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The History of Christianity in Africa // Africa Study Bible

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Africa is one of the most dynamic centres of Christianity in the world. Africa has a significant share of the world’s 2.2 billion Christians. It has about 30% of the world’s evangelicals, 20% of the world’s Pentecostals and charismatics, and about 15% of the world’s Roman Catholics. In addition, Africa has significant Orthodox groups such as the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Churches and the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.

It Began in North Africa

Christianity was well established in North Africa in the first few centuries after Christ. From a solid foundation in North Africa, Christianity moved deeper into the heart of the continent. The challenge by Islam and African traditional religions deepened the faith of believers. The fifteenth century was a turning point when Catholicism from Portugal circled the continent.

Africa is one of the most dynamic centres of Christianity in the world.

The modern missionary movement and indigenous Christian movements in Africa of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries built upon these earlier foundations. Contemporary Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity has brought a renewal to the church in Africa. And now the churches of Africa in the twenty-first century are missionary-sending churches that are spreading the gospel around the world . This story can be told in four overlapping waves.

Wave 1: Early Christianity in North Africa and Ethiopia

Jesus said, “You will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem … and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). One of the first places that the story of Jesus went was to Sudan when “the treasurer of Ethiopia” (probably Meroe in modern Sudan) believed the good news that Philip told him, was baptised, and took the message to Africa.

The Coptic church of Egypt has long claimed that the apostle Thomas and the evangelist Mark played important roles in the formation of the Church in Alexandria, Egypt. But the key moment in early Christianity in North Africa was in the late third century when there was rapid growth, in part due to the conversion of many people in large Jewish communities. But perhaps the most surprising thing that helped Christianity grow was persecution. Persecution deepened the commitment of believers in Africa and gave them courage to witness to an increasingly sympathetic African audience.

Persecution deepened the commitment of believers in Africa.

Christian growth was also encouraged by Pantaenus, Origen, and Clement, all teachers at the catechetical school in Alexandria . They attempted to define Christianity in terms of Greek philosophy that well-educated people in North Africa could understand. However, this created a backlash, and sometimes violent debates erupted over the nature of Christ and the Trinity.

Dramatic Conversion of Emperor Constantine

Constantine, emperor of Rome in the fourth century, had a dramatic conversion to Christianity, and that had a direct impact on the early Coptic (Egyptian) church, especially in urban Africa. At the council of Nicaea in 325 , Constantine attempted to have church leaders agree on how to understand the deity of Christ. But his efforts were only partly successful. Theological orthodoxy became identified with political loyalty and caused splits that would mark the church for centuries.

The Shaping of Roman Christianity in Africa

Egyptian Christianity grew and spread. The Bible was translated into several variations of the Coptic language, and monasticism, which originated in Egypt, spread to the Latin-speaking church of western North Africa. Monasticism is a religious way of life in which priests renounce living in the world and instead live in monasteries—and sometimes by themselves as hermits. By the fourth century, monasticism became a powerful force in evangelism and discipleship, although at times it was disruptive. A part of the church around Carthage (in modern Tunisia) protested against the strong ties other parts of the church had with Rome.

Theological orthodoxy became identified with political loyalty that would mark the church for centuries.

Movements such as Do­n­a­­tism in the fourth century considered imperial Christianity, which owed its allegiance to Rome, as exploitative and compromising. Such movements developed their own clergy and churches. However, great Africans who helped shape Roman Christianity included Bishop Cyprian of Carthage and Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. Both of these men were inspired by the second century firebrand and theologian, Tertullian of Carthage.

Christian Kings in Ethiopia

While Christianity in North Africa and Egypt flourished and North African Christians strongly influenced the church in Rome, Christianity was also growing in the powerful kingdoms of Nubia (ancient Sudan) and Ethiopia. Nubia is one of two countries that claim to be the world’s oldest Christian nation (the other is Armenia). In both Nubia and Ethiopia, the king or emperor determined the religion of his people. Frumentius, a fourth-century Syrian missionary, tutored Ezana, the young prince of the kingdom of Axum, which is in present-day Ethiopia, in the Christian faith. Ezana became one of the great Christian kings of Africa. Important popular Christian movements also flourished, motivated in Ethiopia by Syrian monastic missionaries, known to tradition as “the nine saints,” and in Nubia by Jewish converts.

A Thousand Years of Growth

Over the next thousand years, Christianity in Ethiopia grew stronger while in Nubia it declined. Between 1200–1500, the Zagwe dynasty in Ethiopia, a family of Christian kings, revived Christian art, literature, and church expansion. Lalibela, the greatest emperor of the Zagwe dynasty, built eleven famous stone churches carved out of solid rock to create a “new Jerusalem.” But not everyone was happy with the Zagwe kings, and by 1225 the History of the Kings appeared as a protest. This book purported to tell the story of Solomon and the queen of Sheba and their son Menelik, first king of Ethiopia.

