African religion and African culture are closely linked to how Africans live. Although customs vary among the different tribes, Africans share certain aspects of their culture that have assumed a universal status. Baëta (1968:301) argues that many Christians did not leave behind some of the beliefs and practices that traditionally formed part of their lives. Ancestor veneration is one of them (Agulanna 2010:284). Some African Neo-Pentecostals have continued in their belief that ancestors influence their lives directly and should be considered as a part of the spiritual warfare they need to engage in. It is argued that the intersection between Christianity and ancestors and their veneration represents some opportunities and various challenges.

Many Neo-Pentecostals view ancestors like the traditional African worldview, as directly involved in the daily lives of the living. They view it as a means to contextualise the gospel. In this article, the challenges of such views are set against the opportunities.

Pentecostal distinctives include the fact that Pentecostals regard the Bible as authoritative, necessitating the need to discount the adoption of cultural customs regarding what the Bible teaches.

To evaluate the acceptance of beliefs about ancestors and their veneration within some Neo-Pentecostal worship services. The objectives are to discuss African ways of viewing it to understand the role of ancestors within the cultural world and to explicate its use in Christianising practices in order to evaluate it biblically.

Ancestor veneration in some form or another is integral to most African tribes. The research question is: How should the church respond to the phenomenon? Is it a valid way to contextualise the gospel for Africans, or does it represent syncretism, the blending of different religious beliefs and practices?

Most African societies venerate the ancestors despite the effects of Christianisation and secularisation.

African people, especially Neo-Pentecostals.

The study utilises a comparative literature study, meta-analysis of relevant resources and an interpretive phenomenological study.

This article followed all ethical standards for research without direct contact with human or animal subjects.

Johannes Triebel (2002) tells that he once asked a reverend how long he had been living in Njombe in Tanzania. The pastor responded that he had been living there for 400 years:

It demonstrates how some Africans traditionally viewed the continuing interconnection and interdependence between their present lives and their ancestors.

To understand African veneration of ancestors, it is necessary that one should consider how the living and their ancestors are interdependent. The interdependence is illustrated by the African understanding of the family and how they look at law and order.

The family is important for Africans in the light of the principle, ‘I am because we are and since we are, therefore I am’ (Mbiti 1978:108). The ‘I’ is not essential, only the ‘we’. Hence the proverb: Human being is family. Where people fit, what status they have and what they view as their values and responsibilities are determined by their community. Without the community, no human being can exist (Triebel 2002:188). There is a link between the living and the dead because both share life. For that reason, the individual’s life is inextricably a part of the life that has been streaming through the community since time immemorial (Sundermeier 1988:23–25).

Ancestors are a part of the reality of daily life, and Africans do not doubt their existence and influence. They expect ancestors to provide them with the missing information and wisdom they need in dreams and visions. Hence, the ancestors form an integral part of the community; they are the living dead who relate to the living and influence their lives (Mbiti 1969:25). The dead link Africans directly with the spirit world (Mbiti 1969:83), and Africans venerate the ancestral spirits but also fear and respect them as they are able to cause or prevent misfortune (Uchenu 1976:292).

A basic principle of African ethics is that Africans may not in any way disrupt or interrupt the stream of life. Only the ancestors, the source of life, can prevent it from happening. They are the foundation and reason for being. Africans’ relationship to their ancestors influences their thinking, living and behaving. If people neglect the ancestors, their survival may become threatened as ancestors possess the power to bring misfortune on them. That may be the reason why people are ill, experience a famine or even die. Only by commemorating and venerating the ancestors, Africans can ensure that they enjoy the dead’s benevolence (Triebel 2002:189).

On their part, the ancestors depend on the living to be remembered and venerated as a condition to exist as ancestors. ‘Without cult the dead will roam about, they will be stripped of any communication with the living’ (Ela 1987:29). For that reason, Africans are expected to sire a sufficient number of children to ensure that when they die, there will be others who commemorate and venerate the ancestors. Otherwise, the ancestors will turn into non-beings.

