Researchers say they’ve found the most religious place on Earth — between the southern border of the Sahara Desert and the tip of South Africa.
Religion is “very important” to more than three-quarters of the population in 17 of 19 sub-Saharan nations, according to a new survey.
In contrast, in the United States, the world’s most religious industrialized nation, 57 percent of people say religion is very important.
“On a continent-wide basis, sub-Saharan Africa comes out as the most religious place on Earth,” said Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which released the study Thursday.
According to the survey, 98 percent of respondents in Senegal say religion is very important, following by 93 percent in Mali. The lowest percentage was reported in Botswana, 69 percent, which is still a healthy majority.
“That begins to paint a picture of how religious sub-Saharan Africans are,” Lugo said.
The study is part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project. More than 25,000 sub-Saharan Africans responded in face-to-face interviews in more than 60 languages.
While the study confirms that Africans are, indeed, morally conservative and religiously pious, researchers explored a variety of topics, including religious tolerance, polygamy, the role of women in society, and political and economic satisfaction.
Islam and Christianity dominate as the most popular religions in the region — a stark reversal from a century ago when Muslims and Christians were outnumbered by followers of traditional indigenous religions.
But for the past 100 years, indigenous spirituality has been diluted as missionaries carried Islam and Christianity throughout the African continent.
The study reports that the number of Christians in sub-Saharan Africa grew faster than the number of Muslims, from 7 million in 1900 to 470 million in 2010. One in five of the world’s Christians lives in sub-Saharan Africa.
While a majority of African Muslims are from the northern region of the continent, nearly 234 million live below the Sahara Desert.
Indigenous African beliefs have not disappeared, but are often incorporated into Islam and Christianity, the report found. A number of sub-Saharan Africans believe in witchcraft, evil spirits, reincarnation and other elements of African spirituality. More than half of the people surveyed in Tanzania, Mali, Senegal and South Africa believe that sacrifices to ancestors or spirits can protect them from harm.
Mary Dhavale, a native of Tanzania who now lives in Atlanta, describes herself as a “righteous child of Jehovah God” and drives two hours every Sunday to worship at a Pentecostal church. She also said her grandfather was a traditional healer.
“You may call him a witch doctor, but he did good things for the people,” Dhavale said.
Dhavale’s grandfather attended Catholic services for most of his life, even as he concocted herbal drinks and crafted charms to ward off evil spirits or expose petty crimes in the neighborhood.
“If your child is sick or if your car is spoiled, people would go to my grandfather and find out who did it,” Dhavale said.
Such syncretism of religions is not uncommon in Africa.
Sulayman Nyang, a professor at Howard University’s African Studies Department, said by honoring traditional religious practices, sub-Saharan Africans are able to maintain their African identity and strengthen ethnic unity.
However, Nyang said indigenous religions are not practiced in a pure form because Africans want to maintain their “dignity” and “want to be accepted into the new world of modernity.”
According to the Pew survey, most sub-Saharan African Muslims are Sunni. Within Christianity, Catholicism dominates in Guinea Bissau, Rwanda and Cameroon, while Liberia, South Africa, Zambia, Kenya, Nigeria, and Botswana are predominantly Protestant.
Pentecostalism is rapidly spreading and deeply influential across the region, and also across Christian denominations.
“Casting out of the devil or evil spirits, high degree of apocalyptic expectations, the health-and-wealth `prosperity gospel’ is the new Christian phenomenon of the Pentecostalism in sub-Saharan Africa,” Lugo said.
The study suggests that the degree of concern about religious conflict is often interwoven with concerns about ethnic conflict. In Rwanda, for example, tensions between Hutu and Tutsi tribes erupted in the 1994 genocide. Nigeria continues to be wracked by Muslim-Christian violence.
The 19 countries represented in the survey comprise 75 percent of the population of sub-Saharan Africa. The countries are: Botswana, Cameroon, Chad, Djibouti, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
[Christianity Today]
All glory be to our Lord Jesus.
Thus the reason the devil tries to attack Africa. Always told you guys, why do you think they want to push stupid European homo..sexua.lity on our beloved continent. Thank God our people are standing up against these evils of the Romans and sissy Greeks.
