This was an interview question from the MotherJones website(www.MotherJones.com)
to Malidome Some, continuous practioner of his original, indigenous way
of life, the way of the Dagara people of Burkina Faso and author Of
Water and the Spirit.
The question and answer speaks for itself!!!
Q: What is the native assessment of Christianity as a
spiritual
perspective, apart from its capacity to deliver the goods?
A: If you discuss the beliefs of Christianity with the
village diviner, the
medicine man, he will say the white man must be extremely stupid.
The white
man must be profoundly troubled--probably torn by a huge guilt
connected
to how he treated the ancestors--to think that villagers would
buy the idea
that someone died on the cross for us. They would say these
beliefs are
evidence that the white people killed someone of great importance,
probably
a diviner and a healer. If you kill a healer, you must make
amends by
appeasing the healer's spirit.
This was taken from "Utamaduni wa Kiafrika": The Afrikan Civilization by Kihumbu Thairu, a Gikuyu from Kii-Nyaa (aka Kenya). A text published from Nairobi in 1975...
Our weakness, we Africans in religion as in all other things, is lack of appreciation of our own things. There is an ingrained feeling that whatever is or was ours is second rate.... There is a very clever trick in imported religions which stops their Afrikan followers from questioning them. These religions, to discourage people from investigating them, elevate FAITH, i.e unquestioning belief, in the TRUTHFULNESS of the religion concerned, as the most important virtue. But God is bigger than faith.... All Africa has 1 religion and 1 God who has thousands of names and who talks to each people in their own language and looks after each sub-nation in their own peculiar ways.... Africa [& Africans] should look forward to the day when in religious matters people shall be able to appreciate the God of Africa, i.e. God's relation to Africa.... If you want to destroy a people, destroy their religion FIRST!! Religion is today the strongest force that binds any society together. It does not matter whether the religion is nominally or actively acknowledged. All the milestones of one's life are tied up in the religion, be the milestone birth, naming, marriage or even death. The day a people start celebrating birth, naming their children or even burying their dead like FOREIGNERS, they are showing clearly that their own culture is on its way out....
The lack of conviction that we Africans have of our own religion and OUR OWN DIRECT LINE to God has caused this change." (all quotes taken from pages 160-164)