A reductionist approach to sacred scriptures that disregards the cultural contexts of discourses inhibits a sympathetic understanding of transcultural yet culture-specific phenomena such as spirit possession, ancestral cults, and traditional healing. The search for an appropriate scholarly model for teaching Christology, Pneumatology, and Soteriology in Africa must begin with a profound appreciation of traditional African concepts of human postmortem existence (concepts of the immortality of the human spirit) and the notions of intermediaries and mediation in African indigenous religions. These concepts provide a foundation of understanding: a) the ontology and place of African ancestral spirits (badimo) in the African worldview; b) the manistic nature of African indigenous religions; and (c) the centrality of the traditional healing within the African cosmology. Based on our analysis of 1 Sam 28: 1 -20, this essay concludes that there is sufficient scriptural justification for ancestral veneration.
This article is dedicated to the memory of the late Rev. Dr Obed Ndeya Obadiah Kealotswe. He was my brother, friend, teacher and former colleague in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies of the University of Botswana. I called him MaChristos because of his humorous ways of teaching Christology.