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African Religions and Philosophy
African Religions and Philosophy is a systematic study of the attitudes of mind and belief that have evolved in the many societies of Africa. In this second edition, Dr Mbiti has updated his material to include the involvement of women in religion, and the potential unity to be found in what was once thought to be a mass of quite separate religions.
Mbiti adds a new dimension to the understanding of the history, thinking, and life throughout the African continent. Religion is approached from an African point of view but is as accessible to readers who belong to non-African societies as it is to those who have grown up in African nations.
Since its first publication, this book has become acknowledged as the standard work in the field of study, and it is essential reading for anyone concerned with African religion, history, philosophy, anthropology or general African studies.
Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
About the author
John S. Mbiti
20 books105 followersJohn Samuel Mbiti was a Kenyan-born Christian religious philosopher and writer. From 2005 up until his death in 2019, Mbiti was an Emeritus professor at the University of Bern and parish minister to the town of Burgdorf, Switzerland.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
April 2, 2023
This book marked the beginning of my Afrikan-centered spiritual and political education. From this source, I’ve discovered so many others. I am grateful that it was given to me by a sister who saw my gifts, and thought it would be a good place for me to start. Peace and luv to her. I’m traveling, going deeper and deeper into the source of creation. Gratitude.
March 15, 2023
I read this book again, it is wonderful. I was able to comprehend things that I didn’t fully understand the first time I read it. I thought I understood before, but I was able to listen to Mbiti’s research in a different unbiased manner this time. No feelings attached. I am again, grateful for his ability to look back and retrieve foundational concepts that are helping me along my journey and nourishing my intellect.
March 15, 2023
I read this book again, it is wonderful. I was able to comprehend things that I didn’t fully understand the first time I read it. I thought I understood before, but I was able to listen to Mbiti’s research in a different unbiased manner this time. No feelings attached. I am again, grateful for his ability to look back and retrieve foundational concepts that are helping me along my journey and nourishing my intellect.
April 20, 2025
The late Mbiti's African Religions and Philosophy is a great addition to Philosophy. In a field that is predominantly Angloid, due primarily to a methodology that still refuses to recognize non-Western forms of Philosophy, Mbiti's work shines light on the much maligned and fetishized field of its African variant. Far too often do we see African systems of thought patronized, or in the worst cases, deliberately misconstrued in an attempt to prove the backwardness or "primitiveness" of Indigenous traditions. While the scholarly bias is avoided, this otherwise stellar work is marred by Religious bias.
The prose reads smoothly, though at times it lacks the sense of wonder Mbiti holds. Insight also into the classic questions - the nature of God, Good and Evil, for instance - even concepts of Time in African thought are explored. He attempts a Pan-African estimation of Religious and Philosophical views but fails, due to a lack of preciseness and more than commonplace generalizations of African thought. This however, may also be the weakness of Mbiti's work, since his interpretation of African religion is distinctly from a Christian perspective, although a sympathetic one.
Mbiti's work undoubtedly is marred by Christian interpretations, and a double bind of logic. At one point, he tries to credit the importance of traditional religions, yet he later focuses on the galvanizing of more mainstream religions due to African influence and even makes a very blatant bid for the superiority of Christianity:
Although he claims to be about religious cooperation, it's clear that Mbiti views the increased interest in tribal religions and their inherently humanistic traditions, at least from a Christian perspective, as more of a threat than a viable revival: "Traditional religions must yield more and more their hold in shaping people's values, identities, and meanings in life. They have been undermined but not overthrown." (Mbiti, 262)
Despite the historical effects of religious colonialism that have contributed to many of the problems Mbiti claims to cite as endemic of a tipping point in traditional religions, Mbiti seems to think that abandoning them in favor of these same religions (which, he repeatedly insists are just as 'African' as they are European or Eastern) will solve our problems. His most disturbing comments are his nonchalant dismissal of the lack of scholarship, and the grim reality that, save a near-cataclysmic political change to the very structure of Western Philosophy, African traditional beliefs and systems of thought will continue to lose the scholarship these countless systems deserve. Mbiti's rather detached view of African Humanism in our traditional beliefs is an unfortunately characteristic display of the current attitude toward non-traditional religious and philosophical systems.
Regardless, it's odd that Mbiti continues to discuss the supposedly "privileged" state that traditional African religions have given the dearth of seriousness owed to them. It is clear that in this case, Mbiti fails to satisfy the reader, and in the worst cases, seems to reinforce the same religious colonialist notions of the openly biased Europeans of the past. However, as a general religious survey of various African beliefs and concepts, Mbiti does a stellar job.
