Traditional Versus Modernism: The Persistence of Tharaka Traditional World-view among the Evangelical Coverts in Tharaka, Kenya

Abstract

The evangelical Churches have evangelized the Tharaka for decades since 1940s. Although the evangelicals in most instances urge their converts to abandon their traditional world-view and adopt a new way of life (which they term as Christian cosmology), the evangelical converts in Tharaka continue to hold firmly to their traditional world-view while at the same time following Christianity. Some aspects of traditionalism which the evangelical converts still regard include: belief in the influence of the spirits, the mystical power in its manifestation in witchcraft, magic divination and others. This study investigated this scenario and found that the reasons for the persistence of the traditional world-view include: the failure by the Evangelical Churches to adequately meet the converts’ needs, poor evangelism, failure to make use of the Tharaka world view in evangelism, lack of serious grounding in the word of God and psychological factors. There is no way the evangelicals can ignore the traditional Tharaka traditional world-view as they have done for years if they hope to be relevant to the Tharaka people.

Keywords: Tharaka; Tharaka Traditional World-view; Evangelical Denominations.