Faith, Culture, and the Death of the Living Sacred
Faith is a fundamental aspect of being human. It is the essence of being human. Long before the first temples were built or the first scriptures were written, human beings lived by faith, not merely in gods or spirits, but in the very reliability of existence. Faith is what allows us to absorb that which is logical and measurable, and also that which stretches beyond the reach of reason. It is the inner bridge between the known and the unknown.
Yet faith is never a free-floating abstraction. It always exists inside the frame of a culture. It speaks a particular language, wears certain symbols, and is expressed through rituals that have meaning only within a specific worldview. In the Maasai initiation rites, in the Buddhist monastic codes, in the Islamic salat, and in the pouring of libations in Igbo tradition, faith is not a vague universal, it is embodied, situated, and narrated within a particular way of life.
The Neutrality of Belief, the Necessity of Truth
At its core, belief itself is morally neutral. Whether a belief is ultimately “true” or “false” in some absolute sense is not always immediately clear to the believer. People have believed, with equal fervour, in the benevolence of ancestral spirits and in the justice of divine kings; in heliocentric astronomy and in the sun chariot of Helios. What gives belief its power is not its proven accuracy but its capacity to orient life, to give meaning, and to anchor moral action.
Yet human history shows that the discovery, or revelation, of truth should refine or redefine what is believed. When Galileo’s telescope revealed moons orbiting Jupiter, it should have restructured Christian cosmology; when germ theory explained disease, it should have replaced miasma-based ritual purifications. In healthy cultures, truth functions like a pruning blade, keeping the tree of belief alive and adaptable.
From Living Stream to Frozen Monument
The great tragedy begins when belief resists that pruning. When belief is institutionalised, codified, and universalised, when it is cast in ink and bound in canon, it often ceases to evolve. Once framed as unchangeable doctrine, it refuses to move with the living currents of life. The sacred is transformed from a flowing stream into a stone monument: impressive to behold, but lifeless.
This is the moment when religion begins to betray faith. Not because the idea of the divine is false, but because the divine has been reduced to a set of rules, frozen in a specific historical and cultural form, and then declared universal. In this fossilisation, all religion becomes “false,” not in the sense that its metaphysical claims are necessarily wrong, but in that it no longer mirrors the dynamic, unfolding reality of life.
The African Lesson: The Sacred as Seasonal
In many African traditional belief systems, the sacred was not trapped in unchanging texts. Instead, wisdom was preserved in oral traditions, stories, proverbs, songs, and rituals, that could adapt to new events and insights. The Akan proverb, Wisdom is like a baobab tree; no one individual can embrace it, reflects the awareness that truth is communal, dynamic, and never fully possessed.
Among the Shona cultures (Karanga, Zezuru, Manyika, etc.), for example, the practice of kurova guva (bringing back the spirit of the deceased) is not fixed to a single doctrinal formula. It evolves with family circumstances, community needs, and the character of the person being remembered. Faith here is not about enforcing universal conformity but about maintaining harmony with ancestors, land, and the living community.
When the Word Becomes a Weapon
The universalisation of belief, especially when exported beyond its cultural soil—often becomes an act of domination. The colonial missionary enterprise is a vivid example. The blending of Jewish tradition, culture, and beliefs with Roman political thought, into a religious package called Christianity, framed in the doctrinal and cultural assumptions of Europe. This was declared not just true for them but true for all. African cosmologies, despite their depth and ethical sophistication, were dismissed as superstition. The Bible, once an oral and multi-voiced tradition, became a printed tool for enforcing cultural assimilation. It was considered truth. Much in the same way you will nowadays hear someone say, "I googled it!"
This was not merely the spread of “faith” but the imposition of a particular cultural form of faith, stripped of its original fluidity and wielded as a political instrument. Once the sacred is bound to empire, it no longer serves the spirit, it serves power.
The Illusion of Universality
Institutional religion often insists that its doctrines are timeless and universal. But every belief system is born from a specific context: language, geography, historical trauma, political power. The Sermon on the Mount arose from first-century Jewish oppression under Rome; the Quran emerged in the oral poetic culture of seventh-century Arabia; the Buddhist sutras were shaped by Indian monastic debates in the centuries after the Buddha’s death.
When these context-bound revelations are presented as culturally neutral, with a splash of divinity, they create the illusion of universality, an illusion that denies the dignity of other cultures and the legitimacy of other pathways to the sacred.
Faith as a Living Practice
If religion is to remain true to its purpose, it must recover the dynamism of faith. Faith is not a static set of answers but a living practice of trust, questioning, listening, and adapting. It is more like tending a garden than guarding a fortress. This requires humility, the recognition that no single doctrine, however revered, can exhaust the fullness of the divine.
In practice, this might mean:
Allowing religious texts to be reinterpreted in the light of new knowledge.
Honouring the sacred wisdom embedded in local cultures instead of erasing it.
Accepting that pluralism is not a threat to truth but a reflection of its vastness.
The Final Paradox
Faith is both fragile and enduring. It needs forms, rituals, stories, communities, to survive, yet those same forms can strangle it if they refuse to change. The challenge for every culture and every believer is to keep the sacred alive without imprisoning it; to let faith have roots without making it a cage.
Religion dies when it forgets that life itself is the true temple. The moment belief refuses to move with the living currents of existence, it ceases to be faith-it becomes fear wearing holy robes.