Nature: Place and Context for the Experience of God through African Traditional Religion

• Martin Nkafu Nkemnkia ^[1]
  1. [1] Pontifical Lateran University

     Pontifical Lateran University

     Roma Capitale, Italia

     
• Localización: Religioni e società, ISSN 0394-9397, Vol. 34, Nº. 95, 2019 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Religioni e sviluppo in Africa: verso un futuro sostenibile), págs. 27-34
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Resumen

  • In Africa, religious believes and practices are integral part of culture and as such there is no separation between what is purely cultural and what can be expressed as religion, there is no dichotomy between sacred and profane. In this also consist the unity of the human person in Africa. There are non-sacred minds and profane ones but one brain, one I, one Man/Woman, humanity created by God. Religion has always been the way through which entire communities relate themselves to the ultimate reality which is God the Creator. The African God is the God of the people and not of the individual. In a context as that of Africa, religiously rooted and a holistic sense of the Sacred and the worship of God, an intimate part of the daily life, there is an impossibility of atheism or indifferences in matter of faith and Religion.

    At the difference of other religions in the world, African Traditional Religion (atr) has no founder nor written sacred texts and neither shall there be reformers. In Africa religion is lived and not proclaimed, it is not transmitted though treaties but through experiences of life. Through religion the community speaks with God, dialogues with God. This favours interreligious dialogue and universalises the religious experience of different peoples in the world