In my little time on earth there are stuff that I struggle with, one has been the issue of relating to ones culture or traditional heritage or believes which come in conflict with my religious believes. It has led to sometimes people accusing me of being less African or even feeling that what is really loosing out on what being Tswana is?.
Lets take the idea of ancestors or badimo in setswana I really don’t know much about them but I really have a huge problem with the idea of eternal spirits looking out for me and making sure that everything works out for me. Whom once in a while need some form of acknowledgement Cause the bible clearly state the dead are but sleeping and so with any man who is asleep. The dead have no conscious or even aware of their surrounding. Solomon in Ecclesiasts 3 :19 -21 clearly demonstrates that mans mortality is the same as any other living creature. The difference being that we have a hope in a Christ who lived, died and was resurrected. Who promises the same to us and to take us out of this world one day.
I’ve heard people debating the issue of the soul that maybe when we die our souls live on and they become our guardians and so forth. But isn’t it that the same old lie Lucifer told Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? That if they eat of the fruit of good and evil they shall not surely die. For if the reward of sin is death then Ezekial 18 : 20 clearly states that a soul that sinneth shall die. But then what is a soul
I believe if we look at the garden of Eden when Adam was made he became a living soul after life was breathed into him by God. So a soul is the conscious being that is made by the combination of the breath of life and a consciousness. So we are all living souls that die due to sin.
But is culture only limited to the belief in ancestors and if you don’t do that it means one has lost all concept of ones culture? I don’t think so. There is still language, norms and ideas that are passed from one generation to another that are distinctly and specifically culturally specific. From how we treat strangers and our elders, to the over hyped idea of Ubuntu. To music, dance but most importantly we constantly change and adapt culture. Look at the Europeans who a couple of centuries back believed in ancestors, witchcraft and ritual sacrifice and it was not so long ago were twins were seen as abomination that needed to be killed at birth and lets not talk about the role of women in African tradition or the world in general.
So things change, it does not make us less of anything, so I believe in Christ. That does not make me less of an African, but an African that believes in Christ.
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