Additionally, ancestors maintain law and order by being the source and guarantee of Africa’s ethical values (Mbiti 1969:83). As stated, offences to the ancestors by way of unethical behaviour result in misfortune, illness and death. These are ways and means the ancestors use to demonstrate their dislike of morally questionable behaviour. If anything in the very sensitive network of family relationships moves, it affects the whole network. When the ancestors become angry, it may even threaten the welfare and survival of the whole community, implying that everyone should take responsibility for re-establishing the lost harmony by appeasing the ancestors.

The community needs the morality represented by the ancestors as a guiding principle that shows its members the difference between right and wrong behaviour. It is necessary for their peaceful coexistence. As an integral part of the reverence for and veneration of the ancestors, they are also expected to act in accordance with the sense of morality the ancestors represent. Scholars found that traditionally Africans do not look to religion as the source of their moral values and norms but to the ancestors for guidance (Gyekye 1995:131). The sole criterion of goodness in moral terms is what serves the community’s well-being, in other words, doing what promotes social welfare, solidarity and harmony in human relationships (Gyekye 1995:132).

God and the ancestors act as people’s motivation to act morally. Ancestors are not the source of moral norms but influence people to respond to moral norms (Morgan 2020:17). The moral undertones of the belief in ancestors are dependent on what it takes to become an ancestor. Those requirements motivate community members to strive to become good ancestors by acting in morally acceptable ways.

As stated in the previous discussion, ‘ancestor’ refers primarily to those who lived virtuously before their death, necessitating their offspring’s veneration. Even a virtuous living chief or elder can be venerated as an ‘ancestor’ (Dzobo 1992:231). Only those who live a credible life, such as heads of families, clans or tribes, are honoured as ancestors. People who are morally bankrupt or die tragically or from a loathsome disease are disqualified (Zulu 2002:479).

Ancestors enforce a moral code and norms by blessing virtuous people and cursing immoral people (Morgan 2020:19). They act as the extra-mundane guardians of morality, ensuring the community’s wellness (Wiredu 2010:36) and serve as ‘sinternalised superegos as well as moral authorities’ (Dzobo 1992:232). The ancestors demonstrated by their way of living how morally virtuous people live. They qualified for veneration from their offspring by living morally upright lives and hence earned the privilege to act as the moral enforcers of the behaviour of those living in the community. To live an exemplary life is to marry, have children, live in good health and die of natural causes in one’s old age (Morgan 2020:20).

It is necessary to find out why some people are sick or infertile or die. To do so, the medicine man is consulted. In many cases, the advice is to seek appeasement with the ancestors. The community is then responsible for respecting the ancestors by bringing offerings to their remembrance and contributing to the society’s welfare by obeying the moral code. It is the precondition for them to experience success in life (Boyer 2020).

Members of the society enter burial places with respect, fearing the consequences if they violate them by cultivating the ground or grazing any cattle there. As a result, burial places had developed into small, sacred groves set aside for the veneration of ancestors. The hierarchy of ancestors should also be respected. When need arises, the head of the family serves as the priest, bringing offerings and asking the ancestors for protection. When the whole community is affected, the village priest is responsible for the cult.

A sacred grove is a thicket of bushes with larger trees in the middle. There is no decoration or art to identify it, and its power is felt invisibly during ceremonies. In the middle is a fireplace leading to the living place of the ancestors, where only the priest may go. At the roots of a tree, pottery from previous offerings shows where offerings were made. The graves are not decorated or specially preserved (Triebel 2002:190).

The offerings consist of a big calabash of local beer, fruits from the garden and an animal without blemish, such as a goat, chicken or sheep. Only the innards of the slaughtered animal are used as offerings; the rest is used in a common meal for the involved persons.

