Aladura Christianity

A Yoruba Religion

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3152769
AutoresBenjamin C Ray (1University of Virginia, Charlottesville, autor correspondente)
Ano1993
Volume23
Fascículo1-4
Páginas266-291
Data de publicação1993-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Religion in Africa (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0022-4200 • E-ISSN: 1570-0666
EditoraWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1163/157006693x00148
OpenAlexW1982622952
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas25
Referências citadas6

Aladura Christianity among the Yoruba of Nigeria is a distinctive form of Christianity that bears the full imprint of Yoruba traditional religion. While many churches in Nigeria exhibit certain Yoruba features, these are recognizably superficial and do not involve the deeply Yoruba religious stamp that is found among the Aladura. This, I should point out, is not merely the judgment of western observers but of Yoruba scholars as well. The nature and extent of this Yoruba 'imprint' has not, however, been fully examined. Although several scholars have identified certain Yoruba elements, there has been no systematic explanation of how they have combined with Christian elements to form a distinctly new Christian religious synthesis. Excellent studies by Harold Turner, J. Akinyele Omoyajowo, Albert A. Agbaje, and David O. Olayiwola concentrate on the history, institutional organization, and theology of several Aladura churches.1 These works often dismiss the Yoruba elements as theologically unorthodox, and leave them unexamined. J.D.Y. Peel's pioneering sociological study (1968) and Diedre Crumbley's more recent anthropological work (1989) have also identified a number of Yoruba aspects of the Aladura churches but not with the intent to show how they are involved in shaping a new version of Christianity.2 Since my purpose is descriptive and not theological, I want to avoid at the outset the normative implications that the term 'syncretism' usually conveys and speak instead of the Aladura churches as constituting a distinctive synthesis of Yoruba and Christian beliefs and practices. In agreement with Peel,3 I am not interested simply in the question of acculturation, that is, in identifying the Yoruba origins of certain elements of Aladura Christianity. Isolating and labelling Yoruba traits is not particularly useful and

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