The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (67 page)

African Methodist Episcopal Church
.

The first church in the USA to be made up entirely of African-Americans. It came into being in 1787 when those with black skin refused to be segregated in the seating in St George's church in 4th St, Philadelphia. There was some scuffling, and Richard Allen (elected the first
bishop
of the ensuing church) led the founding members of the church out of the building.

 
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African Orthodox Church
:

see
AFRICAN-AMERICAN RELIGION
.

 
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African religion
.

No single religion corresponds to the term ‘African religion’, nor could it. The geography of Africa ranges from rain forests to uninhabitable deserts; its peoples are organized in many different social ways, from itinerants to villages to tribes to urbanized communities; and the vast continent has been invaded by other religions which frequently dominate particular areas, especially Christianity and Islam, but also to a lesser degree Hinduism. These in turn have often been appropriated and given a new and distinctive African style and content (see e.g.
AFRICAN INSTITUTED CHURCHES
).
Nevertheless, although there is no such ‘thing’ as ‘African religion’, attempts have been made to draw out some of the recurrent and characteristic emphases to be found in Africa.

1. There is strong reverence for a supreme God.
2. The power of God to inspire particular individuals or functionaries is emphasized.
3. Religion is important in maintaining both social and cosmic order.
4. The importance of
ancestors
is noted. ‘Ancestor worship’ is too strong and too misleading a term; in fact it is commonly believed that each individual is made up of several different ‘souls’, including the continuing effects of the ancestors as guardians; the ancestors are not saved out of the world, but rather continue to be related to the ongoing family, and remain a part of it–until they are removed by the extending gap of succeeding generations.
5. 
Rites
of passage maintain stability and order.
6. 
Magic
and witchcraft are emphasized.
7. The oral tradition is powerful; myth is rich and eloquent.
8. There is emphasis on the sacred and often sacrosanct nature of the environment, almost any aspect of which may carry religious meaning.

 
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Afro-Brazilian cults
.

New (syncretist) religions based on survivals of African religions among the black slave population, originally in the north-east but now over most coastal areas and in southern cities. Some exhibit traditional Yoruba religion little changed from W. Africa. Candomblés are the forms developed in Bahia early in the 19th cent. (also called Xango, i.e.
Shango
). These vary according to whether the African origins are Congolese-Angolan, Yoruba, or Islamic Negro (Hausa, etc.), and to the presence of Amerindian or Catholic elements. ‘Macumba’, more in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, emphasizes possession by ancestral spirits rather than deities, and tends to pass over into
magic
and to forms known as Quimbanda. Batuque in Belem is more Brazilianized, with songs in Portuguese and members from all races, although lower class.

 
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Afscheiding
(Dutch Reformed separation)
:

see
DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH
.

 
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Afterlife
.

The condition awaiting humans and the cosmos after
death
or at the end of time. Beliefs vary greatly between religions, though in origin the major continuing religious traditions, both East and West, had no belief that there would be a worthwhile existence after death. They could not deny that in some sense there is a trace of the dead, in memory and dreams, or in the resemblance of offspring to ancestors; but whatever state the dead may be in, it is a condition of extreme weakness, in which all connection with God and with the living is cut off, and certainly to be avoided or postponed as long as possible: it is, in Sophocles' words,
ton apotropon Haidan
, Hades to be shunned. The most militant reaction to this occurred in China, in the quest for immortality; and gradually both traditions came to realize that there may be about us that which does endure through the process of time and therefore perhaps through the event of death.
The Jewish tradition has come to believe that the life of human beings continues through death, and that there will be a consummation of the purposes of God in the
messianic
age. Today,
Orthodox
Jews still maintain a belief in bodily resurrection, but most Reform Jews are only concerned with spiritual survival. The Jewish equivalent of
hell
is derived from the mundane ‘valley of Hinnom’,
Gehinnom
, Gk., Gehenna.
Christian beliefs were formed in the context of acute Jewish debates, in the period of the second
Temple
, about the likelihood and nature of the afterlife, and are controlled by the astonished and grateful acceptance of the resurrection of
Jesus Christ
. Jesus himself had affirmed belief in life after death, arguing against the Sadducees, but not going into detail. Early Christianity put together the two Jewish forms of speculation, thereby talking of the resurrection of the body, but also of the continuing life of the soul in the interval before the resurrection body is restored to it—a ‘gap’ which eventually allowed the doctrine of
purgatory
.
The afterlife in Islam is known as
al-akhira
. The Muslim understanding of the afterlife is based on vivid and literal pictures in the
Qur’
n
.
The early understandings in India of human nature and its destiny much resemble in attitude those of the Jewish Bible. The
Vedic
imagination could conceive only of this life as a place of guaranteed worth. Neither
sams
ra
nor
tman
as immortal soul are present in the
Vedas
. The advance to
tman was made in the
Br
hma
as
and
ra
yakas
via
pr
a
, breath—the recognition that pr