Authenticity of Belief in African (Igbo) Traditional Religion: A Critical Appraisal in the Light of Christian Faith (Europäische Hochschulschriften / ... / Publications Universitaires Européennes) [New ed.] 9783631656020, 3631656025

Table of contents :
Cover
Table of Content
Acknowledgement
Vorwort
Foreword
General Introduction
The Aim of this Work
Chapter 1: Religious Concept, Faith, Belief and Tradition
1. Introduction
1.1 The Concept of Religion
1.1.1 What is Religion?
1.1.2 Constitutive Elements of Religion
1.1.2.1 The Myth
1.1.2.2 The Rites and the Rituals
1.1.2.3 Mysticism
1.2 What is Faith?
1.3 What is Belief?
1.4 What is Tradition?
1.5 The Relationship between Religion, Faith and Belief
1.5.1 Belief and Knowledge
1.5.2 Belief without Evidence
1.6 Theological/Religious Belief
1.6.1 Miracle, Sacraments and Revelation
Chapter 2: Abrahamic Monotheistic Religions and their Beliefs
2. Introduction
2.1 Who are the Jews?
2.1.1 Judaism and its Origin
2.1.2 The Torah in Judaism
2.1.3 The Concept of God in Jewish Religion
2.1.4 Covenant as the Initiation Rite in Judaism
2.2 Christianity
2.2.1 The Birth of Christ and the Origin of Christianity
2.2.2 Jesus as the Word Incarnate
2.2.3 The Principal Message of Jesus Christ
2.2.3.1 The Kingdom of God
2.2.3.2 The Concept of Love in the Teaching of Jesus Christ
2.2.4 Christian Concept of God
2.2.5 Trinitarian Notion of God
2.2.6 Jesus as the Saviour and Mediator between God and Humanity
2.2.7 The Bible/Scripture and the Tradition as Inspired by God
2.3 Islamic Religion
2.3.1 The Life of Mohammad
2.3.2 The Call of Mohammad
2.3.3 Sources of Authority in Islamic Religion
2.3.3.1 The Qur’an as the Islamic Holy Book
2.3.3.2 The Authority of Sunnah in Islam
2.3.4 The Idea of God in Islamic Religion
2.3.5 The Five Pillars of Islam
2.3.5.1 Shahada (Confession of faith)
2.3.5.2 Salat: Daily Prayer
2.3.5.3 Zakat al Fitr (to thrive or to be pure) – Almsgiving
2.3.5.4 Ramadan (Fasting)
2.3.5.5 Al – Hajj (Pilgrimage)
Chapter 3: African Traditional Religions and Igbo Objects of Worship
3. Introduction
3.1 African Traditional Religions
3.1.1 The Origin of African Traditional Religions
3.1.2 Lack of Written Materials in African Traditional Religions
3.2 The Country Nigeria
3.2.1 Who are the Igbo?
3.2.2 Igbo Traditional Religion
3.2.3 The Igbo World-View
3.3 Chukwu: God as the Supreme Being in Igboland
3.3.1 Manifestations of God’s Attributes in Igbo Names
3.3.1.1 God as the Provider - Chinenye
3.3.1.2 God’s Omniscience - Chukwuma
3.3.1.3 The Mercy of God: Eberechukwu
3.4 Non-Human Spirits, Divinities and Oracles
3.4.1 The Deity of Ala (Earth)
3.4.2 The New Yam Festival Celebration
3.4.3 Amadioha or Igwe (Heaven)
3.4.4 Anyanwu (Sun)
3.4.5 Chi’s: Other Spirit Forces
3.5 Igbo Belief in the Ancestors
3.5.1 Who are the Ancestors?
3.5.2 The Role of the Ancestors in Igbo Traditional Religion
3.5.3 Qualities of the Ancestors in Igbo Traditional Religion
Chapter 4: Religious Functionaries in African Traditional Religions
4. Introduction
4.1 What is Priesthood?
4.1.1 Who is a Priest?
4.1.2 Priesthood in the Old Testament
4.1.3 The New Testament Priesthood: The Priesthood of Christ
4.2 Priesthood in Igbo Traditional Religion
4.2.1 The Call to the Priestly Function
4.2.2 Four Categories of Priesthood in Igboland
4.2.2.1 The Okpara or Paterfamilias Priest
4.2.2.2 The Onye Isi Ala (The Priest of Ala)
4.2.2.3 Onye Eze Mmuo or Eze Arusi (The King of the Spirit)
4.2.2.4 The Aro or Nri Priests
4.2.3 The Training of Priests in Igbo Traditional Religion
4.2.4 Installation of Priests in Igbo Traditional Religion
4.3 Functions of Priests in Igbo Traditional Religion
4.3.1 Worship in Igbo Traditional Religion
4.3.2 Sacrifice and Offering in African Traditional Religion
4.3.3 Sacrifice: (Aja) and Offering (Nhunye) in Igbo Traditional Religion
4.3.4 Human Sacrifice in Igbo Traditional Religion
4.4 Prayers in African Traditional Religion
4.4.1 Prayers in Igbo Traditional Religion
4.4.2 Kinds of Prayer: Private and Communal or Family Prayers
4.4.3 Types of Prayer
4.4.3.1 Prayer of Invocation
4.4.3.2 Prayer of Petition
4.4.3.3 Prayer over Kola Nut in Igbo Traditional Religion
4.5 Medicine Men/Women or Healers in Igbo Traditional Religion
4.5.1 The Medicine Man/Woman (Herbalist) Dibia Ogwu
4.5.2 Training for Medicine Man: Dibia
4.5.3 Diviner (Dibia Afa) in Igbo Traditional Religion
Chapter 5: The Ethical, Social and Cultural Values in Africa
5. Introduction
5.1 Community in African Traditional Religion
5.1.1 Community in Igbo Cultural Tradition
5.1.2 The Spirit of Solidarity in Igbo Cultural Tradition (Igwe bu Ike)
5.1.3 Sanctions in the Igbo Community
5.2 Traditional Family System in Africa
5.2.1 Family System in Igbo Cultural Tradition (Ezi na Ulo)
5.2.2 The Extended Family System
5.2.3 Village Setting in Igbo Cultural Tradition
5.3 Moral and Social Values in Igbo Cultural Tradition
5.3.1 Respect for Elders in Igbo Cultural Tradition
5.3.2 Title Taking in Igbo Tradition
5.4 Proverbs as a Social Means of Transmission of Knowledge in Africa
5.4.1 Proverbs in Africa and other Cultures
5.4.2 Proverbs in Igbo Cultural Tradition
5.5 The Spirit of Hospitality among the Africans (Igbo)
5.5.1 Kola Nut (Oji) in Igbo Cultural Tradition
5.5.2 Songs, Drums and Dancing as the Instruments of Social Interaction
5.5.3 Songs and Music in Igbo Traditional and Cultural Setting
5.6 The Notion of Life in African Cultural Traditions
5.6.1 The Notion of Life in Igbo Tradition
5.7 Death in African (Igbo) Tradition
5.7.1 Mythology of Death in Igboland
5.7.2 Death and Burial in Igboland
5.7.3 The Death of a Youth
5.7.4 The Death of an Old Person
5.7.5 Igbo Ways of Lying in State
5.7.6 The Carrying of the Corpse to the Grave and its Burying
5.7.7 Funeral Activities after the Burial
5.7.8 Those that were not given Burial Rites
Chapter 6: Evaluation: A Critical Appraisal in the Light of Christian Faith
6. Introduction
6.1 The Impacts of Christianity in Africa Especially Igboland
6.2 Christianity in Africa According to the Mind of Christ
6.3 The Christian Identity
6.4 Religious Crises in Igboland
6.5 Syncretism in Igbo Neo-Christian Religion
6.6 Inculturation of the Gospel into the Lives of the People
6.6.1 Inculturation of Christianity among the Igbo
6.7 The Belief in the Supreme Being, Deities and Ancestors
6.7.1 Other Spiritual Deities
6.7.2 The Ancestors as Intermediaries
6.7.3 Theological Interpretation of Ancestral Veneration
6.8 Inculturation in the Areas of Liturgy
6.8.1 Inculturation towards Cultural, Social and Moral Values of the People
6.8.2 Theological Interpretation of Kola Nut
6.9 Conclusion
Bibliography

Citation preview

EHS

PETER LANG · Academic Research X XIII / 946

T

Aloysius Eberechukwu Ndiukwu hails from Urualla (Nigeria) and is a Catholic Priest of the diocese of Orlu (Nigeria). He studied philosophy and theology in Rome and Nigeria. He also researched at the University of Würzburg (Germany) specializing in fundamental theology.

A. E. Ndiukwu · Authenticity of Belief in African (Igbo) Traditional Religion

Theology

he work presents Abrahamic monotheistic religions and the belief of the traditional religions in Africa, especially in Igboland. Religion exists notwithstanding many rots and bad religious behaviours through systematic and atheistic upbringing. It is true that in the history of mankind, different religions have come and gone and many are still in existence and they are religiously or socially formed. The monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam have their complementary religious conviction with Igbo religion. They have the image of God as one and only. The authentic carriers of Igbo religion include religious functionaries, the family, and the elders. The religion is culturally, socially and ethically oriented and so the Gospel message of Christ should not neglect them.

ISBN 978-3-631-65602-0

European University Studies

Aloysius Eberechukwu Ndiukwu

Authenticity of Belief in African (Igbo) Traditional Religion A Critical Appraisal in the Light of Christian Faith

www.peterlang.com

PL

PL

ACADEMIC RESEARCH

EHS

PETER LANG · Academic Research X XIII / 946

European University Studies

T

he work presents Abrahamic monotheistic religions and the belief of the traditional religions in Africa, especially in Igboland. Religion exists notwithstanding many rots and bad religious behaviours through systematic and atheistic upbringing. It is true that in the history of mankind, different religions have come and gone and many are still in existence and they are religiously or socially formed. The monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam have their complementary religious conviction with Igbo religion. They have the image of God as one and only. The authentic carriers of Igbo religion include religious functionaries, the family, and the elders. The religion is culturally, socially and ethically oriented and so the Gospel message of Christ should not neglect them.

Aloysius Eberechukwu Ndiukwu hails from Urualla (Nigeria) and is a Catholic Priest of the diocese of Orlu (Nigeria). He studied philosophy and theology in Rome and Nigeria. He also researched at the University of Würzburg (Germany) specializing in fundamental theology.

