The Need for Christian-Asante Traditional Religious Dialogue
ISSUE: Vol.5 No.1 February 2019 Article 7 pp.106 – 117
AUTHOR: Anthony Anomah
DOI : 10.32051/02211909
ABSTRACT
African Traditional Religion is the indigenous and the oldest of these three religions while the other two were brought into Africa by Christian and Islamic missionaries from Europe and Saudi Arabia respectively. It is on record that African Traditional Religion welcomed these two missionary religions with open arms and accommodated them for many years, however, the early Western missionaries and the adherents of the latter religions were often hostile and disrespectful towards the indigenous Traditional Religions. This paper draws data from Ejisu Juaben Municipality used as a case study and calls for a conscientious attempt to promote dialogue between Christianity and Asante Traditional Religion. Asante Traditional Religion shares a lot in common with other African Traditional Religions. They include the belief in the Supreme Being, spirits, life after death and the rites of passage such as naming ceremony, puberty rites, marriage rites and burial rites even though there are some divergences. The paper also suggests that Asante rites of passage such as naming ceremony, puberty rites, marriage rites and burial rites could be integrated into the Christian rites of passage in order to minimise the duplication of rites among Christians in Ejisu Juaben Municipality in Ashanti Region, Ghana. Lastly, the paper recommends that Christian leaders should take Asante Traditional Religion seriously, study it and dialogue with it.
Keywords: Christianity, Asante, African Traditional Religion, dialogue, inculturation.
© 2020 The Author(s). Published and Maintained by Noyam Publishers. This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).