In 1270, a new “Solomonic” dynasty replaced the Zagwe dynasty. This new dynasty reached its peak in the fifteenth century during the reign of Zara Yaqob, who saw himself as an African Constantine. He convened church councils to address debates about Christ and Sabbath worship. Zara Yaqob also purged Ethiopia of African traditional religion. While Ethiopia reached its height as a Christian kingdom under Yaqob, Christianity was eliminated in Nubia. Nubian forces were defeated in battle by a sultan from Cairo, Babyars I, and came under the control of the Muslim Egyptians. By 1500, Christianity in Nubia all but disappeared.

Wave 2: Portuguese Catholicism

Missions, politics & slavery.

From 1420 until 1800, Portuguese politics and Christian missionaries from Portugal and Spain dominated much of coastal Africa. A controversial decree by the pope, called the Padroado, granted to the king of Portugal all rights to economic, military, and evangelistic activities in the areas he controlled. Slave traders and missionaries wrestled with one another for the souls of Africans. Portuguese missionary efforts were spread too thin, however, to make a significant, lasting impact. The result was only a thin veneer of Christianity in most places they influenced. Kongo and Soyo (kingdoms of Angola) and the Republic of the Congo were exceptions. There, Catholicism, indigenous popular Catholicism, and traditional religion clashed for centuries.

Wave 3: The Evangelical Era

As the glories of Catholicism faded in the late eighteenth century, a new force arose: Evangelicalism.

Christianity was both a movement of spiritual revival as well as a force for justice . It combined a passion for personal religion with a crusade against slavery and changed the face of Africa forever. Evangelical Christianity has been described as a fourfold commitment to the Bible, the cross, conversion, and mission.

Christianity was both a movement of spiritual revival as well as a force for justice.

The Abolition of Slavery

In the late eighteenth century, evangelical and other British leaders formed a movement that sought to abolish slavery. Great nineteenth-century British leaders such as William Wilberforce (member of the British parliament and champion of anti-slavery legislation), Thomas Clarkson (leader of the anti-slavery society in England), and Granville Sharp (English abolitionist) did much good.

Evangelicals in Africa such as Ottobah Cugoano and Olaudah Equiano were just as crucial to the anti-slavery cause. They were two Nigerian former slaves who lived in England and published stories of their liberation and conversion to Christianity. Many African slaves who were freed during the American Revolution found their way to the Canadian maritime provinces where their faith was deepened by the fiery preaching of Henry Alline of Nova Scotia.

Freetown, Liberia, and Evangelising West Africa

Sierra Leone, a West African colony for freed slaves, was founded in 1787. From Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, the evangelisation of West Africa began through liberated slaves such as Samuel Ajayi Crowther, the first Anglican bishop in Africa. Liberia, founded for free-born American blacks in 1822, played a similar role.

Evangelical Missions

The evangelical revivals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the United States and England produced the modern missionary movement. Denominational missions and faith missions such as the Africa Inland Mission, Sudan Interior Mission, Sudan United Mission, and the South Africa General Mission (later the Africa Evangelical Fellowship) influenced African societies. Schools, hospitals, churches, and many social agencies in Africa were the result of missionary efforts in partnership with African Christians. The same partnerships translated the Bible or a portion into more than 640 African languages, an effort which has helped promote literacy as well as the knowledge of God.

The commitment of the missionaries to Africa is illustrated by the many who took their coffins with them when they travelled from their homelands, knowing that their lifespan would probably be short. Many were martyred for their faith, including the American medical missionary Paul Carlson, who was killed by rebel insurgents in 1964 in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Wave 4: Indigenous Movements, Pentecostalism, and Post-Independence

Colonialism and african initiated churches.

The shape of missions changed in 1884–1885 with the Berlin Conference in Germany. At this meeting, European powers partitioned Africa for colonization and trade. France was given certain countries, and King Leopold II of Belgium was given the Congo, for instance. Europeans justified their imperialism as being a part of a civilizing mission to an Africa that they perceived as still in bondage to the dark past. Africa answered the challenge of colonialism through the voice of new prophets like William Wadé Harris of Liberia and members of the Organization of African Instituted Churches (African initiated churches—AICs) throughout the continent.

These AICs took the names of Zionist in Southern Africa, Aladura in West Africa, and Roho movements in Kenya. When independence dawned in 1960, Christianity below the Sahara was no longer merely a European import. Christianity in Africa now included many churches with an African understanding of Christianity and African ways of worship.

Political Saviours

Many of the newly elected presidents of independent African nations had graduated from missionary schools and were affiliated with specific Christian denominations. But in spite of these connections, many ruled in a way that promoted themselves as saviours of their countries .