A. E. Ndiukwu · Authenticity of Belief in African (Igbo) Traditional Religion

Theology

Aloysius Eberechukwu Ndiukwu

Authenticity of Belief in African (Igbo) Traditional Religion A Critical Appraisal in the Light of Christian Faith

www.peterlang.com

PL

PL

ACADEMIC RESEARCH

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Table of Content Acknowledgement............................................................................................ 11 Vorwort............................................................................................................. 13 Foreword........................................................................................................... 15 General Introduction......................................................................................... 17 The Aim of this Work................................................................................ 21 Chapter 1: Religious Concept, Faith, Belief and Tradition............................... 29 1. Introduction................................................................................................ 29 1.1 The Concept of Religion................................................................... 29 1.1.1 What is Religion?.................................................................. 32 1.1.2 Constitutive Elements of Religion........................................ 41 1.1.2.1 The Myth................................................................. 41 1.1.2.2 The Rites and the Rituals........................................ 48 1.1.2.3 Mysticism................................................................ 51 1.2 What is Faith?.................................................................................... 52 1.3 What is Belief?.................................................................................. 57 1.4 What is Tradition?.......................................................................... 60 1.5 The Relationship between Religion, Faith and Belief....................... 64 1.5.1 Belief and Knowledge........................................................... 66 1.5.2 Belief without Evidence........................................................ 68 1.6 Theological/Religious Belief............................................................. 69 1.6.1 Miracle, Sacraments and Revelation..................................... 70 Chapter 2: Abrahamic Monotheistic Religions and their Beliefs..................... 77 2. Introduction................................................................................................ 77 2.1 Who are the Jews?............................................................................. 84 2.1.1 Judaism and its Origin.......................................................... 85 2.1.2 The Torah in Judaism............................................................ 88 2.1.3 The Concept of God in Jewish Religion............................... 91 2.1.4 Covenant as the Initiation Rite in Judaism........................... 93 2.2 Christianity........................................................................................ 97 2.2.1 The Birth of Christ and the Origin of Christianity............................................................................ 99 2.2.2 Jesus as the Word Incarnate.................................................. 102

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2.2.3 The Principal Message of Jesus Christ................................. 103 2.2.3.1 The Kingdom of God.............................................. 103 2.2.3.2 The Concept of Love in the Teaching of Jesus Christ............................................................. 105 2.2.4 Christian Concept of God..................................................... 107 2.2.5 Trinitarian Notion of God..................................................... 109 2.2.6 Jesus as the Saviour and Mediator between God and Humanity................................................................ 113 2.2.7 The Bible/Scripture and the Tradition as Inspired by God..................................................................... 115 2.3 Islamic Religion................................................................................ 119 2.3.1 The Life of Mohammad........................................................ 123 2.3.2 The Call of Mohammad........................................................ 124 2.3.3 Sources of Authority in Islamic Religion.............................. 125 2.3.3.1 The Qur’an as the Islamic Holy Book............................................................... 125 2.3.3.2 The Authority of Sunnah in Islam........................... 127 2.3.4 The Idea of God in Islamic Religion..................................... 128 2.3.5 The Five Pillars of Islam....................................................... 130 2.3.5.1 Shahada (Confession of faith)................................. 130 2.3.5.2 Salat: Daily Prayer.................................................. 131 2.3.5.3 Zakat al Fitr (to thrive or to be pure) – Almsgiving.............................................................. 135 2.3.5.4 Ramadan (Fasting).................................................. 137 2.3.5.5 Al – Hajj (Pilgrimage)............................................ 138 Chapter 3: African Traditional Religions and Igbo Objects of Worship.......................................................................... 141 3. Introduction................................................................................................ 141 3.1 African Traditional Religions............................................................ 142 3.1.1 The Origin of African Traditional Religions......................... 149 3.1.2 Lack of Written Materials in African Traditional Religions............................................................................... 150 3.2 The Country Nigeria.......................................................................... 153 3.2.1 Who are the Igbo?................................................................. 156 3.2.2 Igbo Traditional Religion...................................................... 160 3.2.3 The Igbo World-View........................................................... 162 3.3 Chukwu: God as the Supreme Being in Igboland............................. 165 3.3.1 Manifestations of God’s Attributes in Igbo Names............... 170

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3.3.1.1 God as the Provider - Chinenye.............................. 170 3.3.1.2 God’s Omniscience - Chukwuma........................... 171 3.3.1.3 The Mercy of God: Eberechukwu........................... 173 3.4 Non-Human Spirits, Divinities and Oracles...................................... 174 3.4.1 The Deity of Ala (Earth)....................................................... 176 3.4.2 The New Yam Festival Celebration...................................... 179 3.4.3 Amadioha or Igwe (Heaven)................................................. 183 3.4.4 Anyanwu (Sun)..................................................................... 183 3.4.5 Chi’s: Other Spirit Forces..................................................... 185 3.5 Igbo Belief in the Ancestors.............................................................. 188 3.5.1 Who are the Ancestors?........................................................ 190 3.5.2 The Role of the Ancestors in Igbo Traditional Religion................................................................................. 192 3.5.3 Qualities of the Ancestors in Igbo Traditional Religion................................................................................. 194 Chapter 4: Religious Functionaries in African Traditional Religions............... 197 4. Introduction................................................................................................ 197 4.1 What is Priesthood?........................................................................... 198 4.1.1 Who is a Priest?.................................................................... 201 4.1.2 Priesthood in the Old Testament........................................... 203 4.1.3 The New Testament Priesthood: The Priesthood of Christ................................................................................ 204 4.2 Priesthood in Igbo Traditional Religion............................................ 207 4.2.1 The Call to the Priestly Function.......................................... 208 4.2.2 Four Categories of Priesthood in Igboland........................... 211 4.2.2.1 The Okpara or Paterfamilias Priest......................... 211 4.2.2.2 The Onye Isi Ala (The Priest of Ala)...................... 213 4.2.2.3 Onye Eze Mmuo or Eze Arusi (The King of the Spirit)........................................... 215 4.2.2.4 The Aro or Nri Priests............................................. 215 4.2.3 The Training of Priests in Igbo Traditional Religion............ 217 4.2.4 Installation of Priests in Igbo Traditional Religion............... 221 4.3 Functions of Priests in Igbo Traditional Religion............................. 222 4.3.1 Worship in Igbo Traditional Religion................................... 222 4.3.2 Sacrifice and Offering in African Traditional Religion......... 225 4.3.3 Sacrifice: (Aja) and Offering (Nhunye) in Igbo Traditional Religion...................................................... 227 4.3.4 Human Sacrifice in Igbo Traditional Religion...................... 232

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4.4 Prayers in African Traditional Religion............................................ 237 4.4.1 Prayers in Igbo Traditional Religion..................................... 239 4.4.2 Kinds of Prayer: Private and Communal or Family Prayers...................................................................... 243 4.4.3 Types of Prayer..................................................................... 244 4.4.3.1 Prayer of Invocation................................................ 244 4.4.3.2 Prayer of Petition.................................................... 246 4.4.3.3 Prayer over Kola Nut in Igbo Traditional Religion................................................................... 247 4.5 Medicine Men/Women or Healers in Igbo Traditional Religion............................................................................................. 249 4.5.1 The Medicine Man/Woman (Herbalist) Dibia Ogwu........... 250 4.5.2 Training for Medicine Man: Dibia........................................ 254 4.5.3 Diviner (Dibia Afa) in Igbo Traditional Religion................. 257 Chapter 5: The Ethical, Social and Cultural Values in Africa........................... 261 5. Introduction................................................................................................ 261 5.1 Community in African Traditional Religion..................................... 262 5.1.1 Community in Igbo Cultural Tradition................................. 268 5.1.2 The Spirit of Solidarity in Igbo Cultural Tradition (Igwe bu Ike)......................................................... 273 5.1.3 Sanctions in Igbo Community.............................................. 279 5.2 Traditional Family System in Africa................................................. 282 5.2.1 Family System in Igbo Cultural Tradition (Ezi na Ulo)....... 283 5.2.2 The Extended Family System............................................... 286 5.2.3 Village Setting in Igbo Cultural Tradition............................ 287 5.3 Moral and Social Values in Igbo Cultural Tradition.......................... 289 5.3.1 Respect for the Elders in Igbo Cultural Tradition................. 289 5.3.2 Title Taking in Igbo Tradition............................................... 292 5.4 Proverbs as a Social Means of Transmission of Knowledge in Africa......................................................................... 297 5.4.1 Proverbs in Africa and other Cultures................................... 299 5.4.2 Proverbs in Igbo Cultural Tradition...................................... 301 5.5 The Spirit of Hospitality among the Africans (Igbo)........................ 303 5.5.1 The Kola Nut (Oji) in Igbo Cultural Tradition...................... 307 5.5.2 Songs, Drums and Dancing as the Instruments of Social Interaction.............................................................. 313 5.5.3 Songs and Music in Igbo Traditional and Cultural Setting..................................................................... 315

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5.6 The Notion of Life in African Cultural Traditions............................ 317 5.6.1 The Notion of Life in Igbo Tradition.................................... 318 5.7 Death in African (Igbo) Tradition...................................................... 320 5.7.1 Mythology of Death in Igboland........................................... 323 5.7.2 Death and Burial in Igboland................................................ 324 5.7.3 The Death of a Youth............................................................ 325 5.7.4 The Death of an Old Person.................................................. 326 5.7.5 Igbo Ways of Lying in State.................................................. 327 5.7.6 The Carrying of the Corpse to the Grave and its Burying............................................................................. 328 5.7.7 Funeral Activities after the Burial......................................... 329 5.7.8 Those that were not given Burial Rites................................. 330 Chapter 6: Evaluation: A Critical Appraisal in the Light of Christian Faith........................................................................................... 333 6. Introduction................................................................................................ 333 6.1 The Impacts of Christianity in Africa Especially Igboland............... 338 6.2 Christianity in Africa According to the Mind of Christ.................... 340 6.3 The Christian Identity........................................................................ 342 6.4 Religious Crises in Igboland............................................................. 345 6.5 Syncretism in Igbo Neo-Christian Religion...................................... 348 6.6 Inculturation of the Gospel into the Lives of the People................... 350 6.6.1 Inculturation of Christianity among the Igbo........................ 353 6.7 The Belief in the Supreme Being, Deities and Ancestors................. 356 6.7.1 Other Spiritual Deities.......................................................... 358 6.7.2 The Ancestors as Intermediaries........................................... 358 6.7.3 Theological Interpretation of Ancestral Veneration............................................................................. 359 6.8 Inculturation in the Areas of Liturgy................................................. 361 6.8.1 Inculturation towards Cultural, Social and Moral Values of the People.............................................................. 363 6.8.2 Theological Interpretation of Kola Nut................................. 367 6.9 Conclusion......................................................................................... 368 Bibliography..................................................................................................... 375

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Acknowledgement Authentic human life begins with the acknowledgement of the Supreme Being, whose essence and existence are beyond human comprehension. Although His Being is above human understanding, but human beings come to believe in Him through religions revealed to them in human cultures and traditions. I thank God in a special way, who gave me life, knowledge, wisdom and understanding for the realization of this work. It would not have been completed without His strength, inspiration, guidance, direction and protection. To Him be the glory. I thank my bishops: Most Rev. Dr. A. T. Ukwuoma and Most Rev. Dr. G. O. Ochiagha (Emeritus) for their fatherly care and the wonderful privilege and opportunity given to me to experience a part of my academic and priestly life in Europe. May God bless them. I am grateful to my chief moderator, Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Klausnitzer. His wonderful reading skill, corrections, assistance and encouragement made the completion of this work possible. His correction and suggestions gave my theological knowledge a deep insight. I am proud to have passed through him. I am grateful to my second moderator, Prof. Dr. Erich Garhammer, for his meticulous assistance in correcting this work and for offering useful suggestions. I am grateful to the Catholic Diocese of Würzburg for the invitation to my diocese and the offered scholarship for studies at the Bavarian Julius Maximilian University. Thanks to his Lordship, Most Rev. Dr. Friedhelm Hofmann, to whom I remain indebted for this magnanimous gesture. I appreciate the lovely and friendly concern of the community of St. Laurentius in Kleinostheim and Rev. Fr. Heribert Kaufmann during my stay with them. I thank them for their identification and appreciate their solidarity. I will not forget the help rendered to me by Mrs Astrid Heilmann and her family and the wonderful gestures of Mr Walter and Mrs Angela Jansen. May God reward them abundantly. I am, in a special way, highly indebted to the Catholic Diocese of Fulda, especially the local ordinary, Most Rev. Dr. Heinz-Josef Algermissen and Msgr. Christof Steinert for the opportunity given to me to have a pastoral experience in their diocese. I am grateful to the community of Geisa, the Bürgermeister Martin Henkel and Mr and Mrs Werner and Anneliese Deschauer who helped immensely in the publication of this work. I thank in a special way Rev. Fr. Dr. Dr. Innocent Ezeani for his fraternal help, for proof-reading the work and for critically offering useful suggestions. I thank Rev. Fr. Dr. Emmanuel Umeh, who read and corrected the work. I thank Rev. Fr.

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Dr. Rowland Onyenali for reading and helping to format the work. I thank Rev. Fr. Dr. Edwin Udoye, Rev. Fr. Dr. Philip Omenukwa, and Rev. Frs. Kenneth Okpara, Uzor Uzochukwu, Marcel Ekenedo, Athony Udem, Andrew Ukonu, Uche Nnajiofor and many others for their encouragement and identification during this stressful period. I remain grateful to my parents: my late father Ferdinand and my mother, Ezinne Roseline Ndiukwu, for sacrificing all she had that I may be what I am today. Mama, I am proud of you. To my brothers and sisters, Christiana, Cyprian, John, Pet, Regina and Emma Ugokwe, may God bless you abundantly. I am grateful to Mr and Mrs Chika Emenike (Kotec), Prince, Engr. Sir & Lady Bede Obioha, Hon. Sir & Lady Jerry/KC Alagbaoso and Sir & Lady Linus/Stella Nwanemuogh for their identification and friendship in this stressful period. To my many friends and well-wishers, whom I cannot mention here due to lack of space, for contributing immensely towards the success of this work, I remain grateful to all. May our belief in the Supreme Being continue to be faithful, reasonable and authentic.

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Vorwort Was versteht man unter „Religion“? Trotz aller Versuche, die in manchen totalitären Staaten speziell im 20. Jahrhundert unternommen wurden, religiöses Verhalten und Religionen durch systematische atheistische Erziehung und Propaganda auszurotten und trotz aller Rede vom „Ende der Religion“ existiert diese Phänomen auch heute noch. Es besteht kein ernsthafter Grund anzunehmen, dass sich dies einmal grundlegend ändern wird. „Es gibt kaum etwas, das so oft totgesagt wurde wie die Religion. Zweifellos ist es wahr, dass in der Geschichte der Menschheit verschiedene Religionen gekommen – und dann wieder gegangen sind. Aber in allen Gesellschaften, an der archaischsten bis zur modernsten, hat es sozial geformte, mehr oder minder verfestigte, mehr oder minder obligate Symbolsysteme gegeben, die Weltorientierung, Legitimierung natürlicher und gesellschaftlicher Ordnungen und den Einzelnen transzendierende (z.B. familien- oder sippenbezogene) Sinngebungen mit praktischen Anleitungen zur Lebensführung und biographischen Verpflichtungen verbanden.“1 Andererseits scheint sich dieses dia- wie synchron universal verbreitete Phänomen der Religion einer genaueren Definition zu entziehen. Die Aussage des Augustinus über das Wesen der Zeit („Was ist also ‘Zeit’? Wenn mich niemand danach fragt, weiß ich es; will ich einem Fragenden es erklären, weiß ich es nicht“2) gilt dem ersten Eindruck nach entsprechend auch für die Religion. Erschwerend kommt hinzu, dass der zeitgenössische Begriff Religion in der Philosophie der Neuzeit Europas entstanden ist und in seiner Sachgemäßheit in der Anwendung auf das Christentum von der Dialektischen Theologie Karl Barths sowie in seiner Fähigkeit, ein wissenschaftliches Formalobjekt eindeutig zu beschreiben, von den Religionswissenschaften in Frage gestellt wird. In dieser Situation ist es vielleicht angebracht, zunächst einmal in einer religionswissenschaftlichen und/oder theologischen Komparatistik verschiedene Religionsphänomene in Beziehung zueinander zu bringen. Die vorliegende fundamentaltheologische und an der Katholisch-Theologischen Fakultät Würzburg eingereichte Dissertation von Aloysius Eberechukwu Ndiukwu versucht dies

1 2

Thomas Luckmann, Einleitung zur deutschen Ausgabe v. Bronislaw Malinowski, Magie, Wissenschaft und Religion. Und andere Schriften (1948), Frankfurt 1973, XI–XVI, XI. Augustinus, Confessiones XI 14, 17.

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in einer überzeugenden Weise. Der Verfasser vergleicht den monotheistischen Glaubensinhalt des Christentums (aber auch des Judentums und des Islams) mit den entsprechenden religiösen Überzeugungen der traditionellen Igbo-Religion in Nigeria. Der Fokus der Untersuchung beschränkt sich dabei nicht nur auf das Gottesbild, sondern auch auf die verantwortlichen Träger der jeweiligen Religion, auf zentrale Formen religiöser Praxis und auf die konkrete Gesellschaft (unter Einschluss der Familie, des Umganges mit den Stammesältesten und sogar des Begräbnisrituals), auf die die behandelten Religionen in Nigeria einwirken, wie sie auch umgekehrt von ihr beeinflusst werden. In der Summe ist die Arbeit zumal in ihrem letzten Kapitel ein eindrückliches Plädoyer für eine notwendige Inkulturation des Christentums in den afrikanisch-nigerianischen Kontext der Igbo-Kultur. Es bleibt zu wünschen, dass es dem Verfasser gelingen möge, seine theologischen Einsichten, die er in seiner Dissertation präsentiert, in seinem weiteren Wirken als Priester und Theologe praktisch, pastoral und theologisch umzusetzen. Würzburg, Dezember 2013 Wolfgang Klausnitzer

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Foreword What does one understand under “Religion”? The phenomenon of Religion exists still in our days, notwithstanding many ventures of totalitarian nations of the 20th century to rot out Religion and religious behaviours through systematic and atheistic upbringing and Propaganda and the discussion about the end of Religion. There is no plausible reason to believe that this would Change. “There is nothing, whose death has been proclaimed like Religion. It is undoubtedly true, that in the history of mankind different religions have come and gone. However, in all societies, beginning from the primitive to the modern ones, there has always been socially formed, more or less firm obligatory social Systems, which combine world orientation, legitimation of natural and societal orders and the individual transcendentory Interpretation (for instance the family relation) with practical introduction to lifestyle and biographical commitments.”1 However, this diachronic and synchronic universal phenomenon of Religion seems not to be grasped easily in a particular Definition. The statement of Augustine about time (“What is ‘Time’? I know what it is, if no one asks about it; however, if I want to explain it to somebody, I realise that I do not know it”)2 seems also to be valid for Religion. Besides, the complication of the Topic stems from the fact that the contemporary concept of Religion arose in the philosophy of modern Europe. The dialectic theology of Karl Barth has questioned the proportionality in its relation to Christianity and the religious sciences have doubted its capability of clearly explaining a scientific object. It might be necessary in this situation to bring many different religious phenomena in relation in a religious scientific and/or theological comparison. This Dissertation, written by Aloysius Eberechukwu Ndiukwu at the Institute of Fundamental Theology and accepted at the faculty of Catholic theology Würzburg, attempts this trial convincingly. The writer compares the monotheistic faith Content of Christianity (also of Judaism and Islam) with the corresponding religious convictions of the traditional Igbo-Religion in Nigeria. The Focus of the Research is not only limited on the Image of God but also on

1 2

Thomas Luckmann, Einleitung zur deutschen Ausgabe v. Bronislaw Malinowski, Magie, Wissenschaft und Religion. Und andere Schriften (1948), Frankfurt 1973, XI–XVI, XI. Augustinus, Confessiones, XI, 14, 17.

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the responsible carriers of the Religion, the central form of religious practices and the concrete Society, (including the family, contact with the elders and also the rites of passage), on which the religions have their influences, and how these religions are also influenced by this society. The work, especially its last chapter, is a plea for a necessary inculturation of Christianity in the african-nigerian context of the Igbo-culture. It is therefore desirable that the writer would succeed in utilising the theological insights, which he presents in the Dissertation, in his work as priest and theologian practically, pastorally and theologically. Würzburg, December 2013 Wolfgang Klausnitzer

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General Introduction The research work “The Authenticity of Belief in African (Igbo) Traditional Religion – A Critical Appraisal in the Light of Christian Faith”, presents the belief of the traditional religions in Africa especially in Igboland. “Africans have a profound religious sense, a sense of the sacred, of the existence of God the creator and of a spiritual world. The reality of sin in its individual and social forms is very much present in the consciousness of these people, as is also the need for rites of purification and expiation.”1 These religious senses help the people in their approach to God the creator and giver of life. In a bid to address these religions many writers, like Aylward Shorter, John Mbiti, Bolaji Idowu, and Emefie Ikenga-Metuh, have written extensively about them. Some authors use traditional religions – plural, while others in singular. Are these people speaking about the same religion? This work will throw some light into that. The religions in Africa before the advent of Christianity and Islam are not the same as we see them today. Today, Christianity and Islam have swept aside these religions and institute their different religious tenets. What exist now sometimes lack relevance among the people, because some conceive them as pagan, archaic and devilish. The basic reason for religion is to reunite humanity to God. It therefore plays a vital role by trying to bring human image, dignity, personality and identity back to God. It also shapes the patterns of human behaviours, values and attitudes in the society.2 It has great influence on human being. It plays a great role in the reconciliation of human beings with God and gives theological answers to these basic questions of life: How did the world come into existence? Who is the source of life? Why the creation of the world and human being? What is the essence of human life, death, judgement and retribution? What does God expect from human being and where is human being’s final destination? Is there any reward or punishment after life? Is God immanent or transcendent? Did God create the world to be good? Or can we say that evil and death came into the world through human disobedience? Is God interested in humanity by involving Himself in human sufferings and anxieties or has He distanced Himself from the world after creation? What is the ultimate inexpressible mystery which encompasses our existence: where do

1 2

John Paul II, Ecclesia in Africa, 42. Wilfred, The Swing and Sway of the Bamboo, 75.

