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...
| Published in: | Studies in world christianity |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Edinburgh Univ. Press
2022
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| In: |
Studies in world christianity
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| RelBib Classification: | BJ Islam BK Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism BS Traditional African religions CC Christianity and Non-Christian religion; Inter-religious relations KBN Sub-Saharan Africa RJ Mission; missiology |
| Further subjects: | B
Islam
B Africa—India relations B Hinduism B Ahmadiyya B Missions B Christianity B Indigenous African religions |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | 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. |
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| ISSN: | 1750-0230 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Studies in world christianity
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.3366/swc.2022.0388 |