African Religion and Philosophy will be a great introductory work for those whose sole understanding of African religions amounts to what they've seen in horror movies. Outside of this, it either reaffirms the biases of the reader or outlines several key cultural and academic problems we Afrikans face in the world. Mbiti claims to be concerned with the future yet remains reluctant to openly challenge the rifts in scholarship of traditional religions, choosing instead to suggest that they've lost their appeal and - in the most unsubtle manner possible- even become outdated. I hope those who read this will be enlightened, and in respect to the latter case, enflamed with the desire to prove him wrong.
The prose reads smoothly, though at times it lacks the sense of wonder Mbiti holds. Insight also into the classic questions - the nature of God, Good and Evil, for instance - even concepts of Time in African thought are explored. He attempts a Pan-African estimation of Religious and Philosophical views but fails, due to a lack of preciseness and more than commonplace generalizations of African thought. This however, may also be the weakness of Mbiti's work, since his interpretation of African religion is distinctly from a Christian perspective, although a sympathetic one.
Mbiti's work undoubtedly is marred by Christian interpretations, and a double bind of logic. At one point, he tries to credit the importance of traditional religions, yet he later focuses on the galvanizing of more mainstream religions due to African influence and even makes a very blatant bid for the superiority of Christianity:
"I consider traditional religions, Islam and the other religious systems to be preparatory and even essential ground in the search for the Ultimate. But only Christianity has the terrible responsibility of pointing the way to that ultimate Identity, Foundation, and Source of Security." (Mbiti, 277)
Although he claims to be about religious cooperation, it's clear that Mbiti views the increased interest in tribal religions and their inherently humanistic traditions, at least from a Christian perspective, as more of a threat than a viable revival: "Traditional religions must yield more and more their hold in shaping people's values, identities, and meanings in life. They have been undermined but not overthrown." (Mbiti, 262)
Despite the historical effects of religious colonialism that have contributed to many of the problems Mbiti claims to cite as endemic of a tipping point in traditional religions, Mbiti seems to think that abandoning them in favor of these same religions (which, he repeatedly insists are just as 'African' as they are European or Eastern) will solve our problems. His most disturbing comments are his nonchalant dismissal of the lack of scholarship, and the grim reality that, save a near-cataclysmic political change to the very structure of Western Philosophy, African traditional beliefs and systems of thought will continue to lose the scholarship these countless systems deserve. Mbiti's rather detached view of African Humanism in our traditional beliefs is an unfortunately characteristic display of the current attitude toward non-traditional religious and philosophical systems.
Regardless, it's odd that Mbiti continues to discuss the supposedly "privileged" state that traditional African religions have given the dearth of seriousness owed to them. It is clear that in this case, Mbiti fails to satisfy the reader, and in the worst cases, seems to reinforce the same religious colonialist notions of the openly biased Europeans of the past. However, as a general religious survey of various African beliefs and concepts, Mbiti does a stellar job.
African Religion and Philosophy will be a great introductory work for those whose sole understanding of African religions amounts to what they've seen in horror movies. Outside of this, it either reaffirms the biases of the reader or outlines several key cultural and academic problems we Afrikans face in the world. Mbiti claims to be concerned with the future yet remains reluctant to openly challenge the rifts in scholarship of traditional religions, choosing instead to suggest that they've lost their appeal and - in the most unsubtle manner possible- even become outdated. I hope those who read this will be enlightened, and in respect to the latter case, enflamed with the desire to prove him wrong.
Read
July 30, 2014I WOULD LIKE TO START READING IT NOW
October 10, 2024
A good mix of "huh, that's a different way of thinking about time, god, death, existence..." moments and "whoa, that's a ritual / cultural practice that exercises my 'people are people' muscles" vibes. Some of the archaic language and century-old citations have me thinking this is not especially current and the obligatory 'Jesus is the best' from this parish minister also raises a reddish flag on this otherwise sympathetic overview of traditional African (mostly Bantu) religion.
It was a bit weird how the female genital mutilation rituals are simply described without judgment but the author takes his time making apologies for non-monogamous marriages and other marriage and family arrangements that don't fit the Christian ideal. I would think a more contemporary work would view the harmful cutting as more controversial than polygyny or levirate marriages.
