Christianity spread into North Africa through Egypt. There are already more Christians in Africa than any other continent—that’s not going to change soon. In the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 8:26-40), it is documented that a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch, of great authority under Queen Candace of Ethiopia, was converted to the Lord by St. Philip the Apostle and baptized. Editor's Note . Subsequently displaced by Islam in the 7th and 8th centuries, the ancient Coptic and Orthodox churches nevertheless remain active in Egypt, Ethiopia, and Eritrea today. There is a revealing axiom about religious duality in Africa: “Publicly rulers claimed Islam, however, in private feared the fetish” (fetish worship involved attributing supernatural powers … Discusses history, theology, and growth. An overview of Christianity in Africa from its origins to today. Meanwhile, sub-Saharan Africa is expected to become the region with the largest number of Christians – by a wide margin. Europe is the only region where the absolute number of Christians is expected to decline by 2050. To read the original in a PDF format, click here.To receive whole copies of future issues, subscribe here. Sub-Saharan Africa’s share of the global Christian population is forecast to rise from 24% in 2010 to 38% in 2050. Christianity has existed in Africa arguably since a decade after the death of Jesus of Nazareth. Christianity came first to the continent of Africa in the 1st or early 2nd century AD. Christianity in Africa has ancient roots going back nearly twenty centuries. Alexandria had a large Jewish community. The first urban centre of Christianity in Africa was Alexandria in Egypt (Fatokun 2005:358). With strong cultural ties between Roman Judea (Israel) and the Greco-Roman Egypt (a large Jewish population lived in Alexandria, Egypt), Mark the Evangelist established a church in Alexandria as early as 43 CE. This article about Christianity in South Africa today first appeared in the Fall 2016 issue of Providence‘s print edition. Anglicans, Methodists, and Baptists were active in Sierra Leone and, with Presbyterians, in Nigeria, while Methodists also set up … Thereafter, Egypt became a hub for African Christianity, though it was intermittently subject to … Quick Reference. Amongst people subdued by Roman authority in North Africa (Aegyptus, Cyrenaica, Africa, Numidia, and Mauritania) Christianity quickly became a religion of protest—it was a reason for them to ignore the requirement to honor the Roman Emperor through sacrificial ceremonies. The first Europeans arrived on the coast of W. Africa at the end of the 15th cent., but for the most part they were involved in the slave trade rather than in evangelization. The introduction of Christianity in Africa experienced the same social phenomenon and challenge. In the 19th cent. 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