Exploring Angola's Spiritual Traditions And Practices

Angola is a secular state that upholds the principle of religious freedom and guarantees its citizens the right to practice their chosen faith. The country is known for its religious diversity, with Christianity being the predominant religion, practised by an estimated 90% of Angolans. The early spread of Christianity in Angola can be attributed to Portuguese colonisation, which began in the 16th century. The largest Christian denomination in Angola is the Roman Catholic Church, with various Protestant denominations, including Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals, and Anglicans, also present in the country. Aside from Christianity, traditional indigenous beliefs, Islam, and other minority religions are also practised in Angola.

The Bahá'í Faith

Bahá'u'lláh taught that there is a single God, and that the world's major religions are successive chapters of one religion from God. Bahá'ís regard the unity of all people as the core teaching of their faith and, as a result, explicitly reject notions of racism, sexism, and nationalism. They strive to establish a unified world order that ensures the prosperity of all nations, races, creeds, and classes.

The Bahá'í calendar is based on the calendar established by the Báb, with 19 months of 19 days each, plus four or five intercalary days, to make a full solar year. Each month is given a name that is an attribute of God, such as Bahá (Splendour), ʻIlm (Knowledge), and Jamál (Beauty). Bahá'ís observe 11 Holy Days throughout the year, with work suspended on nine of these days.

Bahá'ís are expected to follow certain rules regarding personal conduct, including daily prayer and meditation, an annual 19-day fast, specific requirements for burial, and a 19% voluntary payment on wealth in excess of what is necessary to live comfortably. Certain acts are prohibited, including backbiting, gossiping, drinking and selling alcohol, and participation in partisan politics.

Indigenous religions

Angola has as many indigenous religious systems as there are ethnic groups, with each group or section having its own configuration of beliefs, rituals, and organisational principles. However, there are some common patterns among these indigenous religions.

Most traditional African religions in Angola claim the existence of a high god, but the attributes of this deity vary between groups. Some emphasise the high god's role as a creator, while others do not. Typically, specific events in the human world are not explained by reference to this god, nor is a cult addressed to it.

The active entities in indigenous religious systems are ancestral and nature spirits. Ancestral spirits are considered relevant to the welfare of a descent group or its members, and nature spirits are considered relevant to the welfare of a community in a given location. Specific individuals may be directly affected by nature spirits resident in rocks, trees, wind, lightning, or other natural forces.

Ancestral spirits, especially those of the recently deceased, must be honoured with appropriate rituals if they are expected to look favourably on the endeavours of their descendants. These rituals are usually performed by and on behalf of a segment of the group or an individual, rather than by the descent group as a whole.

Nature spirits, meanwhile, are generally not thought to have lived a human existence, but there are exceptions. For example, the spirits of local rulers or others may be detached from specific descent groups or considered to have the characteristics of nature spirits, taking residence in features of the landscape.

The spirits of the ancestors of a kin group are called upon for assistance in economic and social matters, and some misfortunes—such as famine, poor crops, or personal losses—are ascribed to a failure to perform the correct rituals or to having misbehaved. However, not all misfortunes are attributed to ancestral or nature spirits. Many people believe that magical powers inhere in things and that these powers, though usually neutral, may be used malevolently to afflict others or to prevent healing from affliction, particularly in the case of illness and death.

It is also thought that individuals, sometimes unconsciously and without the use of material or technical means, can bring illness or other affliction to human beings. Such persons, usually called witches, are thought to be marked by the presence of a substance in the stomach or other organs. The terms witch and sorcerer are used to distinguish whether the power is inherited or acquired, mystical or technical, used on one's own behalf or on behalf of others, and at a price. However, this distinction is not made in all societies and may be linked to certain features of community social structures and patterns of accusation.

Individual difficulties are attributed to witchcraft, sorcery, or the acts of ancestral or nature spirits. The determination is usually made by a diviner, a specialist whose personal power and use of material objects are held to be generally benevolent. Diviners, widely called kimbanda, may also have extensive knowledge of herbal medicine. The kimbanda is said to have inherited or acquired the ability to communicate with spirits, often following illness and possession by a specific spirit. The proficiency and degree of specialisation of diviners varies, with some dealing only with particular symptoms and others enjoying broad repute across multiple villages or provinces. The greater the reputation of the kimbanda, the more they charge for their services. This widespread term for diviner/healer has entered into local Portuguese, and so central is the role of the kimbanda to the complex of beliefs and practices characterising most indigenous religions that some sources have applied the term kimbandism to indigenous systems when cataloguing Angolan religions.

Islam

Historically, Angola did not have a significant Muslim population. However, during the 21st century, the Muslim community in Angola has grown, particularly during the Angolan Civil War when many Angolans fled to countries with a significant Muslim presence and were exposed to Islam. Despite this growth, the government has not recognised any Muslim groups or issued licenses for them to practice their religion legally or build mosques.

The Association of the Development of Islam in Angola is the primary proselytizing organisation for Muslims in the country. The Muslim Angolans are represented by the Supreme Council of Angolan Muslims of Luanda. While the Angolan Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, the government has been accused of targeting the Muslim community and shutting down mosques.

The spread of Islam in Angola began in the 1990s with immigration from West African countries and Somalia, joining a few established families of Lebanese descent. Some Muslims obtained licenses to build commercial warehouses and then used these sites to construct mosques without obtaining the necessary legal permissions. There are around 69 unregistered mosques in the country.

The government has set stringent criteria for the recognition of religious groups, requiring a minimum of 100,000 members and a presence in at least 12 out of 18 provinces. These requirements have made it challenging for Muslim groups to gain official recognition, and their requests for registration have been deferred or denied.

Despite the challenges faced by the Muslim community in Angola, they continue to practice their faith and play a role in the country's religious landscape.

Christianity

In the 19th century, Protestant missionaries entered Angola. In 1878, the first Protestant missionaries, British Baptists, arrived. The Angola Evangelical Mission was established in Cabinda in 1897, and the North Angola Mission started in Uige in 1925. By the 1960s, there were important Protestant missions in place, which had been active in the country since the late 19th century. Protestant missionaries were teachers, healers, and counsellors, and they worked to learn local languages in order to communicate with those in their mission field and translate the Bible.

In the 1970s, the "Igreja de Nosso Senhor Jesus Cristo no Mundo" (Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the World), an independent Christian sect founded in 1949 by Simão Toko, gained many followers. The government was suspicious of the sect, particularly due to its strong support in Benguela Province, where most residents were Ovimbundu, the principal supporters of UNITA, the political opposition. The Tokoists were involved in riots in the Catete region of Bengo Province and in Luanda in 1986, and they attacked a prison in Luanda in 1987 in an attempt to free fellow believers who had been arrested in the 1986 riots. As a result, the government banned the sect, claiming that its members had used religion to attack the state. However, as part of a general relaxation of its policy on religion, the government softened its position on the sect and declared it a legal religion in March 1988.

Since the end of the civil war in 2002, the religious landscape of Angola has changed significantly, with a rapid growth of charismatic, evangelical, and Pentecostal churches under the influence of Brazilian, Nigerian, and Congolese missionaries. The government has responded with administrative control, co-optation, and instrumentalisation when possible, and restrictions and repression when not.

Religious freedom

Angola's constitution defines the state as secular and prohibits religious discrimination. The constitution provides for freedom of conscience, religion, and worship, and it recognises the right of religious groups to organise and carry out their activities as long as they adhere to the law. The constitution also permits conscientious objection to military service for religious reasons, prohibits questioning individuals about their religious beliefs for reasons other than anonymous statistical purposes, and specifies that the government may not suspend rights related to religion even in a state of war, siege, or emergency.

The law requires religious groups to seek government recognition by meeting legally established criteria, and it allows the government to close the premises of unregistered groups. The constitution requires the state to protect churches and religious groups as long as they comply with the law. The penal code increases penalties for crimes committed because of religion or religious belief, including homicide, verbal or physical assault, discrimination, persecution, defamation, and genocide. Hate speech or inciting hate by other forms of communication based on religious belief is punishable by imprisonment between six months and six years.

Despite the constitutional provisions for freedom of religion, the Angolan government has been accused of suppressing the spread of churches beyond those that are mainstream and controllable. The government has also been criticised for failing to recognise any Muslim groups or issue any licenses to Muslim groups to practice their religion legally or build mosques. In addition, the government has imposed onerous criteria for religious groups to obtain official recognition, which is required for the legal construction of houses of worship. As a result, many Pentecostal churches and all Muslim groups remain unregistered.

The US State Department's 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom: Angola notes that there are 85 recognised religious groups and more than 1,100 unrecognized religious groups in the country. The report also highlights the government's failure to recognise any new religious groups since 2004. The report further mentions that unregistered religious groups face challenges due to the high cost and burden of the notary and residential declaration requirements for registration.

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