How does Alexander McCall Smith use imagery in The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency?

Imagery:

"... God was here anyway, before the missionaries came. We called him by a different name, then, and he did not live over at the Jews' place; he lived here in Africa, in the rocks, in the sky, in places where we knew he lived to be. When you died, you went somewhere else, and God would have been there too, but you would not be able to get specially close to him. Why would he want that?"