Obedience and the Devil: Colonialism and Religion in Africa | Lectures and conversation by scholars of religion Birgit Meyer and Erik Meinema and theologian François Manga

Announcement

Everybody knows that colonialism had, and still has, a major impact on the relationship between Africa and Europe. However, few people are aware of the role religion plays in this. Come and listen to Birgit Meyer, François Manga and Erik Meinema who will explain how a Western definition of religion was introduced in Africa during the colonial era, and how this influences culture, religion and politics even today.

Africa: not having religion?

When Western missionaries and scholars came to study African culture and religion, they brought with them Christian concepts to define what they found. Hence, they emphasized belief, knowledge and community, at the expense of music, dance and the body. In fact, the whole idea of ‘religion’ as something that can be defined and set apart from other aspects of life is thoroughly European. According to Birgit Meyer, this was also used to describe Africans as ‘not having religion’ and thus in need of conversion.

Obedience and the devil

Theologian François Manga was a priest in Cameroon before coming to The Netherlands. In his opinion, the concept of ‘mission’ is in itself arrogant, because it is one-sided and lacking in mutual interest. What is more, certain aspects of Christianity were emphasized, such as obedience and the devil, to gain power. He sees these concepts still have an important meaning in African culture, with local clergy now acting as colonialists.

The difficult position of ‘traditionalism’

Doing fieldwork in Kenya on the co-existence of various religious groups in a pluralistic society, scholar of religion Erik Meinema discovered ‘traditional’ religions often have a difficult position. Although officially recognized as equal to Christianity and Islam, they often struggle to be accepted as a religion at all. This marginalizes their position within interfaith co-operations and society at large.

The conversation between Birgit Meyer, François Manga and Erik Meinema was chaired by Liesbeth Jansen, program writer at Radboud Reflects.

This programme was English spoken.

About the speakers

Birgit Meyer is a scholar of religion at Utrecht University. For over 30 years, she has studied religion within a social and societal context, especially in Ghana. In doing so, she combines perspectives from religious studies, anthropology, philosophy and media studies, making her an internationally renowned scholar.
François Manga is a creative theologian at Radboud University. Writing his PhD on the Spiritual Pilgrimage of Jan Pascha, a mystic who served as a spiritual guide for people who wanted to travel to Jerusalem but couldn’t, Manga has also published on African spirituality and the relation between religion and the state.

Erik Meinema is a scholar of religion at Utrecht University. He studies the ways in which religious youth, contrary to general assumption, often manages to maintain or even build peaceful interreligious relations, despite challenges of poverty and marginalization. His PhD was awarded with the Gerardus van der Leeuw dissertation prize.

This was a program of Radboud Reflects and Nederlands Genootschap voor Godsdienstwetenschap