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Study guide · Apologetics & Culture

How Does African Traditional Religion See the Spiritual World?

Reviewed by Jude 3 Project·2 min read

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A standalone study on a layered universe and a God held at arm’s length.

The big question

If you wanted to share the gospel with someone shaped by African traditional religion, you would need to understand the universe as they picture it. Justice Okoronkwo maps it: a Supreme God at the top who cannot be reached directly, a crowded spirit realm of deities and ancestors in the middle, and human beings at the bottom, dependent on mediators. This study walks that map and asks where the gospel meets it.

Key takeaways

  • African cosmology is layered: Supreme God, spirit realm, physical world, and man.
  • The Supreme God is widely acknowledged but believed to be inaccessible directly.
  • The spirit realm of deities, ancestors, and nature spirits is the busy center of religious life.
  • Access to God is mediated through spirits and human mediums.
  • The gospel’s offer of direct access to God speaks straight to this worldview.

Scripture to sit with

1 Timothy 2:5. There is one God and one mediator, the man Christ Jesus. One mediator, not a chain of them.

Hebrews 4:16. Let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace. Direct access, by invitation.

Hebrews 10:19-22. We have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus. The veil is torn.

Acts 17:27. God is not far from each one of us. The distant God of the diagram is actually near.

Quotes worth discussing

Okoronkwo says, “The supreme God is not accessible. You cannot just connect to the supreme God directly. You have to go through the spirit realm.”

On daily religious life, Okoronkwo says a person “cannot have access… until he pleases the spirit world… he accesses it through the mediums.”

Discussion questions

  • How is the African picture of a distant God different from the God of the gospel?
  • Read 1 Timothy 2:5. What does one mediator mean to someone used to many?
  • Where do people you know rely on mediators to reach God, even in church settings?
  • Why is direct access to God such good news in this worldview?
  • How would you gently introduce Hebrews 4:16 to a friend shaped by this map?

Go deeper

This study comes from the Jude 3 Project’s Engaging African Spirituality course with Justice Okoronkwo. For a related conversation, see the Jude 3 work on whether a Christian can hold on to African traditions.

A closing reflection

Sit with Hebrews 10:19-22 this week. Picture the diamond Okoronkwo describes, with God held far at the top, and then picture the torn veil. Thank God that the access African traditional religion longs for is exactly what the cross opened.

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