Verify Podcast

Hello and welcome back to a brand new season of Verify Podcast! Today’s episode may seem tailor made for our listeners from Africa, but if you’re listening from some other part of the world, I’m quite sure you’ll be able to relate, so please stay tuned.

So I’ve heard professing Christians contemplate on how our indigenous African Traditional Religion was working just fine for us before the Europeans introduced Christianity to the continent. I’ve heard many describe African Christians as illogical and hypocritical for abandoning their own functional religious system, to practice the religion of the colonisers who enslaved our people. I see Christians sharing and promoting these messages, about how we should all return to our religious roots, so I know that it is appealing to a growing number of people.

Let me say first of all, that Christianity is not a European religion! It was not brought to Africa by European colonisers, rather it spread into Africa, less than 50 years after the death of Christ, just as it was spreading to Europe and other parts of the world! Mark, one of the writers of the New Testament, spent many years in Egypt as a missionary, spreading the gospel. Other early African churches were also set up in Ethiopia, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania and Sudan, within a few centuries after the death of Christ, and about a thousand years before the Europeans showed up in Africa. Also, some of the earliest theologians and fathers of the Christian church such as Cyprian of Carthage and Augustine of Hippo, were African! So Christianity was not introduced to Africa by the Europeans.

It’s true that many years down the line, and most unfortunately, Christianity was sometimes used as bait by colonialists, to whitewash and justify the atrocities of imperialism. I will talk more about this in next week’s episode.

But beyond all this, a few weeks ago, I was going through the book of Leviticus. Leviticus gives detailed instructions of how the ancient Israelites were to perform sacrifices to God. It narrates procedures and directives, some, very odd, to be honest. For example, there were specific guidelines on how, and on which parts of the altar, animals were to be dissected for sacrifice. The instructions were numerous and the sacrifices had to be done precisely, or there would be consequences.

I read all these and then it crossed my mind, that these sacrifices and rules described in Leviticus were similar to traditional rites that are still carried out in many parts of Africa, where different deities require different sacrifices, and bringing the wrong sacrifice or what is considered taboo, could result in dire consequences. As I thought of the tediousness of all this, quite honestly, a strong wave of relief washed over me. Relief that I do not have to take animals to a priest; Relief that I can come to God directly; Relief that I do not need to provide my own sacrifice, or shed human or animal blood, to have fellowship and communion with God.

I’m grateful that because of Christ’s sacrifice and His resurrection, ONCE AND FOR ALL, no more blood needs to be shed for protection or salvation, and to me, that is a better option that I would choose all day, every day. It is an option that I could never exchange for any other!

So when next we are challenged about the legitimacy of our lives as African Christians, may God help us to see right through every carnal suggestion. May our faith in the sinless spotless lamb who came to give His life as ransom for many as written in Mark 10:45, remain resolute and unshakeable, in Jesus name, amen!