Assoc. Prof. Frieder Ludwig, Office: Bockman 122, phone 641-3290, Email: fludwig@luthersem.edu

 

CM 3413 S6 African Traditional Religions

Fall 2005/Luther Seminary

 

COURSE DESCRIPTION

An introduction into African Religions and world views and how they are perceived in Western thought as well as in African Christian theologies.

 

REQUIRED READINGS:

Bediako, Kwame.  1995.  Christianity in Africa: The Renewal of a Non-Western Religion.  Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Chidester, David, Savage Systems: Colonialism and Comparative Religion in Southern Africa. Charlottesville, etc.: University of Virginia Press, 1996

Ray, Benjamin C., African Religions: Symbols, Ritual and Community, Englewoods Cliff, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1976.

 

RECOMMENDED READINGS:

Blakely, Thomas D./van Beek, Walter E.A./Thomson, Dennis L. (eds.), Religion in Africa. Experience and Expression, London: Currey, 1994.

Ludwig, Frieder/Adogame,Afe, European Traditions in the Study of Religion in Africa, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: 2004

Meyer, Birgit, Translating the Devil, an African Appropriation of Pietist Protestantism. The Case of the Peki Ewe in Southeastern Ghana, 1847-1992, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995.

 

REQUIREMENTS:

1. PREPARATION FOR CLASS/ PRECEPTS.  Prepare yourself to participate actively in all of the precepts. Read the assigned texts. They will be discussed in the precepts. You  will be a member of a study group. Your group will be asked to give short presentations (3-5 minutes) in class. For some precepts, your group will be asked to prepare by reading specific texts. If you miss a precept, then you must turn in a 500-word analysis of the question addressed in the precept.

2. LECTURES.  Much of the course’s content will be presented in the lectures.  There will be short contributions by student groups, and your active participation is expected. If you miss a lecture, you must turn in a 500-word summary of the assigned texts.

3. VISIT TO AN AFRICAN CONGREGATION: Your group will visit an international congregation. You can make your selection from a list which will be provided. PREPARATION FOR CLASS.  Read the assigned texts for each week. They will be discussed in the precepts. You may want to form an informal study group to help you more understand the material we are covering in class more deeply.

4. PARTICIPATION IN EXCURSIONS: Arrangements will be made to visit the Minneapolis Institute of Arts on Thursday, 22 April, 6.30 to 7.30. There will be a guided tour in “African Art” .

5.) ESSAYS:  Answer each essay question with a thesis.  Your answers should be developed out of the material covered in the lectures, precepts, and assigned readings.  The “Select Bibliography” is another resource you might draw from in the essays.  I cannot guarantee that late papers will receive comments. 

·         Essay #1: Academic Approaches toward African religions (due 11/11)

·         Essay #2:  Description of a selected African religion (due 12/2)

·         Essay #3: Christian Engagement and interaction with African religions (due 12/16)

 

 

GRADING CRITERIA

Your grade will be based on your essays and participation in precepts.  Given Luther Seminary’s mission as an institution, I will grade all papers I receive on the basis of the following criteria.  On your official record, however, you will only receive a course grade if you request it with a grade slip from the Registrar’s Office within the first two weeks.  See also the “Evaluation of Essay” form (on the course’s webpage) for a more thorough list of the criteria I will use to evaluate the work you submit.

 

GRADE

 CRITERIA

A.      Excellent preparation for missionary and theological leadership

Has thoroughly understood the body of knowledge covered in this course and has, in public writing and conversation, not only coherently engaged its central problems, questions, and issues but has done so with nuance, imagination and critical insight.

B.       Good preparation for missionary and theological leadership

Has understood the body of knowledge covered in this course and has coherently engaged its central problems, questions, and issues in writing and public conversation.

C.        Basic catechesis

Has demonstrated a basic grasp of the body of knowledge covered in this course.

