Culture the Language for Doing Religion in Africa

Abstract

This paper discusses culture as a language for doing religion in Africa. Culture put religious message into a new context of the traditional philosophy of the people. It does this by first discussing religion in African setting. It also tackles the essential instruments that guides religion in the attempt to propagate its doctrine in all contexts. The second section discusses the unstatic cultural context of religion. It also analyzes culture as the vehicle through which the word of God roots itself in the life of the people. Third section addressed the word of God in a cultural context. Religion as a discipline always seeks to communicate its doctrines in the peoples' own cultural setting. It uses communication thought forms that are hidden in peoples' beliefs, metaphor, symbols, proverbs, and myths. The effective religious communication among the African people only sink in the people when clothed in a culture. The philosophy of culture in presentation of the biblical teaching. To communicate religious faith, we must identify community's cultural communication terms (thought forms). In every community, cultural language is used to express special religious analogy.