African Traditional Religion in Contemporary Africa: The Case of Ghana

Abstract

Globalisation does not permit any religion to be an island to itself. Indigenous  cultures  all  over  the  world  bear  the  brunt  of  a consequent  of  globalisation--religious  pluralism.  On  the  continent of  Africa,  the  five  major  world  religions,  notably  Christianity  and Islam, are slugging it out against each other and, most of the time, collectively  against  the  indigenous  religion  of  the  African.  Besides the challenges religious pluralism poses to the indigenous religion, Africa, like never before is being opened up for investment and the intrusion  of  the  mass  media  and  the  internet.  This  paper  is  a general  survey  examining  how  the  traditional  religion  of  the African is responding to these realities using Ghana as a case study. It  aims  at  an  understanding  of  the  current  manifestation/s  of  the religion.  The  paper  observes  that  syncretism  has  been  used  to analyse  the  current  expression  of  the  religion,  but  the  paper  takes the  position  that  syncretism  is  not  an  adequate  theory  to  explain current  developments  in  the  religion.  It  rather,  advocates thetheories  of  the  market  and  religious  field  as  additional  theories to  explain  current  developments  in  the  religious  space  in  Africa, and  for  that  matter,  Ghana.  The  paper  notes  that  though  there  is competition  in  the  market,  especially  from  impinging  religions especially  Christianity  and  Islam,  opportunities  have  been  opened to  the  indigenous  religion  making  it  to  assume  a  transnational posture. It concludes that the future of African Traditional Religion will  largely  depend  on  its  ability  to  respond  to  market  realities  in order to be continuously relevant to contemporary society.