religion is often spoken of in hushed tones, as if it were some timeless, immovable force that simply exists. but let’s be honest—religion has never been neutral. it has never been outside the push and pull of history, outside the dynamics of conquest, resistance, and survival. religion is, and has always been, a battlefield. not a battlefield of gods and devils, but of people, institutions, and power.
from the moment belief systems started shaping communities, religion was never just about faith. it was about authority. it was about who gets to decide what is sacred, who gets to interpret the divine, and who benefits from these interpretations. and nowhere is this clearer than in the long and tangled relationship between religion, colonialism, and empire.
belief as conquest, conquest as belief
history does not lack irony, and nowhere is this clearer than in the fact that the world’s dominant religions—those that eventually draped themselves in imperial robes—started as radical, almost anti-imperial movements. judaism was a response to exile and oppression. christianity was forged in the shadow of roman occupation. islam emerged in a fractured arabia, where regional powers pulled the peninsula’s tribes into their geopolitical games. all three, in their infancy, resisted empire.
but resistance has a funny way of turning into domination. over time, the same ideologies that defied imperial power became the scaffolding upon which new empires were built. monotheism, with its claim to universal truth, became the perfect ideological vehicle for empire. if there is one god, one ultimate truth, then there must also be one rightful order to the world. and that order, conveniently enough, was often enforced by kings, caliphs, popes, and sultans, each claiming divine mandate.
monotheism did not create empire, but it certainly gave it a sense of inevitability. in europe, christianity became the justification for crusades, conquests, and colonial “civilizing missions.” in the islamic world, the spread of religious rule often rode on the back of territorial expansion. belief was no longer just personal—it was geopolitical.
but not all societies played this game. in much of africa, pre-colonial religious traditions resisted the very premise of religious universality. gods were local. spirits were communal. belief systems were tied to the land, to specific rivers, forests, and ancestors. the idea that one god, one truth, should dominate all others was alien.
and yet, history rarely respects boundaries. when monotheism met the diverse spiritual landscapes of africa, it did not ask for permission.
when religion meets colonialism, who converts whom?
colonialism did not just conquer land. it conquered meaning. when european missionaries and muslim traders moved through africa, they did not merely bring new religious ideas—they brought entire frameworks of understanding. they sought not just to replace gods but to redefine what religion even was.
this was not a one-way process. african societies adapted, resisted, and reinterpreted. in many cases, islam spread not by the sword but by trade, gradually woven into the existing power structures of local polities. christianity, too, found its way into elite circles, sometimes as a political tool rather than a theological conviction.
but let’s be clear: religion was never just about belief. in the colonial world, it became a technology of control. missionaries were often the soft power of empire, preparing the ground for economic and military domination. christianization, in many cases, functioned as a prelude to colonization—an ideological justification for the political and economic subjugation that followed.
but this does not mean religion was simply imposed. conversion is never a clean process. african communities did not simply abandon their spiritual traditions; they hybridized, reconfigured, and, at times, used the tools of the colonizer against them. the blending of christianity with african spiritual traditions created new, syncretic forms of faith that challenged both european authority and indigenous hierarchies.
this is why talking about religious conversion as a simple act of submission misses the point. conversion is always a negotiation of power. and in these negotiations, africans were rarely passive.
the enslaved and the sacred: religion as resistance
nowhere was this struggle more evident than in the transatlantic slave trade. africans were not just stolen from their land—they were torn from their spiritual worlds. yet, despite every attempt to erase indigenous belief systems, african religious traditions survived, transformed, and, in many cases, became instruments of rebellion.
in the americas, enslaved africans carried their gods with them, even when forced to kneel before christian altars. vodou in haiti, santería in cuba, candomblé in brazil—all these traditions bear witness to a defiant synthesis of old and new. in some cases, christianity itself was reinterpreted as a language of liberation, its figures and symbols repurposed to fit african cosmologies.
this is why every discussion about african religious history must acknowledge this fundamental reality: religion, in the hands of the oppressed, has always been a double-edged sword. it could be used as a tool of control, yes. but it could also be a weapon of defiance.
the haitian revolution—one of the most successful slave revolts in history—was deeply rooted in vodou. the same christianity that justified slavery also inspired figures like nat turner to take up arms. african islam, in some cases, provided the theological justification for resistance against colonial rule.
power does not just flow in one direction. neither does belief.
what comes after belief?
fast forward to today, and we find ourselves in a world where the battlefields of faith look different but the stakes remain high. in postcolonial africa, religious identity is still deeply intertwined with political power. christianity and islam continue to shape social and economic landscapes, often in ways that mirror the colonial hierarchies they once helped enforce.
meanwhile, traditional african religions, long dismissed as relics of the past, are experiencing a resurgence. in some cases, this revival is framed as a reclamation of cultural identity. in others, it is a direct challenge to the ideological dominance of imported faiths.
but here’s the real question: what does it mean to decolonize belief? does it mean returning to precolonial traditions? does it mean reshaping christianity and islam into truly african expressions? or does it mean abandoning religion altogether, rejecting not just the colonial legacies but the very structures of power that religion has always served?
there are no easy answers. but one thing is clear—religion, in all its forms, remains a site of struggle. and in that struggle, the real question is not just who believes what but who controls belief itself.
because at the end of the day, religion has never just been about gods. it has always been about power.
references and for deep reading:
- Mudimbe, V. Y. (1988).The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge. Indiana University Press.
- This work examines how Western colonialism shaped African knowledge and belief systems, particularly how Christianity was utilized as a tool of domination by colonial administrations.
- Mbembe, A. (2001).On the Postcolony. University of California Press.
- Achille Mbembe discusses the dynamics of power in postcolonial Africa, analyzing how religion functions both as a mechanism of oppression and as a site of resistance, shaping modern African political and social structures.
- Comaroff, J., & Comaroff, J. (1991).Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa. University of Chicago Press.
- This book provides an in-depth analysis of how Christian missionary work in South Africa was used as a tool for sociopolitical transformation and how religion was strategically employed by colonial regimes to legitimize their rule.