Many new nations took control of missionary schools, hospitals, and social agencies in the 1960s. Then in the 1970s and 1980s, they staggered under the weight of the obligations they had taken on. In many cases, African governments that were once critical of the church asked churches for help in education, medicine, and nation-building. For instance, Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, a product of missionary education, described his movement of political independence as an alternative to Christianity. He summarised his thinking by saying the following. “Seek first the political kingdom, and all things will be added unto you”. But his regime disintegrated in a coup in 1966. Similar upheavals happened to several other African nations. Coup leaders eventually gave way to multiparty politics. By the early 1990s, new nations had a new desire to work with the church.

Today, most Christians in Africa have been touched in some way by Pentecostal teaching.

Pentecostalism in the 1990s

By the 1990s, charismatic Christianity had transformed the face of many Christian traditions in Africa. Some new Pentecostal churches began preaching a message of healing and power. This message captured not only the poor and disenchanted but also the young, upwardly mobile urban professional class in Africa’s growing cities. Today, most Christians in Africa have been touched in some way by Pentecostal methods and teaching.

The story of Christianity in Africa is now a global movement changing the world.

There are two significant trends in Christianity in Africa since independence. First, the emergence of a large African theological fraternity composed of both Catholics and Protestants. Second, a new missionary zeal on the part of the African church.

A New Era of African Missions

This second trend has seen African Christians move around the world in migration and mission. In the early years of the twenty-first century, the largest church in England was led by a Nigerian missionary pastor. Similarly, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Europe’s largest church was shepherded by a Nigerian. Churches like Ghana’s Church of Pentecost and Nigeria’s Redeemed Christian Church of God have established centres all over the world. This is a trend sometimes described as ‘reverse mission’. The new era of African missions is still in its infancy. Yet it promises that the story of Christianity in Africa, begun in a quiet corner of Alexandria, Egypt in the first century, is now a global movement changing the world.

Points to Remember

• Christianity in Africa dates to the first generation of the church. Any attempt to label Christianity as a “white man’s religion” or European religion should be rejected.
• Africans played a crucial role in establishing the doctrines and theology of the early church. We should stand on their shoulders in the way we seriously study the Bible.
• Praise God for his work across Africa. His Spirit has moved in many different ways: through African leaders, through foreign missionaries, and various political movements. We should rejoice in our diversity and unite around the core doctrines of our shared faith.
• The powerful African church is coming to maturity in the twenty-first century. We should claim our Christian identity and mission with both boldness and humility. Boldness in proclaiming our vibrant faith to the world. Humility in learning from others and working together. Building churches based on both biblical teaching, excellence and integrity in organisation and leadership.

The Africa Study Bible app is available on the Tecarta Bible App , the world’s best study Bible app, which is available to download on Google Play Store and Apple App Store .

Contact Oasis Regional Directors to order your  Africa Study Bible :

• Regional Director East Africa: WhatsApp: +27 79 572 4877
• Regional Director West Africa: WhatsApp +234 809 111 1184

The Africa Study Bible (ASB) is an ethnically diverse, single-volume, biblical resource. Written by 350 contributors from 50 countries, it includes the Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Anglicised) and more than 2,600 features that illuminate the truth of Scripture with a unique, African perspective.

The Africa Study Bible is a monumental study Bible, with notes by scholars and pastors in Africa who see the critical need to make Scripture relevant to our everyday lives. It’s an all-in-one course in biblical content, theology, history, and culture.

Find out more about the impact of this amazing resource at africastudybible.com .

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The adoption of Christianity in Ethiopia dates to the fourth-century reign of the Aksumite emperor Ezana. Aksum’s geographic location, at the southernmost edge of the Hellenized Near East, was critical to its conversion and development. The kingdom was located along major international trade routes through the Red Sea between India and the Roman empire . The story of Ezana’s conversion has been reconstructed from several existing documents, the ecclesiastical histories of Rufinus and Socrates Scholasticus. Both recount how Frumentius, a youth from Tyre, was shipwrecked and sent to the court of Aksum. Frumentius sought out Christian Roman merchants, was converted, and later became the first bishop of Aksum. At the very least, this story suggests that Christianity was brought to Aksum via merchants. Ezana’s decision to adopt Christianity was most likely influenced by his desire to solidify his trading relationship with the Roman Empire. Christianity afforded the possibility of unifying the many diverse ethnic and linguistic peoples of the Aksumite kingdom, a goal of Ezana’s leadership. Aksum was one of the earliest states to develop a coin system in order to service its sophisticated and prosperous economy. Emperor Ezana was the first world leader to put the cross on coins, which are the earliest examples of Christian material culture from Ethiopia.

