For instance, out of the priests in the Region only three were indigenes and none of these was in charge of a parish. While some Catholic churches were destroyed, the Protestant churches, whose members were mainly Northerners, were untouched. The missionaries began to lay the foundation for a vibrant, culturally-sensitive, and attentive indigenous church that welcomed the end of the civil war in and thereafter. According to Fr. Hickey's account of the turn of events:. The decade following was a time when the Catholics of the North forged their identity as a mainly Hausa speaking community which reflected the customs, culture, and ethos of the North.
No longer under the shadow of a more highly educated and richer immigrant Catholic community, the Northern Catholics gained confidence in themselves and an awareness of their responsibility. Many more youths soon followed, to the extent that by the region could boast of about eighty-six indigenous priests, with Tivland alone, the historic center for anti-Muslim resistance in the North, leading with forty priests.
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With the exception of Maiduguri and Yola, all the ten Dioceses in the former North are headed by indigenous bishops. In , Kano became a mini-diocese — a step towards becoming a diocese. For a church whose personnel require a lengthy period of training, not to mention the demands of a celibate commitment, the change in its personnel is clear evidence of a vibrant and committed faith on the part of its large number of converts. The foremost of these is attentiveness to the indigenization of the faith, that is, to a culturally-rooted Christianity which, as we noted earlier, had been a common feature in the Protestant churches.
A Dangerous Awakening - The Politicization of Christianity in Nigeria - IFRA-Nigeria
Besides their unequivocal commitment to indigenize their clergy and lay workers, these churches, especially the ECWA Church, have been using the Hausa language and a Hausa Bible as their major tools for reaching the indigenous people. With these insights, Catholics, of course, enriched their well-known strategy for team ministry between priests and the nuns and their effective use of social services such as education.
In this connection we recall those missionaries who, inspired by the spirit of the Second Vatican Council that has swept through Roman Catholicism since the s, began to work for a culturally-based Catholicism. From a list too long to mention in full, we recall missionaries like the American Dominicans, Fr. Bede Jagoe and Sister Catherine, who started in Malumfashi Sokoto Diocese , the first Catechetical and Women's Centers, respectively, for the joint training of indigenous lay workers and their wives: Fr. Bede, who was later replaced by the Irish Fr. Michael Cullen with his very simple but penetrating presentations of the Gospel, coupled with the American Dominican Fr.
Ceslaus Prazan's itinerant preaching in very simple Hausa language, who extended the reach of the message to the grassroots; Fr. John O'Mahony and Sr. Ruth Kidson whose effective running of the newly established Media Service Center in Kaduna exemplifies the gains derivable from team ministry. They were thus complacent about reaching out to the many ethnic groups in the region, something which was taken for granted in the Protestant churches.
Having become aware of the limitations in its style of ministry, the Catholic Church had to change its complacent attitude in order to reach other ethnic groups. Here, Fr. Raffty's recent evangelism in the rural areas of the heavily Muslim Kano State, and the number of converts he has been making are worthy of note. A case in point is the recent confirmation of adults in the Catholic faith in Southern Kano alone.
Raffty has now extended his ministry into Northern Kano where there are many traditional religionists many of whom become Christians and, not surprisingly, incur the displeasure of the Emir.
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These swept most parts of the North and contributed a lot to the post-war growth of Christianity. The former not only conducted Bible study classes, it popularized the Christian faith and soon became one of the most talked about spiritual events in the region. By the mid-seventies the spirit of the Zumunta Mata movement reached the Catholic Church. The main strength of the movement lay in the fact that it was wholly run by women who did not have formal training, but only their determination and their faith.
Today, to be a Christian woman from the North is to be a member of the Zumunta Mata, and many observers believe that the future of Christianity in many parts of the North depends on them. Undoubtedly, not only have they contributed immensely to the enrichment of the liturgy in the Christian churches today, but they are most probably, we dare to say, 78 the energizing force behind the priestly and religious vocation boom in the Catholic Church in the North. Biafra portrayed the war as one between the Islamic North and the Christian East and made a surprising success of this within the international community.
This religious propaganda had to be countered throughout the war by the Federal Government.
A Dangerous Awakening
As a result, the Federal Government had to ensure that Christians within its areas of control were not threatened, as was the case in the time of the Sardauna. This state of affairs was to the advantage of the churches, especially in the North. They, especially the Catholics, now had the opportunity to lay the necessary foundation that gave birth to the phenomenal growth the churches have enjoyed since the s.
This, in our opinion, is a significant reason why the victorious Federal Government was very careful to ensure there was no further Igbo bloodshed at the end of the war. A covert method of punishment for a defeated side had to be found. We recall Miller's observation during his retirement that the traditionalists would become increasingly crucial in Nigerian politics as they become civilized and evangelized.
Since the practice of Christianity in the area is different from its Northern and Eastern counterparts, it highlights another dimension in the politicization of Christianity, and indeed religion, in Nigeria. In fact, in Lagos alone, the traditional religion was virtually on the road to extinction whilst the Muslims and Christians, especially the latter, increased numerically. Two plausible reasons emerge for this state of affairs. First, Islam had to adopt a low profile, not only to maintain its gains, but also to fight off the Christians, who have been unequivocal about using their advantage in the Western educational system, the easiest avenue to socio-economic power, to win converts from the Muslim population in the regions.
