PROBING THE ENVIRONMENT’S WELLBEING THROUGH RELIGIONS IN AFRICA: A NEED OF NOW

Abstract

Environmental degradation, pollution, climate change, and deforestation are global challenges of critical concern today. This work tasks itself with finding religion’s carriage for the environment’s welfare as African culture. Mainly, modernity risk rolling-away reverence for special and herbaceous trees, bushes, valleys, hills, or rivers having religious connotations. Truly, modernity, scientific and technological revolutions may be striking, but no less remarkable and important are the devastating reactionary effects which such radical revolution blows on humans, societies and culture. Unfortunately, the true nature of religion is being overlooked by society and by antagonists who consider it anachronistic. The most worrisome aspect is understanding the culture meant to shape practices that may enhance and ensure proper environmental health. So, pollutions invariably orchestrated by negligence, has attracted research aimed at achieving the good aim of proffering some solution. Without minding, there can hardly be a compromise between religion and science as a present day influence; however, religion is still an outstanding factor of reality, retaining positive impacts even in the face of global warming and climatic change with other environmental issues amenable via religion. The African cosmology of ‘the spiritual controls the physical’ notwithstanding, humanity on the other hand, occupies the centre of many activities which include environmental wellbeing. This qualitative methodology study of religion’s reality for African environment-wellbeing remained multi-dimensional from the phenomenological approach. It recommended a necessary change of attitude, divorcing over-dose of environmental selfishness, for, complete obedience to religious environmental virtues as solution to many global problems.