I say this with love, not malice.
Religion; especially in places like Ghana and across much of the continent, has played a powerful role in our story. It’s consoled grieving mothers, pulled families through difficult times, and kept hope alive in places where systems failed. But here’s what we rarely talk about:
That same religion has also trained many of us not to think.
We were taught how to pray, how to fast, how to tithe, but never how to question. Never how to analyze. Never how to dissect the systems around us with clear and rational thought.
Where I’m from, pastors are often treated as prophets, beyond reproach and sometimes beyond logic. To question them is to challenge God. So, critical thinking is looked at as being rebellious. Silence becomes submission. And thinking for yourself? That becomes dangerous.
From Wisdom Keepers to Spiritual Consumers
Our ancestors were not mindless. They were philosophers, oral historians, diviners, engineers of culture. The griots, the priests, the elders; they asked questions. They decoded dreams. They made meaning of the stars and the soil. They didn’t just worship; they wondered and definitely asked questions.
But the transatlantic slave trade and colonialism didn’t just take human capital and gold respectively. It took our frameworks for understanding reality. In their place, it handed us imported dogma; designed to discipline the body and dull the mind.
They made us ashamed of the Gods of our fathers and called our wisdom “witchcraft.” In that erasure, something vital was lost: our right to think freely, to explore fearlessly, and to seek truth without shame.
The Church of Anti-Thought
Now, in many communities, everything is spiritual warfare. Poverty? Must be a demon. Depression? A curse. Government corruption? Let God deal with it.
We’re taught to speak in tongues, but not in reason. We memorize verses, but not the questions beneath them. We’ve become consumers of spiritual content instead of cultivators of deep spiritual understanding.
Meanwhile, science is sidelined. Innovation is stunted. And anyone who dares to think independently gets labeled “worldly,” “backslidden,” or worse—“proud.”
We Pray While Rome Burns
It’s not that belief is the problem. It’s the way belief is weaponized to keep people passive. To keep them docile. To make them feel that everything wrong in their lives is either a test from God or punishment for sin.
So instead of organizing, we spiritualize. Instead of questioning, we quote scripture. Most importantly, instead of confronting systems of oppression, we wait for miracles.
But here’s the truth most won’t say out loud:
Some of the biggest miracles Africa needs will only come through critical thought, collective action, and courageous questioning.
What If Our Faith Encouraged Thought Instead of Avoiding It?
I’m not against belief in an Almighty, as a matter of fact, I’m absolutely for it. I’m also for belief that sharpens the mind, not blunts it. Belief that empowers, not pacifies. Belief that dares to say, “I trust the divine, but I also trust the brain God gave me.”
We don’t need to abandon faith.
We need to decolonize it.
We need to remember that our pre-colonial spiritual systems made space for nuance, dialogue, and discovery. They weren’t perfect, but they didn’t fear thought.
Imagine a Ghana, a Nigeria, a Kenya, a South Africa, or even the Black communitities all over the world, where belief doesn’t shut down inquiry but sparks it. Where young people learn to code and to pray. To meditate and to organize. To respect elders and still challenge the status quo.
Imagine a new kind of renaissance, one where the divine and the intellectual dance again, not as enemies, but as partners.
That’s the Africa I believe in.
And that’s the gospel I’m preaching.
