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Although it is almost universally agreed that he was a Christian, his exact denominational allegiances remain a source of discussion. While some have suggested that he was a Jehovah's Witness, as his first wife, his sister, and many relatives around him identified as such, most believe he was a Methodist. He attended a Methodist church school growing up, and was baptised in a small Methodist stone church in the Eastern Cape village of Qunu.

In his autobiography, "The Long Walk to Freedom" he talked of his early experiences with Christianity, praising its engagements with the society around him: "The Church was as concerned with this world as the next: I saw that virtually all of the achievements of Africans seemed to have come about through the missionary work of the Church."

Consequently, while attending the University of Fort Hare, an elite black university in Alice, Eastern Cape, Mandela became a member of the Students Christian Association and taught Bible classes on Sundays in nearby villages.

Among other factors, it was Mandela's Christianity that steered him away from Communism and the class struggle that was spreading into South Africa in the 1940s. Despite befriending Gaur Redebe and Nat Bregman, prominent Xhosa and Jewish South African communists, he could not reconcile communism's atheistic attitudes with his Christian faith. Also, he felt that the idea of class struggle was misleading, and that South Africa's problems were primarily racial in origin. Although he was impressed that the local communist party saw Europeans, Africans, Indians, and those of mixed heritage all mixing equally, he clearly believed there was another way to go.

It is likely that Mandela's Christian faith influenced his strategy during the more militant portion of his protest against the government, when he co-founded the armed resistance group Umkhonto we Sizwe, or "Spear of the Nation" in English. The targets Mandela chose, and the way in which the group timed its attacks, was a clear message that he intended to target the government, not the civilians it claimed to serve.

Rather than bombing densely populated areas, Mandela instead chose to organise acts of sabotage, the first target being an electricity substation. Later attacks would focus on things like the burning of crops, destruction of government offices, damaging government owned factory machines, and blowing up telephone lines. All of this was done at night, so as to avoid civilian casualties. Although Mandela considered that terrorism might be necessary, he did not want to resort to it until other routes had failed.

During his imprisonment on Robben Island, he continued to attend Sunday services, but also took classes on Islam, in what he called "the University of Robben Island". Prisoners would lecture on their subjects of expertise, and Mandela frequently listened to what other students had to say about communism, Islam, and many other subjects. This led to many impassioned debates, but ultimately they equipped him with a greater level of understanding. He also learned to speak Afrikaans in the hope that he could reach out to the guards and convert them to his cause.

At the moment of his release, Mandela once again remembered the importance of internal renewal ahead of external change. "As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison."