What Is the Dominant Religion of Sub-Saharan Africa?
What is the dominant religion of Sub-Saharan Africa? Since North Africa is heavily Muslim, you might assume that these southern regions of Africa are as well. However, you are incorrect.
There are two primary religions in the Sub-Saharan region of African. The majority of people are Christians; however, traditional African religions also play a major role in the beliefs of the people. Let us take at the relationship of these two faiths within the Sub-Saharan region of Africa.
Christianity
Many denominations of Christianity exist, although they are all essentially based around the same basic principles. You will find that different denominations of Christians exist in Africa. There has been a recent surge in the number of Christians living in Africa, where they are predominantly concentrated in the Sub-Saharan area. In 1900, nine million Christians were living in Africa. However, by 2000, this number rose to 380 million Christians.
Statistics are a little bit shaky and hard to find regarding exactly which Christian denominations are represented in the Sub-Saharan areas. According to David Barrett of Christianity Today Magizine, most of the denominations of Christianity from Sub-Saharan Africa would not be recognizable to those of us living in the West. Chances are that a lot of these Christian denominations are mixed with culture aspects of Africa or even religious elements of the traditional African religions.
What we do know that is that there are a lot of Pentecostals and Charismatics living in this region. A 2006 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life revealed that approximately 147 million African Christians were of these or similar faiths.
Traditional African Religions
These traditional African religions are extremely varied, but we can give you a view into some of the beliefs. Remember, these are not the beliefs of every follower of a traditional African religion. Some of the religions might engulf many of these beliefs, and some of them might relate to none of these beliefs.
- Some believe that the Abrahamic God created the universe
- Others are more spiritual and they believe that spirits roam the earth
- Evil as punishment from a divine force
- Prophets as communicators between God and people
- Evil caused by bad spirits
- Religions that do not believe in God, but rather in a divine spirt
- Religions that praise God, but believe that other gods and goddesses exist in unison as well
- Religions based on cosmology
- Religions based on metaphysics
- Religions based on ontology
- Order as the basis of everything
- Chaos as the force behind disorder
- Religions based on duality
- Principles of being and becoming as extremely important
- Mixtures between Christianity and some of the aforementioned elements of African religions
Clearly, Christianity is the dominate religion of Sub-Saharan Africa, and secondly dominated by traditional African religions; however, nothing is cut and dry. The variations of Christian denominations blended in with the complex traditional beliefs that have evolved over the course of African history make for a rich and vibrant culture full of religious devotion.