The chapters on specialists (medicine and divination practitioners for example), witchcraft, and evil versus justice were the most immersive for me, and some of the stories about new versions of Christianity, Islam and Judaism emerging in the 1960s through 1980s in Africa were tantalizing. Give me more African New Religious Movements please.
It was a bit weird how the female genital mutilation rituals are simply described without judgment but the author takes his time making apologies for non-monogamous marriages and other marriage and family arrangements that don't fit the Christian ideal. I would think a more contemporary work would view the harmful cutting as more controversial than polygyny or levirate marriages.
The chapters on specialists (medicine and divination practitioners for example), witchcraft, and evil versus justice were the most immersive for me, and some of the stories about new versions of Christianity, Islam and Judaism emerging in the 1960s through 1980s in Africa were tantalizing. Give me more African New Religious Movements please.
August 22, 2025
As a deeply anxious and intuitive person, I have always been obsessed with books and novels dealing with our perceptions of time. Time is not real until we experience it - this is one of my key takeaways from this book. Pondering on this from a cultural and linguistic stance coming from East African peoples, this was such a delight to read. I’m bound to love people who recommend me good books forever, so thanks to my gorgeous Tanzanian friend Peace for this!!
April 3, 2016
Parto por decir que el libro es más viejo que yo... al menos su edición original. También aclaro que no deja de ser una manera cristiana de analizar las religiones tradicionales de África. Con todo, ¡excelente! Un clásico. Muy interesante. Me lo tragué. Me encantaría tener una versión similar para el día de hoy... aunque posiblemente me deprimiría más por el avance homogeneizador de la "modernidad" sobre las culturas tradicionales. En fin. Me gusta el tema.
August 26, 2017
I read part of this for a study abroad course to Tanzania, and it was a fabulous introduction to understanding the integration of African philosophy and religion. Bought the book so I could read again. As a pastor, it is a great resource to be able to better understand the African context for religious expression,
May 18, 2026
One sentence in John S. Mbiti's defining work, African Religions and Philosophy, carries the weight of an African’s religious vindication: "Africans are notoriously religious." And he is notoriously unapologetic for it. He writes it as fact, a fact that colonialism spent centuries trying to erase, reframe, or simply ignore. This book is one of the most unapologetic intellectual reclamations in African scholarship, that Africa did not need to be saved from spiritual emptiness. It was never empty. Africa was not waiting for religion. Africa was already praying.
But for me, my key takeaway was the inevitability of the death of African languages. We are daily reading the eulogy, because "Some of the traditional languages are dying out, partly because the peoples who spoke them may also be dying out, but chiefly because of modern type of education and the drift of population from rural to urban areas." We have to accept the legacy of colonialism—French and English, no matter how much we fight them, that door is closed. Nothing we can do to change that, and one "nobody can take away from us" that legacy. This is not celebrating this inheritance; it is acknowledging the pragmatic, painful reality. It is the "curse of Babel".
Mbiti, a Kenyan theologian who trained at Cambridge and taught at Makerere University in Uganda, wrote this text originally as lectures for his students. That pedagogical origin gives the book a certain clarity and directness: he is not performing for Western academia. He is explaining Africa to Africans, and in doing so, to everyone else. He traces religious systems of nearly a thousand African peoples to argue something radical in its simplicity: that African religion is not a primitive precursor to something more sophisticated. It is a fully formed, deeply coherent engagement with the divine.
Religion in Africa was never a department of life, it was life itself. Traditional religion permeates all aspects of existence, "there is no formal distinction between the sacred and the secular, between the religious and non-religious, between the spiritual and material areas of life." The African carries religion to the farm, to the funeral, to the examination hall. There are no sacred Sundays or holy Fridays book-ending an otherwise secular week. The divine is ambient, constant, woven into kinship, agriculture, birth, naming, initiation, marriage, and death. This totality of religious consciousness is not superstition, it is a philosophical system of profound sophistication, one that simply does not announce itself in the vocabulary Western thought would recognise.
When Christian missionaries and Islamic scholars arrived on the continent, they did not arrive into a spiritual void. Africa was already. African traditional religions have neither founders nor reformers, no written scriptures, no formal creeds recited in congregation. But the absence of a text is not the absence of theology, "religion in African societies is written not on paper but in people's hearts, minds, oral history, rituals and religious personages." God was already known across the continent long before a Bible or a Quran crossed the Sahara or arrived by ship. The missionaries did not introduce God to Africa. They introduced their version of God to a continent that had been in conversation with the divine for millennia.