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we come from, and where are we going?3 These are the questions religions answer and African religions give answer to these ultimate questions.4 Religion as a natural phenomenon in Africa is found in every tradition. There is no tradition without religion and it influences one who is born into it. To be without religion amounts to self-banning from the society because it involves the daily activities of human beings. Sometimes the religion one practices can influence the other either through conviction or compulsion (this is with regard to Christianity and Islam). One is converted to other religion through either conviction or compulsion. The question is: is Africans convinced to abandon their religions or compelled to abandon them? The Abrahamic monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) we shall discuss have great connection with and influence from African continent. Moses the man who led the Israelites out of slavery and received the Torah on Mount Sinai was born, raised and educated in Africa, in the Egyptian royal court and its divine mysteries. Judaism and its priesthood have their origin from Africa. In Judaism, like in African religions, the duties of the priests are to offer sacrifices, perform the purification of rites of uncleanliness, teach moral and social laws, arbitrate between individuals, and act as medical practitioners and fortune-tellings. Moses learnt the religion in Egypt, and passed on to the Western world through the Mosaic books, law and the Hebrew Bible.5 Sometimes people will argue against old Egyptian religion in comparism with the religions found in Africa. Some will say that the religion was not African. But if it is not African, where then can we attribute it since Egypt is in Africa, and remains in the map of Africa? Africa has been a place of refuge for Christianity and Islam. Christianity inherited a lot from religions in African through Judaism. The continent was a place of refuge for the new born child Jesus when King Herod wanted to kill him (Matt.2:1–21). It is described as a second homeland of Jesus since it was there that he sought refuge from Herod’s cruelty.6 Africans were also there on the Pentecost day, when the church was first proclaimed (Acts 2:15–13). In Islam, Mohammad had direct contact with Africa and when his followers were persecuted, he sent 3

4 5 6

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C.f., Nostra Aetate, No. 1, Human beings expect answers from various religions about the unsolved riddles of human conditions which deeply stir the hearts of men: what is man? What is the meaning, the aim of life? What is moral good, what is sin? What is suffering and the purpose it serves? Where is the road to true happiness? What is death, judgement and retribution after death and where is the last human abode? C.f., Opoku, African Traditional Religion, 67. Twesigye, The African Origin of Human, Monotheism and Civilization, 26f. John Paul II, Ecclesia in Africa, 142.

them to Kusch (Ethiopia) for 15 years until conditions at home had improved. This relationship was the reason Mohammad did not attack Kursch when his army conquered Palestine, Egypt and North Africa.7 These monotheistic religions later influenced Africans so much that the traditional religions of the people are heading to extinction. The people are now at the cross road because they neither live their traditional religions nor Judaism, Christianity or Islam convincingly. With this development, the religion in Igboland is so much influenced by Christianity that everything tends to look forward Christ and the Western culture, thereby setting aside the traditions of the people. The advent of Christianity in the late 19th century in Igboland was so closely linked with colonialism. The colonial masters and the European merchants came first and later came the missionaries. They came along with the Western culture, and their views regarding the local people and their land were identical. This made it difficult for the Christian faith to be deeply rooted in the lives of the people because they were interested not only in imparting the religion, but also in plundering the wealth of the people. There was a story that: “The white missionaries came to us and we lovingly welcomed them in our land, and they said, ‘close your eyes, and let us pray,’ and when we opened our eyes, there was a Bible in our hands, but our lands were all gone.”8 They threw away the symbol of justice (Ofo) of the people and gave them the Bible. Since then, there has never been peace. The Bible has sometimes become a cause of war against one another and against the traditions of the people. With this mentality of the Bible and approach to life issues, the community love, peace and unity that were in the community were gone because of the new religions, is this the aim of religions? The people followed another religion to the detriment of their tradition. There was neither conviction nor dialogue as regards the faith that was propagated by the missionaries. The people swallowed the teachings of the new religion; hook, line and sinker, but their unquestionable acceptance postponed the day of reckoning when African theologians will rise up to demand a redress or redefinition of Christian theology.9 Africans have become conscious of the religions they have abandoned, only to realize that, they have picked up the tradition of the Europeans. They have started asking why they should abandon the religions of their ancestors to follow the religions that condemn their tradition. They have started asking why they should condemn their ancestors because they did not know Christ and 7 8 9

Twesigye, The African Origin of Human, Monotheism and Civilization, 26f. Ibid., 28. Odey, Africa, The Agony of a Continent, 35.

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venerate Christian ancestors who are the Saints and the Martyrs. They have started asking why they should condemn some of the positive values found in their tradition, because Europeans could not understand them. They have started asking many questions which they did not have the courage to ask when they first received the Gospel of Christ. Christianity is good but the problem is, some missionaries had condemned everything they did not understand and had expected the people to follow them without questioning. Is this not religious slavery or terrorism? Christianity should incarnate itself into the culture of the people. Every incarnation ought to be understandable to the people and their ways of living. God can only appear to the black people through their traditions. The Igbo people of Nigeria worship Chukwu (the Supreme God) in the way that is related to their tradition and culture. For Christ to be relevant to them, he needs to be associated with Chukwu who took the human form in order to bring the people closer to Chukwu. In the worship of Chukwu in Igbo traditional religion, the community gathers to express their joy, grief and praise to God, acknowledging their dependence on Him and pray for forgiveness. They do these through their rituals. Through rituals the community interacts with God. The essence of worship is to have religious experience. This experience contains an element of renewal. Experience is the key to renewal; without it, the community and the individual cannot turn to Chukwu. Chukwu is experienced by the people in a unique way. It is through experience that one reacts and responds to God, like Thomas confronted with the risen Lord (John 20) or Paul on the road to Damascus (Acts 9). Liturgy in African context will therefore be relevant only when it expresses the experience of African people. Yet the historical churches of Africa have tended to use forms of liturgy produced in Europe and North America in their liturgical worship and are therefore lacking the vitality of African spirituality.10 God ought to be worshiped in the tradition that influences the people. God for the Igbo is a loving Father, who takes care of His people and provides for them. He is not a God of war or vengeance, rather He punishes when the people offend Him and He shows mercy when the people offer appropriate sacrifices. It is certain that, if we worship a warmongering God, we become warmongerers. If we worship a loving and forgiving God, we become loving and forgiving. If our image of God is that of self-righteousness, who would punish with eternal fire those who disobey God’s commands, then we would feel justified in being intolerant and punishing those who in our opinions are against us or even only different

10 Bakare, The Drumbeat of Life, 5.

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from us.11 The God the people worship is loving and caring, and the people are loving, caring, hospitable, friendly, faithful and happy. They are forgiven people, the experience of the Nigerian – Biafran war12 proves this, because after the war, many of the Igbos went back to those places and started relating normally by going about their normal businesses without calling the past to mind. So the God they worship influences them positively. In Igbo traditional religion, God is one and there is no other. The religion is monotheistic, propounding only one God. But do they worship the same God which the Jews, the Christians and the Moslems worship? One can talk about different approaches to God through religions, but He remains the same. Hence, God is like one large tree with different branches that represent the religions of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, African traditional religions and so on. These branches are part of the same tree of God.13 They all speak about God from different perspectives. God is the same, but the approach to Him differs from one religion to another. For an African, God can be worshipped everywhere, a market place can be a place of worship, bearing each other’s burden and enjoying life together. Every social gathering has religious undertone and such cannot begin without first calling on the name of God. These are the expressions of faith that help to keep the people together and communicate with their God.

The Aim of this Work This work aims to promote the good things, spiritual and moral as well as the socio-cultural values found among the Igbo people, how they experience the Supreme Being and how religion permeates into their lives. This experience shows that there is authentic belief in Igbo traditional religion before the coming of the missionaries. The missionaries met a people that believe in Supreme Deity known as Chukwu, whose essence and existence is beyond human comprehension. He 11 Rasiah, Asia in Dialogue with Jesus Christ, 78. 12 After the first military coup in Nigeria in 1966, there was riot in the North that resulted in the death of many Igbo people living in Northern Nigeria. The situation led to the secession of Igbo from Nigeria and declared independence of Biafra. This resulted into Nigerian – Biafran war from 1967–1970. In this war, Nigeria with the help of many Western nations fought against Biafra (Igbo). In the end, Biafra lost the war and many of their properties were seized or regarded as abandoned properties. They suffered during these periods. 13 Healey and Sybertz, Toward an African Narrative Theology, 295f.

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is the God whose existence is unfathomable. His identification with the believers led to what is known as African spirituality. African spirituality has God at the centre of religious worship, moves around the person and the community. God is transcendent and at the same time immanent. He is all powerful, all knowing, and ever-present and He responds to prayers. By prayering to God, a religious person believes that human being can influence his situation.14 Praying to God with personal effort is necessary in African spirituality. African spirituality conceives God as the Being who is far removed from the people. Because of His transcendent nature, there is need for intermediaries between Him and the people. These are the lesser deities and ancestral spirits. In some communities, ancestral veneration is more regular than the divine worship. God is usually approached only as a last resort in extreme cases. This attitude might have been more frequent in former times, as is shown by the information of early ethnographers and the widespread myths of a Deus otiosus or remotus (the far removed God): the one who retired to heaven after some human misdeed or the one who is not affected by what is happening in the world. But it would be incorrect today to characterize the African God as a ‘do-nothing’ or ‘withdrawn’ God.15 He can be seen as the God who is mediated with His people through His intermediaries known as the deities: the spiritual entities and the ancestors. The God that Africans worship is the One God who is revealed in different ways to various religions of the world. He reveals Himself to the people in a unique way. This work is not a call, for the Igbo people to return to pre-Christian era, but to reconsider the peoples approach to the traditions which the Gospel message of Christ ought to incarnate itself into the culture of the people. Christianity has no problem with African culture and social values, but some missionaries did have problem with them. This work will help us to see Christianity as a religion that comes not to dominate and assimilate or annihilate the traditions of the people, but a religion that comes to help the people to see the fulfillment of Christ’s message in the religions and the traditions of other people. It will help us to see Christianity as a religion that will help to reveal the positive aspects of other religions. Hence “The greatest good we can do to others is not just to share our riches with them but to reveal their riches to themselves.”16 The greatest good Christianity can do to Africans is to help them to see the positive light of their cultures through the 14 Koenig, et al., A Handbook of Religion and Health, 225. 15 Nyamiti, African Traditional and the Christian God, 3. C.f. Kessler, Deismus. 1. Begriff, 60. 16 Healey, A Fifth Gospel, xi.

