ARE AFRICAN CHRISTIANS COLONIZED?
There is this growing agreement among religiously disaffected Africans concerning what many perceive to be “non-traditional” religions. Whether Islam or Christianity or whatever (Those two are the main identified culprits), it is believed they are tools of oppression and colonization by foreign powers. Some believe we should “return to our roots”, with a small (yet influential contingent) advocating for worship of our older gods.
Now, I am happy that fellow Africans are becoming at least a bit more informed on religious issues, I think we often rank even worse than the west’s nominal populace on informed religious opinions, however I do think those who advocate for the more extreme “return to roots” ideas to be ill informed on some things.
Focusing on my own religion now, one (very annoying) argument I see implied is that because Christianity was often a vehicle for colonization, it delegitimizes any claim as a true religion, especially one that Africans (or Nigerians, if we want to get more specific about my region of Africa) should follow, therefore we should kick it out and worship our own gods.
I often see this claim made by those who don’t have the faintest idea of Christian history or core beliefs (Which sadly, Churches in Africa have failed to make clear), or even if they do, it is wildly inaccurate and usually just another version of New Atheist propaganda (Which incidentally, is just rehashed Enlightenment era anti-organized religion rhetoric, very ironic that they use the language and ideas of the “colonizers” to advocate for liberation from the “colonizers”).
The way their appeal is often put can make you think that every missionary had an army behind him that technically blackmailed the populace into worshiping Jesus Christ. Of course I won’t deny that missionaries often subsumed their cultural ideas under the Christian label, I mean, who doesn’t? African Christians (again, to be more specific to my region of Africa, Nigerian Christians) believe a lot of cultural ideas under the label of Christian teaching, but that doesn’t affect the core claims of Christianity at all, which is of a Jewish man who lived, died, and rose to everlasting life to save us from sin and death. If you find that ridiculous, fine, but to equate Christianity to western civilization and colonization is a very big error.
Instead of this, I often hear Christian doctrine (or “foreign religion” in general) equated with morality, and traditionalists who retort by saying Traditional African religion is also moral, so asking for Christianity’s use if it is basically a foreign version of what we had already. But Christianity is not morality, and Christian moral teaching on a lot of things are not necessarily unique to it, therefore their point is moot. Christianity is not something with “use”, it is a person we worship, a person we equate with the Most High God many Africans recognize in our own traditions. It is not a foreign god imposed on us, but the revelation of the nature of the creator God whom we already know. It reveals Him as concerned with our affairs, even to the point of taking up our nature to redeem this chaos ridden world.
I believe African Christianity has a long way to go, and I believe we do need to “reclaim our roots” (For Christians in particular, some theological exploration into our various traditions is in order, and some, like John Mbiti, are already doing this, thank God), but a return to the past is not possible, I don’t even think I would want that. The spread of Christianity stopped abominable practices here. Yes, Christians have often failed to live up to their faith, still that doesn’t make the faith false. I believe the Church in Africa has largely failed to make the faith clear, and the result is a lot of disaffected Africans think they are rejecting the church when all they reject is a caricature of the real thing. I hope this trend changes, but I won’t hold my breath.