So, when there marauders came to Africa, they forced down Africans’ throats their elite God, and converts were asked to exchange a religion that "occupies the whole person and the whole of his life" for one confined to a building opened once or twice a week. The result was predictable: many Africans absorbed the new faith on the surface while their deeper instincts, fears, and philosophical patterns remained rooted in tradition. This was not hypocrisy. It was the natural resilience of a religious consciousness that had never been taught to compartmentalise the sacred.
African conceptions of God are remarkably consistent: God is eternal, omniscient, self-existent, and morally righteous. God is the source of rain and harvest, of justice and affliction. S/He is not a distant deist's God, but nor is S/He an idol demanding human sacrifice in crude superstition.
The book does have limitations because it was written at the height of modernism (colonialism), which peoples of today may argue it is not practical, but the time setting vindicates the author. A work may not be eternal, but at the height of generational challenges of the time it might shed light to the why the current generations behave how they do or fight what they fight. Postcolonial, neo-colonial, and woke generation standpoints may challenged his framework as still too accommodating of Western theological categories (he was not angry enough), but emotion/anger (to me) is the arbiter of sound intellectual discourses.
This book insists on African interiority. It refuses to let African religion be merely a sociological curiosity or an anthropological artefact. It demands that it be understood as philosophy, as a sustained human attempt to make sense of existence, suffering, community, time, and the divine. So, embrace your interiority; whichever path you take, remember you were born religious, a religion introduced to you to colonise your mind is not the better option when someone else refuses to embrace it.
But for me, my key takeaway was the inevitability of the death of African languages. We are daily reading the eulogy, because "Some of the traditional languages are dying out, partly because the peoples who spoke them may also be dying out, but chiefly because of modern type of education and the drift of population from rural to urban areas." We have to accept the legacy of colonialism—French and English, no matter how much we fight them, that door is closed. Nothing we can do to change that, and one "nobody can take away from us" that legacy. This is not celebrating this inheritance; it is acknowledging the pragmatic, painful reality. It is the "curse of Babel".
Mbiti, a Kenyan theologian who trained at Cambridge and taught at Makerere University in Uganda, wrote this text originally as lectures for his students. That pedagogical origin gives the book a certain clarity and directness: he is not performing for Western academia. He is explaining Africa to Africans, and in doing so, to everyone else. He traces religious systems of nearly a thousand African peoples to argue something radical in its simplicity: that African religion is not a primitive precursor to something more sophisticated. It is a fully formed, deeply coherent engagement with the divine.
Religion in Africa was never a department of life, it was life itself. Traditional religion permeates all aspects of existence, "there is no formal distinction between the sacred and the secular, between the religious and non-religious, between the spiritual and material areas of life." The African carries religion to the farm, to the funeral, to the examination hall. There are no sacred Sundays or holy Fridays book-ending an otherwise secular week. The divine is ambient, constant, woven into kinship, agriculture, birth, naming, initiation, marriage, and death. This totality of religious consciousness is not superstition, it is a philosophical system of profound sophistication, one that simply does not announce itself in the vocabulary Western thought would recognise.
When Christian missionaries and Islamic scholars arrived on the continent, they did not arrive into a spiritual void. Africa was already. African traditional religions have neither founders nor reformers, no written scriptures, no formal creeds recited in congregation. But the absence of a text is not the absence of theology, "religion in African societies is written not on paper but in people's hearts, minds, oral history, rituals and religious personages." God was already known across the continent long before a Bible or a Quran crossed the Sahara or arrived by ship. The missionaries did not introduce God to Africa. They introduced their version of God to a continent that had been in conversation with the divine for millennia.
So, when there marauders came to Africa, they forced down Africans’ throats their elite God, and converts were asked to exchange a religion that "occupies the whole person and the whole of his life" for one confined to a building opened once or twice a week. The result was predictable: many Africans absorbed the new faith on the surface while their deeper instincts, fears, and philosophical patterns remained rooted in tradition. This was not hypocrisy. It was the natural resilience of a religious consciousness that had never been taught to compartmentalise the sacred.
African conceptions of God are remarkably consistent: God is eternal, omniscient, self-existent, and morally righteous. God is the source of rain and harvest, of justice and affliction. S/He is not a distant deist's God, but nor is S/He an idol demanding human sacrifice in crude superstition.
