African Religion

Religion in Africa has a plethora of components to it and has been a large benefactor to the civilization and craft throughout the entirety of the continent. One of the many prominent religions in Africa today is Christianity. Christianity in particular, which is the belief of a single (monotheistic) creator/God first came in two waves. First the original wave and second the wave that was due to slavery. Christianity initially arrived in North Africa, in either the first or early second century AD. The Christian communities in North Africa were among the earliest in the world. Once in North Africa, Christianity began to spread constantly West from Alexandria and East to Ethiopia. For the past fifty years the churches in Africa have been growing

Booth Jr. In the book Booth begins by stating how contrary to Islam and the tribal religions being viewed as traditional to Africa, Christianity is considered as a religion that was imported from Europe to Africa. Christianity initially did not have a strong influence to the South of the Sahara until the beginning of the protestant missionary era. Later on in the centuries to come there were chaplains who had ministered to Africans, but they were later on forbidden when it became apparent that the conversion of Africans hindered the slave trade. Once the British realized the detrimental effects of the slave trade a ubiquitous effort began on the behalf Africa. The three main directions that these efforts took were the establishment of colonies of freed slaves, the faltering of the slave trade, and finally the missionary endeavors in Africa. Booth states that all three of these resulted in the large participation of blacks in establishing Christianity in west Africa. One of the main arguments used to support the colonization was that Africans can best evangelize Africa. This claim was supported by the European’s difficulty in surviving from malaria, resulted in a place for blacks in the early days of missionaries in Africa. After around 1870 there was a drastic change in European relations with Africa which affected the relations in the church as well as everywhere else. The reasons for the change can be related accordingly to someone’s weighing of economic, political, or even social influences/attributes. For example during the scramble for Africa, which was the division, and colonisation of African territory