Remains of distinctive Aksumite church architecture have been located in Aksum, Matara, and Adulis. These are oriented basilicas with stepped podia, which are accessed by a monumental set of stairs. These churches include an apse with lateral square chambers, introduced into the design of basilicas along the south coast of Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine by the fifth century. The construction of churches is believed to have served the religious needs of the new administrative and military officials settling in expanded territories. The growth of the Aksumite state ended after the Persian conquest of South Arabia, which displaced the trade routes of the Red Sea.

While its origins are unclear, the Zagwe dynasty arose sometime during this period of reduced wealth and international prestige and probably lasted until 1270. The almost complete lack of surviving manuscripts makes it difficult to obtain a clear picture of the period. After the abandonment of Aksum, the previous political and economic capital, the city of Roha, now called Lalibela , was established as the ceremonial center of the Zagwe dynasty. Churches most likely based on Aksumite precedents were hewn out of living rock in the mountains of Lasta. The Church of the Redeemer, the largest and perhaps most famous church at Lalibela, may be an architectural copy of the Cathedral of Our Lady Mary of Zion at Aksum. The interiors of these magnificent structures were covered with paintings and murals.

Yekuno Amlak’s overthrow of the reigning Zagwe dynasty in 1270 marks the beginning of the Early Solomonic period (1270–1530). Yekuno Amlak based his claim to legitimacy on an alleged lineage with the ancient rulers of Aksum originating with King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. This period was one of dramatic social and cultural change and development. Extensive international trade returned to Ethiopia since Europeans were seeking alternatives to trading along Islamic-controlled routes . This resurgence lasted until the Portuguese rounded the Cape of Good Hope. Evoking the legend of King Solomon, rulers of this period established royal churches lavishly decorated with wall paintings, gold ornamentation, and precious fabrics. These included the famous rock-hewn churches of Tigray and Lasta. Through affiliations with monastic leaders, these secular rulers used artistic patronage, including the recruitment of European artisans, to establish their authority and enhance their prestige. This interface with Europe exposed Ethiopian artists to new mediums, technologies, and aesthetic sensibilities. These influences are reflected in wall paintings through a shift from rigid frontality and the widespread use of geometric patterning to a three-quarter pose, a greater fluidity of line, and the use of modeling to describe three-dimensional volumetric figures. This new style contained elements of both Byzantine and Italian prototypes.

Monasteries , for example the Dabra Hayq Estifanos monastery in Amhara, were established as centers of learning. These complexes often contained extensive scriptoria for extraordinary illuminated manuscripts , of which very few survive. The labor-intensive work of the scriptorium was often considered a crucial dimension in a monk’s spiritual training. There were many monasteries in the region of Lake Tana, including that of Fre Seyon, one of two known artists of this period. Seyon is credited with the development of the devotional Marian Icon images and style. Mary became an extremely important figure in the Ethiopian church when Emperor Zar’a Ya‘eqob (r. 1434–68) mandated the reading of the Miracles of the Virgin Mary and that she be honored at most of the thirty feast days in the liturgical year. Zar’a Ya‘eqob was particularly successful at utilizing the power of Mary’s visual imagery to publicly emphasize teachings about her centrality to Christian salvation.

The Islamic jihads of 1531 through 1543 by the neighboring state of Adal destroyed many royal churches, libraries, and monasteries, resulting in the loss of all of their records. Rare examples of the extraordinary royal patronage of the Early Solomonic period that survived were preserved in extremely remote, inaccessible monasteries. A long period of chaos followed the Adalite invasion, including subsequent incursions by enterprising groups seeking to fill the power void left by the fall of the Aksumites. In the seventeenth century, the significantly reduced Christian empire established the new capital of Gondar. Until its assault by Tigray in 1769, Gondar was the spiritual, artistic, and political center of the empire and therefore was a site for the principal scriptoria and painters’ workshops, as well as architectural innovations.

While earlier Aksumite churches were circular, later constructions deliberately attempted to mimic those of the description of King Solomon’s temple in the Old Testament. The churches built in Gondar have a square sanctuary with two aisles running along the periphery. The interiors are entirely covered in both murals and paintings that were commissioned by the wealthy elite in order to assist in their ascension to heaven. This was a period of intense artistic production, including, in particular, considerable quantities of icons devoted to the Virgin Mary .

The Ethiopian royal dynasty remained intact until the overthrow in 1974 of Haile Selassie, the last Christian emperor, by a military coup.

