Religion of Cameroon

                     “Cameroon has no official religion. Animists constitute 40 percent of the population, Christians 40 percent, and Muslims 20 percent. In general, Christianity dominates in the south and Islam in the north. The main Christian tribes are the Pahouin, Douala, and Bamileke, while the main Muslim tribes are the Fulani, Koloko, Mousgoum, Mandara, and Bamoun. The Roman Catholic Church has an archbishopric at Yaoundé.”1 

                        The Baha’i Faith was introduced to the country of Cameroon in 1953 by a man from Uganda, Enoch Olinga, who “created the largest Baha’i community in West Africa”. 2 Baha’i spread rapidly in Western Africa and around the world. There were recorded up to 7 million people around the world who were Baha’i, 1 million of them in Africa alone. It was common for practicing Christians to convert to the new religion and all the while work at the Christian mission [“The Basel Mission, [was] the only Christian mission church in the area”] 3 where they had been teaching. “There was an ‘underground movement’ within the Mission which seems to have been made up of men…who had become Baha’is, but who found it difficult to break their ties to the Presbyterian Church, due to employment or other reasons”. 4 Baha’i spread faster than most religions “without the influence of American or Iranian pioneers…the Cameroonians achieved a growth that no other Baha’i community in West Africa could rival”. 5 The Christians did not like the new religion and thought it would be one of the many short term religions which cycled in and out of Africa often since it had the same characteristics. Willis found similarities among the cycle religions: “the arrival of the movement’s representatives, invariably from outside; negotiations with local village headmen who are under pressure to accept the new message; acceptance of the new cult and its cleansing rituals [for example the removal of witchcraft practices]; the conspicuous lack of any formal organizational structure; and, an ability to cross ethnic boundaries and adapt to local cultures. Once the movement had been adopted, ‘a new and morally regenerated life then begins for everyone’”.6 Baha’i promoted the removal of witchcraft practices and did not require the former Christians who were converting to renounce their old religion. It promoted “the unity of humanity and need for the elimination of prejudices of all kinds”.7 Also unlike Christianity and Catholics, it did not require dues to be paid.  Since members of Baha’i became so common most Christians overlooked the differences, because they had friends and family who were now followers. “Georg Troster, a strict Basel missionary” provided reasons people might want to convert to Baha’I: “the attractiveness of the…message” “desire to reject the air of colonial dominance displayed by the Basel missionaries” “spread through family networks…was well thought of even by those who chose not to convert”. 8 Troster was so upset he went out preaching by himself but he needed a translator. He preached out again Baha’i and the translator did not want to be a part of what Troster was saying. (There are speculations for why the translator disagreed with what the he was saying but nothing concrete.) “By 1962 the Baha’i religion had succeeded in planting itself firmly in the British Cameroons and had established a permanent presence there”. 9 

1. George Thomas Kurian “Cameroon: Religions” World Geography and Culture Online, accessed February 3, 2017, Facts On File, Inc.

2. Anthony A. Lee, “Underground Movement in a Missionary Church: The Baha'i Faith in British Cameroons, 1952–1962,” Journal of Religious History 36, no. 4 (December 2012): 4, accessed February 3, 2017, Wiley Online Library. 

3. Anthony A. Lee, “Underground Movement in a Missionary Church: The Baha'i Faith in British Cameroons, 1952–1962,” Journal of Religious History 36, no. 4 (December 2012): 3, accessed February 3, 2017, Wiley Online Library.

4. Anthony A. Lee, “Underground Movement in a Missionary Church: The Baha'i Faith in British Cameroons, 1952–1962,” Journal of Religious History 36, no. 4 (December 2012): 8, accessed February 3, 2017, Wiley Online Library.

5.  Anthony A. Lee, “Underground Movement in a Missionary Church: The Baha'i Faith in British Cameroons, 1952–1962,” Journal of Religious History 36, no. 4 (December 2012): 4, accessed February 3, 2017, Wiley Online Library.

6.  Anthony A. Lee, “Underground Movement in a Missionary Church: The Baha'i Faith in British Cameroons, 1952–1962,” Journal of Religious History 36, no. 4 (December 2012): 11, accessed February 3, 2017, Wiley Online Library.

7. Ibid. Anthony A. Less 

8. Anthony A. Lee, “Underground Movement in a Missionary Church: The Baha'i Faith in British Cameroons, 1952–1962,” Journal of Religious History 36, no. 4 (December 2012): 9, accessed February 3, 2017, Wiley Online Library.

9.  Anthony A. Lee, “Underground Movement in a Missionary Church: The Baha'i Faith in British Cameroons, 1952–1962,” Journal of Religious History 36, no. 4 (December 2012): 13, accessed February 3, 2017, Wiley Online Library.

Kurian, George Thomas, ed. "Cameroon: Religions." World Geography and Culture Online. Accessed February 3, 2017. Facts On File, Inc.

Lee, Anthony A. “Underground Movement in a Missionary Church: The Baha'i Faith in British Cameroons, 1952–1962.” Journal of Religious History 36, no. 4 (December 2012): 577-92. Accessed February 3, 2017. Wiley Online Library.