What are African religions? African Religions: A Very Short Introduction answers this question by examining primarily indigenous religious traditions on the African continent, as well as exploring Christianity and Islam. It focuses on the diversity of ethnic groups, languages, cultures, and worldviews, emphasizing the continent's regional diversity. Olupona examines a wide range of African religious traditions on their own terms and in their social, cultural, and political contexts. For example, the book moves beyond ethnographic descriptions and interpretations of core beliefs and practices to look at how African religion has engaged issues of socioeconomic development and power relations.

Olupona examines the myths and sacred stories about the origins of the universe that define ethnic groups and national identities throughout Africa. He also discusses spiritual agents in the African cosmos such as God, spirits, and ancestors. In addition to myths and deities, Olupona focuses on the people central to African religions, including medicine men and women, rainmakers, witches, magicians, and divine kings, and how they serve as authority figures and intermediaries between the social world and the cosmic realm.

African Religions: A Very Short Introduction discusses a wide variety of religious practices, including music and dance, calendrical rituals and festivals, celebrations for the gods' birthdays, and rituals accompanying stages of life such as birth, puberty, marriage, elderhood, and death. In addition to exploring indigenous religions, Olupona examines the ways Islam and Christianity as outside traditions encountered indigenous African religion. He shows how these incoming faith traditions altered the face and the future of indigenous African religions as well as how indigenous religions shaped two world religions in Africa and the diaspora.

Olupona draws on archaeological and historical sources, as well as ethnographic materials based on fieldwork. He shows that African religions are not static traditions, but have responded to changes within their local communities and to fluxes caused by outside influences, and spread with diaspora and migration.

什么是非洲的宗教？非洲宗教。非常简短的介绍》回答了这个问题，主要研究了非洲大陆的本土宗教传统，并探讨了基督教和伊斯兰教。书中重点介绍了种族群体、语言、文化和世界观的多样性，强调了非洲大陆的区域多样性。奥卢波纳根据各种非洲宗教传统的自身特点，并在其社会、文化和政治背景下进行研究。例如，该书超越了对核心信仰和实践的人种学描述和解释，而是探讨了非洲宗教如何参与社会经济发展和权力关系的问题。

奥卢波纳研究了关于宇宙起源的神话和神圣故事，这些故事界定了整个非洲的民族群体和国家身份。他还讨论了非洲宇宙中的精神媒介，如上帝、神灵和祖先。除了神话和神灵，奥卢波纳还关注非洲宗教的核心人物，包括医士和妇女、造雨者、巫师、魔术师和神王，以及他们如何作为权威人物和社会世界与宇宙领域的中介。

非洲宗教。简要介绍》讨论了各种各样的宗教习俗，包括音乐和舞蹈、历法仪式和节日、神灵生日的庆祝活动，以及伴随生命阶段的仪式，如出生、青春期、婚姻、老年和死亡。除了探索本土宗教，奥卢波纳还研究了伊斯兰教和基督教作为外来传统与非洲本土宗教相遇的方式。他展示了这些传入的信仰传统如何改变了非洲本土宗教的面貌和未来，以及本土宗教如何塑造了非洲和散居地的两种世界宗教。

奥卢波纳借鉴了考古学和历史资料，以及基于实地考察的人种学材料。他表明，非洲宗教并不是静态的传统，而是对当地社区的变化和外部影响造成的变化做出了反应，并随着散居地和移民而传播。