Why Human Traditions Are So Popular

 

Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers. 1Pe 1:18 

 

Humility is alien to human traditions

Human traditions are popular because they appeal to our primeval instincts… the urge to bully, to fight, to conquer and subjugate. Traditions abhor weaknesses especially in men, instead they heap praises on a raw fighter, a natural born brute, a ‘war machine’, and self-made man (See Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe).

 

In a traditional set up the end justifies the means – there are no moral scruples to make a man guilty. But Jesus life, character and teachings are not so inspiring to a traditionalist. Who forgives his enemies? And who can be led to his death without a fight? And who can die for other people? These are the characteristics of a weak person or a fool, and not a ‘strong’ person. And so how hard it becomes for a purely natural man to understand Christian humility because well, it is not natural! But humility, like salvation, is a gift from God.

 

Colonialism and its aftermath

By nature we aspire to the highest forms of living. We want the best, and royalty is the highest state of living we know here on earth (hence the world's fixation with the British royalty lives!) White missionaries from Europe did a great service in bringing us Christ and God. But they also brought us their languages, their manners and their cultures. The aftermath is that these left our forefathers with a deeply ingrained mark of inferiority concerning our own cultures; while we perceived everything white as being superior. And up to this day these beliefs persist much to our own detriment (See Black Skins, White Masks, and The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon). We became angry yes (and rightly so!) but our incessant anger has only become pervasive, extending quite insidiously not only to our own selves, but to everyone and every statement we regard as ‘demeaning’ to our Black culture. It is an anger which has not only exploded inside us, but it has also come out and burnt everything we deemed as beautiful once, including our own skins... And so many even today cannot quite separate the white man’s God from the white man’s colonialism. For many, they simply threw out the baby and the bath water, and they shut their doors!

 

But let us never forget the debt we owe to the missionaries who left the comforts of their distant homes to come and settle amongst us, to preach Christ to us, to educate us, and the schools and the hospitals they built and left for us and which continue to shine forth as beacons of hope… yes let us remember them, and let us pray for them and their nations at all times. To forget that is simply to be ungrateful, and it is utterly unchristian. And shall we forget our own? No, God forbid! And so for those who are there at present, and for those who were there before, we salute you all in Jesus name! (Heb 6:10).    

 

Christianity is for the poor in spirit

And so, at heart, Christianity is for the brokenhearted (Isa 61:1), for those who feel most their own helplessness, their own worthlessness, those who are without strength, those who have come from the cold, the dejected and the failures of this life. Christ is truly a refuge for them. And in Christ we find a resting place. Are you at a place like that at present, dear friend? In Christ, you are truly home. Welcome, you have nothing to lose but your ashes…

 

It is why in Africa Christianity is thriving, because here we can feel most our own ‘under development’ whereas the most developed countries of Europe feel absolutely no need for a savior… And so we get to understand why Christ said it is very hard for a rich man to be saved… And so too we understand why Jesus told the Jews that publicans and prostitutes were on their way to heaven before them (Mat 21:31).

 

For the Jew, a pure bred traditionalist, he had big issues with this Christ (as our own traditionalists do), because his birth was repulsive and not aristocratic, for his eating with sinners, and for dying on the cross, the ultimate symbol of humiliation for the proud Jew. And so Jesus wasn’t a savior to them but a failure, he lacked ambition and he wasn’t enterprising… and it is why, when a Jew prayed, he started with his own merits… (Luke 18:10-12).

 

But we, who are the downtrodden and rejected, feel greatly with Christ, ‘For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren’ (Heb 2:10-11). In Christ we have a kin. Do you? He can be your brother too, friend, your helper, and your every need, for ‘I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.’ Yes, listen keenly to that knock at your door tonight, for he is eagerly waiting for you to open…