A standalone study on a worldview where everything is spiritual, and what that means for the gospel.
The big question
To reach someone, you first have to understand how they see the world. Justice Okoronkwo, a Nigerian apologist, opens up the African traditional worldview, where the spiritual is not one slice of life but the whole of it. This study explores that worldview and asks how a Christian engages a person for whom the spiritual world is simply obvious.
Key takeaways
- In the African traditional worldview, everything is understood spiritually.
- Knowledge often comes through the spiritual realm and through mediums.
- Identity, language, and community are all traced to the spiritual.
- Atheism feels alien; the sense of the divine is second nature.
- Engaging this worldview means pointing to the right access to God, not arguing for the spiritual world’s existence.
Scripture to sit with
Acts 17:22-23. Paul tells the Athenians they are very religious and points to their altar to an unknown God. He starts from their spirituality.
Romans 1:19-20. What can be known about God is plain, shown in creation. A sense of the divine is universal.
Ecclesiastes 3:11. God has put eternity into the human heart. The spiritual hunger is built in.
Acts 17:27-28. God is not far from any of us; in him we live and move. The nearness people sense has a name.
Quotes worth discussing
Okoronkwo says, “Everything about the African… is spiritual.”
On knowledge, Okoronkwo says, “For the African, the more you are open to the spiritual plane, the more you can know.”
On belief, Okoronkwo says, “The African theological space will not accept atheism. It’s quite alien to the Africans generally.”
Discussion questions
- How is your own sense of the spiritual different from the worldview Okoronkwo describes?
- Where in Scripture does Paul start from people’s existing spirituality rather than against it?
- If someone already believes in the spiritual world, how does that change your approach?
- What do you make of knowledge coming through mediums and ancestors?
- Who in your life has a deeply spiritual worldview you could learn to understand better?
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 what West African traditional religions actually believe.
A closing reflection
This week, instead of trying to convince someone the spiritual world is real, practice asking how they already experience it. Listen the way Paul looked at the altars of Athens, for the place where their spirituality is reaching for the God who is reaching for them.