NIGERIAN CHRISTIANITY: RECENTERING FAITH IN THE FACE OF COVID-19
It is safe to say that a hybrid of the word of faith movement, pentecostalism, and charismatic christianity is the face of the Christian Church in Nigeria. Even liturgical traditions seem to be taking a few tricks from them in order to appeal to what they see as the general Nigerian understanding of Christianity. Much of the older generation have an almost cult like reverence for our "Papas", and their legends have grown dramatically over the years. Although there are exceptions, I have noticed it is those nearer to my age that tend to harbor any skepticism towards religious figures and claims of miracles and prophecies, and this tendency came out well as the Pandemic began. Claims of fulfilled prophecy was met by a particularly loud, mostly irreligious minority opposition, who saw this as simply opportunists using vague statements made in the past to claim prophetic powers. Keep in mind that this is my experience online, I don't think this discussion even comes up in streets and the lives of those who really have other things to worry about. I'm addressing the mostly middle or upper-class Nigerians who have the time, money and education to have discussions like this on social media.
Where my title would come in is the valid points this opposition make at times, the main critique being that religion in Nigeria is "cult-like". Many have more faith in their religious leaders than the government itself. I don't blame them. The government has failed them, I don't think anyone trusts the government anyway, but trust is vital to humans, so they must trust, and a religious leader is someone considered credible, he/she (supposedly) knows God/gods. Personally, I don't believe this will change, I don't even think it should. What I advocate for (in the case for Nigerian Christianity) is a "reformation", a "return", or even a "double return".
My pain whenever I see this hybrid face of Nigerian Christianity is how the extreme and most decadent parts of American Evangelicalism shape much of its ideas. The extremes in America become the norm here, and it leads to the sort of behaviour you see in the form of churches that risk infecting its members with COVID-19 because they have "faith", which in this case means blind assent. My joy is to see people questioning such "faith", and even though many go extreme with it, at least they know something is amiss. To know what is amiss, we need a double return.
The first return is to our Christian roots. For those who can read, read Christian literature beyond your tradition, into the past. Going to the past is a way to cross present denominational boundaries. Read the sermons of old preachers. If you want to know the technicalities of Christian doctrine, read philosophical theology. If you want to know Christian History, read Christian History. Luckily for us, these are fields people write papers and have doctorates in. Don't say things like "this replaces faith with reason/logic", that thinking is precisely why we're in this mess. Faith is reason par excellence, and logic is faith expressed. This return will help us compare the past to our present and help seriously reconsider many of our Pastor's teachings.
The second return is to our cultural roots. I'm personally not good at that, but I am trying. I have papers by African theologians engaging with their culture and indigenous religion. I think for the Christians, we will find many convergences of thought between our faith and the faith of our ancestors, including the need for "mediation" (between God and men, Government and people), the reality of the One God, the celestial hierarchies, and many others. The first point about "mediation" in particular can help inform our politics. Without our roots, many of us will float aimlessly in a world that is seeking to turn you into a automaton made for consumption.
For me, considering the first return in particular in relation to the current pandemic, I can't help but imagine what the response of the many churches would have been if there was a greater emphasis on the incarnation, death and especially the resurrection. I don't mean this in the trivial sense of "He is Risen, therefore corona can't catch you" or "He paid for your sins, corona can't touch you". Such statements are ignorant mischaracterizations of the gospel. I mean an emphasis on the resurrection as the present and future hope of all Christians. This emphasis means we don't believe death is the end, in fact, it has been conquered. It also doesn't mean we won't get sick, or die. It means we won't stay dead forever. With this "recentering" of faith around the resurrection, one sees that death is the enemy, and therefore risking your life and that of many others for the sake of Christian gathering defeats the purpose of the Christian gathering: To proclaim the defeat of death.
This is a glimpse of the treasures waiting for us if we search our past, a treasure that avoids unnecessary entanglement with the state, and gives our faith consistency. There will always be detractors, but not all of them speak lies. We'd do well to take note of that.