Rewriting Colonial Legacies: Indigenous Religion, Christianity and Embattled Gods in Nigerian Literature

The modern history of religion, and the study thereof, in much of Africa, and specifically in Nigeria, has been defined by the colonial encounter and subsequent clashes between indigenous religions and missionary Christianity. This history continues to shape the trajectory of the study of religion in Africa, as well as the development of the relationship between Christianity and indigenous religious traditions. Instead of revisiting this history as such, this article focuses on Nigerian literature. Discussing selected novels by Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Okey Ndibe, respectively, it argues that these texts are devices through which literary writers – as social and religious thinkers – have reckoned with the colonial past of religion, specifically the relationship between Christianity and indigenous religions, and its ongoing legacies. Doing so, the article foregrounds literary writing as an important methodological and pedagogical resource for the study of religion, in Africa and more generally, and it explores how selected Nigerian literary texts offer insight into the ongoing debates about decolonising religious studies.