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Abstract
This is a quantitative and qualitative research study of the rise in the numbers and percentages of Christians and Muslims in Africa. It presents data showing the religious breakdowns of Christians, Muslims and people who practice traditional African religions in Africa as a whole, and within the five regions (East, Middle, North, Southern and West Africa) of the continent. The study also presents religious breakdowns for the countries in Africa that were at one time been partly or fully colonized by European Powers. To emphasize the importance of the various statistics, the paper presents numerous examples that show that Christianity and Islam have planted deep roots in Africa and have substantially changed the traditional and philosophical beliefs of a very substantial proportion of Africa's total population.
Purpose of Study
Religion has become a major topic in the beginning of the twenty-first century. Christianity and Islam, the two largest religions in the world appear to be competing for influence across the world. These two world religions have also substantially increased their numbers in Africa.
Out of curiosity, this author embarked on research to identify not only the numbers and percentages of Christians, Muslims and Africans who continue to practice indigenous religions in Africa, but also how diese numbers and percentages breakdown within its five regions (Eastern, Middle, Northern, Southern and Western Africa). According to figures presented in the Encyclopedia Britannica 2003 Book of the Year, as of mid-2002, there were 376,453,000 Christians, 329,869,000 Muslims and 98,734,000 people who practiced traditional religions in Africa (p.306). So the author wanted to know what the breakdowns of those three religions in Africa would be by region, having noted that this information is not currently available.
In addition, the author also decided to compile and calculate the estimates of the numbers and percentages of Christians, Muslims and Africans who continue to practice indigenous religions in the former African colonies of Belgium, France, Portugal and the United Kingdom. The reason for this was to learn whether there would be significant differences in the religious make-up of those former African colonies.
It is important to note that the figures in this study are only estimates. However, it is also clearly important to study me religious breakdown of Africa, a continent...