Sierra Leone - Religion
The US government estimated the total population at 5.8 million (July 2015 estimate). According to the 2004 census, the most recent available, 78 percent of the population was Muslim (primarily Sunni), 21 percent Christian, and less than 1 percent in total Bahais, Hindus, Jews, atheists, animists, and practitioners of voodoo and sorcery. Christians include Anglicans, other Protestants, Roman Catholics, Maronite Catholics, Greek Orthodox Christians, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons). Evangelical Christians are a growing minority, drawing members primarily from other Christian groups. The Rastafarian community had approximately 8,000 members. Many individuals combine Islam or Christianity with indigenous religious beliefs.
One such estimate in the mid-1960s put the number of Muslims at 800,000 and that of Christians at 145,000 when the population as a whole was something over 2 million. Islam, which was firmly implanted among most northern groups (with the prominent exception of the Limba), had gained ground throughout the country at the expense of other faiths. Christians, however, because of their early start in modern education, retained an influence far greater than that warranted by their numbers.
Tribes living in the Northern Province, such as the Fullah, Themne, Loko, Madingo, and Susu, are predominantly Muslim. The majority of the Mende, Kono, Kissi, and Sherbro of the South and East Provinces are Christian. Krios live in the western part of Freetown, and are predominantly Christian. The city’s eastern neighborhoods are predominantly Muslim.
Many of those professing to be Muslims or Christians, however, continued to believe in ancestral spirits and witchcraft. Conversely some who made no claim to affiliation with Islam or Christianity had nevertheless been influenced by these religions, and parts of their traditional belief systems had withered. Usually people combined various religious elements without being aware of it.
The popularity of Islam has been attributed to a variety of factors. It is propagated by black Africans, and its adoption represented in the past a gesture of defiance toward the colonial power and — after independence — toward certain aspects of Western culture. Most important, Islam has been in West Africa for over 1,000 years and has been heavily infused with African traits. Prayers, for instance, which go directly to God according to orthodox Islam, are thought to be taken to him by the spirits of ancestors, as in indigenous beliefs. The idea that mere words from the Koran, carried in small leather cases, have magical power parallels the belief in “medicine.”
During more than a century and a half of efforts, Protestants as well as Roman Catholics made comparatively few converts, mainly because directly and indirectly they assaulted indigenous social structures and values. They condemned polygyny, ancestor veneration, membership in secret societies, drinking, and smoking; and they stressed the central position of the individual at the expense of the group. Not surprisingly they made little headway among the majority of Sierra Leoneans, who were living in tightly knit kin groups in rural areas. The missions were only successful, to a point, among towns-men and among those chiefs who welcomed the schools and health centers as modernizing agents, appreciating the missions for their so- cial benefits rather than for their theological message.
Few converts followed Christian prescriptions to the letter. The majority continued to venerate their ancestors and to engage in polygynous marriages. They kept their belief in witchcraft and their membership in secret societies. Some broke away altogether from mission churches and joined African-controlled churches or syncretist movements that fused Christian tenets and traditional religious concepts. One such organization is the God of Our Light Church, founded in Ghana and controlled from there. Another is the Church of the Lord (Aladura), which is indigenous to Nigeria and whose priests are mainly Yoruba. Such churches usually emphasize ecstatic experiences, ritual, and faith healing.
The law continued to prohibit the production, sale, and consumption of marijuana. Rastafarians reported that this prohibition restricted their right to use cannabis as a core component of their religious practices. Members of the Rastafarian community asserted that police regularly harassed and physically abused them for using cannabis. They also stated that the government continued to refuse to recognize Rastafarian title to land the community used to construct and operate its temples.
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