I FIRST encountered Bénézet Bujo not in a lecture hall, but within the pages of his writings. His thought became a lifeline during my theological studies, once I wrestled with Christology and the doctrine of the Trinity. How could three individuals be one God? The creeds were clear, but my imagination faltered. I longed for a way of understanding that spoke to my African upbringing, where ancestors and community shape moral life.
I’ve previously written about Jean-Marc Ela and his criticism of imported theologies. Bujo took me further. He gave me a conceptual home. His insight that Jesus may be understood because the Proto-Ancestor — the primary, and supreme, source of life — was transformative. Suddenly, Christology was not an abstract puzzle, but a living reality. In one project, drawing on Bujo’s work, I argued that Jesus is the Proto-Ancestor. Whether or not my tutors agreed, that moment gave me the boldness to bring my very own worldview into theological conversation.
Bujo was clear: Africans don’t worship ancestors per se. They honour them as mediators, guardians of life and harmony. His genius was to indicate that Christ fulfils this intuition. Jesus is just not one ancestor amongst many: he’s the ancestor par excellence; the unique mediator who reconciles humanity to God.
BORN on 4 April 1940 in Drodro, Ituri Province, in what was then the Belgian Congo, Bénézet Bujo was ordained a priest within the diocese of Bunia. He studied philosophy and theology in Bukavu, Isiro, and Kinshasa, before earning a doctorate in theology on the University of Würzburg, in Germany.
He taught on the Catholic University of Kinshasa, and the Catholic University of Eastern Africa in Nairobi, later serving as Professor of Moral Theology, Social Ethics, and African Theology on the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. He was appointed professor emeritus on his retirement in 2010.
Bujo died in November 2023, leaving a legacy as a pioneer of African inculturation theology: a voice that insisted that African culture was not an obstacle to faith, but a partner in dialogue.
IN AFRICAN thought, ancestors are revered as mediators and life-givers. They embody continuity and belonging. Bujo’s move was daring yet faithful: if mediation and communion are central to African moral imagination, then Christ — the one mediator, the giver of life — may be understood because the Proto-Ancestor; the source and fulfilment of all ancestral hopes.
This doesn’t dilute doctrine. It clarifies it for African Christians. The New Testament calls Jesus the “firstborn”, the “head of the body”, the “mediator”. These titles resonate with ancestral motifs without collapsing into ancestor worship. For Bujo, Christ gathers the living and the dead into one communion, binding us in solidarity and hope.
Such a vision resists Western individualism. Salvation is just not a non-public transaction, but a communal reality. It is about being woven right into a living network: the communion of saints, ancestors, and descendants, all gathered into Christ’s life. For me, this was liberating. Theology suddenly became legible in my cultural grammar.
BUJO’s home discipline was moral theology, and his Christology has ethical consequences. If Christ, the Proto-Ancestor, binds us right into a community of life, then ethics is about communion, justice, and care — not mere rule-keeping. In works reminiscent of The Ethical Dimension of Community and Foundations of an African Ethic: Beyond the universal claims of Western morality, Bujo is critical of universalist moral claims that ignore context. He calls for an ethic rooted in dialogue, solidarity, and responsibility — values deeply embedded in African life.
Some fear that inculturation relativises doctrine. Bujo shows the other. His theology holds Western tradition — Aquinas, Vatican II, natural law — in serious conversation, while affirming African categories as real partners. This is just not theology of accommodation but theology of encounter. It is what Pope Francis called a “theology of dialogue”: listening to lived experience, and chatting with real communities.
Bujo’s Christology is just not a neighborhood curiosity; it’s a present to the universal Church. It reminds us that the gospel is at home in every culture, and that every culture offers metaphors that illuminate Christ. For me, reading Bujo’s writings — notably those mentioned above, and African Theology in Its Social Context (1986) and African Christian Morality on the Age of Inculturation (1990) — alongside Western texts, returned theology to the road, the family compound, the ancestral homestead: to the places where moral life is lived.
HIGHER education is rightly debating identity and belonging. In theology, this matters profoundly. Students aren’t blank slates: we bring languages, rituals, and memories. Asking us to bracket these out impoverishes learning. Bujo’s work invites us to bring our worlds into dialogue with the gospel.
For me, growing up where ancestors were a part of on a regular basis conversation, Bujo’s perspective was intuitive. It helped me to listen to the creed with African ears, after which to check and enrich what I learned from Western sources. Far from undermining orthodoxy, such encounters deepen it. They make Jesus greater than a doctrinal formula; they reveal him because the living bond of a people — the Proto-Ancestor who animates our common life.
AFRICAN Christians within the diaspora often should navigate spaces where their moral instincts seem invisible. Bujo offers confidence that our cultural tools aren’t obstacles, but vehicles of understanding. Christ as mediator isn’t any stranger to African thought: he’s its fulfilment. Christ as life-giver doesn’t cancel ancestral bonds: he transfigures them.
When young theologians see their very own worlds reflected in doctrine, as an alternative of walking away they lean in. Bujo’s vision dignifies African experience and enriches global theology.
Bujo taught me that theology breathes best when it remembers its home. For Africans, that home is just not a museum of customs, but a living moral ecology where ancestors, elders, and youngsters are woven into one story. Christ the Proto-Ancestor stands at the center of that story: source, mediator, and destiny. He gathers our scattered threads and binds us right into a communion that bridges cultures and invites the world to share within the lifetime of God.
The Revd Dr Ericcson T. Mapfumo is Missional Priest-in-Charge of Christ Church, Moldgreen, and St James’s, Rawthorpe, in Leeds diocese, and Anglican Chaplain on the University of Huddersfield. He is a trustee of the William Temple Foundation.
