Christ as Ancestor?

In Africa, Jesus is sometimes seen as the ultimate Ancestor1. When I first read of this it seemed massively dodgy, like he was being reduced to the important-but-not-divine status of a Catholic saint. But hang on a minute, what do I know about the African conception of ancestors . . . Those with better knowledge than I say that this label has some legitimacy - for, like (but better than) the traditional ancestors, the Son is the Mediator between man and God. He is the head of humanity/the church and in him we who are alive now are connected with the rest of the Christian family who have died. And it may help to explain Christ's humanity and divinity. Yet, it has its problems, and not all Africans are happy with it.


1 TC Tennent, Theology in the Context of World Christianity (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007), 122-31.