Ross, Emma George. “African Christianity in Ethiopia.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/acet/hd_acet.htm (October 2002)

Additional Essays by Emma George Ross

• Ross, Emma George. “ African Christianity in Kongo .” (October 2002)
• Ross, Emma George. “ Afro-Portuguese Ivories .” (October 2002)
• Ross, Emma George. “ Benin Chronology .” (October 2002)
• Ross, Emma George. “ The Age of Iron in West Africa .” (October 2002)
• Ross, Emma George. “ The Portuguese in Africa, 1415–1600 .” (October 2002)

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section African Christianity

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African Christianity by Thomas Spear LAST REVIEWED: 09 August 2022 LAST MODIFIED: 28 April 2016 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199846733-0105

Christianity in Africa goes back to the earliest days of the church, when it spread along the Mediterranean and Red Sea coastlands of north and northeast Africa and their hinterlands. Subsequently displaced by Islam in the 7th and 8th centuries, the ancient Coptic and Orthodox churches nevertheless remain active in Egypt, Ethiopia, and Eritrea today. Further south, Christianity was introduced later by European Christian missions, initially on the heels of Portuguese expansion into the Kingdom of the Kongo and Angola in the 16th century, the slave trade in the ensuing centuries, and the general expansion of European influence and colonialism in the 19th and 20th centuries in an explosive combination of “Christianity, Commerce and Civilization.” While conversion to Christianity increased with the extension of formal European colonial rule, Western education, and new economic opportunities, Africans interpreted the new faith in the light of their own religious concerns and concepts and made it their own. In the process, Western missionaries were slowly displaced by African evangelists, who helped translate the Bible, interpret it for themselves, and spread the faith far beyond the mission compounds. In the process, African Christians struggled for control of the church and its messages, often emphasizing charismatic prophecy and healing, founding thousands of new churches and popular movements within mission Protestantism and Catholicism, and playing prominent roles in contemporary African society and politics. In seeking to understand African Christianity, then, we need to understand its origins in the ancient church as well as the processes by which European missionaries and African converts of diverse religious hues have reinterpreted and reformed it to establish a varied and vibrant Christian religious presence today. The literature on African Christianity is huge and often characterized by diverse colonial and religious perspectives and biases, requiring one to read it critically. For more on African religions, see the related Oxford Bibliographies articles on African Traditional Religion and Islam in Africa .

While earlier studies of Christianity in Africa focused on the roles of European missions and missionaries in establishing Christianity in Africa, historians now tend to stress the roles of African converts, catechists, translators, and evangelists in interpreting Christianity, spreading it to their neighbors, and establishing new Christian movements and churches that are as distinctly African as they are Christian. Two recent studies by leading church scholars, Hastings 1994 and Sundkler and Steed 2000 , stand out and can be supplemented by briefer studies on Africa generally ( Isichei 1995 ), West Africa ( Sanneh 1983 ), South Africa ( Chidester 1992 ), and contemporary Africa ( Hastings 1979 ).

Chidester, David. Religions of South Africa . London: Routledge, 1992.

A wide-ranging synthesis of the literature on the diverse religions of South Africa that stresses their historical development and social significance in the context of colonial rule and apartheid.

Hastings, Adrian. A History of African Christianity, 1950–1975 . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1979.

DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511563171

A study that both predates and updates Hastings 1994 , but neglects the recent proliferation of evangelical, charismatic, and Pentecostal churches. Focuses on the relations of church and state, the Africanization of mission churches, and independent churches during the period of nationalism and independence.

Hastings, Adrian. The Church in Africa, 1450–1950 . Oxford: Clarendon, 1994.

A magisterial historical synthesis of the formative period of African Christianity written by one of its foremost scholars. Focuses on the influences of Africans and African ideas on the mission enterprise, conversion, religious innovation, and church life, but it neglects to cover the earlier history of the northern African church as well as the profusion of Christian movements since 1950. The bibliography provides a series of illuminating bibliographic essays on a wide range of subjects.

Isichei, Elizabeth. A History of Christianity in Africa: From Antiquity to the Present . London: SPCK, 1995.

A brief popular account that focuses on both the worlds missionaries came from as well as the African worlds in which they worked, including the critical roles played by African evangelists, catechists, and teachers in developing the new faith.

Sanneh, Lamin. West African Christianity: The Religious Impact . London: Hurst, 1983.

This text by a notable scholar of both Christianity and Islam concentrates on the religious dimensions of West African Christianity and the roles of both missionaries and Africans in its spread and development. Concludes with a rare discussion of the historical relations between Christianity and traditional religion and Islam.

Sundkler, Bengt, and Christopher Steed. A History of the Church in Africa . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511497377

Following a brief survey of early Christianity in northern Africa, this massive work zeroes in on the same period surveyed in Hastings 1994 , but it lacks that work’s integrating narrative and conceptual frameworks. More useful as a series of local case studies, the work focuses on the African converts who reinterpreted Christianity, propagated it, and established their own churches amid the turmoil of the slave trade, conquest, and colonial rule.

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The Church in Africa – The History of Christianity in Africa

Subscribe to the ThinkND podcast on Apple , Spotify, or Google .

