Idolatry Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Africa=== {{See also|Traditional African religions}}{{multiple image | align = right | image1 = Musée africain Lyon 130909 05.jpg | width1 = 100 | alt1 = | caption1 = | image2 = Kneeling female worshipper with child, Yoruba people, Honolulu Museum of Art, 6011.1.JPG | width2 = 122 | alt2 = | caption2 = | footer = An Orisha deity (left) and an artwork depicting a kneeling female worshipper with child, by [[Yoruba people]] }} Africa has numerous ethnic groups, and their diverse religious idea have been grouped as African Traditional Religions, sometimes abbreviated to ATR. These religions typically believe in a Supreme Being which goes by different regional names, as well as spirit world often linked to ancestors, and mystical magical powers through divination.<ref>{{cite book|author=Richard Gehman|title=African Traditional Religion in Biblical Perspective|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1B4XPF1P4a4C |year=2005|publisher=East African Publishers|isbn=978-9966-25-354-5|pages=xi–xii}}</ref> Idols and their worship have been associated with all three components in the African Traditional Religions.<ref>{{cite book|author=Richard Gehman|title=African Traditional Religion in Biblical Perspective|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1B4XPF1P4a4C |year=2005|publisher=East African Publishers|isbn=978-9966-25-354-5|pages=189–190 }}</ref> According to J.O. Awolalu, proselytizing Christians and Muslims have mislabelled idol to mean false god, when in the reality of most traditions of Africa, the object may be a piece of wood or iron or stone, yet it is "symbolic, an emblem and implies the spiritual idea which is worshipped".<ref name=awolalu1>J. O. Awolalu (1976), What is African Traditional Religion?, Studies in Comparative Religion, Vol. 10, No. 2, pages 8, 1–10</ref> The material objects may decay or get destroyed, the emblem may crumble or substituted, but the spiritual idea that it represents to the heart and mind of an African traditionalist remains unchanged.<ref name=awolalu1/> Sylvester Johnson – a professor of African American and Religious Studies, concurs with Awolalu, and states that the colonial era missionaries who arrived in Africa, neither understood the regional languages nor the African theology, and interpreted the images and ritualism as "epitome of idolatry", projecting the iconoclastic controversies in Europe they grew up with, onto Africa.<ref>{{cite book|author=Sylvester A. Johnson|title=African American Religions, 1500–2000: Colonialism, Democracy, and Freedom|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VuhBCgAAQBAJ|year=2015|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-316-36814-5|pages=49–51}}</ref> First with the arrival of Islam in Africa, then during the Christian colonial efforts, the religiously justified wars, the colonial portrayal of idolatry as proof of savagery, the destruction of idols and the seizure of idolaters as slaves marked a long period of religious intolerance, which supported religious violence and demeaning caricature of the African Traditional Religionists.<ref>{{cite journal | last=Rubiés | first=Joan Pau | title=Theology, Ethnography, and the Historicization of Idolatry | journal=Journal of the History of Ideas | volume=67 | issue=4 | year=2006 | pages=571–596 | doi=10.1353/jhi.2006.0038 | s2cid=170863835 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last=Ranger | first=Terence O. | title=Religious Movements and Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa | journal=African Studies Review | volume=29 | issue=2 | year=1986 | pages=1–70 | doi=10.2307/523964 | jstor=523964 | s2cid=143459900 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=René A. Bravmann|title=Islam and Tribal Art in West Africa |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eDY4AAAAIAAJ |year=1980|publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-29791-2|pages=15–21, 36–37}}</ref> The violence against idolaters and idolatry of Traditional Religion practicers of Africa started in the medieval era and continued into the modern era.<ref>{{cite journal | last=Willis | first=John Ralph | title=Jihād fī Sabīl Allāh—its Doctrinal Basis in Islam and some Aspects of its Evolution in Nineteenth-Century West Africa | journal=The Journal of African History | volume=8 | issue=3 | year=1967 | page=395 | doi=10.1017/s0021853700007933 | s2cid=154388861 }}</ref><ref name="Firestone1999p20">{{cite book|author=Reuven Firestone|title=Jihad: The Origin of Holy War in Islam |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A6kVVeIkzDkC |year=1999|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-535219-1|pages=20–21, 85–89}}</ref><ref name="Gopin2002">{{cite book|author=Marc Gopin|title=Holy War, Holy Peace |url=https://archive.org/details/holywarholypeace00gopi|url-access=registration|year=2002|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-803348-6|pages=[https://archive.org/details/holywarholypeace00gopi/page/243 243] footnote 5}}</ref> The charge of idolatry by proselytizers, state Michael Wayne Cole and Rebecca Zorach, served to demonize and dehumanize local African populations, and justify their enslavement and abuse locally or far off plantations, settlements or for forced domestic labor.<ref name="ColeZorach2009p17">{{cite book|author1=Michael Wayne Cole|author2=Rebecca Zorach|title=The Idol in the Age of Art: Objects, Devotions and the Early Modern World|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IUKBQfzKlIYC&pg=PA17|year=2009|publisher=Ashgate |isbn=978-0-7546-5290-8|page=17}}, Quote: "By negating African religious practices, the pejorative characterizations of these works as objects of idolatry served in vital ways to both demonize and dehumanize local populations, thereby providing a moral buttress for European religious and human trade practices on the continent".</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=Patrick Taylor|author2=Frederick I. Case|title=The Encyclopedia of Caribbean Religions |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XOyYCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA1002 |year=2013|publisher=University of Illinois Press|isbn=978-0-252-09433-0|pages=1002–1003}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page