CHAPTER SIX CONTINUITY OF LIFE
4. LIFE AFTER DEATH
This is the area oflife that proceeds from SaSa period to Zamani period according to Mbiti. This stage oflife was prepared by the individual's parents long before the individual was born. This is the place or life period where many of the poor and marginalised put their hope. They believe that it is in this community ofthe departed where their plight will be understood and be responded to by those who have just left them. They believe that the living-dead will be able to communicate their situation to God and
He will give them the answer, and therefore the living-dead will bring back the answer to the living.
Itis this theology ofMbiti that could thoroughly help the poor and marginalised in South Africa because itis able to understand the way Africans view life and it is able to focus them on the life after death. The church needs to be alert to the similarity here or continuity with the Gospel's promise oflife after death.
African theology can build its empowerment strategies around the idea of life after death or eternity because Africans, whether they are believers or non-believers, know that there is life after death.
Mbiti gives a clear understanding of who are the living-dead and how they communicate with the living to an extent that the living create in them a hope for the life after death. He describes them in this way:
The departed of up to five generations are in a different category from that of ordinary spirits.
They are still within theSaSa period, they are in the state ofpersonal immortality, and their process of dying is not yet complete. We have called them the living-dead. They are the closest links that people have with the spirit world. Some ofthe things said about the spirits apply also to the living- dead. But the living-dead are bilingual: they speak the language of people with whom they lived until "recently"; and they speak the language of the spirits and of God, to whom they are drawing nearer ontologically. (1969:83)
So the living-dead are still fresh in the memories of people and, therefore, people communicate with them in a spiritual way, visualizing them as people who are not in the actual body form. Mbiti gives us their function which, to me, enables the poor and the marginalised to see their liberation as not very far.
He argues that:
The living-dead are still "people", and have not yet become "things'" "spirits" or "its". They return to their human families from time to time and share meals with them, however symbolically.
They know and have interest in what is going on in the family. When they appear, which is
generally to the oldest members of the household, they are recognized by names as "so and so";
they enquire about family affairs and may even warn of impending danger or rebuke those who have failed to follow their special instruction. They are the intermediaries between people and God: they know the needs of people, they have "recently" been here with people, and at the same time they have full access to the channels of communicating with God. (1969:83)
The church in South Africa needs to understand this life stage which is able to give a tremendous hope to those who are hopeless, poor and marginalised, so that it can grab hold ofthe hope-giving method of the African world view. The church could creatively contribute to the process of empowerment of the poor and marginalised if it grabs hold of this understanding. Graham Philpott in his book "Jesus is Tricky and God is Undemocratic" discusses a similar situation where the church did not let this opportunity go in communicating the Gospel in one local community. He discusses the march which was done by the Amawoti community during Easter and how the church used the understanding ofEaster to present Jesus in that community.
The understanding of Easter, and the Jesus of Easter, developed in response to the crises of the community. The places at which the march halted were seen as places which particularly expressed the presence of God or the absence of God. This is discerning God in their own exceptional history. This discerning of God happened from within the position of the poor and oppressed, as the members of that commtmity reflected together on the nature of this God.
(Philpott, 1993:Ill)
So the Amawoti community went into the Zamani period of the Christian community. They first understood for themselves what was happening during Easter and, then, identified themselves with the Jesus of Easter. Jesus' suffering and his victory was seen by the Amawoti community as an act of
defeating the oppression of apartheid. Therefore, it empowered them to be able to fight for their liberation and also create peace within the community through the hope that was aroused in them by the Jesus of Easter.
5. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, it has been discovered in this chapter that in an African Context life is ushered into this world of the Living, it is prepared for. When life is in the Midst of the living, it is taken through life stages in a very serious and respectful manner. This is one of the ways that can create a good self-image in one's life. In this chapter it has been shown that, it could be a very crucial tool for the empowerment of the poor and marginalised.
If the same method of caring for life before birth, before death and after death could be practised in the process ofempowering the poor and marginalized, poverty and marginalisation could be eradicated. This kind of caring method does not only empower the poor and marginalized but it also builds up a healthy community, which is able to create a sustainable development within the community. In the next chapter health and healing is going to be dealt with in an extensive way.