I agree that the Bible is insane but that article in The Independent is deliberately designed to deceive.
Firstly, there is a huge difference between the tone and substance of the Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament is a collection of scribblings by a bunch of genocidal maniacs who worship a psychopathic God whose traditional laws in the Talmud grants them special privilege and powers to deceive, rob and kill non-Jews. It's probably worse than the Koran but fortunately, virtually all Jews consider the old laws to be insane and they are no longer recognised.
Jesus obviously rejected the old Jewish laws and was more of a pacific and less xenophobic personality - there is violence in the New Testament but it is conducted mainly by imaginary characters, and Prots generally reject miracles as a thing of the Biblical past.
The Koran is actually worse than the New Testament in my opinion, but that's hardly the point because the Koran is only a fraction of Islam - the largest texts are the Sunna - the traditions, laws and biography of Mohammed and they are full of violence and oppression - not by imaginary characters - but by alleged human beings - and miracles are absolutely intrinsic to every day life.
This is a problem because it creates a sort of chaotic world view in which killing is considered an appropriate action of perfect human beings.
As for Africa - I wouldn't put all the blame on Christians as there aren't any witches in the New Testament.
Christians should take some of the blame definitely, but the real problem there is Africa's native religion - animism - the Stone Age doctrine that regards the environment - rocks, trees,rivers etc., as living entities.
It's not until you read some of the first-hand accounts of Christian missionaries in the third world that you get some idea of how awful animism was: when a chief died they would bury all his living servants with him, for example.
Of course there is no excuse for any religion today - the sooner it dies out the better.
LC