” (in: OLUPONA, J.K. (ed.), “African Traditional Religions in Contemporary Society”, St. Paul, 1991:15-24) raised the point. In addition to presenting a brief overview of the discussion under way, the various points of view held by certain authors, he makes it very clear that there are two “opposing” approaches from which the study of Traditional African Religion(s) is being perceived:

According to Westerlund, the anthropological approach does not study a religious concept as such by putting the focus on the sociocultural context and important parameters such as cultural contexts, socio-economic structure(s) of the ethnic group concerned --- explaining religious concepts from there. Basically, this is a correct approach and a methodological prerequisite if you want to work objectively, neither being an ethnocentrist or be prejudged by any confessional faith that you privately may hold. Both such subconscious factors conflict with the academic and scientific aim of being neutral and objective. Furthermore, it may have first been the Early Marxists such as Marx himself and his close collaborator Engels who in the midst of the 19th century made the first attempts to depart from the then prevalent dominating pattern of idealistic approach in science and advocating a more objective, neutral pattern of approach. It is what they called “materialist approach” opposing any
prejudgment and preconception. To them, prejudgment and preconception was to be found in the “transcendence” of Christian Religious Faith prevalent in the societies of those days. They were simply seeking for another alternative approach bringing about more objective and neutral standpoints not only in the study of society and the socio-economic factors underlying it but in any other sphere of academic debate as well. More than hundred years later, such what they called “materialist” has “crept” into many fields of studies – into Human Medicine, Social Science subjects, and even into Philology and Linguistics. It is common recognised academic standard worldwide, and it basically is reasonable to apply such standards to the study of Traditional African Religion as well --- considering it on the premises of its own natural sociocultural environment and by its own merits. I would certainly make it a basic “preconception” myself when studying it.

But since the study of Traditional African Religion is not only a social science subject to be based upon exact descriptive data acquired by empirical field study, we would not do justice to this subject of study by merely concentrating on the anthropological approach by attempting to explain everything from there. As a matter of fact, African Traditional Religion as much as any other religious system(s), is an “experiential phenomenon” (Olupona, in Olupuna (ed.): “Major Issues in the Study of African Traditional Religion“, ibd., pp. 27-28). It is an “experiential phenomenon“ truly transcending beyond the essential limits of “materialist” objective approaches in science and similar approaches in practical everyday life. It is because Man is simply more than a mere rationalist being without any emotions or values. Experiential phenomena at transcendental level are thus common among Man, and the religious systems and cults having developed from there are, in the first instance, community and culture based. Hence, the essential inclusion of sociocultural (anthropologist) criteria in the study of religions on their own individual merits.

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