Introduction: Africa Aflame
Book Cover – Africa Aflame – Copyrighted
Hey friends, let me talk from the heart about something that’s been burning in me lately. Christianity arrived in Africa amid colonial baggage, often dismissing indigenous beliefs as pagan. Yet, post independence theologians sought inculturation, adapting the Gospel to local contexts without diluting its essence. Ancestor Christology emerged in the late 20th century as a bold response, portraying Jesus as the ultimate ancestor to affirm African identity within faith. This approach draws from biblical motifs like Christ’s mediation (Hebrews 7:25) and his role as the “firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:29), aligning them with African paradigms.
You know how in so many African homes, we don’t just remember our grandparents or great-grandparents like they are gone forever? No, we pour libations, we name our kids after them, we talk to them, we feel them watching over us, guiding us, sometimes even correcting us when we step out of line. They are the living-dead, the ones who link us back through the generations, keeping the family strong, the community alive, that vital force flowing. That’s our world, right? Death doesn’t cut the cord; it just moves people to a closer place with the Supreme Being.
Now, when Christianity came to us, often wrapped in foreign clothes, telling us our ways were pagan or backward, some of our own thinkers started asking: Wait, what if Jesus fits right into this? What if He’s not some distant white or brown man in the sky, but the ultimate Ancestor? 1st Timothy 2:5; For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; in this bridging role there is emphasis on “the man” christ’s humanity! Think about it. In our traditions, ancestors mediate between us and God. They lived good lives, gained wisdom, crossed over, and now they intercede, bless, protect. John Mbiti showed us how we can’t always approach the High God directly; we go through someone closer. That’s exactly what Jesus does; He’s the one who bridges heaven and earth perfectly.
People like Charles Nyamiti called Him our Brother Ancestor. Jesus became one of us, died like us, rose again, and now He’s in that spiritual realm, but as family tied to us through Adam, through humanity. Bénézet Bujo went further and said Jesus is the Proto Ancestor, the original source of life, the one who fixes what sin broke in our vitality. John Pobee, from Ghana, called Him the Great Nana, the greatest elder of all, wiser and more powerful than any other. Kwame Bediako saw Him as the supreme mediator who answers our deepest longings without throwing away who we are. Others like François Kabasélé or A.E. Orobator painted Him as the archetypical African man, the one who fulfills our spiritual hunger as progenitor, life-giver, healer.
This isn’t watering down the faith. It’s making it home. Jesus’ incarnation, God becoming flesh, goes even deeper than we first thought. Niels Gregersen talks about “deep incarnation”: God didn’t just drop into a human body; He plunged into the whole messy, suffering, connected reality of creation; biology, pain, ecology, everything. In our African way, ancestors are tied to the earth, to community, to ubuntu: I am because we are, and that includes the land, the ancestors, the yet to be born. So when we see Jesus as Ancestor, it’s the truest picture of that deep dive, God entering our ecospace, our scars from history, our chains of life, healing from within. The incarnation isn’t some abstract event far away; it’s God right here in the ancestral chain, restoring the flow of life to all creation.
But let’s be honest, Christianity itself has a complicated story. For a long time, especially after Constantine made it the religion of the Roman Empire, it got tangled up with power, control, and empire. What started as a movement of the poor, the oppressed, the ones Jesus called blessed, got twisted into a tool for domination; conquering lands, subjugating people, justifying greed and hegemony in the name of the cross. It’s like the empire deceived even the faith, turning a liberating message into chains for many. We’ve seen it in history: colonialism dressed in missionary clothes, forcing our ways aside while claiming to bring light. That’s the deception empire wearing the mask of Christianity to keep its grip.
Yet here’s the astonishing truth that cuts through all that: Christ was slain before the foundation of the world. Revelation calls Him the Lamb slain from the creation of everything. Before empires rose, before the Watchers fell, before any deception took root, God’s plan was already in motion. Jesus’ death wasn’t an accident or a late reaction, it was eternal, predestined, reaching back to the very chaotic origins of creation described in Genesis 1:2 as Tohu Va Bohu. His ancestral work as the Proto Ancestor goes far beyond our human lines; it undoes violence in both restor, the earthly empires that crush people and the spiritual principalities that corrupted from the start.
