The commonality of knowledge of God in Africa means the African world view is primarily theocentric, and that defines the African’s interaction with the world of spirits, nature, and humanity.

Notwithstanding the diversity of ethnic groups across Africa, with their varying religious practices, scholars have nonetheless distilled common features that lend themselves to a description of what African Traditional Religion (ATR) is.

Beyers, J. (What is religion? An African understanding. 2010) quotes the opinion of Ghanaian scholar, Opoku, K.A. (African Traditional Religion: An enduring heritage. Religious plurality in Africa: Essays in honour of John S. Mbiti, 1993), who says:

African traditional religion … is part of the religious heritage of humankind. Born out of the experience and deep reflection of our African forebears, it provides answers to the stirring of the human spirit and elaborates on the profundity of the experience of the divine-human encounter based on the resources of Africa’s own cultural heritage and insight.

The African ontology (concept of Beings and their characteristics) has God at the apex of spirits. Next to God are deities (abosom) controlling oceans, forests, land, air and other natural creations, and worshipped accordingly.

Next in line are the ancestors (nananom nsamanfo); the last are spiritual forces, charms and magic.

View

Within the world view of the African, God is both immanent in his creation, and also transcendent; that is, God has energised the whole of creation with his spirit and determined the life of all created things; but, as spirit, he is also beyond his creation and dwells in an invisible realm.

Africans see God as the giver of morality through natural, self-recognisable laws. Whatever rituals exist in any African society are meant to achieve an open thoroughfare between the visible world of man and the invisible world of God, ancestors and other spirits.

According to one of Africa’s foremost scholars, J. S. Mbiti (African Religions and Philosophy), and cited by Beyers J., the idea of redemption, or salvation from “sin” is not part of the African outlook on life and God; that is to say, God is not a Redeemer in African theology; on the contrary, God is seen as a Provider who must be worshipped and appreciated for a continuance of his providence in life.

Naturally, the African religion is orally transmitted, so that one cannot lay hands on a book that documents the experiences and the laws of the interactive relationship with God, the spirit world, and nature, as it prevails in the Judeo-Christian Bible.

A principal element in African religious thought is the veneration of ancestors. To be an ancestor, one must have lived into ripe, old age, and must have lived an honourable life, and died a natural death: not through sickness, murder, suicide or premature death.

In his essay: “Religion in the Ghanaian Society” (1963), J.B. Danquah wrote that “ancestors act as friends at the court to intervene between man and the Supreme Being and to get prayers and petitions answered more quickly and effectively.”

This simply means ancestors are conceived as intermediaries between man and God. And it is so, because ancestors emerge from the family; they know their lineage, and the lineage knows their forebears. As spirits, they are deemed to have powers to confer blessings and to punish; besides, they also protect the family.

Adetoyese, J. O. (The present state of African religion), cited by Nana Osei Bonsu (African Traditional Religion: An Examination of Terminologies Used for Describing the Indigenous Faith of African People, Using an Afrocentric Paradigm), states that: “ancestors are regarded as spirits in the sense that they are no longer visible.

But they are not spirits in the sense that they are like Divinities or God. Thus African people distinguish between ancestors, divinities and God”.

This distinction is necessary to show Africans do not substitute God with ancestors, who, in their humanity, died in sin, even though we venerate them. In Ghana, the stool symbolises the presence of the ancestors.

ATR

What does African Traditional Religion (ATR) say about the human? For an answer let’s consider what pertains in Ghana. Writes Robert Owusu Agyarko (God of life: Rethinking the Akan Christian concept of God in the light of the ecological crisis):

According to traditional Akan anthropology, all human beings receive okra and sunsum from the supreme being, while ntoro is derived from the biological father and mogya from the biological mother.

“Ntoro” is regarded as more spiritual in nature, a being that originates from God. From the myth of the first ntoro ever bestowed upon the akan – the “Bosommuru ntoro” – it can be deduced that ntoro, although genetically associated with human fatherhood, is a spiritual entity that originated from God.

The activities attributed to ntoro and sunsum sometimes overlap. But the distinction between the two gains weight on the basis of the Akan belief that the three, okra, sunsum, and ntoro, share information and interact in distinct ways. There is no subordination among them.

These three vital forces – together with mogya, which is purely physical – constitute being human.

It is ironic that whereas the Akan conceives the person as a spiritual being, by virtue of possessing okra (soul) and sunsum (spirit), in the same breath, Owusu asserts that “human as well as non-human forms of life are not regarded as divine (although there are also lesser divinities), only as embodying sparks of the divine.”

Divinity

Contrary to the Akan (Ghanaian) view of the human, the divinity of man was accentuated by Jesus Christ, when he declared that the kingdom of God was within us (man). And his gospel was to lead us into the discovery of this kingdom within us.

We could pardon the Akan (Ghanaian) for not knowing this, because it came through Christianity.

We could ask: If the Akan (Ghanaian) knew man had the divine spark within him, by what means was this to be developed for man to be a luminous being?

