african origins of christianity

Ausares is the African name given in order to indicate un-manifested aspects of God. [42], A 2015 study estimates 2,161,000 Christian believers are from a formerly Muslim background in Africa, most of them belonging to some form of Protestantism.[43]. There was a militarism developed in different groups and movements like the Ahmadiyyas and the Mahdist movement and clashes between groups with opposing views. Mkenda, Festo. Grittingexcellent. [20], Another group of Christians who came to North Africa after being deported from Islamic Spain were called the Mozarabic. “Religion and Political Culture in Africa.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, vol. ANSWER: The history of Christianity in Africa probably began during the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ, two thousand years ago. Adaptations of Protestantism, such as the Kimbanguist church emerged. It is recorded that in 180 C.E. Since the Greeks could not pronounce the letter H, they substituted its sound with the letters Ch. Mark the Evangelist made history in the year 43 when he became the first bishop to serve in the Orthodox Church of Alexandria. [4], The growth of Catholicism in the region after the French conquest was built on European colonizers and settlers, and these immigrants and their descendants mostly left when the countries of the region became independent. The African Genesis of Jewish Ancestry and Culture. Here’s some important insights about the African origins of Christianity and racism by the great African minds – the Reverend Albert Cleage, John H. Clarke and Preston Wilcox. Sunni Africans were largely against the Ahmadiyyas; the Ahmadiyyas were the first to translate the Quran into Swahili, and the Sunnis opposed that as well. Christians are usually very proud of their Hebrew and Jewish origins, but not of the African heritage that underpins their ancestry. Mirza Ghulam Ahmed, the founder of the Ahmadiyya sect, believed that the prophet Muhammed was the most important prophet, but not the last- departing from typical Muslim views. Other religious congregations did exist who sought to evangelize regions of the continent under Portuguese dominion, however, their influence was far less significant than that of the Christians. There is also evidence of religious pilgrimages after 850 to tombs of Catholic saints outside the city of Carthage, and evidence of religious contacts with Christians of Muslim Spain. The influenza pandemic of 1918 accelerated the Africanization of Christianity and hence its growth in twentieth century Africa. Christianity in Sudan also spread in the early 1st century, and the Nubian churches, which were established in the sixth century within the kingdoms of Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia were linked to those of Egypt.[10]. Christianity, as a religion, originated in the early 1st century CE following the teachings of Hebrew leader Jesus Christ of Nazarene and his disciples. Some historians contrast this with the strong monastic tradition in Coptic Egypt, which is credited as a factor that allowed the Coptic Church to remain the majority faith in that country until around after the 14th century despite numerous persecutions. However, they were not in communion with the Catholic church. They were recognised as forming the Moroccan Church by Pope Innocent IV. African origins of christianity Our organisation represents the approximately 10lawyers who are practising in. The common practice of placing crosses and crucifixes in churches was viewed as a graven image in their eyes or a form of idolatry. Local Catholicism came under pressure when the Muslim regimes of the Almohads and Almoravids came into power, and the record shows demands made that the local Christians of Tunis convert to Islam. [3] The bishopric of Marrakesh continued to exist until the late 16th century. “Jesuits, Protestants, and Africa before the Twentieth Century.” Encounters between Jesuits and Protestants in Africa, edited by Festo Mkenda and Robert Aleksander Maryks, vol. In the 19th cent. In Nigeria, movements were created to arouse Muslims to de-Arabize Islam. The Kimbanguist church believed Jesus was black and regarded symbols with different weight than the Catholic and Protestant Europeans. Christianity also grew in northwestern Africa (today known as the Maghreb). Very Ancient African Sages’ Contemplation on results of these inferences gave insights into the inner Truth lying hidden in the Esoteric–Truths revealing certain mysterious things about God–things belonging to God–and things revealed by God to humans. http://dickinsg.intrasun.tcnj.edu/diaspora/part1/pwrpnt/Christianity [4], Today, Christianity is embraced by the majority of the population in most Southern African, Southeast African, and Central African states and others in some parts of Horn of Africa and West Africa. Africa was central to the demographic and theological evolution of early Christianity, despite its eclipse from most of Northern Africa in subsequent centuries. The word “Christ,” says Diop (Civilization or Barbarism, p. 312), came from the Pharaonic Egyptian expression “kher sesheta”: “he who