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WORLD ANTHROPOLOGICAL UNION

CONGRESS 2024​

Paper

Traditional Convergence and revitalization: African Christianity as Mazeway disintegration

presenters

    Joel

    Nationality: South Africa

    Residence: South Africa

    University of South Africa

    Presence:Face to Face/ On Site

Keywords:

Traditional, Convenience, Revitalization, African Christianity, Mazeway disintegration

Abstract:

The south African religious landscape is dominated, if not utterly consumed, by a Christo-centric influence, which traces its roots from the early missionary epoch. With the arrival of missionaries, as early as July 1737, when Georg Schmidt founded the first protestant mission at Genadendal, the cultural disintegration of indigenous cultures was bound to occur. Two religious traditions stood at loggerheads: Christianity sought to consume the African heritage, which was seen as heathenish; and the African heritage, in reprisal, fought for recognition in subtle forms, as ‘a child of the night’. These opposites were later to be converged by nominal Christians, who, through mazeway disintegration, synthesised Christianity, and African Religion; thus, shaping a new religious tradition through innovation and imagination. Using a qualitative research approach, in the form of document analysis, this study intends to explore the traditional convergence and revitalisation of African Christianity through the lenses of what Anthony F. C. Wallace termed the “mazeway disintegration”.