Cape Argus E-dition

Stop demonising Christianity and equating it to European racism

IT IS understandable that after years of marginalisation and being dehumanised, black Africans would feel the need to rediscover their origins. Particularly, their belief systems and history.

However, such endeavours should not promote the belief that Christianity divided Africans from their common ideology, and (efforts to) unite for emancipation and self-determination. Neither should attempts at renaissance demonise the Bible and equate the belief in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit to European racism, or as a rival of ancestral veneration and invoking the spirits of the dead.

In this regard, it is crucial to realise that African spirituality is not unique to Africans or black people. Additionally, African spirituality and history can not be divorced from the history of humanity, and belief systems and ideologies.

Consequently, when archaeologists and anthropologists have gotten tired of arguing they come to the conclusion that all humans have the same source and ancestry. This is what the Bible says. Indeed, anthropology in the Bible mentions ancestry and in the New Testament, the origins of the humanness of the Lord Jesus, the Christ of God, to us who believe.

This contentious theological narrative of the human origins of Jesus Christ in the New Testament, is an interpretation of the Old Testament, by the authors of the Synoptic gospels for Christians at that time and today in order for them to understand the fulfilment of prophecy, and reality of the new testimony. In this new covenant, there is no call for prayer to the dead on behalf of humans and for the mediation of the dead for the living. Generally, it is not wrong to remember those who are no more and honour their memory, but that is where the buck stops.

It is Jesus Christ Himself who says in Mark 12; 27, God is for those who are alive, and not the ones who have passed on. The main reason Christians gather on Sundays is precisely because of the belief that this is the day of resurrection, so why would they seek to connect with the dead, if it is the Holy Spirit who resurrects (according to Christian belief)?

It is highly possible for a medium to know and quote the Bible and manipulate spirits, including unclean ones.

It is very easy to test whether ancestral spirits are one with God – they must be scrutinised and tested in the name of Jesus, broken or mended by the blood of the Lord and destroyed by the Holy Spirit. If they are from God let them stand, if not, they are from Satan, simple as that.

Freedom and democracy should not mean disrespecting our faith and discarding what is sacred for the sake of human amusement and the justification of sin. If it is too offensive to minorities, the Constitution and the idea of equality for Christians to write or talk about Jesus Christ publicly, then do not tell us about fake pastors and churches, stick to secularism.

KHOTSO K.D MOLEKO | Mangaung Bloemfontein

METRO

en-za

2021-08-04T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-08-04T07:00:00.0000000Z

http://capeargus.pressreader.com/article/281685437892047

African News Agency