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propagation of the theology from below, through proper inculturation or incarnation and not theology from above through imposition. The work is divided into six chapters. In chapter one, religion and the concepts associated with religion are examined. When we talk about religion; belief, faith and tradition have to come in. They give relevance to religion. They are discussed in a unique way. The German language has the same word for faith and belief (Glaube). The English language has a clear cut distinction between the two. Faith is seen as absolute trust while belief is seen as opinion that can be changed. Belief is a step towards faith. It has to do with human reasoning, while faith has to do with the supernatural conviction and trust. The former has to do with the natural, while the latter has to do with the supernatural. Belief leads to faith and faith is the height that human reasoning cannot reach. Belief can also be scientific. Every scientific truth has a process to arrive at its final destination. It is always subject to change or alteration. Faith is a thing of the heart, a total conviction and acceptance of the truth that is based not on evidence of fact, but on the supernatural revelation. But belief has to do with the mental state of assurance or conviction, and the attitude of the mind towards its own experience in which it accepts and endorses as having real or significant values. There is no religion without faith and belief and they point to the direction of every believing community. Hence every religion comprises the beliefs and the practices of a given community or a number of communities.17 All religions have traditions that are interpreted by those who practice them. Tradition is the handing over of the values of the people; it comprises both verbal and non-verbal. The verbal tradition explains the non-verbal tradition. The nonverbal tradition comprises of the arts, gestures, signs, monuments, customs and designs. The verbal tradition is oral and can also be written down. Initially, the absence of the art of writing made it necessary in African traditional religions to employ oral tradition as a means of preserving and transmitting their cherished traditional religious beliefs and practices. Forms of oral traditions include: myths, legends, folklore, proverbs, names, riddles, prayers and formulae of invocations, blessings and curses.18 The handing over of the traditions can be the activities of the visual aid and signs as well as instructions and directives. But the use of language is of great importance. Oral tradition is essentially and fundamentally dependent on words and other forms of verbal expressions.19 The religious traditions of the people are transmitted verbally and non-verbally. 17 Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 14. 18 Ibid., 30. 19 Ojoajogwu, Social and Cultural Identity of an African Society, 35.

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In the second chapter, the Abrahamic monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) are treated. Judaism is the oldest of the three monotheistic religions. It was instituted and founded on Mount Sinai, but the religion is traced to the Israelites’ ancestor Abraham. Abraham was not a monotheist, but rather a henotheist. He was born in a polytheistic culture, but after his call, he worshiped the true God who made the heaven and the earth. He worshipped God without religion because what constitute religion are the law and the priesthood. These were fulfilled in Judaism not during the life of Abraham, but during the time of Moses. Judaism as we have it today was not practiced by Abraham, but was instituted by Moses. In the beginning of the encounter between God and Abraham, God made covenant with him and the sign was circumcision. It was the rite of the Jewish initiation, but the fulfillment of the Torah received on Mount Sinai implies closeness with God and chosenness by God. One who wants to join Judaism has to be part of this covenantal relationship and be committed to the Torah. From Judaism springs Christianity. Christianity is the fulfillment of the Old Testament law in the person of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. He is the word incarnate that was with God from the beginning and through whom all things were made. He existed with the Father from eternity (Jn.1:1–18). The Christian movement started on Pentecost day with the inaugural public preaching of the apostles, which attracted a lot of followers. Jesus came, preached the Gospel of the kingdom of God, healed the sick, cast out demons and instituted the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist before his death, resurrection and ascension into heaven. He handed over the task of preaching the Gospel to his disciples. He is the second person of the Blessed Trinity. The New Testament was written after his death. The Christian sacred book is known as the Bible. The Islamic religion was founded by Mohammad. He is regarded by his followers as the seal of all the Prophets. He had a strict notion of monotheism. For him, God cannot be represented in any way or any form. He saw his mission in restoring the monotheistic religion that was distorted by the Jews and the Christians. The greatest source in Islamic religion is the Qur’an which is the sacred book of the Moslems. It is not like the Jewish sacred book: Torah nor the Christian sacred book: the Bible. These two sacred books are not written by the same author, but rather by different authors in different epochs. The Qur’an is rather believed to be a revelation made to Mohammad within the period of 23 years. This revelation has become the way of life of the Moslems. The five pillars of Islam are: Shahada, Salat, Zakat, Ramadan and Al-Haji. They are necessary in the life of every Moslem. Chapter three deals with African traditional religions, their origins and whether they should be called African traditional religion in singular or religions in plural.

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The religions are written in the hearts of the people. They are the religions not handwritten or printed, but recorded in the oral traditions and the memories of the ethnic groups. They are held together by the drums. The people hear the drums and they instill pride and fear to them and the ancestors speak through them.20 This becomes a means of communication between God and the people. The work is narrowed down to the Igbo people of Nigeria. Their world view that is based on the ontological existence of the two world views: the material and the immaterial world are discussed. African traditional religions are monotheistic in reality but polytheistic in outlook. Can one say that African traditional religions are monotheistic or polytheistic or even pantheistic? Is Igbo traditional religion really monotheistic? In the fourth chapter, the human intermediaries are discussed. They mediate between the deities and the people through the offering of the worship. Worship is the most basic element of religion, but moral conduct, beliefs and participation in religious activities are generally constituent elements of religions.21 Through worship, human being expresses submission to God and approaches Him with reverence. It is presented to God through offerings of sacrifices and prayers. In prayer one addresses the divinity with precision and courtesy, by formal titles and by rehearsal of its power and attribute. Through prayers one communicates with God and it discourages excessive pre-occupation of self or excessive dependence on others to meet ones personal needs.22 Human being expresses its insufficiencies to God through prayers. The chapter five presents some ethical, social and cultural values in African traditional religions. These values are practiced in the community and they promote community loyalty and solidarity. Solidarity is the outcome of group welfare and it is founded on the over-ridding norms of mutual reciprocity, functional interdependence and co-operation, intense informal and close inter-personal contact, and collective responsibility on which hinges on the security and the survival of the individual.23 One has to be united with the community for the realization of the common goal and without the community, one loses ones identity. The individual identity cannot be over-emphasized at the expense of the community identity.24 The individual authentic life is realized in the community and it gives the individual the personality, identity and security. The people find security within the

20 21 22 23 24

Fisher, West African Religious Traditions, 35. Rasiah, Asia in Dialogue with Jesus Christ, 76. Koenig, et al., A Handbook of Religion and Health, 225. Okoro, The Communal Dimension of Igbo World-view, 84. Onwubiko, Missionary Ecclesiology: An Introduction, 23.

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community. In cases where individuals have been detached from the communities of their homeland, they very often manage to create a new community where they live.25 The people need each other to authenticate their humanity. Hence human life without the other is valueless and baseless. For the Africans, the power of life and vitality are pivotal and religion is not separated from life. Religion functions to make life meaningful, maintain and protect it against illness, misfortune, enemies and death. The whole world is viewed as an arena of forces, affecting life for good or for bad. The people believe in the powers that control and bestow life and vitality: ancestors, spirits, magic, witchcraft, and the Supreme Being. At the centre of these powers, the human person tries to placate the powers for human well being and happiness.26 God is always at the centre irrespective of other deities. He supplies for the need of the people and the people placate Him through other deities in order to have rest of mind. African spirituality abides on human beings conscientized in the world that moves toward death. It is the continuity of life. No sense of irrevocability and uniqueness determines the ideas about life and how to organise it, instead, the concepts of continuity and unity with the ancestors bring relief when one thinks about death. For the Africans, death has meaning and death with meaning is durable, ongoing form and informing on the life of the living. The dead are spirits and these spirits are the instructors and guardians of the living.27 Through death one transcends the level of material and acquires the supernatural power to look into the minds of the future by helping the living or receiving offerings from them as the ancestors. The most favourable expectancy of human being after death is the attainment of the status of an ancestor with its concomitants enhanced powers. In spite of the interruption of the biological phenomenon of death, the present life and death are in one continuous stretch of life. The material and the spiritual are interconnected. The line dividing life from death is very thin. Life is a gift from God and death brings about a complete reordering of human relationship with God. The most loathsome expectation in the after-life is to end up a wandering spirit, cut off from the community and communion with one’s family and kinship. Death is always welcome from God (though sometimes with mixed feelings). Death at old age is seen as natural and a blessing. But the death of a young person remains a curse. After death what survives is the ‘personality spirit’. It is this spirit that 25 Shorter, African Christian Theology, 122f. 26 Verstraelen, Ghana, West Africa: Between Tradition and Modern, 74f. 27 Boulaga, Christianity Without Fetishes, 82.

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receives reward or punishment: installed as the ancestor or ends up as a wondering ghost.28 Appropriate funeral rites at burial are necessary for one to be accepted as the ancesor. The last chapter “Critical Appraisal of Igbo traditional religion in the light of Christian faith” discusses both the positive and the negative impacts of Christianity in Igboland. It states that one thing necessary for the growth of Christianity in Igboland is the incarnation or inculturation of the Gospel into the lives and the culture of the people; otherwise Christianity will always be foreign to them. When Christianity is foreign to the people and their tradition, the people will not have good understanding of what the Christian faith is all about and this can lead to syncretism. This misunderstanding had led many people across the road of religious confusion and they cannot be real either to Christ or to the traditions of their ancestors. The enfleshment of the Gospel of Christ through inculturation is necessary. It is the initiation of the word of God and the spirit behind the word in African world and culture, thus becoming indigenous.29 The hierarchy of the church and the people have to work together in order to actualize this. The presence of the church is to direct and not to dictate for the people. In this inculturation, the central message of Christ or the Christian identity ought not to be inculturated because the Christian identity remains binding on all who call themselves Christians, regardless of race, class, sex or socio-cultural and geographical locations. The basic Christian identity is not negotiable, because it is given by the one who provides the identity for all Christians and he is Christ. It is only Christ who determines the basic identity of the Christians.30 He determines what the identity of Christianity ought to be. He is the source and the heart of Christian religion. One becomes a member through baptism. The chapter offers also theological explanation of ancestral veneration and the breaking of Kola Nut. It is used as a sign of welcome and for the invocation of the spirits of the ancestors. It is also good and revealing to see how some of the cultural and traditional lives of the people tally with some Biblical narratives, Christian virtues and the sacraments of the church.

28 Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 264f. 29 Odoemena, The Quest of the African Person, 113. 30 Okure, Christian Identity and the Challenge of Authenticity, 180.

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Chapter 1: R  eligious Concept, Faith, Belief and Tradition 1. Introduction In this chapter, we shall explore in-depth what religion and religious concepts are. We shall also examine the concept of faith and belief and their relationship. So many authors have used the words faith and belief interchangeably in their works, but this work will throw more insight into what faith and belief are, and which precedes the other. In differentiating faith from belief, Frederick Tennant writes: “Belief is more or less constrained by the fact or actuality that already is or will be, independently of any contriving of ours and which convinces us. Faith, on the other hand, reaches beyond the actual or to the given to the ideally possible, which in the first instance it creates… faith may similarly lead to knowledge of actuality”.1 These differences become a window through which we see the slight cut difference between faith and belief. They cannot exist on themselves; rather on religion and other disciplines. People practice them and use them as a way of life, a way of living and a way of worship. They are nursed and nurtured in religion by reason, superstitions and myths. Religion is the soul of the society and it plays a vital role in shaping the ways of life of the people and contributing to the advancement of the society.2 Religion cannot exist without rites and rituals and they are meaningful only in the society where the religion is practiced.

