Christian Animal Sacrifices

Now, Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media. This week’s item is from Virtue Online, June 3, 2005, with the headline, “Blood Used to Welcome Ancestors. The ritual killing of animals is being contemplated by Anglicans and Roman Catholics in Southern Africa. Anglican congregations have been losing worshippers to more indigenous forms of religion, and there are moves to introduce measures that better reflect local culture. 

One of these is the slaughter of an animal in order to stay in touch with ancestors through the spilled blood. The practice was discouraged by Western missionaries, but there are indications that laypeople an some priests do not consider it to be beyond the pale.

The Archbishop of Capetown, the Most Revd Njongonkulu Ndungane, has said that it is not prohibitied. ‘It's not animal sacrifice as such. It's a liturgical function which connects the living with the dead.’

A leading African theologian, Professor Kwame Bediako, a lecturer at Natal University, said that Christians who made contact with their ancestors could help the West understand what it was for Christ to be alive today.

‘We need to understand who our ancestors are. They are not all the dead. We need to bring some Christian understanding to this, because it can throw light on aspects of the Christian faith and on the Gospels that have not been exposed yet…. The tradition of the closer awareness of ancestors as living persons may come to a nearer understanding of what it means for Jesus Christ to be alive.’

The Rt Revd Joe Aldred, secretary for minority-ethnic affairs for Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, said that the African practice of venerating the ancestors was misrepresented in the West. 

‘In the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches, people pray to the saints and the Virgin Mary as though they are alive. That is acceptable to most people; but when Africans talk about remembering their dead, it becomes ancestor worship.’

What was acceptable elsewhere ‘becomes sinister when wrapped in African clothes,’ he said. The issue could be discussed at a conference in London in October, he said.”

Tom: Dave, this article gives new meaning to the phrase, “Say what?” One quote from it - this is from the Archbishop: “It’s a liturgical function which connects the living with the dead.” Say what? [Laughs] What is this?

Dave: Well, Tom, there’s so many phrases like that found here. The slaughter of an animal is done in order, it says, to stay in touch with ancestors through the spilt blood. Now, I reject the idea that my ancestors were animals. Furthermore, I don’t find anywhere in the Bible that I’m supposed to keep in touch with my ancestors. In this…

Tom: [Unintelligible]

Dave: It is. This is called necromancy, but of course they would say, “Well, we’re not communicating with them, we’re just kind of getting a feeling for closeness, or that they’re still alive.”

Tom: Mm-hmm. So why the ritual? I mean, you can just have a thought that way, can’t you?

Dave: Well, ritualism is very important for some people.

Tom: It has to be efficacious; it has to make some contact then.

Dave: It says Christians who made contact with their ancestors could help the West understand what it was for Christ to be alive today. What do they mean Christ is alive today? Christ is alive! He rose from the dead, He’s at the Father’s right hand in heaven. We know that. We know that by faith, we know from the testimony of Scriptures. Now, what do they mean, “Christ to be alive today?” We need to understand who our ancestors are. They weren’t all dead. Now…well, my ancestors are. My father and mother are dead; those would be my closest ancestors. My grandparents died long before that. I suppose some people still have a living father, mother, with a grandfather and grandmother, so some ancestors are alive today, but I don’t think that’s what they’re talking about. You don’t talk about your parents and your grandparents as ancestors. They’re not all dead, and we need to have a Christian understanding of this. 

Tom, what would you need a Christian to understand? Where would you get a Christian understanding except from the Bible?

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Dave: So they are making this up. 

Now, let’s say the tradition of the closer awareness of ancestors is living persons. Well, it happens to be an African tradition. 

But, Tom, I’ll say a hearty amen to part of this, because they’re pointing out that the Catholics and the Orthodox who pray to Mary and who pray to the saints are basically involved in the same thing. And you remember it when the pope - some years ago he was in West Africa, and he addressed the Voodoo priest, and he said, “Well, you could become Catholic easily enough. You don’t have to change anything. You worship your ancestors, we worship ours.” So I’m happy that they’re pointing this out, and…

Tom: Obviously not in a good way! I mean, they’re dead wrong…

Dave: Oh, of course. Maybe it will help the Catholics and Orthodox to awaken to this [unintelligible]. What they’re engaged in is basically a pagan practice, and the pagans here complain…well, they call themselves Christians. They’re not Christians. I don’t know who they even think Jesus Christ is, but they point out what’s acceptable elsewhere “becomes sinister when wrapped in African clothes.” How about that? 

Tom: Dave, in the sense of the Anglican church, as you remember, the other day I was showing you and your wife Ruth some photos that I took at the Victoria, British Columbia. And I went into an Anglican cathedral there, and I noticed they had an altar dedicated to Mary, statues of Mary there; they had a stained glass window that showed God the Father…many things that were just horrendous. But Ruth reminded me when you go to Australia, there are some Anglican churches there that she says are rock solid.

Dave: Yeah, that’s true, but that’s not the ones that this news article is about.

Tom: No.

Dave: It doesn’t depend upon whether you call yourself Anglican or Baptist, it depends upon whether you follow the Bible. Why must we follow the Bible? We don’t make this up as we go along. We’ve said that many times. If you want to invent a religion, go ahead, but you cannot call it Christianity, because it has its founding, it has its Scriptures, it has its history - the early church, for example. You can’t change that. We can’t change what the Scriptures say. But for these people, it doesn’t seem to matter what the Bible says.

Tom: And that’s the way things are going, Dave, as we mentioned in our last segment, there’s an ecumenism that brings people together: pagans, Christians - doesn’t make any difference. We’re all going to have peace, we’re all going to get along, we’re all going to sorrowfully be lost. 

Dave: Mm-hmm. So we have the Rt Revd Joe Aldred. It says he’s secretary for Minority Ethnic Affairs for Churches Together in Britain and Ireland. I suppose that would be good, churches together, if they all believed the same thing. But they have to compromise their beliefs, and they have to turn away from the Bible in order to join with one another, and that, as you said, is the ecumenical movement, and it is not good. It denies that there is a strait and narrow way, and it want to bring everyone into joining together, and that’s the broad road that leads to destruction, Jesus said.