               

 

COURSE SCHEDULE

 

UNIT

READING FOR MONDAY LECTURE

PRECEPTS AND UNIT ESSAYS

Week 1:

Introduction

Western approaches

October 31st

Selected texts

Chidester 1992, 1-34

Ludwig/Adogame 1-11

Ray, ix-xvi,, 1-46

Westerlund, 26-43

November 02nd and 03rd

Idowu, 1963, 1- 56

Long, 86-101

Olupona (ed.) 2000, 54-84

Parrinder, 1953, 6-62

Week 2:

African Religions in West Africa

November 7th

 

November 9th and 10th

Mazrui, 1984, 11-21, 135-157

Mazrui (ed.), 60-107

Mbiti, 20-44

Ray, 47-91

Essay #1: Academic Approaches toward African religions (due 11/11)

Week 3:

African Religions in East Africa

November 14th

 

November 16th and 18th

Chidester 1992, 219-266

Hodgson 1982, 3-31, 41-74

Schoffeleers, 1972

Week 4:

African Religions in East and in South Africa

November 28th

 

November 30th and December 1st

Bediako, 91-187

Peel (selected texts)

Soyinka, The Trials of Brother Jero

Essay #2:  Description of a selected African religion (due 12/2)

Week 5:

African Independent Churches

December 4th

 

December 6th and 8th

Bediako, 189-267

Dickson , Baeta (selected texts)

 

Week  6:

African Christian Theology

December 11th

 

December 13th and 15th

Essay #3: Christian Engagement and interaction with African religions (due 12/16)

 

 

Bibliography

Awolalu, J. Omosade, Yoruba beliefs and Sacrifical Rites, London: Longman 1979.

Blakely, Thomas D./van Beek, Walter E.A./Thomson, Dennis L. (eds.), Religion in Africa. Experience and Expression, London: Currey, 1994.

Bosch, David J., Transforming Mission, Maryknoll: Orbis, 1991.

Burton, John W., An Introduction to Evans-Pritchard, Fribourg Switzerland: Fribourg University Press, Studia Instituti Anthropos, Fribourg, 1992.

Chidester, David, Religions of South Africa, London/New York:Routledge, 1992.

Chidester, David, Savage Systems: Colonialism and Comparative Religion in Southern Africa. Charlottesville, etc.: University of Virginia Press, 1996

Comaroff, Jean and John, Of Revelation and Revolution. Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa, 2 vols., Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1991, 1997.

Cox, James L and Ter Haar, Gerrie.  2002.  Uniquely African?  African Christian Identity from Cultural and Historical Perspectives.  Lawrenceville, New Jersey:  African World Press (Forthcoming).

Cox, James L. 1998a.  Rational Ancestors.  Scientific Rationality and African Indigenous Religions.  Cardiff:  Cardiff Academic Press.

Cox, James L (ed.)  1998b.  Rites of Passage in Contemporary Africa.  Cardiff:  Cardiff Academic Press.

Douglas, Mary, Evans-Pritchard, Glascow: Fontana Paperbacks, 1980.

Elphick, Richard and Rodney Davenport (eds.), Christianity in South Africa: A Political, Social and Cultural History, Oxford: James Currey, 1997.

Hackett, Rosalind, I. J., Religion and Art in Africa, New York, etc.: Kassell, 1999.

Hastings, Adrian “Geoffrey Parrinder“, in: Journal of Religion in Africa (31/2001), 354-359.

Hastings, Adrian, The Church in Africa 1450-1950, Oxford: Clarendon Press 1994.

Hodgson, Janet, The God of the Xhoas, Oxford: OUP, 1982

Horton, Robin, “African Conversion”, Africa (41/1971) 85-108.

Horton, Robin, “On the rationality of Conversion”, Part I, Africa (45/1975), 219-235, 373-399.

Horton, Robin, Patterns of Thought in Africa and the West: Essays on Magic, Religion and Science, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Idowu, E. Bolaji, African Traditional Religion: A Definition, London: SCM Press, 1973.

Ikenga-Metuh, E., God and Man in African Religion, London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1981.

Ikenga-Metuh, African Traditional Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes: The Problem of Interpretation (Studies in Igbo Religion), Bodija, Ibadan: Pastoral Instutute Press, 1986.

Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, Onitsha: Imico Press, 1987, New Edition, Jos: Imico, 1990.

King, Ursula (ed.), Turning Points in Religious Studies: Essays in Honour of Geoffrey Parrinder, Edinburgh, T & T Clarke, 1990.

Lewis, J.R., “Images of Traditional African Religions in surveys of World Religions”, in Religion (20/1990), 311-322.

Long, Carolyn Morrow, “Perceptions of New Orleans Voodoo: Sin, Fraud, Entertainment and Religion”, Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, Vol. 6/1, 86-104

Magesa, Laurenti, The Moral Traditions of Abundant Life, New York: Maryknoll, 1997.

Mazrui, Ali A., The Africans. A Triple Heritage, 1986.

Mazrui, Ali A (ed.), The Africans: A Reader, New York: 1986

Meyer, Birgit, Translating the Devil. Religion and Modernity among the Ewe in Ghana, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999.

Mudimbe, V.Y., The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosphy and the Order of Knowledge, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988.

Mulago, V., La Religion Traditionelle de Bantu et leur vision du Monde, 2nd ed., Kinshasa 1980

Murphy, J.M., “ ‘Black Religion’ and ‘Black Magic’: Prejudice and Projection in Images of African-derived Religions”, Religion, (20/1990), 323-337.

Nwoga, Donatus I., The Supreme God as Stranger in Igbo Religious Thought, Ekweazu: Hawk Press, 1984.

Olupona, Jacob K. (ed.),  African Religions in Contemporary Society, New York: Paragon Press, 1991.

Olupona, Jacob K. African Spirituality. Forms, Meanings and Expressions, New York: Crossroad, 2000.

Opoku, Kofi Asare, West African Traditional Religion, Accra: FEP International Private Ltd., 1978.

Parrinder, Geoffrey,, Religion in an African City, Oxford 1953

Parrinder, Geoffrey, African Traditional Religion, London: Sheldon Press,1954, Reprinted, London: Hutchinson, 1968 and 1974.

Parrinder, Geoffrey,  Africa’s Three Religions, London: Sheldon Press, 1969, reissued 1976.

P’Bitek, Okot, African Religions in Western Scholarship, Nairobi: East African Publishing Bureau, 1971.

Peel, John D.Y., „For Who Hath Despised the Day of Small Things? Missionary Narratives and Historical Anthropology“, Comparative Studies in Society and History (37/1995), 581-607.

Peel, John D.Y., Religious Encounter and the Making of the Yoruba, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2000.

Plavoet, Jan/Cox, James/Olupona, Jacob (eds.), The Study of Religions in Africa: Past, Present and Prospects, Being volume one in the series Religions of Africa, Cambridge: Roots and Branches, 1996.

Pratt, M.L., Imperial Eyes. Travel Writing and Transculturation, London: Routledge, 1992.

Ranger, Terence O./Kimambo, I. N. (eds.), The Historical Study of African Traditional Religion, with special reference to East and Central Africa, London: Heinemann, 1972.

Ranger, Terence/Weller, John (eds.), Themes in the Christian History of Central Africa, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975.

Ranger, Terence O. “The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa”, in E. Hobsbawm, Eric/T.O.Ranger, The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, 211-262.

Ranger, T.O., “African Traditional Religion”, in S. Sutherland, e.a. (eds.), The World’s Religions, London: Routledge, 1988, 864-872.

Ranger, Terence O. “The Invention of Tradition Revisited: The Case of Colonial Africa”, in: T.O. Ranger/O. Vaughan, Legitimacy and the State in Twentieth-Century Africa. Essays in Honour of A.H.M. Kirk-Greene, Basingstoke: Macmillan 1993, 62-111.

Ray, Benjamin C., “Recent Studies in African Religion”, History of Religions (12/1972) 75-89.

Ray, Benjamin C., African Religions: Symbols, Ritual and Community, Englewoods Cliff, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1976.