1.1 The Concept of Religion The phenomenon ‘Religion’ has been relevant in the history of humanity. Its development begins to emerge in the third millennium BC3 and has developed 1 2 3

Tennant, Philosophical Theology, 297. Madappatu, Evangelization in a Marginalizing World, 128. He pointed out that religion is the soul of any society and it plays a vital role in shaping the people’s ways of life and to the advancement of the society. Hick, God and the Universe of Faith: Essay in the Philosophy of Religion, 134f. “The development of religion and religions begins to emerge into the light of recorded history at the third millennium BC toward the period around 2000 BC. There are two main religions of the earth in which civilization seems first to have arisen and

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to the present stage. It is the normal place where God speaks4 and human being responds in an obedient manner. Religion is instituted for human being to have affinity with the divine, because one is a fellow worker together with God in the actualization of the moral order.5 It is the realization of the existence of the supersensible reality. This realization brings humanity closer to the supernatural power. With this compelling surge in human beings, they started to accommodate the Supernatural into their daily lives, so as not to offend it, in any way or any form. This acknowledgement of the Supernatural metamorphosed into an experience of God as a concrete and existential reality materialized in religion. Hence religion becomes an experience of God as a concrete and existential reality.6

4 5 6

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in which religion first took a shape. These are, Mesopotamia in the Near East and Indus Valley of Northern India. In Mesopotamia, men lived in nomadic shepherds tribes, each having its own gods. In the Indus Valley, there was likewise a wealth of gods and goddesses, though not so much tribal or national in character and expressive as the basic forces of nature, above all fertility…. Mesopotamia and Indus Valley can be described as the growth of natural religion prior to any social intrusion of divine revelation or illumination. Primitive spirit-worship expressed man’s fear of unknown forces, his reverence for nature deities expressed his sense of dependence upon realities greater than himself and his tribal gods expressed the unity and the continuity of his group over against others. This is the contrast with the characteristic male expression of deity in the Semitic religion, which had their origin among nomadic, pastoral herd-keeping people in the Near East. The divine was known to the desert-dwelling herdsmen who founded the Israelite tradition as God the king and Father and this conception has continued both in later Judaism and in Christianity and was renewed out of the desert experience of Mohammed in the Islamic religion. The typical Western conception of God is still predominantly in terms of the male principle of power and authority; and in the typical Indian conception of deity the female principle still plays a distinctively larger part than in the West. Here we have natural religion without revelation. Religious creativity began in the golden age around 800 BC. This time comes a remarkable series of revelatory experiences. It came to early Jewish prophets, Amos, Hosea and First Isaiah. The great Zoroaster of Persia appeared. China produced Lao-tzu and then Confucius; in India the Upanishads were written, and Gotama the Buddha lived, and Mahavira the founder of Jain religion and probably about the end of this period, the writings of the Bhagavad Gita, and Greece produced Pythagoras and then ending the golden age, come Socrates and Plato. Then after the gap of some 300 years, come Jesus of Nazareth and the emergence of Christianity; and after another gap, come the prophet Mohammed and the rise of Islam”. Klausnitzer, Gott und Wirklichkeit, 28. Tennant, Philosophical Theology Vol. II, 189. Danielou and Pannikkar, Theological Approach and Understanding of Religion, 44.

Wilfred Cantwell Smith regards religion as ‘cumulative traditions’. He suggests that we see a cumulative tradition as the various expressions of the faith of the people in the past. A cumulative tradition may be constituted by texts of scripture or law, including narratives, myths, prophesies accounts of revelations, visuals and other kinds of symbols, oral traditions, music, dance, ethical teachings, theologies, creed, rites, liturgies, architecture and the host of other elements.7 These are the elements that nourish religion and give it a purpose and direction towards the supernatural. Without these cumulative traditional elements, human being will be incapable of communication and communion with the Supernatural and be unable to maintain a good relationship with the divine. There is no doubt that in the history of mankind, there are many religions that have come and gone.8 These religions have their essence imparted on humanity. The essence of religions is to link the supernatural with the natural world inhabited by human beings. Hence: All religions promote the idea of an invisible world, inhabited by various creatures, gods, angels and devils, which control much of what happens to us.9 Every religion has a message it delivers to its adherents. These messages transcend the level of here and now, and at the same time, look towards the Supernatural. Religion also helps to organize humanity to live a life that addresses human spiritual as well as physical life. It is not only something that is added to the social life of human being but rather it is something that organizes the spiritual and the social life of humanity. With religion, human behaviours are strongly influenced by their notions about the existence of the power of the ancestors, the gods and the spirits.10 And through religion humanity tries to mend relationship with the spiritual realities. Michael Meslin observes: “The fundamental problem of how to view the relationship between man and the divine is an old one. Fascinated by this relationship, men in nearly every generation have formulated a number of theories to explain them. In the process, they have built up a discipline that has nearly sought independence from metaphysical and theological attachments.”11 The discipline that sought for independence is ‘Science of Religion.’ It deals mainly with the mystery of human existence and its relationship with God, the creator. Martin Buber writes: “Religion takes its point of departure from the reality of the fear of God.

7 8 9 10 11

Fowler, Stages of Faith, 9. Klausnitzer, Gott und Wirklichkeit, 28. Beit-Hallahmi and Argyle, The Psychology of Religious Behaviour, 6. Boyer, Religion Explained, 23. Meslin, From the History of Religions to Religious Anthropology, 31.

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It denotes feelings that overwhelm a person when life for him becomes enigmatic and dreadful because all his certitudes have been undermined by the unknowable and essential mystery of existence.”12 Through religion human being identifies with the invisible realities for the fear of the unknown. This is one of the things that make one to worship God. One worships God, not only out of slavery fear, but out of honour, reverence, and adoration. Religious worship has to do with awe. It is not simply the fear of the divine, but a compound of feeling also involving wonders, admiration and love.13 It gives response to the ultimate reality. Religious belief does not spring from the psychology of the individual alone, it does not spring from the sense of awe which a believer feels when confronted with the mystery of life or the impressive phenomenon of nature. These may be parts of the experiences, but religion cannot be reduced to these facts alone. The religious response springs from the individual’s reaction to the social facts of a common cultural, historical and ecological context. It involves the whole person.14 John Mbiti notes: “Religion is the strongest element in traditional background, and exerts probably the greatest influence upon the thinking and the living of the people concerned.”15 This statement shows that the influence of religion in the society and on the people cannot be compared to any other discipline in the world.

1.1.1 What is Religion? The Latin origin of the word religion is not quite clear. Etymologically it comes from the words: relegere or religare. The prefix ‘re’ means to repeat. The word legere means to read. Re-legere means, to re-read over again, repeatedly (read) turn aside, always go through, just observation. Religion becomes the scrupulous observation of what the gods’ demand of human being. This position was favoured by Cicero. Another word for it is piety.16 But later, other authors come up with the word re-ligare: religio, it comes from the word: ligare: to bind or binding together. It means the re-binding together with the supernatural. The later view has usually become favoured by the modern writers.17 Religion has to do with the binding to 12 Cohen, The Educational Philosophy of Martin Buber, 114. 13 Cunningham, Religion and Magic: Approaches and Theory, 40. 14 Shorter, African Culture and the Christian Church: An Introduction to Social and Pastoral Anthropology, 44f. 15 Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy, 1. 16 Klausnitzer, Gott und Wirklichkeit, 29. 17 Wyld, Oxford English Dictionary.

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the supernatural being. It is the binding between God and man.18 It has to do with, ‘reverence to the gods’ ‘fear of God’, ‘religious awe’, ‘consciousness of wrong’, ‘religious scruple’. Another word Re-elegere is not connected with re-legere, it means ‘to gather together’, collect; to ponder over, to give heed to, observe, or care for’. Another word re-eligere is used by Thomas Aquinas. The Latin word eligere means ‘to choose’, ‘to elect’‘make a conscious choice’ with the prefix ‘re’. This means that religion has to do with re-electing or re-choosing. Here comes the basic element for the monotheistic Abrahams religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) that has to do with decision and choice. Religion becomes a conscious decision for God.19 Hence Re-legere, Re-ligare, Re-elegere and Re-eligere have special connection between the Supernatural and the humanity. These different opinions as regards religion have made it impossible to have an agreed definition of it. Religion is then seen as the binding together of humans with the creator. It is a belief in, acknowledgement of the supernatural power which controls the universe and directs human destiny. It is a belief in the existence of God or gods to whom some form of worship, obedience and adoration is due.20 The word religio, reverence or piety, which comes from the word religare, is to tie back, tie up, tie fast, is a personal commitment to and serving of God or a god with worshipful devotion, conduct in accordance with the divine commands, especially as found in accepted sacred writings or declared by the authoritative teachers. It is a way of life recognized as incumbent on true believers and the relating of oneself to an organized body of believers.21 Through religion God speaks to humanity.22 It also means the formal and institutionalized expression of beliefs and practices of the sacred ritual observances as well as the attitudes and the feelings of those who believe in the transcendent divine power. As cultural and social phenomenon, religion seems to be universally found in all early societies, and historically and globally, it has defined many societies and traditions.23 Religion has to do with the association of the human and the divine. It is the infinitely manifold, continual referral and referring of human being to the ground, goal, meaning and middle of all that is real.24 It combines beliefs and the world

18 19 20 21 22 23 24

Klausnitzer, Gott und Wirklichkeit, 29. Ibid., 29f. Wylde, The Universal English Dictionary. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Vol. II. 1918. Klausnitzer, Gott und Wirklichkeit, 28. Philip, Philosophy of Religion A-Z, 180. Lott, Vision, Tradition, Interpretation, 213.

