Mbiti saw African traditional religions as preparatory ground subordinate to Christianity’s exclusive truth.
Evidence
It is highly doubtful that, even at their very best, these other religious systems and ideologies current in Africa are saying anything new to, and different from, what is already embedded in Christianity … I consider traditional religions, Islam and the other religious systems to be preparatory and even essential ground in the search for the Ultimate. But only Christianity has the terrible responsibility of pointing the way to the ultimate Identity, Foundation and Source of being. — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 753
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: Mbiti’s inclusivist ‘preparatory ground’ stance mirrors the fulfillment-theology pattern critiqued elsewhere in interreligious dialogue scholarship such as Panikkar’s.
Related
- Some African scholars position other religions as preparatory but subordinate to Christianity. (similarity 0.84)
- Tempels and Mbiti countered colonial paganism with Christian categories (similarity 0.80)
- The idea that Africans are inherently religious is a constructed colonial-era tradition. (similarity 0.80)
- Treating religion as mere doctrinal faith misses its social and therapeutic functions (similarity 0.79)