Communicating African Spirituality through Ecology: Challenges and Prospects for the 21st Century

Abstract

This review was set in the context of African spirituality and ecology. Specifically, the review addressed issues of African spirituality and the environment from a Kenyan context. Through analyses on existing literature, we examined African worldviews, determined how African spirituality was communicated through the environment, evaluated African ways of regulating the use of the environment, and explored challenges facing African spirituality and ecology today. Results show that African spirituality has been enhanced through the environment where humanity worshipped and venerated everything under the earth, on earth, between the earth and heavens and in the heavens above. Consequently, various methods to restrict the utilization of certain natural resources are employed as a way of conserving the environment. Additional findings demonstrate that African spirituality and ecology are currently facing a number of challenges, hence a major challenge of sustainability of African spirituality in regard to environment. From a spiritual point of view, it is therefore recommended that environmental diversity should be conserved through sustainable development where every person from grassroots level is involved in protecting and maintaining God’s creation. We conclude that African knowledge and belief systems on environmental sustainability could be revitalized and used in environmental conservation.

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