I have told people heaven is going to have a gang of black people but no the doubted a brother. May the Lord Jesus send out more harvestors for crop is ripe. My prayers for you my brothers and sisters in the diaspora and Zambia. Let all the nay Sayers on this blog and the world know we shall plead the blood of our Lord Jesus over our spirit body and soul. Enjoy the weekend, study hard, work, educate yourselves and children. Play your nintendos, see nature, talk to neighbours and above all worship the Lord God Jehovah.
Religion has done much good in our country but it has also been used as an instrument by those in power to control the masses and discourage individual thought. Mwanawakwitu, No one is pushing homosexuality on our continent. How exactly does one do that? It is better to be open about our ‘problems’ than to insist that they do not exist or that they are someone else’s fault.
Groups of theories on the origin of religion:
There are two broad groups of theories about the origin of religion.
Faith-based theories: According to David Barrett et al, editors of the “World Christian Encyclopedia: A comparative survey of churches and religions – AD 30 to 2200,” there are 19 major world religions which are subdivided into a total of 270 large religious groups, and many unique faith groups. 1 Among this great religious diversity, there are probably hundreds of different religious creation stories which describe how humans, other species of life, the Earth, and the rest of the universe came to be. Many of these stories describe the origins of their particular religion. It was typically based on revelation from one or more deities — mainly gods and goddesses.
…
Secular-based theories: Anthropologists, evolutionary biologists, and other researchers have reached a near consensus that humans of the species homo sapiens evolved from a species of proto-humans who originated somewhere in Africa. (This statement probably upsets any white supremacists who are reading this essay. That can’t be helped; scientists consider the evidence to be conclusive; ultimately, we are all descended from Africans.) These proto-humans walked upright, and had an opposing thumb and little finger. Their internal brain structure represented a major advance over those of previous animals in terms of its flexibility, its ability to reason, and its ability to plan for the future. This gave proto-humans an improved ability to pass on their accumulated knowledge to their…
to form more advanced societies, and ultimately to create religions.
The following essay will deal with the science based theories of the origin of religion. If you are interested in faith-based theories, we suggest that you do a search on Google with a search string like: origin Christianity
Secular-based theories of religion:
Nobody knows with accuracy how the first religions evolved. By the time that writing had developed, many religions had been in place for many millennia and the details of their origins had been forgotten. However, there is speculation that the first religions were a response to human fear. They were created to give people a feeling of security in an insecure world, and a feeling of control over the environment where there was little control.
The…
The developing abilities of proto-humans were a double-edge sword:
On the one hand, they aided their chances of surviving in a cruel and unpredictable world. They helped each successive generation of proto-humans to build upon the knowledge base of their ancestors.
This increased mental ability led to a terrifying piece of knowledge: personal mortality. For the first time, individual animals on earth became aware that their life was transient; they would die at some point in their future. This knowledge produced an intolerable emotional drain.
During their evolution from proto-human to full human, they developed questions about themselves and their environment:
What controlled the seasonal cycles of nature — the daily motion of the sun; the motion of the stars, the…
the passing of the seasons, etc.
What controlled their environment — what or who caused floods, rains, dry spells, storms, etc?
What controls fertility — of the tribe, its domesticated animals, and its crops.
What system of morality is needed to best promote the stability of the tribe?
And above all: what happens to a person after they die?
Living in a pre-scientific society, people had no way to resolve these questions. Even today, with all of our scientific advances, we still debate about the second last question, and still have no way of reaching an consensus on the last. But the need for answers (particularly to the last question) were so important that some response was required, even if they were merely based on hunches. Some people within the tribe started to…
invent answers based on their personal guesses. Thus developed:
The first religious belief system,
The first priesthood,
The first set of rituals to appease the Goddess,
Other rituals to control fertility and other aspects of the environment,
A set of behavioral expectations for members of the tribe, and
A set of moral truths to govern human behavior.
These formed an oral tradition which was disseminated among the members of the tribe and was taught to each new generation. Much later, when writing was developed, the beliefs were generally recorded in written form. A major loss of flexibility resulted. Oral traditions can evolve over time; written documents tend to be more permanent.