Africans differ among themselves in how they view the status and role of ancestors. In most cases, they view ancestors as intermediaries before God. God alone provides for the needs and rewards worthy humans (Azaenya 1969:42). However, the ancestors serve to mediate between God and the living because they are morally superior to other dead people (Beyers & Mphahlele 2009:4). They qualify to communicate with God as they are god-like while their human-likeness qualifies them to communicate with humans (Amanze 2003:46). They stand at the end of a long chain of intercessors whose ultimate function is to intercede on behalf of humankind. To ensure they promote the community’s welfare, it is essential not to annoy them in any way to prevent them from obstructing the welfare of the living:

Africans believe ancestral spirits are subordinate chiefs under God. As in human courts, they first take their affairs to a subordinate official who has been authorised to take the request to the higher chief or to the father who discusses it with the grandfather. In the same way, ancestors take their offspring’s case before God (Hopgood 1950:67–68).

Family ancestors are called upon at critical moments of crisis, especially at birth, puberty, marriage and death or in the case of new undertakings such as trade or travel. Clan and tribal ancestors are called upon in times of great national importance, such as the death of a chief (Amanze 2003:47).

A scholar like Idowu (1973:13) argues that ancestor worship results in some Africans worshipping two gods because they find it impossible to identify Christians’ God with the traditional African God. This perspective influenced the origins of African Indigenous Churches (AIC), primarily in response to colonial missionary efforts and the desire for a religious expression that reflected African cultural, social, and spiritual traditions. They attempted to blend Christianity with their indigenous religious practices by incorporating African forms of music, dance and worship practices. Sometimes they include healing by means of divination and traditional medicines, prophecy, spiritual warfare, the veneration of ancestors and the use of indigenous languages (Berg 2003:195). Such groups include the Zionist Churches like Zion Christian Church (ZCC), Aladura Churches like the African Church and Church of the Lord and Ethiopian Churches like the Coptic Church of Egypt. The AICs were founded in Africa, by Africans, for Africans to worship in African ways and to meet African needs as Africans experience them (Turner 1979:10).

Within the broader Pentecostal and/or charismatic movement in Africa, there are different streams that share common beliefs in the work of the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, healing and miracles although they differ in their nuances. African Classical Pentecostals originated from the Azusa Street Revival (1906) and are institutionalised and hierarchical with the focus on holiness, discipline and doctrinal purity. Charismatics evolved within mainline Protestant or Catholic churches in the mid-20th century and emphasised spiritual gifts, empowering lively worship practices focused on encountering God. Neo-Pentecostals emerged from the 1970s onward as African-initiated, independent churches led by charismatic, media-savvy preachers called apostles or prophets, emphasising the prosperity gospel, spiritual warfare, deliverance and prophecy and their influence cut across regions, environments and religious cultures (Orogun & Pillay 2021:2).

The views on ancestor veneration differ significantly between them (Bae & Van der Merwe 2008:1340). Both typically reject traditional African religious practices. Classical Pentecostals reject ancestor veneration as idolatrous and the product of demonic activity and demand a complete break with ancestral practices (Mofokeng 2024:4). They may even call for the destruction of traditional religious artefacts. They see the dead as spiritually inactive. In contrast, African Neo-Pentecostals are highly contextualised, and their view on ancestor veneration is more nuanced, sometimes referring to ancestors as ‘familiar spirits’. Most do not practise ancestor veneration but view ancestors as active in the generational curses, spiritual covenants or demonic oppression they can bring on people (Mofokeng 2024:8). With the lens of spiritual warfare, they focus on deliverance and curses to break the spiritual bondage brought on by the ancestors. Hence, their approach is more contextually adaptive.

Do Africans pray to the ancestors? The invocation forms the centre of the ceremony as a means to communicate with the ancestors about the needs of daily life. The expectation is that the ancestors will respond with the blessings of success and fullness, perpetuating life’s stream. Thiel (1984:73) defines prayer in terms of human beings in conversation with a superhuman power if that is the case, when ancestor veneration is practised, then the invocation of the priest can be interpreted as prayer. Although it does not necessarily include praise and worship, the invocation includes sharing daily life’s challenges. In some cases, such requests may even be accompanied by sugar-coated flattery and praise (Morgan 2020:14). In the invocation, ancestors will be remembered and commemorated, and any invocation directed at God will be missing.

