Our topic last week, this week, and next week, the 18th of June is about the Church and African spirituality. The first issue that came up last week was ‘how do we define African Spirituality. To answer that question, let us first answer the question, ‘what is spirituality?’

Spirituality is our relationship with God.

It is from that definition that we are able to answer the question, what is African spirituality. African spirituality is about how Africans related to God before Christianity came. Now, when I asked someone what first came to mind when they hear the words ‘African spirituality’ they said correctly and without losing a single beat, ‘ancestral worship’. That was a very accurate answer indeed, and that is the right place to start our discussion.

Our worldview of God as Africans, especially among the Bantus, was of a God who created everything, sitting at the apex of a pyramid-like power structure of lesser gods. At the base of our pyramid were our recently dead ancestors, people we knew but were now dead. These were the dead ancestors we turned to first when we had a problem. Africans did not seem to have a daily prayer routine such as what we have under Christianity. We only sought God when we had a problem. In these cases, we went to a traditional healer and they in turn would consult ancestors. Individual family groups could consult these spirit guardians on their own without involving the traditional, and in these cases, we simply told them what our issues were and asked them to pass our request on to the other elders up the family ladder of authority until the problem was resolved.

Our view of God the Creator was that he was too busy dealing with bigger and more important issues to deal directly with our individual problems. We, therefore expected these lesser gods to deal with our problems. Only when they failed would our petition ever reach God the Creator.

Christianity replaces the African view of God being insulated from us by this system of lesser gods with its view that God is omnipresent [present everywhere at the same time]. In the African belief system, God monitors what we do through this system of lesser gods, starting with our recently dead such as a grandmother, grandfather, and so on. In this system, if a person died without a child, they were excluded from the ranks of lesser gods, for the status of ‘spirit elder’ bestowed upon the individual, a responsibility to take care of those they left behind, which meant one’s children and grandchildren, etc. Within the spirit world, one deferred decisions dealing with these matters to their own father and/or mother they could not deal with the issue referred to them by the living. The problem would in turn be referred to the next higher rank until solved.

There was a lot of ritual and ceremony too in this system. We had to keep our dead ancestors happy because when we ignored or made them unhappy, they were capable of causing us all sorts of misfortunes, including sickness, accidents, and even death. Libations and sacrifices were one way we kept our ancestors content because when we failed to do so, one never knew they would react. That was one reason they were feared and in a way, continued to influence our lives. This connection to dead ancestors is still with us today.

Even though many of us have joined the church, when things get bad, some of us have a tendency to run back to the sangomas, n’gangas, spiritual mediums, and the like for help.

If we confine ourselves for now to these four elements, we can see that like Christianity, we believed in the existence of spirits, even though our relationship with these spirits might be different.

In Christianity, veneration of the dead is not accepted, at least not in the sense that they should be worshipped or that we should worship God through our dead ancestors. But even here, we need to clarify something. Our traditional worldview of God was that God the Creator was too busy dealing with everything else to attend to our personal issues. We, therefore, sent petitions through our dead ancestors [lesser gods] who had the power to deal with and resolve these issues.

Where these lesser gods could not resolve the matter, they simply escalated the request up the ladder in this pyramid-like structure of lesser gods at the bottom until the petition reached God the Creator at the top. He sat at the top (Apex) of the pyramid.

Magic

Number (3) is about the use of magic. In African culture, there are two primary issues that need to be identified first related to the word magic before we can hope to make sense of what lies ahead. First, the term traditional healer encompasses many sub-groups under it hu\

such as the medicine-man (herbalist), the divinator, the rainmaker, and the priest magician, among others. Secondly, they all involve consulting ancestral spirits, and in the African mind, consulting ancestors is the same as communicating with God. These areas have a common source and it is impossible to separate them. They are inextricably intertwined.

The key issue for the Christian, therefore remains whether the Christian God is the same God as the African God, a question no one can answer. That seems to be a reason many Africans who have come to Jesus try to put distance between their Christian God and the African God, whom they reject to a great extent. The Christian God is a jealous God who does not tolerate any other gods, while African God makes no such distinction. He will give his chosen few the power to do both good and do harm; the choice is left to the chosen few, how they will use the power they have been given.

Number (4), is about healing and the use of African traditional medicines. This still exists in the sense that even among Christians, healing by sangomas is still in evidence. The reason traditional healing remains suspect among Christians is it involves God, ancestral spirits, and the universe. In mixing herbs, the traditional healer consults God, and typically, Africans consult God through their dead ancestors. So the issue for the Christian is which God provides these revelations to the herbalist; God the Creator or the god of the other kingdoms.

In Zimbabwe, South Africa, and other places in Africa, we see the emergence of the “Madzibaba” religious cults [Apostolic Faith] as a very potent religious force in these countries and this will be the subject of our Bible study next week on Saturday the 18^th of June 2022. Some of these Madzibabas heal in the name of Jesus, and we learn from Luke 9:49 that any healing in the name of Jesus is okay. Scripture tells us one of the Apostles said to Jesus, “Master,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him because he is not one of us.” “Do not stop him,” Jesus said, “for whoever is not against you is for you.”

Elsewhere in the Bible Jesus says, however, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and, in your name, perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!”

Some of these religious groups claim to heal in the name Jesus. Their work against witchcraft attacks seems more effective than the church and because of this, they have been gaining a lot of traction. In places like Zimbabwe, they have become very visible and have growing influence over government. The afflicted now go to them for help because of their ability to deal with both the physical, the emotional and the spiritual.