Abstract
Generalfy, Ghanaians are very religious, and religion holds a significant slake in Ghana. The reality of religious pluralism in Ghana dates back to the coming of the colonial masters in the fifteenth century. They came with Christianity to meet the native populace, most of whom already practiced the indigenous African Traditional Religion (ATR),1 In the eighteenth century. Islam joined the two existing religions. Since Ghanaians, like most African peoples, are deeply religious, they gladly embraced these new religions. Competing for adherents has been a common practice ot some Christians and Muslims.2 The ATR. Christianity, and Islam are the main religions practiced in Ghana. Hence it is very common to find people of different faiths coexisting within the same family or community and sharing common public or work places,’’ However. like in some other societies in the world,4 the ‘’misuse” and “misunderstanding” of religion has been a source of conflict in Ghana.
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Notes
Harris Mobjey, The Ghanaian’s Image of the Missionary (Leiden: Brill, 1970), 11.
Nathan Samwini, The Muslim-Resurgence in Ghana since 1950: Its Effects upon Muslims and Muslim-Christian Relations (Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2006), 47
John Paul Ledcrach, Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 1997), 20.
David Little and Scott Appleby, “A Moment of Opportunity? The Promise of Religious Peacebutiding in an Era of Religious and Ethnic Conflicts,1’ in Religion a-nd Peace imild/ing, ed. Harold Coward and Gordon Smith (Albany: State University of New York, 2004), 2.
Hans Rung, Global Responsibility: In Search of a New World Ethic (New York: Crossroad, 1991), 76.
Sandra Greene, Sacred Sites and-the Colonial Encounter: A History of Meaning and Memory in Ghana (Bioomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), 110.
Marleen de Witte, Long Live the Dead!: Changing Funeral Celebrations in Asante Ghana (Amsterdam: Aksant Academic, 2001), 157.
Steven Salm and Toyin Falola, Culture and Customs of Ghana (London: Greenwood, 2002), 56.
Johnson Mbillah, “Inter-Faith Relations and the Quest tor Peace in Africa,” in The Interface between Research and Dialogue: Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa, ed. Klaus Hock (London: Transaction, 2004), 77.
Arthur Bogner, “The Peace Process in the Wake of Ghana’s Northern Conflict: Its Course and Conditions for Success,’1 in Ethnicily, Belonging and Biography: Ethnographical and, Biographical Perspectives, ed. Gabrielle Rosenthal and Arthur Bogner (Berlin: LIT verlag, 2009), 42.
Christian Lund, “‘Bawtai Is Still Volatile’: Kthno-Political Conflict and State Recognition in Northern,” Journal of Modern African Studies 41, no. 4 (2003): 598.
Paul Gifford, Ghana’s New Christianity: Pcntccostalism in a Globalising African Economy (London: C. Hurst, 2004). 22.
Frans Wijsen, Seeds of Conflict in Haven of Peace: From Religious Studies to Interreligious Studies in Africa (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007), 27.
John Pobee, The Anglican Story in Ghana: From Mission Beginnings to Province of Ghana (Accra, Ghana: Amanza, 2009), 316.
Ibid. See also Marianne Moyaert, Fragile Identities: Towards a Theology ofInterreligious Hospitality (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2011), 232–35.
Luc Reycliler, “Researching Violence Prevention and Peace Building,’1 in Multi-disciplinary Perspectives on Peace and Conflict Research: A View from Europe, ed. Francisco Ferrândiz and Antonius Robben (Bilbao, Spain: University of Deusto, 2007), 156.
John Paul Lederach, The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of’Peace (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). 29.
John Paul Lederach, Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 1997). 38.
Mohammed Abu Nimer, “Framework for Normoience and Peacebuild ing in Islam,” in Contemporary Islam: Dynamic, Not Static, ed. Abdul Aziz Said, Mohammed Abu-Nimer, and Meena Sharify-Funk (New York: Routledge, 2006), 149.
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© 2016 Nora Kofognotera Nonterah
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Nonterah, N.K. (2016). The Challenges of Interfaith Relations in Ghana. In: Latinovic, V., Mannion, G., Phan, P.C. (eds) Pathways for Interreligious Dialogue in the Twenty-First Century. Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137507303_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137507303_15
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