African affirmations: The religion of modernity and the modernity of religion

Abstract

This article contrasts three broad traditions that organize competing patterns of authority, community, and cooperation in contemporary Africa: the Axial religions (Christianity and Islam); indigenous chieftaincy systems based around chief, lineage, and clan; and globalized modernity, represented primarily by NGOs and the global human rights agenda. The article argues that in many respects it is the Axial religions that are the most modernizing, as they directly counter the power of traditional kin obligations (and the overwhelming dangers of witchcraft), while the purportedly modern and secular NGOs practice a ritualized version of modernity, even as they are penetrated by the norms and practices of the kin-based chieftaincy system and its related system of patron–client ties.

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