John Mbiti, a prominent Christian theologian from Kenya who helped debunk entrenched ideas that traditional African religions were primitive, giving them equal weight with major world faiths, died on Oct. 5 at a nursing home in Burgdorf , Switzerland . He was 87.

His daughter Maria Mbiti confirmed the death but did not give the cause.

In his writings, Mr. Mbiti described a landscape of tribal and national religions in Africa that might have lacked sacred texts like the Bible but that nonetheless lived deeply in people’s hearts and minds, in rituals and oral histories, and through priests, elders and kings .

“Everyone is a religious carrier,” he wrote in his influential book “African Religions and Philosophy” (1969), a result of his field work in Africa.

“Wherever the African is,” he added, “there is his religion.”

He disputed characterizations of African religions as anti-Christian at best and practiced by savages at worst — labels that had been used to justify imperialism and slavery.