A contrasting view is that Africans view ancestors as human beings. While African worship is reserved exclusively for God, most African scholars argue that ancestor veneration is not to be confused with worship of God (Zulu 2002:476). The reverence or veneration, rather than the worship of ancestors, is an accentuated form of respect given to the living dead elders of a community (Wiredu 1996:35).

An interesting argument is that Africans have accepted Christ because he is integrally a part of the African world and not because of Western missionaries’ proclamation of the gospel (Du Toit 1998:56). Du Toit argues that ancestor veneration in Africa forms a remarkably uniform structural framework that can be assimilated into Christology without much difficulty. Christ’s reign in the spirit world implies that he is the Supreme Ancestor. Mosothoane (1973:86) agrees and uses the term ‘in Christ’, which plays a vital role in the early church’s thinking, as it refers to the relationship between the living dead and living believers. The church’s communion is found in Christ, including the living dead. Hence, ‘in Christ’ is the ‘key to Christianising the ancestor cult’ (Mosothoane 1973:86). The bridge across the chasm of death is the belief in ancestors; the stance of ‘in Christ’ that defines the living dead implies that death cannot disrupt the family.

For that reason, the argument is that the celebration of the Eucharist should include the living dead with the living, implying the fellowship of living and dead Christians. The church should create a room for Africans to communicate with their (believing) ancestors during the celebration, and the names of ancestors can be repeated to affirm their participation (Mosothoane 1973:87).

Therefore, the local assembly should also be present when the family brings sacrifices and offerings to honour their fellowship with the ancestors. The clergyperson should be the one who blesses the animal to be slaughtered in the offering. In this way, the church can integrate ancestor veneration (Afeke & Verster 2004:52).

As for Africans, the traditional family plays a vital role in how they arrange their lives, so Jesus cannot be understood without relating him to his family. To understand Jesus, an ancestral reading of his life and ministry is needed to develop an ancestral Christology (Wanamaker 1997:291). Jesus is the supreme ancestor to be honoured because he is greater than any other ancestor, given that only Jesus has God as his Father (Wanamaker 1997:292). Küster (1999:63–64) indicates the parallels between Jesus as living ancestor and the role of ancestors in an African context: he qualifies to be the supreme ancestor because he mediates life, is present among the living (Immanuel), is simultaneously the eldest, with the due respect of younger family members and serves to mediate between human beings and God. ‘As [the ancestors] watch over the life of their descendants and continuously strengthen it, so does Christ continuously nourish the life of the believers’ (Küster 1999:120).

It implies that Jesus’ life and ministry are as important as for other believers as a person’s quality of existence is secondary to the ancestry of the family. While he died to atone for human sin, Africans appreciate primarily his death as a condition for becoming an ancestor (Wanamaker 1997:293). His life after his death also differs from other ancestors because his existence is at the side of the Father. African thinking did not consider resurrection as a part of their eschatological expectation, and at most, it is interpreted as visionary visitations of an ancestor (Afeke & Verster 2004:53). However, the New Testament does not think of death as a transitional stage with the dead living similarly than during their life on earth but as a rupture, a dimensional borderline beyond which there is something entirely different from what the living experience (Schwarz 1979:172).

In contrast, traditional Africans view death as going into the realm of the dead and becoming a living dead, an ancestor. And what is essential in Jesus as Ancestor is that he blesses good behaviour and social order and causes misfortune for those who undermine the family. He is the source of benefit by giving and sustaining the lives of his descendants, the church (Wanamaker 1997:294). Christ leads the ancestors in their involvement with the living.

A challenge is that prayers and sacrifices to the ancestors quite often are associated with belief in traditional medicine, witchcraft, sorcery and divination. However, this is not true for all groups of Africans (Amanze 2003:53). The purpose of these practices is to find reasons for times of distress, illness, drought or other misfortunes and to unlock the secrets of the future. The ancestral spirits invoked by sangomas or medicine men and women and witches act as intermediaries (Normanyo 2019:89). Hence, Pentecostals must discourage believers from relying on traditional medicines and charms to avoid curses and bring blessings to the living because they emphasise that Christ alone is the mediator between humans and God.