Now, the interpolation of Christianity into the world of ATR arises from the conflation of Christianity with that of indigenous African religion, and its spread through the formal educational system.

As Yaw Sarkodie Agyeman noted in his paper: African Traditional Religion in Contemporary Africa: The Case of Ghana), “the realities of globalisation, (mean) no religion can claim to be without the slightest influence of those it has come into contact with.”

For me, the conflation of Christianity with that of ATR means ATR’s knowledge of God has been enlarged to provide a historical and more comprehensive ontological understanding of God, and the place of man in the scheme of things.

For example, ATR does not adequately encompass the breadth of knowledge evident in Christianity, as evident in no reference made to the eschatological (end-times) redemption of humanity before the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Unlike the orally transmitted knowledge of ATR, the Christian knowledge has been documented in the Bible, as a reference book, and the formulae for man’s earthly and spiritual transformation and progress have been made open in the Bible.

According to him, Jesus Christ, unlike what many believers know, didn’t die.

He explained that, Christ married Mary Magdalene and lived on earth until he was around 120 years before his demise.

He went ahead to say that Jesus Christ has descendants in South of France in modern day.

Christians say Jesus died for our sins. Who did he die for? I don’t believe that. He lived for 120 years, and he married Mary Magdalene. He had kids and his descendants are in the South of France, he said.

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For 1,000 years, pilgrims have headed to Fécamp abbey in Normandy to worship the “Precious Blood of Christ.”

Six weeks later, a Dutch art sleuth has described how the relics were handed over to him in an elaborate operation.

Arthur Brand says he will now give them to police to return them to the abbey.

“Seven to eight per cent of stolen art is returned and much of it is destroyed. In this case, I think the thief had no idea what it was,” he told the BBC.

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The relics were stolen late at night on 1 June from the sacristy at Fécamp, north-east of the port of Le Havre. The thief is believed to have been locked in the building overnight and there was little security at the time.

The relics contained two lead vials which, according to legend, were thrown into the sea in a trunk and washed ashore at Fécamp. As well as the lead bulbs, a number of liturgical dishes and other objects were stolen.

Mr Brand, who is widely known for his work in tracking down stolen art and artefacts, described how he was contacted by email by someone who revealed the relics had been stored at the home of a friend of the thief.

When the friend realised what it was, he then passed it on to the person who emailed the Dutch art detective, who suggested that they leave it on his doorstep and ring the doorbell.

Returning it direct to the abbey ran the risk of arrest, Mr Brand explained.

Le Havre Bishop Jean-Luc Brunin said at the time that it was an unbearable attack on people’s faith and part of a tradition that stretched back until the 12th Century.

The theft took place less than two weeks before an annual Mass celebrating the “Precious blood” relic that dates back to the Middle Ages.

“A couple of days later, at 10:30 in the evening, the doorbell rang. I looked from my balcony outside and in the dark I saw a box. I ran down the stairs, afraid that someone would take the box. Outside I looked around, but there was no-one there,” said Mr Brand.

As a Catholic himself, he said he could not believe the beauty of the relics, describing the moment he opened the box containing them as an “authentic, religious experience”.

He said he would hand the relics over to Dutch police on Tuesday and they would be responsible for returning them to the abbey at Fécamp.

According to him, though he is a true believer of Jesus Christ he is not a Christian.

I am a true believer of Christ but I am not a Christian. Everyone can be a Christian but a believer has the Holy Spirit… I don’t mention God, I only mention Christ Jesus…, he said in an interview on TVXYZ.

The Our Money hitmaker, who is known for dropping songs to tackle socio-political happenings in the country, further explained that, a lot of Christians misunderstand the concept of Trinity.

I don’t use God… I use Christ Jesus… Which father? It is the same Jesus Christ. Are you saying there are three thrones in Heaven? It is only one and it is Jesus sitting on it… He is just one person…, he said.

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Explaining further, Sidney said: Before, Jesus used to deal with us directly and it didn’t help so he came down in a form of flesh and he left when he was done with his work – leaving the Holy Spirit to operate.

According to Sidney, he was preached to and convinced by her spiritual mother, Prophetess Barbara Amoako, the leader of Thank God for Christ Prayer Ministry.

He, however, mentioned the founder and leader of the Parliament Chapel International formerly Freedom Chapel as his spiritual father who guides him whenever the time is apt.

I say Jesus because the Bible says no one goes to the father except through him. Have you heard someone mention God when an accident is about to happen? Now we are all left with the Holy Spirit…, he said.

“People are saying Jesus is God”, Mr Ambolley complained to Class FM Saturday, 30 November 2019, explaining: “It’s like this formation of the white people that has been brought to us but we mustn’t forget that all of us went through the missionary schools; all the schools that we went to, Anglican, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, all were established by the missionaries, so, they taught us what they wanted us to know”.

Asked by the host if he believed Jesus is God, Ambolley said: “I believe in being truthful to myself, I believe that I cannot say Jesus is God or if I want to pray to the creator, I have to pray to the creator through Jesus”.