Unfortunately, because these belief systems were based on hunches, the…
the various religions which developed in different areas of the world were all different. Their teachings were in conflict with each other. Because the followers of most religions considered their beliefs to be derived directly from God, they cannot be easily changed. Thus, inter-religious compromise is difficult or impossible. Also, because religious texts are often ambiguous, divisions developed within religions. Different denominations, schools, or traditions have derived different meanings from the same religious texts. Thus were laid the foundations for millennia of inter-religious and intra-religious conflict.
Evolution of religion:
The first organized religions appear to have been based on fertility. They were focused on the worship of the great Earth Goddess. Religion…
Today, most people follow either:
A monotheistic religion, in which a single male god is worshipped, or
A henotheistic religion — a religion which recognizes a single main deity, but which recognizes other gods and goddesses, heroes, or saints as facets or manifestations or aspects of that supreme God.
Most religions teach that they were directly revealed by their deity/deities to humanity, and are unrelated to other world religions. However there is considerable historical evidence from ancient times that religions in the area from India to the Middle East shared many religious beliefs. One example of this are:
The many passages in the Hebrew Scriptures which contain concepts or passages taken from Egyptian, Babylonian and other nearby Pagan religions.
Many of the…
Religions were originally based on the particular beliefs of their founders and prophets. Thus, there were few points of similarity among the various spiritual paths:
In terms of their belief about supernatural being(s), various faith traditions have taught Agnosticism, Animism, Atheism, Deism, Duotheism, Henotheism, Monism, Monotheism, Panentheism, Pantheism, Polytheism, Trinitarianism, and probably a few that we have missed. It is obvious from these conflicting ideas about deities that almost all religions are just plain wrong.
Few agreements exist among the world’s religions about religious beliefs, sacred ritual, organizational structure, optimum family structure, limits on sexual behavior, sexual orientation, the roles of women and men, other moral topics, the afterlife, etc…
Religions’ traditional teachings in the area of science differ greatly from each other and from the findings of scientists. Examples from Judaism and Christianity are: how the universe was formed, where rainbows came from; the world-wide flood; talking animals; the sun standing still in the sky; the cause of epilepsy, deafness, blindness, and mental illnesses; virginal conception, demonic possession, walking on water, resurrection from the dead, ascension into the sky, etc.
Religions today:
Some observers believe that modern-day religions are largely a response to human fear. Their main function is to provide their followers with a feeling of security while living in a dangerous environment in which a person can be injured, killed or murdered at any time due to natural causes,…
accidents or human hatred and intolerance.
John Shelby Spong, retired bishop of the Episcopal Church, USA has written:
“Religion is primarily a search for security and not a search for truth. Religion is what we so often use to bank the fires of our anxiety. That is why religion tends toward becoming excessive, neurotic, controlling and even evil. That is why a religious government is always a cruel government. People need to understand that questioning and doubting are healthy, human activities to be encouraged not to be feared. Certainty is a vice not a virtue. Insecurity is something to be grasped and treasured. A true and healthy religious system will encourage each of these activities. A sick and fearful religious system will seek to remove them.”
David C. James, rector…
Whoa! Okay, someone has issues with religion.
Anyway, this report is good. I would encourage Christians in Africa to venture out as missionaries to the west. There are some places on this planet that are dying/dead spiritually: parts of Europe, Canada, USA. God’s peace, all :)>- **==
It is good that Christianity is high in Sub-Saharan Africa and is spreading even more. I pray one day Zambia will be 99.999999% Christian. God bless Zambia and Sub-Saharan Africa. I am so happy with this report.
:-w
Is it just a coincidence that the most religious part of the globe is also the poorest. Also that Botswana which is least religious there is relatively prosperous?
@ #18
Exactly. Keep people believing that poverty is a virtue and they will not ask for their due.
economically it might be the poorest but as an african myself we never really see ourselves as poor
PRAYER Warriors
Praise be to GOD our creator, the Omega, Sha Kapanga u mwine inkuni na menshi. Let him continue to bless our continent and our land Zambia. Let our land be fertile and bear organic fruit for our people to dine. God we pray for all those in doubt that you open their eyes let them see your light and mercy cleanse them with the blood of our lord Jesus Christ who you sent to die for our sins. Lord we pray that you give us leaders who are there to serve the people. AMEN
Much as the figures may be this high, there are very few Africans I would personaly consider religious. Africans practice religion mainly for personal gain one way or the other.
Despite all these figures Africa is the most corrupt continent in the world. Even people who practice religion most of whom responded to this research are corrupt and hypocrites. I will give you examples:
Revs Nevers Mumba, Nyirongo (God knows whether she is even out of prison) Shikapwasha, Dan Pule, Church elder Titus Mpundu (fill in the blanks for ther names) to mention but just a few and that in Zambia alone. I nearly stopped going to church when I heared that our church secretary who was a staunch christian, was transfered to Luanshya because he was caught steal ing building material from the then ZCCM.
Africans are the most hypocritical people one would ever find. Very few people would openly claim to be religious in the west yet they have morals.
An African is going to claim to be religious, yet he does all sorts of things. How many times have we heard about pastors bonking? An African is going to say a prayer because he is building a house at a fast rate with material bought from people who he knows sto le. An African is going to say a prayer because their daughter has finally been bought a house by this rich man she is going out with who is married. Ati Lesa apala.
Religion? Not in Africa not by me. I am a christian and a believer before you hypocrites start jumping.
An African is going to pull their friend down because their friend is more successful than they are.An
African is going to bribe someone to:
Get a piece of land to build a house
Get a place for their son/daughter in school/college/Uni yet pick up the bible and say a prayer.
An African is going to give a job to their son, daughter, niece, nephew, uncle, aunt or even people they dont know just because they have been paid.
An African is going to write a cheque for a transaction that never took place for the company to pay yet go and home and say a prayer. As if that is not enough ask the congregation to pray and thank God for all the successes.
Religion? Not by me not in Africa.
Faith without works.Corruption,promiscuity,disease AIDS,poverty,hunger etc 12 noon people are in Church on a Monday morning speaking in tongoues instead of working thus African religion for you.
LORD we pray that the devil does not cause confusion in your people and make them so negative. Open their eyes, Let them not judge your people for you are the only to judge. Let them not make excuses for others and instead make us more focused on our deeds and our relationship with you as we pray for other. AMEN
#25 Yes because of bonking a lot of pastors are HIV positive.
Devil you are defeated in the name of Jesus. You devil are under our feet. Jesus is a conqueror
For we all shall be judged individually so lets work on our lives and prayer for those that are not living to the word or whose deeds are different to what they preach.
Lord Bless all your people
Let us all sow a seed of LOVE
Lord I PRAY for all the blogger s on this site and other that you bless them. Let us get close to you
Lord I PRAY for Zambia that you continue to prevail and grant us peace.
Its not surprising that Sub-Sahara Africa is the hub of religion, what with the high levels of poverty, high HIV/AIDS prevalence, high maternal deaths, high child motarlity, high death rates from anything that would kill, high unemployment, HIGH….etc, etc.
The only solace in such a scenarion is to praise the Lord so that Africans can inherit the Kingdom of God.
Live suffering on earth as the Kingdom of God is yours. what a life.
Even thieves have taken advantage and declared a country a Christian nation so as to blindfold the suffering masses.
Religion and obedience of scripture are two totally different things. Sub saharan africa is the centre of man made religion brought by power hungry europeans to manipulate people that cannot think for themselves. The reason why religion is dieing worldwide and flourishing in africa is because Africans are blissfully is ignorant of the real origin and reason for religion. In the west people don’t take religion seriously because the majority of people know it’s nothing to do with scripture and is just a mental opium for the weak. If you look at scripture the real believers and followers will be blesse, free of disease, knowledgeble, will keep all the laws etc etc anyone with common sense can tell you thats not southern africa
Religon is crap! :)>-
correction…. religion is crap!!
It is no accident that the wretched of the earth, the poorest of the poor are the most religious. Where else can they turn to but religion? Their governments have forsaken them. Life has dealt them a bad card. If God loves them why are they cursed with hunger, disease and serial poverty?
