WHEN I started exploring the theme of African spiritual independence, its full dimensions were not clear to me.
I have literally fumbled (kutsvangadzira) along as the ‘spirit’ has moved me.
All I have been sure of is that as Africans under Western Christian influence, we are not in charge of our own agenda in respect of most aspects of our life.
Our spiritual agenda is particularly compromised.
African Christians live an artificial religious life.
There simply is no connection between the people and the religious life they are supposed to follow.
It is all myth; only by faith do the African Christians continue to cling to the foreign religion brought in by our colonial masters.
And again all benefits only come through faith!
The 10 Commandments are of African origin; there is no problem there.
King Leopold, in his briefing to white missionaries starting off for Africa after the Berlin Conference to partition Africa among European powers, made it clear that Africans already knew God and the laws in the Commandments.
The missionaries’ job was to teach Africans to hate themselves and to look down on their culture.
In this mission the white preachers had a large measure of success.
As Africans we continue to struggle to spruce up our own self-image.
But we know that Africans already had elaborate laws and law courts to deal with all manner of criminal activity in their communities.
I have as yet to come across one sin that became defined as such, after the arrival and ministry of Western churches.
I am saying I am struggling to identify the value that Western Christian teachings added to our existing African religious rules and tenets!
May be some will refer to the trappings of European culture, not substantive religious matters.
Did we get holier on account of all the Christian preaching that has been going on ad infinitum across the continent?
By convincing us Africans that we were inadequate, that we needed a helping hand to stand up and walk, missionaries created a huge ‘spiritual’ business for themselves.
They mobilised the people then as they still do now, to gather in designated places (churches) to receive the teachings of Christ.
The converted and the yet to be converted are all equally ‘dumb’, no offence intended. They never learn anything; their behaviour does not change.
As a result they need to be continuously preached to.
They need to read the scriptures ever so regularly. Those who know about school curricula know that students are required to master a certain body of knowledge so as to reach a certain standard/grade.
At university the standard is a degree.
It may be a Bachelor’s, a Masters or a Doctorate degree.
Upon completion the student graduates and goes out into the world to practice what they have learnt.
Yes periodically refresher courses are in order.
But in terms of Christian religion, however, the students never learn and they never seem to learn or to pass!
They remain in the same class both young and old!
They continue to be held by the hand until they die.
I may sound cynical, but I am simply looking at reality.
Who really needs people to gather every other day for religious services, Bible readings, prayer meetings, revivals and you know what else?
It is the priests.
Even college students often fail to complete course assignments because they have other ‘more important’ assignments from the pastor!
Keeping people locked on Bible study and prayers has become big business.
If our souls need this intensity of tutoring and mentorship then we are just like babies.
And do I hear a pastor respond yes, yes our parishioners are spiritually weak, vulnerable! We need to keep them under close guard so to speak.
We the pastors need to ceaselessly remind the parishioners to steer away from sin!
One can be forgiven for taking it as an insult to treat Africans as dumb little children who cannot look after themselves.
And now you see adult men and women clutching Bibles, huddled in churches, halls and even open spaces, listening to some inspired reverend gentlemen telling them how to live upright lives so as to please God, yes, so that when they die they can enter heaven!
My argument continues to be that as Africans we have our own way of relating to God, Musikavanhu!
We have since time began worshipped and linked with our Creator in meaningful practical ways.
Our link to Mwari Musikavanhu, through our ancestral spirits is most logical and natural.
If God created man in his own image, he created our ancestors or forefathers.
We connect to the Creator through our ancestral line, vadzimu vedu. Surely no one can dispute that or come up with a more logical connection.
So why bother us by denigrating and demonising our natural connection to God, Musikavanhu, calling our ancestral spirits demons. Then are we Africans all demons!
May be that is why these people think they must preach the word to us every day!
What an insult, if you come to think of it!
We have pointed out before that Africans are very spiritual people; I dare say even more spiritual than many other races including Europeans.
The proliferation of new ‘African Churches’ is a manifestation of the spirituality of Africans.
The propensity of thousands of Africans to attend many of these new churches is an indication of their natural spirituality.
Because of Western Christian duplicity, many Africans have discovered that the message in the Western churches is hollow.
The gospel is foreign to African reality.
Because the Western colonial Christian churches had already succeeded in alienating the Africans from their own religion, thousands in urban areas are seeking spiritual connection to their Creator.
Anyone who sounds different, whose religious message is different from the traditional European-founded denomination, will get an audience.
With the economic challenges in Zimbabwe for example, prosperity churches are raking in millions of attendees.
Quick to recognise potential revenue sources, the preachers and prophets invariably ask for donations or tithes.
In the process they convince the desperate Africans that God will increase blessings to those who give generously!
I think here godliness is being compromised.
A colleague told me to leave be!
And so a new Church Movement is borne!
It feeds directly on the intense spirituality of the African people.
As we seek spiritual independence from our erstwhile European colonisers, will these new churches that are essentially disconnected from Europe, provide the African spiritual liberation that we seek? Only time will tell.