Featured Speakers:

• Rev. Paul Kollman, C.S.C. ’84, ’90 M.Div.,  Associate Professor, Theology

The second event in The Church in Africa series welcomed Rev. Paul Kollman, C.S.C., an Associate Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. He was joined by Rev. Kenneth Amadi, a priest in the Archdiocese of Abuja in Nigeria and a current student of Liturgical Studies within the Theology Department at the University of Notre Dame. This session served to explore the roots and causes of contemporary realities of the African Church and the Catholic Church worldwide found in the history of Christianity in Africa. The speakers discussed various topics related to the challenges and victories of Christians in Africa over the last two millennia.

The speakers began by highlighting the deficiency in knowledge throughout Africa about its own religious history. Many Christians throughout Africa know little about where Christianity originated, how it was developed, and how it has expanded to become a religion with a large following. Rev. Kollman emphasized that this discussion and the work of the World Religions World Church department as a whole is to provide African peoples with the resources to make sense of the faith that is so important to them and to better understand their role in the Catholic Church that is alive in Africa today. The first major event discussed was the arrival of Portuguese missionaries in the Congo. Though this evangelization was not ultimately successful, it resulted in a very vital Catholic presence for a couple centuries. When Europeans began capturing and enslaving Africans from the Congo, a large number of them brought this religion with them, contributing to the Catholicism practiced in the Americas today. The viewpoints that have been incorporated into the faith by Africans throughout the centuries have shaped the faith currently practiced.

Rev. Amadi then discussed African Independent Churches (AIC’s). Though these communities of worship originated in Africa, they have spread and been established worldwide. There are many variations of these churches, but they promote African culture in many different ways, especially African languages. The speakers later addressed three terms: primary evangelization, pastoral care and new evangelization. While there are some areas in Africa still requiring primary evangelization, spreading the good news to those who have not heard of it previously, it is decreasing due to the efforts of missionaries. Also, while new evangelization, the reawakening of Christians who have fallen away from the faith, is widespread in Europe and North America, the trend is not observed as widely in Africa. Instead, Africans are taking part in new evangelization in other areas of the world. Rev. Amadi offered himself as an example of African pastoral care and new evangelization outside of Africa as he lives and works in Mishawaka, IN sharing his African culture and worship practices with Catholics in the United States. He also discussed liturgical practices specifically found in Africa, such as the Post-Communion Thanksgiving. This ritual reflects the cultural prominence of thanksgiving found in Nigeria and incorporates it into liturgical practice. As the African Church has developed, African peoples have sought new ways to incorporate elements of African culture into their worship. This is also occurring in regards to affliction and sources of healing, reflecting the widespread sufferings found throughout Africa.

The speakers then turned to questions from participants. In response to one such question, Rev. Amadi recommended reading African novels in addition to academic study. These works allow for the deeper understanding of challenges and victories experienced by African peoples, keeping in mind that any individual novel is based on the experiences of its author. Rev. Kollman addressed a question about ecumenism and interreligious dialogue in Africa by identifying that this is organically developing over time. Though these concepts are found more often in the United States currently, the Church in Africa is struggling to overcome tensions yet working towards better interreligious relations. The session concluded by sending participants to breakout rooms to discuss what they have learned thus far in the series and how this information will better inform their experiences of the Catholic faith where they live.

Visit the event page for more.

• Many Africans currently know little about the history of Christianity in Africa. Increasing knowledge in this area will allow them to have a sense of themselves as a living tradition, allowing them to make use of it to better understand their experiences in the present. (8:02)
• “My mission is to give African Christians and their leaders a past that is usable for them to live in the present in a vital way.” (Paul Kollman, 8:28)
• When African peoples were captured, enslaved and sent to the Americas, they took the Catholic faith with them. This has likely shaped the African-American Christianity in North and South America today. (14:35)
• “One of the great gifts that North American Christianity has given to the world is the distinctive ways that African Americans have read the Scriptures, especially as a text of liberation.” (Paul Kollman, 15:25)
• African Christianity has contributed to the growth and development of Christianty worldwide. (27:18)
• “I am here in Mishawaka to bring, from my own religious and cultural experience in Africa, new ways of seeing and of being Christian.” (Kenneth Amadi, 29:29)
• “People take thanksgiving very seriously in Nigeria, and it is an integral part of worship. What thanksgiving in worship means for us is different from what it means for people in the United States.” (Kenneth Amadi, 33:40)
• Africans have continuously created new liturgical practice as they seek to better understand themselves as part of the Church. This can often lead to a new reality for how Christianity can be practiced and displays how the development of liturgical practice occurs. (34:27)
• “Different Christian communities are figuring out ways to ritualize the affliction they’ve suffered and to move toward the reconciliation they seek.” (Paul Kollman, 39:33)
• Reading African novels can often allow for deeper understanding of the growth of Christianity in Africa, but keep in mind that each is based on the experiences of the individual author. (41:02)

