Traditional African Religions Might be Coming Back

While there are many sites, written and video, about Christians in the U.S. leaving the faith, we don't have a good window into what is happening on other continents, One suggests a movement of young people out of the Christianity forced on ancestors during the slave trade and into traditional African religions. 

In the link are stories of individuals in Africa who asked the local Christian preacher to pray for healing. They did not heal. Then they asked the local shaman to pray and do the rituals that slayed demons. They were healed. Another Christian leaves.

This story was only a reporter's inquiry and was only in Nigeria. The complaints mentioned by Nigerians who left Christianity, or combined it with a native religion, are one heard across Africa and across the world for that matter. It is preachers becoming rich by tearful appeals to the faithful for money.  There are some super rich African evangelists in the poorest of areas. 

From what I can tell, Christian strategists have looked at the huge continent of Africa as a gold mine for hundreds of years. I grew up in a fundamentalist Swedish denomination and there was, and remains, lots of chatter about saving souls on the African continent. Many missionaries train locals in farming and health issues and improve lives in that way. That anyone's life is improved by substituting one invisible god for another is lost on me.

The story about Nigerian Christians leaving was not done by a U.S. or Western European company. It was done by Aljazeera. I'm going to be watching to see if the polling firms here in the U.S. try polling there and what they find.