Although Christianity has spread widely across sub-Saharan Africa, traditional religious beliefs remain central to social, economic, and political life. Scholarship and first-hand experiences suggest that Christianity’s belief in a universal god – meaning the same god and path to salvation for everyone in the world – has contributed to the stigmatization of traditional African religions. We examine this empirically in northern DRC. A census of churches and sermons shows that traditional religion is frequently mentioned and almost always negatively. Lab-in-the-field experiments reveal that individuals identified as traditional believers are treated less prosocially. This behavior is supported by antisocial norms and negative stereotypes specific to traditional religion. These antisocial consequences are unique to traditional religion, are present in all segments of our sample, and intensify with better economic development. Using survey data from across Africa we find results consistent with our experimental findings from the DRC. Finally, in both our DRC experiments and in our cross-Africa surveys, we find that the effects we uncover are systematically stronger in areas with more early Christian missionary activity. Together, the findings demonstrate how adopting a universal religion like Christianity can foster prejudice and mistreatment toward adherents of traditional beliefs.

Written with Etienne Le Rossignol and Nathan Nunn