Worldview clash: impact of persistence of Tharaka traditional worldview on christian discipleship among evangelicals in Tharaka

Abstract

Christian discipleship is recognized by evangelicals as playing a pivotal role in the life of an individual Christian as well as the congregation at large. This is because it promotes character transformation which in turn makes one handle life diverse challenges including economic spiritual and social challenges experienced in our day. Although this is so, this emphasis is actually not done in many congregations in Tharaka as evangelicals see recommended in the Bible. One thing that hampers Christian discipleship in Tharaka is that many evangelicals still revert to African traditional worldview in the times of crisis. This is despite the fact that at many points, there is a worldview clash between evangelical faith and Tharaka traditional worldview. This consequently impends Christian discipleship. The research design used in this study was descriptive survey, stratified random sampling was used to obtain a representative sample. Using face to face interviews, focus group discussions and interviews, the study revealed that persistent of Tharaka traditional worldview among evangelicals promotes nominal Christianity, produces inconsistent Christians, promotes syncretism, demeans the means of grace, leads to poor evangelism, undermines the role of Jesus Christ in redemption and produces imbalanced theology. Informed by the theory of the Flaw of the Excluded Middle, the paper argues that evangelicals need to take note of the fact that the persistence of Tharaka traditional worldview aspects condemned by evangelicals among them would imply that these evangelicals are finding relevance in these worldview aspects. Evangelicals hence need to present the gospel at worldview level to allow the gospel to speak to the African reality. Thus African church will yield its spiritual influence in world Christianity as was the case in the period of the early church fathers. Keywords: Worldview, Persistence, Discipleship, Evangelicals, Tharaka, Christianity