A Missing Link: African Christian Resonances in the Rise of Indian Muslim and Hindu Missions
This essay explores how West Africa became a landscape of religious exchange, creativity and synthesis connecting Africa and South Asia. It follows the lead of Afe Adogame and Jim Spickard, who argue that ‘Africa is not merely a passive recipient of global pressures. It is also a site of religious c...
Auteur principal: | |
---|---|
Type de support: | Électronique Article |
Langue: | Anglais |
Vérifier la disponibilité: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Publié: |
Edinburgh Univ. Press
2022
|
Dans: |
Studies in world christianity
Année: 2022, Volume: 28, Numéro: 2, Pages: 169-187 |
RelBib Classification: | BJ Islam BK Hindouisme BS Religions traditionnelles africaines CC Christianisme et religions non-chrétiennes; relations interreligieuses KBN Afrique subsaharienne RJ Mission |
Sujets non-standardisés: | B
Ahmadisme
B Islam B Africa—India relations B Hinduism B Missions B Christianity B Indigenous African religions |
Accès en ligne: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
Résumé: | This essay explores how West Africa became a landscape of religious exchange, creativity and synthesis connecting Africa and South Asia. It follows the lead of Afe Adogame and Jim Spickard, who argue that ‘Africa is not merely a passive recipient of global pressures. It is also a site of religious creativity that has had considerable effect on the outside world. The growth and global influence of the three religious heritages of sub-Saharan Africa – indigenous religions, Christianity and Islam – needs to be understood against the backdrop of mutual influence and exchange at various historical epochs’ (Adogame and Spickhard 2010: 2—3)., To explore such transformations, I draw on the cases of the Ahmadiyya Muslim missionary movement in Ghana and Nigeria and Hinduism in Ghana. The Ahmadiyya began as a mission to correct Christianity's influence on West Africans, but was transformed by African influence on South Asians into a pluralistic knowledge-seeking movement. In a similar vein, Africans reshaped Hinduism away from cultural isolationism and worldly attachments of the Indian-diaspora Africa towards a spiritual ethic of racial integration and devotionalism that Africans and Indians now share. I conclude by reflecting on how African modes of religious interrelationality – influenced by the historical trajectories of Christianity on the African continent – have been crucial in the polycentrism that world Christianity scholars have revealed. |
---|---|
ISSN: | 1750-0230 |
Contient: | Enthalten in: Studies in world christianity
|
Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.3366/swc.2022.0388 |