Opinion piece: Ancestral worship is a fallacy

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Ancestral Worship is a shameful fallacy



By Blessing Mhlanga


We cannot speak to the dead and there’s no such thing as the living-dead. Rituals involving animal slaughter, sprinkling of blood, drinking of concoction, talking to a dead person on their grave and consulting a sangoma for intervention is a spiritual deception that has enslaved the african people. For me personally, I am extremely ashamed and disgusted by my fellow black people who believe that a dead person has an influence on their failures or prosperity in their lives.


Some cultures even believe that the dead are a mediator between God and the living; it’s a shame because they have forgotten that God is the creator of all men and he doesn’t need a human being whom he created to be a mediator to those who are living.

According to Truth Magazine article, ‘if you displease the ancestors, it may be that they will kill someone else.’ This doesn’t make sense, why would my ancestors, who were somehow my relatives want to hurt me or someone close to me? This is a sign that the one who is promising to kill is not my ancestor but a demon, or satan himself whose mandate is to steal, kill and destroy.

If the dead people have power to affect the lives of the living, why can’t they raise themeselves from the dead just like Jesus Christ did?

Ancestral worship is not different from idolatry. When a person dies, their spirit returns to the creator, the body goes to the ground: when we idolize dead ancestors by rituals or worship, we’re not necessarily honoring the ancestors but the forces of darkness.

A dead person cannot return back to earth and there’s no connection between the dead and the living - If a sangoma says, the ancestors are angry, he/she is referring to the demonic spirit that was living inside the one who has died, which is now looking for another soul to posses or to renew the blood covenant within the family.

In an article by Mail and Guardian, a 12 year old girl was ordered to stop going to school because the ancestors wanted her to pursue her calling as a sangoma. What kind of an ancestor refuses a child to go to school? Have the ancestors forgotten that the child has a right to education, according to the chapter 2 of the constitution in the Bill of rights? This is wickedness and child abuse.

In February 2018, according Times Lives, a 32 year old Sangoma was arrested for murdering a 13 year old albino girl and used her for muti ritual. Mind you, sangomas are labelled as communication agents connected to the ancestors. If ancestors are influencing sangomas to kill innocent albinos for muti, then ancestors are nothing but demonic murderers.

Verse 5 of the 10 commandments in Exodus 20, prohibits anyone to bow or serve any image of likeliness of anything in heaven or earth. bowing before a sangoma or on a grave of a dead person is serving an image: a god of the dead, which is a spiritual force in itself.

I hate the system of ancestral worship and talking to the dead because it’s a wicked and destructive force in the african society. An article by Truth magazine tells a story about a teenage girl who was being treated for glaucoma at the hospital in Durban, her mother took her treatment away and sent her to stay with a sangoma who had promised to cure her. The girl has now suddenly turned blind. Now tell me, who is to blame? The sangoma or the ancestors or both? Why did the so called ancestors who allegedly have power over the living fail to heal the girl?


It’s ignorance, foolishness or spiritual blindness not to realize that the dead have no power over themselves or over anyone dead or living. While Chapter 2 of the Constitution - the Bill of rights allows for freedom of religion, belief and opinion, I suggest that South Africa should become a christian nation to avoid the rubbish of ancestral worship and the nonsense about talking to the dead. It is makes me angry. It is a pathetic system. This is my mere opinion.

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Sources:

https://googleweblight.com/i?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.truthmagazine.com%2Farchives%2Fvolume35%2FGOT035143.html&geid=NSTNR [Accessed 24/07/2019]

https://googleweblight.com/i?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmg.co.za%2Farticle%2F2005-04-21-the-ancestors-wont-let-her-go-to-school&geid=NSTNR [Accessed 24/07/2019]

https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2018-02-28-policeman-reveals-horror-he-found-at-sangomas-premises/ [Accessed 24/07/2019]





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