Two customs can come from the same continent and still raise different questions. Kevin Muriithi Ndereba keeps one of them gladly: "my son is named after my father." Justice Okoronkwo describes the other, a person who serves the ancestors before eating, "pouring a little food because he doesn't want to annoy them." Scripture gives a clear line for telling such customs apart. Honor for parents, elders and those who came before is commanded. Prayer, offerings, oaths and requests for guidance or protection belong to God alone. They are not to be directed to the dead or to spirits.
Most customs fall easily on one side of that line once you know what they actually do. The difficult ones need a practiced way of asking questions, and a few skills build that practice. First, describe a custom accurately before you judge it. Then read the passages where Scripture sets honor and worship side by side. Sort real cases with two tools from African Christian teachers. Last, ask what fear or need a custom answers, and how to talk with someone who has gone back to ancestral religion. Along the way you will hear Justice Okoronkwo, an Anglican priest in Nigeria; Kevin Muriithi Ndereba, founder of Apologetics Kenya; Abasiano Udofa, a Nigerian American who grew up in the Washington, DC area; Dr. Joseph Byamukama, a church planter in Kampala with a doctorate from Ridley College in Melbourne; Sistar Outspoken, a West Coast battle rapper and author who left the church for an African spiritual path; and Lisa Fields, founder of Jude 3 Project.
Start by choosing one test case. Pick a specific custom you know from your own family, from a friend's family, or from careful reading. It might be a naming ceremony, a funeral rite, a libation, or a visit to a traditional healer. You will carry it through every stage and watch your judgment of it change. If you are working through this alone, keep your notes in one place so you can compare them at the end. In a group, nobody has to say whose family keeps the custom. A practice can be described without naming the people who keep it. Some participants will bring grief, family conflict or real fear of spiritual danger to these conversations. Anyone may pass on any question, and nobody is asked to confess anything.