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6 (page 89) p. 89 Christianity and Islam in Africa

• Published: February 2014
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Islam and Christianity have both been present on the African continent for nearly as long as they have existed. ‘Christianity and Islam in Africa’ follows the spread of these religions through Africa and illustrates how traditional religions have changed and adapted as a result. The early Egyptian Coptic Church was the first form of institutional Christianity on the African continent. Islamicization of West and East Africa followed trade routes, presenting its language and culture as a useful lingua franca among merchants from diverse ethnic groups. The militarization of fundamentalist forms of Christianity and Islam has had dire effects on African life, contributing to political instability and endless cycles of preemptive and retributive violence.

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Christians in Africa face worrying rise in killings, persecution and displacement

J OHANNESBURG — Christianity is in deadly crisis in more than half of Africa’s 54 countries , sources say. Christian groups contacted by Fox News Digital say the faithful are being persecuted, killed and displaced in 28 countries on the continent. 

The situation is the worst in Nigeria. Mission group Open Doors US told Fox News Digital its research reports that "nine out of 10 Christians killed for their faith in 2023 were in Nigeria. However, this number is likely higher, as many deaths go unreported."

"Nigeria is one of the deadliest places on earth to be a Christian," Ryan Brown, Open Doors US CEO, told Fox News Digital. "Of the nearly 5,000 Christians killed for their faith in 2023 worldwide, a staggering 82% of them were in Nigeria."

WORLD LOOKS OTHER WAY AS CHRISTIANS 'KILLED FOR SPORT BY JIHADISTS' IN NIGERIA

The Nigerian research group Intersociety, the International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law, calls the killing of Nigeria’s Christians genocide and puts the death toll higher, claiming over 8,000 Nigerian Christians were killed or abducted from January 2023 to the end of January 2024. Most of them were reportedly savagely hacked to death with knives. Intersociety says over 18,500 places of Christian worship were destroyed across Nigeria from 2009-2023.

And this slaughter is continuing, Intersociety’s Emeka Umeagbalasi told Fox News Digital.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

"(An) estimated 500-600 Christians are believed to have been hacked to death for professing to be Christians in Nigeria, covering January to the first week of April 2024," Umeagbalasi said. "They are being killed, raped and displaced, and their homes and, sometimes, churches burnt. In some occasions, they are forced, under pain of death, to publicly change their religion to Islam."

"With the rise of radical Islam in Africa, there is a definite increase in the targeting and persecution of Christians," Todd Nettleton, host of the Voice of the Martyrs Radio Network told Fox News Digital. He added that these attacks come in a wide range, from "well-known groups like Boko Haram in Nigeria and al-Shabaab in Somalia, to less-well-known but equally violent groups in northern Mozambique, Democratic Republic of Congo and other nations.

"Currently, there are 28 countries on the African continent listed on the Open Doors’ US 2024 World Watch List, nations where Christians routinely face oppression, harassment and violence because of their faith in Christ."

Despite an estimated 46% of the population being Christian, Nigerian Christians are often ripped from their homes too, with Brown of Open Doors US reporting that "of the 34.5 million displaced people across sub-Saharan Africa due to political instability, conflict and extremism, an estimated 16.2 million are Christians." 

Brown added, "As Fulani militant (Islamist) herdsmen wish to claim land in the middle of Nigeria, where there is the best grazing, they attack Christian villages, kidnap their people, burn their homes and destroy their crops, claiming the land for themselves."

WORLD, PROTESTERS SILENT ON SUDAN MASSACRES: 'NO MOB OUTSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE'

Persecution in Nigeria is not new. Boko Haram Muslim militants kidnapped Maryamu Joseph when she was just 7 years old. She managed to escape nine years later, telling the Aid to the Church In Need (ACN) agency, "I suffered so much at the hands of these heartless, ruthless people. They put the Christians in cages, like animals. The first thing they did was forcefully convert us to Islam. They changed my name to Aisha, a Muslim name, and warned us not to pray as Christians, or we would be killed." 

Catholic teacher Emmanuel Joseph witnessed a recent attack on a Catholic and a Baptist Church in Rubuh, in Nigeria’s Kaduna State.

"Mass had just started when we heard guns firing. Parishioners started running everywhere," Joseph said. "Coming into the church compound, they shot three members who had left the church. They also attacked the local Baptist church and abducted 36 members of the congregation, mostly women, and killed a man there also. We are only focused on how to stay alive, looking upon God for safety in the belief that He will fight back for us."