watches over the Mysteries.” Gadalla (The Ancient Egyptian Roots Of Christianity p65) adds the Greek Christos was a corrupted Ancient Egyptian word for “Christ,” but with the consonants H RST. The story of early African-American Christianity proves the power of the Resurrection against oppression. Due to the Victorian concept of women held by colonialists, African women were excluded from the new religious, political, and socioeconomic systems. The Ethiopian Empire was the only region of Africa to survive the expansion of Islam as a Christian state. Christianity is now one of the two most widely practiced religions in Africa. The Catholic church gradually declined along with local Latin dialect. Some experts predict the shift of Christianity's center from the European industrialized nations to Africa and Asia in modern times. Colonial Christianity also brought to Africa the concept of the Victorian woman: a woman who should stay in the private domain and leave the “real work” to the men. The earliest recording of this is from the “Prt m Hru": (epitaph)–a name for Humankind’s original Bible and dating to 60,000 BC (Seleem p 59, xiii). These movements took place around 1980, resulting in violent behavior and clashes with police. In addition many Christians also migrated to Europe. A small Franciscan chapel and monastery in the mellah of the city existed until the 18th century. Dona Beatriz was a woman from Central Africa known for her controversial views on the acceptance of polygamy- she argued that Jesus never condemned it- and she was burnt at the stake. jabaileymd.com. During the first 5 centuries Christianity was growing rapidly and was introduced to Africans through Alexandria. For example, the inception of the Aladura movement in Nigeria coincided with the pandemic. They also incorporated in their own practices relationships with objects and actions like dancing and chanting. Let’s continue to educate each other. [11], Archaeological and scholarly research has shown that Christianity existed after the Muslim conquests. It started around the eastern Mediterranean region, ranging from roughly Greece through the Levant, and spread from there. One questions that always arise is: "If Kemet / Egypt was so great what happened?" The Governance, Integrity and Anti-Corruption National Centre in the Prime. There has been tremendous growth in the number of Christians in Africa - coupled by a relative decline in adherence to traditional African religions. Pacific Island oral tradition of their AFRICAN Origins. However, new scholarship has appeared that disputes this. The question is brief yet the answer takes days, weeks and even years to answer. [12][13], Many causes have been seen as to leading to the decline of Christianity in the Maghreb. These were confirmed by God’s Word Revelations to Tehuti—the African Master of all the world’s Masters and Sages. There are reports that the Roman Catholic faith persisted in the region from Tripolitania (present-day western Libya) to present-day Morocco for several centuries after the completion of the Arab conquest by 700. African origins of the major world religions , Yosef Ben-Jochannan, Amon Saba Saakana, Jun 4, 1991, Religion, 144 pages. Twelve Christians of African origin were martyred in Sicilli (Sicily) for refusing to perform a sacrifice to the Roman Emperor Commodus (aka Marcus Aurelius Commodus Antoninus Augustus). Christian schools did teach English, as well as mathematics, philosophy, and values inherent to Western culture and civilization. European governments, churches and medicine were powerless against the plague, boosting anti-imperial sentiment. Only nine million Christians were in Africa in 1900, but by the year 2000, there were an estimated 380 million Christians. At the beginning of the 3rd century the church in Alexandria expanded rapidly, with five new suffragan bishoprics. Christianity, major religion stemming from the life, teachings, and death of Jesus of Nazareth (the Christ, or the Anointed One of God) in the 1st century ce.It has become the largest of the world’s religions and, geographically, the most widely diffused of all faiths. Important Africans who influenced the early development of Christianity include Tertullian, Perpetua, Felicity, Clement of Alexandria As of the last census in Algeria, taken on 1 June 1960, there were 1,050,000 non-Muslim civilians (mostly Catholic) in Algeria (10 percent of the total population including 140,000 Algerian Jews). 29, No. 3–32., www.jstor.org/stable/20696840. This African origin of Christianity was common knowledge among Western scholars and their early Apostolic fathers of the Church. His reasoning was that since Jesus was Black and his people wrote his story, then the people that conceived and wrote this story must also be Black. The early 4th century in Egypt began with renewed persecution under the Emperor Diocletian. According to Darkwah (“Africans Who Wrote The Bible” p11), what Sir Higgins indirectly implied was that doctrines of the Ancient African Bible and original doctrines of the European Bible were both from Black People. The Jesuits went largely unchallenged by rival denominational missions in Africa. Within African communities, there were clashes brought on by Christianization. Christianity and Africa's traditional religions. Unlike that of Islam, Christian missionaries were compelled to spread an understanding of their gospel in the native language of the indigenous people they sought to convert. “Classifying African Christianities: Past, Present, and Future: Part One.” Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. This plagiarizing of the Egyptian religion was noted by several brave European writers, including the world renowned British Egyptologist, Sir E. A. Wallis Budge. According to Paul Kollman, teaching from missionaries was up to the interpretation of each person and took different forms when acted upon. The African Origins of Christmas - Real News. In addition, the Romans and the Byzantines were unable to completely assimilate the indigenous people like the Berbers. Since the spread of Islam into North Africa, the size of Christian congregations as well as their number was reduced, so that of the original churches only the Eastern Orthodox Church of Alexandria and Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria (which separated from each other during the Chalcedonian Schism) in Egypt and the Orthodox Tewahedo Church (that split into Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church) in the Horn of Africa remained. All of this was supported (1836) by the renowned British, Sir Godfrey Higgins. Although the ingredients of Christianity originated with Primitive Africans, its earliest recorded evidence of having begun in Africa comes out of Very Ancient African Spiritual Literature pertaining to Esoteric Knowledge. [22] The bishop of Morocco Lope Fernandez de Ain was made the head of the Church of Africa, the only church officially allowed to preach in the continent, on 19 December 1246 by Innocent IV. This book makes clear the subject about which Greenberg writes. Several syncretistic and messianic sections have formed throughout much of the continent, including the Nazareth Baptist Church in South Africa and the Aladura churches in Nigeria. [27], In 2009, the UNO counted 45,000 Roman Catholics and 50,000 to 100,000 Protestants in Algeria. They translate it as: “I am because we are”; or “Humanity towards others”... Join our mailing list to receive the latest news and updates from our team. 9:56. Young leaders formed ideas based on Christianity and challenged elders. [40] Much of the recent Christian growth in Africa is now due to African evangelism and high birth rates, rather than European missionaries. But Christianity is not a recent arrival in Africa. Patterns, Shapes, and Forms are fundamental tools to help one see and give meaning to Real, Surreal, and Unreal Things. 1, 2003, pp. Africans], and never did not exist, from the beginning of the human race until Christ came in the flesh, at which time the true religion which already existed began to be called Christianity” (Freke, Hermetica p20). By the end of the 2nd century it had reached the region around Carthage. [7] The study also states that Latin America has the second-highest number of Christians at 601 million Christians, while Europe has the third-highest with 571 million Christians. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. What we do know, however, is that Christianity spread quickly through the North African provinces of the Roman Empire. Telling the African story. The New Testament of the Bible mentions several events in which Africans were witnesses to the life of Christ and the ministry of the apostles. “Jesuits, Protestants, and Africa before the Twentieth Century.”, International Religious Freedom Report 2008, U.S Department of State. 11–30. Ibn Khaldun hinted at a native Christian community in 14th century in the villages of Nefzaoua, south-west of Tozeur. Before or after that, Ancient Africans thought in terms of a Messiah coming (some say the "anointed Messias"–a term meaning (K) Christos, or "Christ); of a Madonna and her Child; of a Virgin Birth; and the Incarnation of the Spirit in flesh. The favor of the Jesuits took a negative turn in the mid eighteenth century when Portugal no longer held the same dominion in Africa as it had in the fifteenth century. Kemetic / Egyptian Origin of Christianity Gerald Massey's comparative list of Kemetic / Egyptian (pre-Christian) religious-philosophical data, Christianized in the Canonical Gospels and the Book of Revelation. The Nguni Bantu define it as connection of all “Humanity”—meaning its “Sameness” creation is the Cosmic Force. [21], In June 1225, Honorius III issued the bull Vineae Domini custodes that permitted two friars of the Dominican Order named Dominic and Martin to establish a mission in Morocco and look after the affairs of Christians there. A 2015 study estimates 380,000 Muslims converted to Christianity in Algeria. This contributed to growth of independent and prophetic Christian mass movements with prophecy, healings, and nationalist church restructuring. Many Christians fled from the towns into the desert. Mazrui, Ali A. Christianity in Africa arrived in Egypt in the middle of the 1st century. 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