99% of Zambians are religious (yes, religious), 1% are not. That 1% is the wealthiest in the country. They do not have time for church because they have too much money to count every Sunday morning, afternoon and evening. The rest of the paupers close their eyes in prayer.
LT, CAN YOU NOW FEATURE THE TOPIC ON THE NCC’s BASIC RIGHTS DENIAL SO THAT THE BLOGSHIP CAN DEBATE IT?
Open your eyes you bloody b@stards (to borrow an expression from Julius Malema). Burn a government building. Lynch a politician. Reclaim your dignity. Has hunger weakened us? Yes it has.
Open your eyes you bl oody b@stards (to borrow an expression from Julius Malema). Burn a government building. Lynch a politician. Reclaim your dignity. Has hunger weakened us? Yes it has.
The most religious continent on planet earth, the place with highest HIV/Aids infections, the most poorest. Does religious means to be poor and promiscous?
Or does poverty and sin promote religiousity? Is religion an opium for the poor masses?
GOD BLESS AFRICA.AMEN
Mugabe #43 religiousity? is that a word………..
no wonder we are poor because we live everything to god to do for us!
Yes it is a religious region sugar-coated with the “DEVIL”. Is Africa claiming that this fuzzy belief has advanced us in some ways?. The west has advanced in many fronts: Scientific, Technology,economy to name just a few, yet these ppl who gave you that book have retired it becaus it has run its course and saved it`s purpuse by misleading you in a more suttle ways you never understand such that you are now yoked forever .By the way, jesus wa apocalyptic. He said that his generation would not perish before the world ends, he was wrong, it never did. His apostles continued this apcalyptic view but the world sodiers on. You can see these apolcalyptic prophesies throughout the bible from the old testament. The Bemba Saying “ICHALO LIFUPA WAKOKOTAKO FYE WASHA ” is true.
Mugabe
Please I like the term Religiosity,where did you poach it?
Hey # 16 Eagle’s Wings! How can Africans do missionary work in the west when they depend on the very west for their survivor and indeed hope for an air ticket from them. And just how convincing and articulate would they be since the world`s renowned religious colleges and university are in the west.
Stop hallucinating and get real !!!!
Most religious! To what end? Really, I get confused when I realise that religion and morals do not go hand in hand. what is the point of been religious when u r corrupt? by corrupt I mean any kind of corruption, be it promiscuity or thievery.As an example, Our trafic officers collect bribes from motorists and pay the same money as tithe to their religious leaders who in turn use the same money to have as many girl friends as they can.
Really, what difference does it make? To what extent are the so called religious people applying the principles that they are taught by their religions in their day to day lives? I am confused.
I hope to do what is right. my aim is not to blame the religious. I am simply tring to understand what it really means to be religious.
Yes, you can come up with all the statistics but action speaks louder. I don’t believe everything I read to be true. Let us face the reality, Zambia is declared a “Christian nation” but I am not convinced that believing that religion is important in one’s life makes him or her a religious person. Believing and doing are two different things. If religion is important let us follow what the Koran and the Bible teaches us. We dont have to kill others in the name of religion then that religion is not better than the devil. People who have food must learn to share but is this true in Zambia and Zimbabwe and Botswana? It was in South Africa where we saw Zimbabwens burnt to ashes.
You, 21 shimuchita panono. You have been indoctrinated and brainwashed to dangerous religious fanatical proportions. You are on the verge of religious extremism. god is nowhere other than your small head, reason for the misfiring of your gray matter. Even the more polished theologians know that religion is a human creation to pacify the battles of the mind, fellow mankind and the environment that’s why they sin `cos there is no such thing as heavenly repercussions. Be open-minded, seek the real truth and expand your horizons. Do not live in a box; get out of your comfort zone. A whole is better than the sum of it`s parts. Welcome to the 21st century
“The last Christian died on the cross”.
INSHALLAH (God willing) one day the whole of zambia will embrace ISLAM and follow in the footsteps of the prophets Abraham, Noah, Moses, Jesus and Muhammed (peace and blessings be on all the prophets) ISLAM= submission to God and only God