The book does have limitations because it was written at the height of modernism (colonialism), which peoples of today may argue it is not practical, but the time setting vindicates the author. A work may not be eternal, but at the height of generational challenges of the time it might shed light to the why the current generations behave how they do or fight what they fight. Postcolonial, neo-colonial, and woke generation standpoints may challenged his framework as still too accommodating of Western theological categories (he was not angry enough), but emotion/anger (to me) is the arbiter of sound intellectual discourses.
This book insists on African interiority. It refuses to let African religion be merely a sociological curiosity or an anthropological artefact. It demands that it be understood as philosophy, as a sustained human attempt to make sense of existence, suffering, community, time, and the divine. So, embrace your interiority; whichever path you take, remember you were born religious, a religion introduced to you to colonise your mind is not the better option when someone else refuses to embrace it.
May 9, 2011
It is relatively old but the concepts are interesting. You think in terms of universal acceptance of ideas.
Read
February 17, 2012I read this book many years ago. I think it's time for a re-read.
January 19, 2026
“African Religions & Philosophy” by John S. Mbiti is a foundational and deeply illuminating work that restores African thought to its rightful intellectual and spiritual place. Mbiti writes with clarity and reverence, articulating African worldviews, concepts of time, community, God, and morality with dignity and depth. While parts feel dated and occasionally generalised, the book remains essential reading for understanding African philosophy on its own terms, not as an appendix to Western thought but as a complete, coherent system. A grounding, important text that still speaks powerfully today.
February 1, 2026
Read this cause of @hotliterati’s video on the Zamani and Sasa concepts of time. Zamani is the endless past and Sasa is the present. Even those who have died are still in the Sasa as long as they are remembered by their families. Tbh it was too textbooky for me, but super interesting to learn about the different traditions of African tribes. I did quit this at like 80% finished.
September 4, 2018
I read this book not to refute what beliefs I disagreed with, but to enhance my understanding of the West African mindset -the traditional beliefs mindset. As a missionary to W. Africa, this was a good, helpful book.
November 3, 2017
i want to start reading the book now, where do i start?
September 6, 2018
One of the greatest concise histories of African philosophy ever published.
March 26, 2020
Good presentation of African religious life
February 28, 2023
do olimpiady :) poszerza światopogląd mocno, ogólnie afryka jest serio ciekawa
November 30, 2023
absolutely amazing. read this for my history module, and it just so happened to help me out with my philosophy class as well :)
May 28, 2025
Níveis colossais de informação. Muito giro e interessante!!
September 29, 2024
It's amazing to consider how much ground Mbiti covers in this. It's hard to take the universal claims at face value - though he does much to show contrasts, he is also keen to draw common threads. Critics have argued that he uses foreign concepts for analysis, which may be fair, but is it clear that there is a universal concept indigenous to "Africa" as a whole which he might use instead?
A starting point, then, might be all it can be. Which isn't a bad thing, provided you don't take it as a final word.
A starting point, then, might be all it can be. Which isn't a bad thing, provided you don't take it as a final word.
February 5, 2024
It was OK. The book discusses that African's religion was their whole life (how they lived). It seems like everything they did was to be in alignment with their religions. The book talks about how well the family of different tribes worked when they followed their own form of religion. I think that I grew in compassion because I stopped judging their rituals half way through the book.
December 5, 2008
Obviously very outdated, as it uses terms that are no longer politically correct, which begs the question of whether or not the practices recorded are still used today. Interesting book nonetheless.
January 21, 2024
świetnie napisany i pełen informacji przekrój afrykańskiej religii i filozofii, szczególnie tradycyjnej, ułożony w sensowny sposób jak na obszerną treść. dla wszystkich zainteresowanych tematem, z pewnością warte polecenia.
June 9, 2009
Some gems of insight into the "African psyche" amid a rough of labored (and therefore boring) description. Tried to power through, but couldn't quite finish.
May 19, 2011
The classic on the topic, written by an African. Very in depth and informative and insightful. Covers a lot of ground and compares the commonalities, while also noting differences.
March 25, 2013
Outdated and parts are clearly influenced by Christianity, but expansive and informative
January 19, 2016
Another book I had to read for one of my classes. Again it was just not my type of book so I did not get any enjoyment out of reading it.
Want to Read
November 25, 2016good
October 18, 2008
The foundation for any understanding of the African (Ancient) Worldview
Read
December 18, 2017open mind...........................
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews