According to the survey, 98 percent of respondents in Senegal say religion is very important, following by 93 percent in Mali. The lowest percentage was reported in Botswana, 69 percent, which is still a healthy majority.
“That begins to paint a picture of how religious sub-Saharan Africans are,” Lugo said.
The study is part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project. More than 25,000 sub-Saharan Africans responded in face-to-face interviews in more than 60 languages.
While the study confirms that Africans are, indeed, morally conservative and religiously pious, researchers explored a variety of topics, including religious tolerance, polygamy, the role of women in society, and political and economic satisfaction.
Islam and Christianity dominate as the most popular religions in the region — a stark reversal from a century ago when Muslims and Christians were outnumbered by followers of traditional indigenous religions.
Surprise, surprise. But the stats are still pretty amazing, in comparison with the global north.
I wonder what the least religious part of the world would be? Maybe Japan would top Europe.
David Handy+
The survey data are fascinating. The multi-country comparison is an astonishing piece of work – I’ve never seen anything like it from sub-saharan Africa. (That may well be my ignorance).
The actual Pew Forum link is http://features.pewforum.org/africa/
There is so much to learn here. Just once tidbit, not selected for its significance merely because it happened to catch my attention: Ethiopia has had Christians within it for 1600 years. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church is the predominant christian community. Of all the country’s surveyed it had the highest proportion of Christians who had witnessed the devil or evil spirits being driven out of a person.
A little bit of digging and here is a report from an evangelical perspective on the ministry of exorcism within Ethiopia:
http://www.lausanne.org/all-documents/ethiopian-case-study.html
(The NT bit of me – wonders how, if at all, this might relate to the significance of the Books of Enoch and Jubilees within Ethiopian christian history).
Going on – exorcism was without doubt a significant part both of Our Lord’s ministry and of the life of the Early Church – it seems it retains that significance in Ethiopia. I wonder if things are similar in the Coptic Orthodox church in Egypt?