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He explained further: “It’s just like [being in] a family that you’re not at peace with your father, so, if you want anything from your father, maybe you pass through your brother or you pass through your sister because you can’t go straight to your father because of your misbehaving, so, now you want to use somebody” to get through to your father.

“Me, if I want anything, I go straight to my creator, I’m never going to go through Jesus; for what?” he asked, adding: “Before I came into this world, everything was in order; when I leave this world, the order is still going to be the same, I’m not going to say somebody has come so [I have to pray through him] because I see Jesus as a teacher; a teacher that he has told you that if you want to go to God, this is the way; he has finished his job”, Ambolley argued.

He, therefore, wondered why people make so much noise about Jesus in churches.

“If you want to have any collaboration with your father, go to your room and speak with your father one-on-one. It’s not that you take a microphone and ‘gbegbegbegbegbe’. Look at where religion is going now. Now people are using religion to make themselves rich and all that; they’ve forgotten that money is not the key”, he said.

The historical evidence for Jesus of Nazareth is both long-established and widespread. Within a few decades of his supposed lifetime, he is mentioned by Jewish and Roman historians, as well as by dozens of Christian writings. Compare that with, for example, King Arthur, who supposedly lived around AD500.

The major historical source for events of that time does not even mention Arthur, and he is first referred to 300 or 400 years after he is supposed to have lived. The evidence for Jesus is not limited to later folklore, as are accounts of Arthur.

What do Christian writings tell us?

The value of this evidence is that it is both early and detailed. The first Christian writings to talk about Jesus are the epistles of St Paul, and scholars agree that the earliest of these letters were written within 25 years of Jesus’s death at the very latest, while the detailed biographical accounts of Jesus in the New Testament gospels date from around 40 years after he died. These all appeared within the lifetimes of numerous eyewitnesses, and provide descriptions that comport with the culture and geography of first-century Palestine. It is also difficult to imagine why Christian writers would invent such a thoroughly Jewish saviour figure in a time and place – under the aegis of the Roman empire – where there was strong suspicion of Judaism.

What did non-Christian authors say about Jesus?

As far as we know, the first author outside the church to mention Jesus is the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who wrote a history of Judaism around AD93. He has two references to Jesus. One of these is controversial because it is thought to be corrupted by Christian scribes (probably turning Josephus’s negative account into a more positive one), but the other is not suspicious – a reference to James, the brother of “Jesus, the so-called Christ”.

About 20 years after Josephus we have the Roman politicians Pliny and Tacitus, who held some of the highest offices of state at the beginning of the second century AD. From Tacitus we learn that Jesus was executed while Pontius Pilate was the Roman prefect in charge of Judaea (AD26-36) and Tiberius was emperor (AD14-37) – reports that fit with the timeframe of the gospels. Pliny contributes the information that, where he was governor in northern Turkey, Christians worshipped Christ as a god. Neither of them liked Christians – Pliny writes of their “pig-headed obstinacy” and Tacitus calls their religion a destructive superstition.

Did ancient writers discuss the existence of Jesus?

Strikingly, there was never any debate in the ancient world about whether Jesus of Nazareth was a historical figure. In the earliest literature of the Jewish Rabbis, Jesus was denounced as the illegitimate child of Mary and a sorcerer. Among pagans, the satirist Lucian and philosopher Celsus dismissed Jesus as a scoundrel, but we know of no one in the ancient world who questioned whether Jesus lived.

How controversial is the existence of Jesus now?

In a recent book, the French philosopher Michel Onfray talks of Jesus as a mere hypothesis, his existence as an idea rather than as a historical figure. About 10 years ago, The Jesus Project was set up in the US; one of its main questions for discussion was that of whether or not Jesus existed. Some authors have even argued that Jesus of Nazareth was doubly non-existent, contending that both Jesus and Nazareth are Christian inventions. It is worth noting, though, that the two mainstream historians who have written most against these hyper sceptical arguments are atheists: Maurice Casey (formerly of Nottingham University) and Bart Ehrman (University of North Carolina). They have issued stinging criticisms of the “Jesus-myth” approach, branding it pseudo-scholarship. Nevertheless, a recent survey discovered that 40% of adults in England did not believe that Jesus was a real historical figure.

Is there any archaeological evidence for Jesus?

Part of the popular confusion around the historicity of Jesus may be caused by peculiar archaeological arguments raised in relation to him. Recently there have been claims that Jesus was a great-grandson of Cleopatra, complete with ancient coins allegedly showing Jesus wearing his crown of thorns. In some circles, there is still interest in the Shroud of Turin, supposedly Jesus’s burial shroud. Pope Benedict XVI stated that it was something that “no human artistry was capable of producing” and an “icon of Holy Saturday”.

It is hard to find historians who regard this material as serious archaeological data, however. The documents produced by Christian, Jewish and Roman writers form the most significant evidence.

These abundant historical references leave us with little reasonable doubt that Jesus lived and died. The more interesting question – which goes beyond history and objective fact – is whether Jesus died and lived.