"Religious persecution in the north is systemic," Matthew Man-Oso Ndagoso, the archbishop of Nigeria’s Kaduna State claimed, "I cannot build a church, yet the government employs and pays imams to teach in schools. Every year they have money to build mosques in the budget but will not let you build churches". 

Reports of persecution continue to flood in from the Sahel region — Chad, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. The latter country’s bishop, Justin Kientega, told ACN parts of his diocese have become no-go areas as jihadists work to impose radical Islam on the population.

"The terrorists gather people and tell them not to go to school," he said. "They instruct men to grow out their beards and women to wear the Islamic veil."

In Sudan, Brown of Open Doors US said, there’s more persecution of Christians. 

"There have been 165 churches closed," Brown said. "Others have been attacked and destroyed. We see in Sudan and so many other places that those who oppose the Christian faith will use these volatile situations as an opportunity to lash out against our brothers and sisters. As we pray for an end to the violence, we remember these brave men and women and pray for their protection as they continue to risk so much." 

CHRISTMAS EVE ATTACK IN NIGERIA LEAVES AT LEAST 140 PEOPLE DEAD, HOMES BURNED

Sudan’s year-long civil war has displaced some 8.2 million people, according to this month’s figures from the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. But Christians are only a minority here, an estimated 5% of the population.

Sudan researcher Eric Reeves told Fox News Digital it’s difficult when, for example, so many buildings of every type are being bombed in Sudan to say the burning of churches is a particular attack against Christians.

"There has certainly been an underlying dislike of the long Christian presence in Sudan , going back to the Bashir regime and even longer … confiscation of church property and curtailment of Christian activities in various ways. But the present situation is simply too chaotic to make generalizations."

Christians are being targeted in Mozambique too. According to ACN, missionaries, priests and Christians generally have had to flee the Northern Cabo Delgado region.

"The activities of Islamic insurgent groups have intensified in the region, creating an atmosphere of fear and insecurity," according to ACN.

The UNHCR says over 1 million people have been displaced since fighting started in 2017.

Attacks and destruction and burning of chapels in at least 12 Mozambican communities by groups related to Islamic State have been reported so far this year.

"Our people carry only what they can in a bundle on their heads or on the family bicycle," The Bishop of Pemba in Northern Mozambique, António Juliasse, told ACN. "Their greatest risk is to become forgotten faces, drowned out by the other wars in the world."

A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital officials are "deeply concerned about rising levels of persecution globally, including of Christians. We note with grave concern that reports of intolerance and harassment against Christians around the world are increasing and more widespread. No one should ever have to fear for their personal safety or the safety of their religious institutions.

"Members of Christian communities, or those wishing to join, face limits on their rights to freedom of religion or belief in every world region and have been the target of repeated terrorist and violent attacks by mobs and violent extremists, including in Africa.

JIHADIST AND NUCLEAR THREAT AS AFRICAN COUNTRY TELLS US TO LEAVE AMID RUSSIAN AND IRANIAN GAINS

"The Department of State regularly engages governments, at all levels, to advocate for improvements to religious freedom, including ending violations impacting Christians. We speak out about these issues regularly and report on these developments in the International Religious Freedom report. The United States Government and the Office of International Religious Freedom uses it as a starting point for advocacy efforts that span the entire year and beyond."

The Voice of the Martyrs’ Todd Nettleton told Fox News Digital he would like to see more action.

"It is important for our government, and other free-world governments, to identify and call out those who attack and persecute religious minorities — whether they be governments or terrorist groups," Nettleton said. "The State Department issues its annual list of Countries of Particular Concern, which is a start, but more could certainly be done to shine a light on the suffering of religious minorities facing violent attacks in Africa and other places."

"Religious freedom is often called ‘the first freedom,’ and therefore should be a vital facet of our government’s interactions with other nations — even at the risk of offending foreign governments with whom we might want to work on profitable trade or other agreements."

"The U.S. government should be advocating for the Nigerian government to end impunity," Brown of Open Doors US told Fox News Digital. "For too long, extremists and groups such as Fulani militants have committed violence against Christians and various ethnic groups with no accountability. We need to urge the Nigerian government to take a strong stance against these perpetrators and break the cycle of violence that continues to expand throughout sub-Saharan Africa.

"We need the U.S. government to take a strong and vocal stance on these attacks and the insecurity they are creating."

In Burkina Faso , Bishop Kientega says Christians are prepared to die for their faith, rather than be forced to embrace Islam. 

"Many of them accept the possibility of death," Kientega said. "They refuse to remove their crosses, and they refuse to convert. They always find other ways to live their faith and pray."

Fox News Digital reached out for comment to the Nigerian presidency, the Nigerian Foreign Ministry, the Nigerian U.S. Embassy and the Nigerian Police Force but did not receive a response.

Original article source: Christians in Africa face worrying rise in killings, persecution and displacement