Johannine Eschatology of Death, Judgment and Resurrection: A Comparative Study with African Traditional Religion

The eschatological frameworks of Johannine Christianity and African Traditional Religion (ATR) present critical convergences and divergences regarding death, judgment, and resurrection, creating a missiological impasse. While ATR affirms a Supreme Creator God who judges conduct and sustains life after death, it lacks physical resurrection, final eschatological judgment, and new creation. Consequently, many African Christians practice dual religiosity simultaneously adhering to Christianity and ATR as a pragmatic response to existential crises that Western missionary liturgies inadequately address. However, existing scholarship mainly uses secondary ethnographic accounts. This leaves a gap in empirically verifying how contemporary African Christians navigate these tensions. Furthermore, ATR is often treated monolithically, obscuring significant regional and ethnic diversity in beliefs about death and ancestors.
This study employs a comparative theological design with qualitative documentary analysis of Johannine texts (John 5:24-29; 11:23-26; 14:1-3) and ethnographic literature from Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, and Nigeria.
Three convergences emerged: affirmation of a Supreme Judge, moral causation of divine judgment, and post mortem continuity. Five divergences were identified: ATR lacks physical resurrection, final judgment, linear teleological time, new creation, and hope for non ancestral deceased. Dual religiosity persists as a lived reality arising from liturgical disjunction (Ezenwa, 2025).
ATR contains genuine points of contact serving as praeparatio evangelica. The Johannine proclamation “I am the resurrection and the life” directly addresses ATR’s eschatological deficits. However, the findings are limited because primary fieldwork is absent; future empirical research is urgently needed to capture the lived realities of dual religiosity across Africa's diverse ATR traditions.

Johannine eschatology, death, judgment, resurrection, African Traditional Religion, dual religiosity, syncretism, contextualization

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