Table 1. This explains why the West, especially the Yoruba speaking area, is the birthplace of almost all the indigenous African churches, including those founded since the s. As we shall see in the remaining part of this chapter, these churches have assumed a fundamentalist posture. They spend their energy more on converting fellow Christians than non-Christians and trying, in the process, to prove themselves more doctrinally authentic than the older churches. The following turn of events later largely halted this effort. In preparation for this, especially to train the necessary personnel, the Western state government in made the three teacher training colleges in the state unconditionally accessible to all.
Many Muslims responded well to this development and went to these schools. The churches which owned and ran these schools might have seen this development as an opportunity to convert the Muslims, but to the surprise of the Christians, the Muslims were not prepared to compromise their faith.
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Prior to , in the largely Muslim-populated city of Iwo, for example, 85 many Muslims, for fear of losing their children to the Christian faith, 86 avoided sending their children to the Baptist College in the city — the bastion of Baptist Christian expansion in the area. The Muslims who went to this college called each other to prayer on the very first day of classes.
Besides being the first time this happened in the school's history, a large turnout of Muslims gathered to pray and soon this became a regular feature in many schools in the state. It soon dawned on Christians, including those with a fundamentalist character, to start working together in order to arrest the Islamic awakening in the region.
Table 2. Census Figure of Religious Affiliation in Nigeria, Source: Census of Nigeria , Vol. Wherever the Pope went, he was welcomed by a massive crowd that cut across religious affiliations.
The climax of the visit was the Pope's ordination to the priesthood of the candidates from the Catholic major seminaries across the country. This, strategically, took place in Kaduna in full view of national and international cameras. Obviously, the church leaders were sending a clear political message to the nation, if not specifically to the Islamic ruling class: that Christianity had not only come of age but it had also come now to claim the rights commensurate with its numerical strength in Nigeria.
This aside, the phenomenal numerical growth of Christianity, however, did not mean that all was well with the churches. It is not easy to say whether these new churches — in their old or new variants — were founded with the aim of earning a living or, in the case of the newer ones, were avenues for resolving the war psychosis. Social scientists can only speculate on the motives behind these religious movements, but the point remains that the leaders or founders of these movements hardly move around to canvass for membership.
Membership is often drawn from people visiting them who are won over more by their actions than by their message. Despite being professionals and highly educated individuals, these visitors simply put their expertise at the service of the founder or leader with unequivocal diligence. Under the cover of darkness, some who were not prepared to desert the old churches still visited the new ones for what they considered to be a more fulfilling spiritual experience.
Liturgically, the fulfilment could come by way of expressive worship punctuated with dances, songs in local style or idiom, clapping, etc. Socially, it could come by way of prayers for individuals seeking a job, or a marriage partner, or a child or a cure — to name a few of the utilitarian aspects of religion — to which, in the mould of the African traditional view of religion, 90 these new churches pay attention.
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Whatever the reason may be, people were calling into question the old practices in the old churches. In recent times, however, the question has crystallized into a disillusionment over, and dissatisfaction with, the discord in the churches. A few examples are worth noting. It is as a result of lack of faith in priests who hardly even have time to pray after Masses. In those days, priests were seen as next to God but people today don't trust some priests any more. For, as the name of the group suggests, it is out to 'renew' the Catholic Church.
This is in so far as the Church's efforts at indigenization have largely remained at the level of personnel. Little happened in the area of the mode of worship; there was still little sensitivity and attentiveness to day-to-day human needs. Although the Church has been able to contain the group within its fold, it is still generally seen as suspect by the more orthodox mainly because of its Protestant idiosyncrasies. If it was not the members of St. Adesanya, former chancellor of the diocese, took Bishop IB. Akintemi to court, bragging to the press:.
My lawyer has written to the Bishop … because I am taking him and others to court for redress.
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When the matter becomes an explosive one in court, you will have a lot to write in your newspaper. The issue centered around the affluent Anglicans in Lagos, whose favourite church was St. Saviour's, wanting their wishes to prevail over those of the constituted Anglican authority. Emmanuel N. Ekwunife, in the Vanguard newspaper, advised:. The men of timber and caliber at St.
Saviour's should retreat from their offensiveness and stop tempting the Bishop with their wealth and weight … Orderliness, which is the first law in heaven, should be given a chance to thrive and flourish on earth. The discord seems to have arisen on account of the varied perceptions of authority and power.
Idowu, a retired Professor, and the father of the study of African Traditional Religion in Nigerian universities, felt that he ought to be seen as the patriarch, and addressed as His Pre-eminence' in the Methodist Church of Nigeria. Sunday Mbang and the laity led by Rev. Adeolu Adegbola. As of , the Cherubim and Seraphim movement had broken into nearly 50 factions, with Geoffrey Otubu and Christiana Abiodun Emmanuel leading the two most prominent ones.
An Ibadan-based part of the Church, under the leadership of one Fasugba, separated itself from the main church in opposition to certain practices in the Church, including polygamy. Although the leadership struggle eventually ended up with Bada being installed leader, it was not before the matter had gone to court.