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attitudes, or world-view which we may call ethos and also behaviour or way of life or right action, which we may call in a broad and loose sense ethics. Because religion forms the basis of life of not only or mainly individuals or families but people unrelated to one another, it must be seen as an account of a social entity or group – for instance, a church, a holy people, or a nation. In that sense religion explains the social world made up by people who believe in certain things in common and act in certain aspects of their lives in common. Religion accounts for social entity, which we call ethnos. These three: ethos, ethics, and ethnos define religion.25 In such a case, religion supports spirituality, morality and culture. It is not a domain where anything goes, where any strange belief could appear and get transmitted from generation to generation.26 It is rather a domain that moderates people’s way of life, their relation and association with the world, each other and with the Supernatural. Hence, religion is meant to influence humanity positively. Religion does not only remain at the level of contemplation or speculation. It has to be translated into action and applied to ordinary life by means of a ritual phase.27 It demands actions on the activities and the realization of life itself. Whether the life we are living will end up in extinction or in the attainment of eternal life is a matter of the utmost importance for life itself.28 Through religion human being recognizes the Supernatural which offers larger hope and something to live for.29 It deals with the transcendental and the inner reality of faith, as well as to the rituals and the ceremonies which are basically means of communion and communication with the Deity.30 The word ‘Religion’ has many concepts, connotations and definitions. These concepts lead to lack of consensus as regards the definition of Religion among notable writers in so far as there are so many religions. Religion is seen: “… as a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as a creation of Supernatural agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often having a moral code of conduct for human affairs.”31 From this, we can deduce that religion, involves the whole lives of human being and the association with the divine in a ritual manner. Human being is subsumed in religion, in order to be in 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

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Neusner, The Way of Torah, 3f. Boyer, Religion Explained, 29. Shorter, African Culture and the Christian Church, 45. Nishitani, Religion and Nothingness, 26. Reece, Irony and Religious Belief, 85. Idowu, African Traditional Religion: A Definition, 32. Anozie, The Moral Significance of African Traditional Religion for Christian Conscience, 31.

union with God and to be identified with Him through rituals and taboos.32 Hence every religion has rituals and taboos that are peculiar to them. In religion, rituals are performed and the taboos observed by the members. These rituals and taboos concern the whole lives of the people: beliefs, practices, feelings, moods, and attitudes.33 Religion is not merely a code, a law or a book that is held to be sacred because, it reflects the belief of a community. It is at the same time an ensemble of ritual practices inserted into the fabric of day to day society.34 These ritual practices help the individual to attain ones goal: heaven or blissful stay after a good life in this existential world. Every religion concerns itself directly or indirectly with these terms: life, death, heaven, punishment, sacred, Supernatural etc.35 These are what one expects on the last day: to be united with God as a sign of reward or be separated from Him as a sign of punishment. Alfred Anazodo sees religion as “…the service and adoration of a Divine Being, God or a god, as expressed in different forms of worship, in obedience to the divine commands and in the pursuit of a way of life regarded as incumbent on true believers.”36 Through this definition, Anazodo reduces religion only to liturgy. Liturgy is part of religion that presents the exercise of all that belongs to the worship in honour of God and everything pertaining to Him; but that which renders such an exercise virtuous or makes religion a virtue is the spirit. The affection that a person cultivates towards what forms the material objects of this worship, the esteem that one has for it, the way that one shows it and the end for which one offers it speaks more about religion.37 This suggests that we have two modes of religious acts: I, The recognition of the sacred which one holds to be an objective reality transcending one’s own condition and defined through ritual, symbols and effective experiences and II, The expression which one gives to this reality perceived as immanent. The expression of religious experience does not describe the sacred. It witnesses the reality lived between human being and the divine which informs and modifies human behaviours.38 In religion, human being lives a life 32 A taboo is a social prohibition or restriction sanctioned by supra-societal (innate) means or socially sanctioned injunction alleged to have the force of such a prohibition. It is a social action to be avoided and it is determined by the divine or animistic mandates. Its transgressions may involve ‘punishment’ by inherent circumstance. 33 Cook, Religion, 2. Definition, 662. 34 Meslin, From the History of Religions to Religious Anthropology, 48. 35 Ibid., 663. 36 Anazodo, Liturgy of the Hours and Islamic Salat, 4. 37 Herrmann, Religious Plurality and a Good Life, 111. 38 Meslin, From the History of Religions to Religious Anthropology, 49.

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that is coded with meanings that establish and express social continuity39 from this world to the next world. Philosophers like William James, David Hume and Karl Marx, theologians like John Hick and Eugen Drewermann, sociologists like Marx Weber and Emilie Durkheim, Psychologists like, Sigmund Freud and Birgit Mayer have defined religion differently to suit their disciplines and perspectives of life. Their definitions of religion lead to different understanding of what religion is all about. With these definitions, one can accordingly understand religion either religiously or scientifically, but not in both ways at once.40 Those who understand religion religiously claim that religion, as a human activity, is a natural human response to the reality of the supernatural world, and to the reality of the divine revelation. For them, religion answers question about absolute human background which is not in the nature.41 Researchers approaching religion from an academic vantage point, see it as a part of human cultural evolution.42 Marx Weber presents religion as: “The relationships of men to supernatural forces which take the forms of prayer, sacrifice and worship. This relationship may be termed cult or religion as distinguished from sorcery, which is magical coercion. Corresponding, those beings that are worshipped and entreated may be termed gods in contradiction to demons which are magically coerced and charmed.”43 For Sigmund Freud, the true and the fundamental course of religions arise only in response to the deep emotional conflicts and weaknesses and once these are solved, the illusion of religion will disappear from human scene.44 Ludwig Feuerbach claims that all religions are just a psychological device by which we attach our own hopes, virtues and ideals to an imaginary supernatural being we call ‘God’ and in the process only we diminish ourselves.45 Birgit Meyer sees religion as the ways in which people link up with, or even feel touched by, a meta-empirical that may be glossed as supernatural, sacred, divine or transcendental.46 This meta-empirical she calls transcendental or divine, goes beyond the things we can see with physical eyes and they are the 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

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Hervieu-Leger, Religion as a Chain of Memory, 84. Hick, An Introduction of Religion, 1f. Drawermann, Wozu Religion? 30. Beit-Hallahmi and Argyle, The Psychology of Religious Behaviour, Belief & Experience, 10. Cunningham, Religion and Magic, 12. Freud, Moses and Monotheism, 77. Ibid., 76. Meyer, Religious Sensations, 705.

core and the heart of all religious worship. In religion, the gods or the supernatural are always placated with prayers, sacrifices and worship, so as to receive benefits from them. For Albert Einstein: “Religion is the old age endeavour of man to liberate himself from the fetters of selfish desires; it is the preoccupation with thoughts, feelings and aspirations, which have super-personal values. One is religious and devout when one is not in doubt, even without rational justification, of the significance and the loftiness of these super-personal objects and goals.”47 Through religion, human being buries his fears and anguishes and finds solace and comfort in doctrinal tenets. Emilie Durkheim sees religion as a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things: things set apart and forbidden and beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community. It is seen as a human’s faith in a supreme power whereby human being seeks to satisfy emotional needs and gain stability of life, and which one expresses in worship and service.48 Psychologically, religion is seen as: whatever we as individuals do to come to grips personally with the questions that confront us because we are aware that we and others like us are alive and that we will die.49 This brings us to the idea of the belief in God and the idea of life after life. By faith we sojourned to the Promised Land (Hebr.11:9).50 William James defines religion as: “…the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine.”51 James talks about the feeling, the acts and the experiences of the people in their life and solitude. One can reflect upon one’s person, who one is and where one is going only in one’s solitude. Without solitude, human beings will find it difficult to transcend the physical level of human existence. Through religion, people have stories and beliefs about their origin, meaning and destiny that involve higher beings and other world.52 Religious stories and the beliefs of some people have helped immensely for the good of the society in the world. It is through this that Jewish religion developed. They told the stories and the belief of their forefathers and today it is universalized. This is also applicable to the Arabic language as the language of Qur’an.

47 48 49 50 51 52

Einstein, Out of My Later Years, 28. Hick, An Introduction of Religion, 16. Batson, Schoenrade and Ventis, Religion and the Individual, 8. Ibid., 10. James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, 39. Gill, Faith in Dialogue: A Christian Apologetic, 99.

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Religion has offered spiritual, intellectual, social and moral growth to the world. The idea and the principles of law53 as we have it today come from religion. “Religion has long had a difficulty on human life. It has given us some of our most memorable literature, lines that have provided comfort and challenges for centuries; it has given act to the celebrated act of selfless concern for others.”54 It provides support for the fundamental values of the society. It acts also as binding link between different sections of the society and explains the relationships: for example: family lineage, village, chiefdom, larger political units, and the cosmos. It also introduces harmony, discipline and order into human social activities. It provides leadership and gives purpose; it humanizes human activities, conserves values and institutions essential to the society, such as family system or the political system by providing sanctions for them. It teaches filial piety and good citizenship.55 Religions brought blessings to the world’s history, but sometimes they have been misused as instruments of exploitation. It can be relevant when it serves for the protection of the poor, the marginalized or a minority group, of an immigrant community.56 It can promote rigid thinking, over dependence on laws and rules and disregard for personal autonomy. It fosters excessive guilt over real or imagined sin. It can be used to judge the people, ostracize or alianate those who differ from the rest of the group. It can be used to conceal obsessive or compulsive acts, thus delaying the seeking of professional treatment.57 It stands also as a champion of universal blessings and an organ of moral force. Humanity seeks relief from despair and dismay through religion.58 It therefore, helps in no small measure to adding meaning to what seems unreasonable. This does not mean that religion is about realities that are unreasonable, but in some way there are facts in some way that reason without the help of divine revelation cannot adequately comprehend.59 Divine revelation is necessary in religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam which we shall discus later. It is through it that the hidden truths of religious tenets are revealed by God who is the Omniscient and who knows what is good for the people. Revelation cannot 53 The laws as we have them today have their formation from the code of Hammurabic and the Ten Commandments of the Israelites. These laws are today developed by the people of the present generation. 54 Batson, Schoenrade and Ventis, Religion and the Individual, 4. 55 Shorter, African Culture and the Christian Church, 77. 56 Ibid., 78. 57 Koenig, Mcculough and Larson, A Handbook of Religion and Health, 227. 58 Taylor – Guenther Religions for Human Dignity and World Peace, 137. 59 Anozie, The Moral Significance of African Traditional Religion for Christian Conscience, 2.

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occur outside the culture of the people concerned, otherwise it cannot be understood and be translated into the daily lives of the people. Religion is also associated with the cultural lives of the people. Every religion is founded in the people’s culture and no religion can exist outside human culture. Whatever is revealed has to be within the context of the people’s way of life. In affirmation, Emefie Ikenga-Metur argues: “Religion is never found in a vacuum. Every religion comprises the beliefs and practices of a given community or a number of communities.”60 Religious tenets direct and shape the life of the people. As religion helps to shape the lives of the people, it helps also to fashion their hearts, their souls and their minds toward authentication of human lives. Peter Juviler writes: “Religion can be a formidable force for and against human rights, because of its resonance in the ‘human heart, soul, and mind’ through its teachings and liturgy that embrace questions of the ultimate origin, meaning and purpose of life, and of existence are given.”61 It inspires humanity to the greater height and to seek for, not only the validation of human rights, but also for advocacy of human rights. It can be an instrument of peace and war depending on how the people interpret the message correctly and differently. People can take to extreme when it comes to religion. When people are convinced, they can sacrifice their lives for their religious beliefs and when they believe concretely, they can sacrifice their wealth for their religious conviction. It becomes an umbrella that covers the rich and the poor, the weak and the strong, the young and the old in the hope of the world to come. Religion can influence people positively or negatively. It “… is a powerful force for good, and for evil. It draws on wellsprings of mystery, fear (of the unknown and death), hope, morality, exaltation. It can help to validate or repudiate human rights for all. It can unite and divide societies. Whether secular or religious grounds, the ongoing struggle for human rights calls not for the rejection or suppression of religion, but for dialogue within each country and internationally between the upholders and questioners of traditions that run counter to human rights.”62 It therefore takes us to the different ways of life. It takes us not only to heaven. It takes us into insane asylum and battlefield. It also takes us to walk a wide circle around the Samaritan lying half-dead in the ditch or around the child in the ghetto.63 With religion human being can be pharisaic and hypocritical and through it one can practice one’s devotion to the Supreme 60 61 62 63

Ikenga-Metur, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 14. Juviler, Introduction: Ambiguities of the Divine, 3. Ibid., 9. Finley, Mertons Palace of Nowhere, 59.