Ray, Benjamin C., “African Religions. An Overview”, in M. Eliade, The Encyclopaedia of Religion, Vol. 1, New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 1987, 60-69.

Rodney, Walter, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, London:Bogle-L ‘Ouverture, 1972.

Rousseau, G. S. /Roy Porter (eds.), Exoticism in the Enlightenment, Manchester/New York: Manchester University Press, 1990.

Said, Edward, Orientalism. New York: Pantheon, 1978.

Said, Edward., Culture and Imperialism. London: Vintage, 1994.

Sanneh, Lamin Translating The Message: The Missionary Impact On Culture, New York: Orbis Books, 1989.

Sanneh, Lamin, Encountering the West. Christianity and the Global Cultural Process: The African Dimension, London 1993

Sanneh, Lamin Abolitionists Abroad: American Blacks And The Making Of Modern West Africa, Cambridge: Havard University Press, 1999.

Schoffeleers, J. Matthew (ed.), Guardians of the Land: Essays on Central African Territorial Cults. Gweru (Zimbabwe): Mambo Press, 1978.

Schoffeleers, J. Matthew, River of Blood: The Genesis of a Martyr Cult in Southern Ma­la­wi, c. A.D. 1600. Madison (Wisconsin), etc.: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1992.

Matthew Schoffeleers, The History and Political Role of the M’Bona Cult among the Mang’anja, in: T.O. Ranger, I.N. Kimambo, The Historical Study of African Religion, London 1972, S. 73-94

Shaw, Rosalind, “The Invention of ‘African Traditional Religion’”, Religion (20/1990), 339-353.

Smidt, Wolbert, Afrika im Schatten der Aufklärung. Das Afrikabild bei Immanuel Kant und Johann Gottfried Herder, Bonn: Holos, 1999.

Spear, Thomas/Kimambo, Isariah (eds.), East African Expressions of Christianity, Oxford: James Currey, 1999.

Sundermeier, Theo, The Individual and Community in African Traditional Religions, Hamburg: Lit, 1997

Talbot, Percy A., Tribes of the Niger Delta: Their religions and Customs, London: Cass 1932.

Taylor, John V., The Primal Vision: Christian Presence and African Religion, London: SCM. Press, 1963.

Tempels, Placide,  Bantu Philosophy, Paris: Presence Africaine 1958.

Thompson, George, The Palm Land, or West Africa, Illustrated, 1858.

Turner, Harold W., Religious Innovation in Africa: Collected Essays on new Religious Movements, Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1979.

Turner, Harold W., “The Way Forward in the Religious Study of African Primal Religions”, Journal of Religion in Africa (12/1981), 1-15.

Turner, Victor, The Drums of Affliction: A Study of Religious Processes among the Ndembu in Zambia, Oxford: Clarendon: 1968

Tylor, Edward B., Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art and Custom, London: Murray, 1871.

Vansina, Jan, Oral Tradition as History, London: James Currey, 1985.

Waardenburg, Jaques, Classical Approaches to the Study of Religion. Vol. I, The Hague/Paris: Mouton, 1974.

Westerlund, David, African Religion in African Scholarship: A Preliminary Study of the Religious and Political Background, Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1985.

Westerlund, David, „The Study of Religions in Retrospect: From ‘Westernization’ to ‘Africanization’?”, in J. K. Olupona and S.S. Nyang (eds.), Religious Plurality in Africa: Essays in Honour of John S. Mbiti, (Berlin, etc.: Mouton de Gruyter, 1993.

Westermann, Diedrich, Africa and Christianity, London: Oxford University Press, 1937.

Westermann, Diedrich, “The Value of the African´s Past”, International Review of Missions (1926), 418 – 437.

Wilks, Ivor, Asante in the nineteenth Century: The Structure and Evolution of a Political Order, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.

Yamauchi, Edwin, Africa and the Bible, Grand Rapids 2004

Zahan, Dominique, The Religion, Spirituality and Thought of Traditional Africa, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1970.

