Today, 53% of Africa's population is Muslim whereas Christianity in Africa can boast of 38% of the continent's population. Of course, Islam is winning the battle for converts – and this, despite its ban on the consumption of al-cohol and perhaps because of some of the reasons outlined in Edward Wilmot Blyden's Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race – in which he expresses a personal preference for Islam basically his claim being that Islam is a little closer to the natural ( fitra) and naturally closer to African cultures and the so called African way of life, to begin with.
In context, this is from her (the speaker's) preamble, on her way to "there must be a cultural revolution" and the continent coming into "revolutionary consciousness":
"The other weapon that imperialism uses which is a challenge for Pan-African Renaissance is religion. Some of us, you know, with all our rhetoric – it's shocking, we are still deeply Christian, deeply Muslim, deeply this, deeply everything but African. …" (not clear… some laughter from the crowd) "And we can't understand as long as you continue to see and to understand God and the creator through the lenses of another race you will never know freedom in your life – never! Religion is a cultural understanding of the spiritual…."etc etc. etc.
It's not as if Christianity (a little Jewish sect) was ever imposed wholesale wherever it travelled from Jerusalem – to Rome, Turkey, Ethiopia, Egypt and the rest of North Africa (before the advent of al-Islam) and what's now known as the West, its wholesale conquest of Europe, North and South America etc.….
There is this something known as contextualisation . Nowadays, the mass is celebrated in the Igbo Language because Christianity has adapted/ been adapted to its various localities in Africa South of the Sahara, although I do not know the extent to which it has been adapted in e.g. Nigeria to accommodate the exigencies of local traditional cultures (such as polygamy) that flourished before the advent of Christian mission – Christian missionary zeal attempting real-time fulfilment of the great command
This little practical item that occurs in this Sabbath's Torah portion has been acted upon in Nigeria for example with tremendous zeal, but perhaps not as Torah induced zeal?
Shemot 22: 17 in my Torah: "You shall not permit a sorceress to live"
It's Exodus 22.18 in the Christian Bible
The stone Chumash not reads: "17. A Sorceress. The court-inflicted death penalty applies equally to male and female sorcerers, but the verse uses the feminine because this activity was more common among women ( Rashi)…. By definition, sorcery is an attempt to assume control of nature through the powers of impurity and thus to deny God's mastery. "You shall not permit to live." This is a stronger expression than simply stating that she incurs the death penalty. Those who engage in sorcery are extremely dangerous to others, because of the corrosive and enticing nature of such an activity. Regarding such great dangers, the Torah exhorts the nation to root them out zealously. (Ramban) "
In Africa people identified as "witches" are being rooted out by the death penalty / summary executions without trial ( as was the historic case of Christianity's extermination of alleged witches in Europe from the Middle of the fifteenth century
On the whole, m
issionaries have tended to regard indigenous African religions as witchcraft…
What I don't know and have never investigated is whether or not the death penalty for people who are alleged to be witches in Nigeria is a pre Christian and pre-Islamic cultural tradition – and arising from that , with or without a "cultural renaissance" or revolutionary consciousness " what is to be done ? Is it high time that that these executions were brought to an end?
Only asking this one of a dozen questions,
Cornelius
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