Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka says he prefers traditional Orisa worshipping to Christianity & Islam because it fascinated him more.
Soyinka said this in an interview with CNN’s Larry Madowo where he further explained that the deepness of faith in Islam and Christianity doesn’t match that of Orisa worshipping for him.
According to him, Orisa worshipping eschews violence and is more creative. “I was fortunate to be born in two worlds – the Christian world & traditional Orisa worshippers.
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My grandfather, until he – poor man – also got converted – he was an Orisa person & a chief, and his (grandfather’s) side (of Orisa) fascinated me a lot more. For me, it (Orisa worshipping) was more artistic, creative adnalso more mysterious.
I don’t find much of the mysterious in Christianity and even less in Islam and that is for a simple reason that I didn’t grow up in a Muslim environment. Orisa is open, and very ecumenical and that is why these foreign religions were able to penetrate it and even distort the truth.