“A people who have been taught to despise their own spiritual heritage may eventually mistake the rejection of their ancestors for the discovery of truth.”
I have just finished reading Chimamanda Ngozi's Purple Hibiscus and boy, don't I have a lot to say! First, I need a few minutes with Eugene. Because, sir? Anyway, that's a conversation for another day.
But in between my frustration with Eugene Achike, my concern for Kambili, my admiration for Jaja's quiet defiance, Aunty Ifeoma's boldness, Amaka's questioning spirit and Obiora's maturity and the many things that book had me questioning,(and yes, I do read books and analyze them like we're still doing set books 😂) I found myself thinking about something much bigger than the story. Religion.
Now, I am not the most spiritual or religious person, but I find it intriguing to draw parallels between history, culture and religion, especially when you begin to notice how much of what we believe, practise and understand today is connected to the past. And whether we are particularly religious or not, religion is quite literally part of who we are as a society. It has shaped our families, our cultures, our histories and, in many ways, how we see ourselves.
That is what got me thinking about the relationship between colonialism, Christianity and African spirituality.
And before anyone comes for me, this is not an attempt to discredit Christianity or suggest that Africans should abandon their faith. I think it is a conversation worth having, especially at a time when more people are questioning what they were taught, returning to their cultural roots and trying to understand how their religious beliefs fit into their African identities.
That said welcome to Lesson Two of Colonial Shadows.
As I read through Kambili's story (if you have not read Purple Hibiscus, I am dropping spoilers ahead), I kept finding myself thinking about how colonialism influenced not just what we were taught to believe, but how we came to understand God, spirituality and our own cultural identities.
Today, we are talking about the God we were introduced to, the beliefs we inherited and the spiritual identities we are still trying to understand.
The missionary and the cultural bomb
In our previous lesson, we explored Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's idea of the cultural bomb and how colonialism worked beyond the physical occupation of land. It sought to make people lose confidence in their cultures, languages, histories and ways of understanding themselves.
But have we ever considered how religion became part of that process?
Colonialism was never just about taking land and resources. It was also about controlling how people understood the world around them. Christianity became one of the instruments through which European missionaries introduced new systems of belief, morality and social organisation into African communities. In many places, conversion was accompanied by the dismissal of indigenous religious practices, the disruption of sacred spaces and the classification of African spiritual traditions as primitive, pagan or demonic.
The message, whether directly or indirectly communicated, was that if you wanted to be civilised, educated and saved, you needed to abandon certain parts of yourself.
Now, I find this particularly interesting because religion was not something Africa lacked before the arrival of European missionaries. African communities had their own spiritual systems, understandings of God, creation, death, morality and the relationship between the living and the spiritual world. These beliefs were diverse, varying from one community to another, but they were not an absence of religion. They were established ways of understanding and relating to the world.
It is also worth remembering that Christianity did not first arrive in Africa through European colonialism. Christian communities existed in places such as Egypt and Ethiopia long before the colonial period. However, European missionary activity, often intertwined with colonial expansion, had a particularly significant influence on the spread of Christianity in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
Yet, through these colonial encounters, many indigenous practices were presented as evidence of African backwardness. Things that had once been part of everyday life became practices people were encouraged to distance themselves from.
And this is where I want us to pause for a moment. How did we move from having our own spiritual identities to inheriting a religious framework that, in many instances, taught us to reject the very traditions that shaped our ancestors?
What does God look like?
In the book (Purple Hibiscus ) Kambili's imagination of God is painted in the picture of the people who brought Christianity. She tells us:
“Sometimes I imagined God calling me, his rumbling voice British-accented.”
Think about that for a moment. Even her imagination of God had been shaped by the environment she was raised in. She imagined a God who sounded British, one who might even struggle to pronounce her name correctly.
It is such a small detail in the story, but it says so much about how colonial influence can go beyond what we are taught to believe. It can shape what we imagine, what we associate with goodness, holiness, civilisation and even divinity.
We also see this through the contrast between Father Benedict and Father Amadi. Eugene is particularly comfortable with Father Benedict, whose approach to Catholic worship reflects a more European style, with English and Latin taking prominence. Father Amadi, on the other hand, is a young Nigerian priest who incorporates Igbo songs and a more culturally rooted expression of worship into the Mass.
And isn't that interesting? Here we have two Catholic priests, both practising the same religion, but expressing it differently. Yet Eugene is much more comfortable with the version that feels European. He considers Father Benedict more spiritual and is dismissive of the Nigerian priest's approach.
There is another moment in the book that I found particularly interesting. Amaka questions why the church requires her to take an English name for confirmation when her Igbo name, Chiamaka, already has a beautiful meaning connected to God. She asks:
“Don't they all glorify God as much as ‘Paul’ and ‘Peter’ and ‘Simon’?”
When did African expressions of worship become something to be suspicious of? Why should singing in our mother tongues, incorporating familiar rhythms or embracing certain cultural expressions make a form of worship any less legitimate? Why should an African name be considered less suitable for a Christian than an English one?
Perhaps this is one of the ways colonial ideas continue to live in us. Not necessarily through the presence of a white missionary, but through the standards we have inherited about what is acceptable, what is holy and what is worthy of respect.
So, what happened to African spirituality?
I think this is one of the more complicated parts of the conversation because African spirituality is often discussed as though it were one single religion. It wasn't. Different African communities had different spiritual traditions, practices, beliefs and ways of relating to the divine.
In some communities, there was belief in a supreme creator, alongside an understanding of ancestors, spirits and the spiritual significance of certain places and practices. The details differed, and so did the ways these beliefs were practised.