Think back to those ancient tales; the sons of God, those Watchers, who were supposed to watch over things, given some local dominion by God. Instead, they rebelled, came down, mixed with humans, produced the Nephilim, those hybrids that messed up everything, like Nimrod as described in Genesis 10:8-9 as a “mighty one” or “mighty man” (gibbor in Hebrew) on the earth and a “mighty hunter before the Lord”. The Nephilim in Genesis 6:4 are also referred to by the same Hebrew word, gibborim (plural of gibbor), translated as “mighty men” or “heroes of old, men of renown, brought violence, corruption that resulted in Noah’s Flood. Their chronicles of their progenetors echo through old books: Semyaza the leader, Azazel who taught forbidden arts, Armaros with spells, Baraqiel with stars, Araqiel with earth signs, and more. They contaminated the human line, twisted what God intended.
Yet Scripture doesn’t leave it there. In Revelation 9.14; we hear about angels bound at the great Euphrates. Some say these are tied to those fallen ones, held until the exact hour, day, month, year in the end times. Then they are released, and they play their part in the great shaking, the purging, the apocalyptic renewal of the earth. It’s wild to think about: these principalities, once given authority, still influence regions, peoples, even our daily lives in subtle ways. Is it fair? Well, in God’s big plan, yes they are part of the testing, the refining, the drama that leads to the final victory. But they’re not the end of the story.
Because Jesus, slain eternally, steps in as the true Ancestor, the antidote to all that contagion, from the cosmic rebellion to the empires that echoed it on earth. He purifies the line, breaks the power of those distortions, restores the ancestral harmony. And here’s the beautiful part: through Him, we get one new humanity. Like Paul says in Ephesians, Christ broke down every dividing wall tribal, spiritual, cosmic and made us one new people in Himself. No more Jew or Gentile, no more old contaminations, no more separated families. In African terms, it’s ubuntu healed and expanded: one extended family under the Proto Ancestor, where every lineage finds its place, every scar gets touched, every Watcher dominion bows, every empire’s deception is exposed and undone.
Friends, this is why Jesus as Ancestor moves me so much. It’s not just theology on paper. It’s our story redeemed, our ancestors honored, our pains seen, our future secured, even the ancient violence in both realms reversed by the Lamb who was always going to win. In a world still full of division and hidden influences, Christ calls us into this new humanity: connected, vital, whole. So let’s live like it—honoring the past, trusting the ultimate Elder, and building that family together.
Read more about the author: Philip Kakungulu
References:
St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology: “Jesus Christ as Ancestor” – Comprehensive overview of major models (proto-ancestor, brother-ancestor, etc.) from Bujo, Nyamiti, Pobee, Bediako, and others. https://www.saet.ac.uk/Christianity/JesusChristasAncestor
ResearchGate: “African Christian Theology and Christology: the Contributions of Mbiti, Bediako, Ukpong and Nyamiti” (PDF article, 2023) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369229950_African_Christian_Theology_and_Christology_the_Contributions_of_Mbiti_Bediako_Ukpong_and_Nyamiti
The Quest for the Christ of Africa by Donald J. Goergen (PDF) – Explores ancestor portrayals http://www.domcentral.org/study/don/Africa.pdf
HTS Teologiese Studies: “African theology and African Christology” (2018 article) – Ancestral approaches by Bediako, Bujo, Nyamiti, Pobee, and critiques. https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/4590/10958
HTS Teologiese Studies: “Deep incarnation: From deep history to post-axial religion” (2016 article by Gregersen) – Core piece on the concept, linking incarnation to evolutionary suffering and creation. https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/3428
Gregersen, 2015 – Explores deep incarnation in detail; Amazon preview/summary. https://www.amazon.com/Incarnation-Christology-Niels-Henrik-Gregersen/dp/1451465408
The Lamb Slain from the Foundation of the World (Revelation 13:8)
TGC Africa: “The Slaughtered Lamb Is Africa’s Ransom” (2023) https://africa.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-slaughtered-lamb-is-africas-ransom/
Wikipedia: Book of Enoch – Overview of the Watchers’ fall, Nephilim origins, and influence on early Christian/Jewish thought. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Enoch
Chasing the Giants: “Book of Enoch: Watchers, Nephilim, and Why It Matters” https://chasingthegiants.com/the-book-of-enochs-story-of-the-watchers-sins-the-giants/
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