Websites:

http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/religion/african-traditional-religion.html

http://www.hermetics.org/afro.html

http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/religion/african-traditional-religion.html

http://www.gospelcom.net/dacb/

http://www.bagamoyo.com/de/index_de.html (Maji Maji)

Early Reports & “Classical” Approaches

 

Chidester, D., 1996, Savage Systems: Colonialism and Comparative Religion in South­­ern Africa. Charlottesville, etc.: University of Virginia Press.

Meyer, Birgit, Translating the Devil, an African Appropriation of Pietist Protestantism. The Case of the Peki Ewe in Southeastern Ghana, 1847-1992, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995.

 

Plavoet, Jan/Cox, James/Olupona, Jacob (eds.), The Study of Religions in Africa: Past, Present and Prospects, Being volume one in the series Religions of Africa, Cambridge: Roots and Branches, 1996.

Ray, Benjamin C., African Religions: Symbols, Ritual and Community, Englewoods Cliff, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1976.

Waardenburg, Jaques, Classical Approaches to the Study of Religion. Vol. I, The Hague/Paris: Mouton, 1974.

 

Geoffrey Parrinder and the concept of “African Traditional Religion”

Hastings, Adrian “Geoffrey Parrinder“, in: Journal of Religion in Africa (31/2001), 354-359.

King, Ursula (ed.), Turning Points in Religious Studies: Essays in Honour of Geoffrey Parrinder, Edinburgh, T & T Clarke, 1990.

Parrinder, Geoffrey, African Traditional Religion, London: Sheldon Press,1954, Reprinted, London: Hutchinson, 1968 and 1974.

Parrinder, Geoffrey,  Africa’s Three Religions, London: Sheldon Press, 1969, reissued 1976.

Shaw, Rosalind, “The Invention of ‘African Traditional Religion’”, Religion (20/1990), 339-353.

 

Placide Tempels & Bantu Philosophy

 

Anstey, Roger T., “Christianity and Bantu philosophy: observations on the thought and work of Placide tempels’, International Review of Mission 1963, 316-322

Tempels, Placide,  Bantu Philosophy, Paris: Presence Africaine 1958.

Okafor, Stephen O., “Bantu Philosophy: Placide Tempels revisited”, Journal of Religion in Africa 13, 1982, 83-100

 

The Modern British School:

Burton, John W., An Introduction to Evans-Pritchard, Fribourg Switzerland: Fribourg University Press, Studia Instituti Anthropos, Fribourg, 1992.

Kuper, Adam, 31996: Anthropology and Anthropologists: The Modern British School. London: Routledge.

Manning, Frank E., 1990: Victor Turner’s career and publications, in: Ashley, Kathleen (ed.), Victor Turner and the Construction of Cultural Criticism: Between Literature and Anthropology. Bloomington, Ind., pp. 170–177.

Binsbergen, W. van, & M. Schoffeleers (eds.) 1985, Theoretical Explorations in African Religion. London, etc.: Kegan Paul International.

 

The Historical Study of African Religions: Terrence Ranger & Matthew Schoffeleers

Ranger, Terence O./Kimambo, I. N. (eds.), The Historical Study of African Traditional Religion, with special reference to East and Central Africa, London: Heinemann, 1972.

Ranger, Terence/Weller, John (eds.), Themes in the Christian History of Central Africa, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975.

Ranger, Terence O. “The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa”, in E. Hobsbawm, Eric/T.O.Ranger, The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, 211-262.

Ranger, T.O., “African Traditional Religion”, in S. Sutherland, e.a. (eds.), The World’s Religions, London: Routledge, 1988, 864-872.

Ranger, Terence O. “The Invention of Tradition Revisited: The Case of Colonial Africa”, in: T.O. Ranger/O. Vaughan, Legitimacy and the State in Twentieth-Century Africa. Essays in Honour of A.H.M. Kirk-Greene, Basingstoke: Macmillan 1993, 62-111.

Schoffeleers, J. Matthew (ed.), Guardians of the Land: Essays on Central African Territorial Cults. Gweru (Zimbabwe): Mambo Press, 1978.