But when European missionaries encountered these systems, they often interpreted them through their own religious and cultural frameworks. Practices they did not understand were sometimes labelled as witchcraft, superstition or devil worship.
This is something Okot p'Bitek explores in African Religions in Western Scholarship. He questions how European scholars interpreted African religious concepts using European categories, sometimes misunderstanding the very beliefs they were attempting to explain.
And I think that raises an important question about who gets to define religion and whose understanding becomes accepted as the standard.
John S. Mbiti, in African Religions and Philosophy, also examines the place of religion in African life and thought. One of the things I find valuable about his work is his insistence on recognising the diversity of African religious traditions. His work helps us understand how deeply religion was woven into African social life, rather than treating it as something separate from everyday existence.
Mbiti also approached these questions as an African Christian theologian. His work is interesting because he did not treat African religious heritage and Christianity as conversations that had to be kept entirely separate. He considered what African religious thought meant for the way Christianity was understood and lived on the continent.
Of course, this does not mean that every traditional practice was perfect or that precolonial African societies were without contradictions. We should be able to examine our histories critically without romanticising them. But we should also be able to acknowledge that these spiritual systems had meaning, structure and value before they were judged through somebody else's understanding of the world.
And perhaps that is what makes the loss of some of these traditions worth thinking about. How much of what we know about our spiritual histories comes from the people who practised them, and how much comes from those who arrived and interpreted them for us?
Chinua Achebe and the question of our history
I also couldn't help thinking about Chinua Achebe while putting this piece together. Particularly his novel Things Fall Apart.
If you have read it, you will remember the arrival of Christian missionaries in Umuofia and the changes that follow. Achebe does not simply present a story about people converting to a new religion. He shows how the arrival of Christianity begins to affect the community's existing beliefs, relationships, authority structures and sense of identity.
What I love about Achebe is he does not portray traditional Igbo society as perfect. There are practices and social structures that deserve criticism. But he also makes it clear that this was a society with its own systems of belief, values, governance and ways of understanding the world. It was not an empty space waiting for someone to introduce civilisation.
There is also a personal connection here. Achebe grew up at the intersection of Christian and Igbo traditions. His father converted to Christianity and became an evangelist. Achebe's reflections on this history and on the tensions between Christianity and indigenous traditions make his work particularly relevant to this conversation.
And I think this raises another question: what happens when adopting a new belief system also means being taught to distance yourself from the history, practices and spiritual identities of the people who came before you?
Achebe's work reminds us that conversion is not always just an individual spiritual decision. It can also have consequences for families, communities and the way people understand their place in history.
Christianity and African spirituality: Must we choose?
Christianity has been part of African history for generations. It is in many of our homes, our families, our celebrations and the way we make sense of life's difficult moments. For many people, their faith is deeply personal and meaningful. It would be unfair to dismiss that experience simply because Christianity has a complicated colonial history.
But equally, it would be unfair to pretend that the history of how Christianity spread across the continent does not matter.
Over time, African communities did not simply receive Christianity and leave it untouched. They interpreted it, translated it, incorporated their languages and cultural expressions into worship, and developed their own ways of understanding and practising the faith.
Today, we see this in churches where worship happens in African languages, where local musical styles are incorporated into praise and where people find ways to express their faith through their cultural identities.
And this makes me wonder: can we separate Christianity as a faith from the colonial attitudes and structures through which it was introduced in many African communities? Can we question the history without dismissing the faith that so many people have come to embrace?
Kwame Bediako, in Theology and Identity, explores questions surrounding Christianity and African identity. His work considers how African Christians can understand and express their faith within their own cultural and historical contexts.
And then there is the question of African Traditional Religions. Can we acknowledge the spiritual heritage of our ancestors without necessarily practising those traditions? Can someone be Christian and still find meaning in aspects of their cultural heritage? Where do we draw the line between cultural identity, religious belief and spiritual practice?
Deconstructing, reconstructing and finding a middle ground
I think one of the most interesting things happening today is how people are beginning to question their relationship with religion.
Some are deconstructing their faith, revisiting the things they were taught and asking whether they still believe them. Some are stepping away from religion altogether. Others are reconstructing, finding new meaning in their faith, questioning certain teachings and trying to build a relationship with Christianity that does not require them to completely disconnect from their African identity.
And I find myself wondering where African spirituality fits into all this.
For some, the two cannot coexist. They see Christianity and African Traditional Religions as fundamentally different belief systems, and choosing one means rejecting the other. For others, there may be room to acknowledge the influence of both, even if they do not necessarily practise both. There are also those who have found ways of expressing their Christianity through African languages, music, cultural practices and ways of worship.
But perhaps what makes this conversation even more complicated is that we are products of both.
We have inherited African histories and spiritual traditions, but we have also inherited Christianity. It has shaped our families, our communities, our celebrations, our values and how many of us understand the world. We cannot simply erase one history to make room for the other. And we cannot ignore the circumstances under which these belief systems met.
So, are we finding a middle ground, or are we still trying to understand what it means to carry both histories?
I don't think this is a question with one straightforward answer. Perhaps the conversation is not simply about deciding which one belongs and which one does not, but understanding what we inherited, what was imposed, what we have made our own and what we may have lost along the way.
I want to leave you with a few questions:
Do you think there is a point at which African Traditional Religions and Christianity can be reconciled? Is there a middle ground where we can embrace our African spiritual heritage while acknowledging the Christianity that has also become part of who we are, or are these two belief systems too different to meet?
I'd genuinely love to hear what you think.
See you in the next lesson. 😉
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