To provide youth leaders some thoughts on traditional religions

To provide youth leaders some thoughts on traditional religions.

OVERVIEW

Here are some quotations from the first chapter of John S. Mbiti's African Religions (1969) and Philosophy (1988). Although there has been controversy about this book, his concept of time, and his theology, Mbiti crisply presents some provocative characteristics of traditional beliefs. These should provide good discussion for leaders who want to grapple with this important issue.

GROUP DISCUSSION

Explain in one or two clear sentences your theoretical or experiential agreement or disagreement with each of the following quotations. Your second sentence may state the significance of such a fact to youth ministry.

• "Africans are notoriously religious...Religion permeates into all the departments of life so fully that it is not easy or possible always to isolate it...Because traditional religions permeate all the departments of life, there is no formal distinction between the sacred and the secular, between the religious and non-religious, between the spiritual and the material areas of life. Wherever the African is, there is his religion: he carries it to the fields where he is sowing seeds or harvesting a new crop; he takes it with him to the beer party or to attend a funeral ceremony; and if he is educated, he takes religion with him to the examination room at school or in the university; if he is a politician he takes it to the house of parliament. Although many African languages do not have a word for religion as such, it nevertheless accompanies the individual from long before his birth to long after his physical death. Through modern change these traditional religions cannot remain intact, but they often come to the surface, or people revert to them in secret" (pp. 1-2).
• "We speak of African traditional religions in the plural because there are about one thousand African peoples (tribes), and each has its own religious system" (p. 1).
• "These religions are a reality which calls for academic scrutiny and which must be reckoned with in modern fields of life like economics, politics, education, and Christian or Muslim work. To ignore these traditional beliefs, attitudes and practices can only lead to a lack of understanding of African behavior and problems" (p. 1). (In an additional sentence or two, say why you agree or disagree that youth ministry must pay attention to African traditional religions.)
• My "study covers nearly 300 peoples from all over Africa...In all these societies, without a single exception, people have a notion of God as the Supreme Being" (p. 29).
• "In traditional religions there are no creeds to be recited; instead, the creeds are written in the heart of the individual, and each one is himself a living creed of his own religion...A great number of beliefs and practices are to be found in any African society. These are not, however, formulated into a systematic set of dogmas which a person is expected to accept. People simply assimilate whatever religious ideas and practices are held or observed by their families and their communities" (p. 3).
• "Traditional religions are not primarily for the individual, but for his community of which he is a part" (p. 2).
• "Traditional religions are not universal: they are tribal or national" (p. 2).
• "...there is no conversion from one traditional religion to another...a person has to be born in a particular society in order to assimilate the religious system of the society to which he belongs" (p. 4).
• "Belief in the continuation of life after death is found in all African societies...But this belief does not constitute a hope for a future and better life...life in the hereafter is conceived in materialistic and physical terms. There is neither paradise to be hoped for nor hell to be feared in the hereafter" (p. 5).
• "The question of time is of little or no academic concern to African peoples in their traditional life...time is a two-dimensional phenomemon, with a long past, a present, and virtually no future. The linear concept of time is western thought, with an indefinite past, present and infinitive future, is practically foreign to African thinking" (p. 17).
• "Traditional religions and philosophy are concerned with man in the past and present time. God comes into the picture as an explanation of man's contact with time. There is no messianic hope or apacalyptic vision of God's stepping in at some future moment to bring about a radical reversal of man's normal life" (p. 5).
• "God is not pictured [in traditional religions] in an ethical-spiritual relationship with man. Man's acts of worship and turning to God are pragmatic and utilitarian rather than spiritual and mystical" (p. 5).
• "Unless Christianity and Islam fully occupy the whole person as much as, if not more than, traditional religions do, most converts to these faiths will continue to revert to their old beliefs and practices for perhaps six days a week, and certainly in times of emergency and crisis" (p. 3).

EVALUATION AND FOLLOW-UP

Evaluate this exercise for you personally. How valuable has been the consideration of these ideas about traditional religions-and their implications for youth ministry?

Dean Borgman cCYS