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Being through personal service, interaction and presentation of one’s petitions to God. Through religion, one expresses oneself more fully and wholeheartedly to God. It is used as a means of nourishment and communication in order to satisfy one’s spiritual, social and psychological aggrandizement. It is pubic and social and it tells us not only about attitudes – matters of mind and intellect – but also actions and conduct.64 Through it one makes a representation of God based on one’s experience. For religion to be concrete, one has to express it in one’s ways of life and allows it to be insinuated into one’s own traditions. Religion has three dimensions of people: the practitioners, the leaders, and the third order. The practioners are those who do not participate actively, but they belong to the religion. They can be seen as the people who belong to the religion without believing. Theses are the people whose convictions and perceptions about their religions are weak. They are the nominal members of the religion who participate only on social occasions. The leaders are those who are willing to take up the responsibility in and for the religion. They have a great role to play in the religious lives of the people. They direct the affairs of the religion and they are the holders of the offices in the religion whether by election or by selection. The third are those in the ‘Third Order’ of religion. They are the scholars from the social, religious and theological sciences. They are the dedicated commentators. These people are the dedicated members.65 The leaders of the religion are most times selected from the pool of this class. This means that all belong to the religion both actively or passively and salvation which is the heart of religious hope is meant for all.66 Then to gain eternal salvation, it is not always required that a person be incorporated as a member of a religion, but it is required that one belongs to it at least in desire and longing.67 The plan of salvation includes those who acknowledge the creator and those who seek the unknown God who gives life to all and wills that all should be saved. Those who through no fault of their own do not know Christ and the Gospel but moved by the dictates of their conscience will attain salvation.68 Several theologians have provided interpretation to this statement on Lumen Gentium. Karl Rahner argues that

64 Neusner, The Way of Torah 3. 65 Bailey, The Secular Faith Controversy, 13f. 66 This is the stand of Vat. II, Lumen Gentium, 16: These people remain dear to God because the plan of God’s salvation also includes all who sincerely seek and acknowledge the Creator. 67 Bassham, Mission Theology, 310. 68 Paul VI, Lumen Gentium, 16.

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those who are outside the visible church of Christ are in fact anonymous Christians because they have experienced and responded to God’s grace and thus are in some sense related to the church although not juridically.69 He made use of Anonymous Christians70 and they are those who do not know their Christian faith in-depth, but they are Christians only by identity but not by participation. For him all are Christians but he differentiates between an anonymous Christian and the explicit Christian. Their difference lies in active and passive participation. So what brings about salvation is the good life one lived.

1.1.2 Constitutive Elements of Religion Jean Danielou writes: “There are, therefore, three constitutive elements of religion: The Myth, the Rites and Rituals, and the Mysticism. These three constitutive elements of religion: The myth which is the intellectual doctrinal aspect; the rites and rituals which are the cultic aspect and mysticism which is the interior experience”71 give value and meaning to all religions. Religions have their myths, rites and rituals and mysticism. 1.1.2.1 The Myth Myth is a sacred descriptive narration that seeks to communicate findings in a narrative form, which are not rational but are conceptually grasped.72 The word ‘Myth’ comes from the Greek mythos meaning ‘fable’, ‘legend’. It can be interpreted as a

69 Rahner, Theological Investigations, V 97f. 70 Karl Rahner made use of Anonymous Christians in explaining the Dogmatic constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, 16, which states that, those who have not yet received the Gospel are related in various ways to the people of God and Christ died for them. They remain most dear to God. So the plan of salvation includes those who acknowledge the creator in the first place and those who hold the faith of Abraham and adore one and merciful God who will judge mankind on the last day. Again those who through no fault of their’s do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace, strive by their deeds to do His wills through the dictates of their conscience, and those who arrived at the explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live good life will be redeemed. The good and the truth found among men and women are seen as the preparation for the Gospel. These people will attain salvation. Rahner made use of this explanation to include all into the salvation of Christ. 71 Danielou and Raimundo, Theological Approach and Understanding of Religion, 44. 72 Vorgrimler, Neues Theologische Wörterbuch, 442.

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narrative about an imaginary being or a fantasy world. Myths have both religious and philosophical implications; they imaginatively express beliefs about the nature and the activities of the Supernatural Beings. They explain why the world is the way it is and what rationale underlies the rules by which people live together in a given society.73 It is the intellectual aspect of the constitutive elements of religion which has to do with the reason behind every religion and its tenets. It is the foundation mother of the history of humanty and religions.74 All religions have myths, in which the decisions of the gods, the origin of the world (creation myths), their current status or human fates are interpreted.75 Every religion has its own story or myth about the creation of the world and therein. It is the sounding words of the message of the report which was one time silent picture. It looks inside the quasi-polar dreamed messages, finds its correspondences and awareness in the poetically designed informative way and delivers it to the hearers. The Greek word associated with myth is the verb ‘mytheesthai’ and means so much to say as talk. Its root comes from ‘mu’ meaning, ‘loud sound’.76 Culturally, myth is the incarnation of the inspiring message. Myth is a universal phenomenon of the human race especially in the archaic and primordial conditions of life and it permeates all religions to a greater or lesser degree. It has its root in the very psyche of human being and expresses it in a scientific and figurative form.77 The stories of myths serve as, Socializing agents, Educational illustrations and Entertainment. As socializing agents, they nourish and promote the continuance of ancestral traditions in the daily life of the community. They imprint into the minds of the members the social relations and interactions and the norms regarding them. Educationally, the stories are meant to teach the norms, morals, customs and manners of the society. As entertainment, myths are parts of traditional drama, art and skill and point towards the condemnation of bad situation.78 They glorify good virtues and condemn bad things. In myth, stories concerning the gods and superhuman beings are told, it can also be told with animals, birds or sacred objects and places. The belief in

73 74 75 76 77

Patrick, Philosophy of Religion, 142. Ikenga-Metur, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 31. Vorgrimler, Neues Theologische Wörterbuch, 442. Wehr, Philosophie Auf Der Suche Nach Wahrheit, 216. Vatican Sacretariate for Non-Christians, Towards the Meeting of Relgions, Chapter 3, No. 4. 78 Onwubiko, Christian Mission and Culture in Africa vol. I, African Thought Religion and Culture, 41.

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invisible world of the gods sometimes forms the basic theme of mythology.79 Most myths are esoteric by nature. Human being rationalizes with what is presented in myth. Sometimes stories of the myth could be incredible, stupid and scandalous. It can be an object of reflection for the philosophers, meditation for the theologians and ethical observation for the moralists. The meanings are always hidden behind the stories of myth.80 It is only through reflection and meditation that one can sieve them out. Mythology is not about theology but about intuitive or imaginative experience meant to teach the people. Possamai Adam sees it as “…idiosyncratically borrowed by individuals to support their spirituality.”81 It does not exist. It is nothing but an intellectual or scholarly construction of the mind.82 It is an expression of the sacred in words and it reports realities and events from the origin of the world and the purpose of all that is. It functions as a model for human activity, society, wisdom and knowledge. It gives explicit shape and form to the reality that people sensed intuitively. Myth tells how the gods behave, not out of idle curiosity, or because these tales were entertaining, but to enable human beings to imitate these powerful beings and experience divinity themselves.83 It communicates the sacred and purges humanity into thinking and action. It unveils the collective and individual lives of the people in the community, because “…it is a story with the culturally formative power to direct and inform the lives and thoughts of the people individually and collectively in any given society.”84 It has great influence in the society. The word ‘Myth’ is sometimes used to refer to symbolism in general as well as to a symbolic story in particular. It is often treated as if it was opposed to history. This is far from the case and one cannot say that the difference between myth and history is related to the falsehood and the truth. The aim of history is to establish facts by an appeal to evidence. The aim of a myth is to teach a truth, possibly even a historical truth by means of symbols. Myths are not historical narratives and they do not pretend to appeal to evidence in support of what they teach. They may teach an untruth, just as a historical narrative may in fact be untrue and the evidence on which it rests false. Nevertheless, true or false, the aims and methods

79 80 81 82 83 84

Armstrong, A Short History of Myth, 4. Strümza, Hidden Wisdom, 51. Possomai, Religion and Popular Culture A Hyper-Real Testament, 59. Edmunds, Introduction: The Practice of Greek Mythology, 1. Armstrong, A Short History of Myth, 5. Patrick, Philosophy of Religion A-Z, 143.

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of myth and history are different and should not be confused. This remains so even when myth employs historical figures and events as types and symbols for its own symbolic teaching.85 Myth is intended not to be taken literally, but it is a metaphorical attempt to describe reality that was too complex and elusive to express in any other way. The dramatic and evocative stories of the gods and the goddesses help people to articulate their sense of powerful, but unseen forces that surround them.86 Through myths, knowledge is transmitted literaly to the people. Myth is about the unknown and about that for which we initially have no words to explain. It tells us a lot about a people’s world-view including their religions. The ancient religions: Sumerians, Babylonians, Greek and Romans have tales of gods, mysteries and divine essence built around them. These are the myths that make up their religions. Initially myths were memorized and transmitted orally from one generation to another. With Plato came a systematic culture to reform the traditional culture and he was the first to make use of the word ‘Mythology’ as the collective expression for the culture he repudiates. He is the first to improve on the myths and integrates it into the philosophical dialogue.87 Through myth, human being comes to know the hidden knowledge of the old. Through myth, one is taught the essence of morality, courage and self-confidence, mortality and immortality. Myth unveils a mystery, it reveals a primordial event which is still recounted and repeated in the present. In order words, prototype situations of humanity are expressed in mythological account.88 The word ‘myth’ has unfortunately become synonymous today with fiction.89 That is merely because it has become associated with a certain set of traditions in which we do not believe. People see it as unreal. It is a sacred story which purports to be true, however much the details may become distorted. It is a true record of ritual90 for communicating the sacred message. It is meant to teach the people in a sacred language. In communicating the sacred, myth makes available in words what by no other means is available, and its words are different from other words. They have most extraordinary authority and are in that perceivable manner distinct from common speech. Mythological language does not induce discussion: it

85 Shorter, African Culture and the Christian Church, 9 and 92. 86 Armstrong, A History of God, The 4,000, Years Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, 5. 87 Edmunds, Introduction: The Practice of Greek Mythology, 1. 88 Saliba, “Homo Religiosus” 49. 89 C.f., Armstrong A Short History of Myth 7. 90 Hocart, The Life-Giving Myth, 153.

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does not argue, but it presents what it wants to present to the people. The typical example is the doctrine of creation.91 In the Biblical narrative of the creation of the world, we only see how God appeared and started creating. Nobody will ask what was before the appearance of God or how did God come into existence. In this creation account, one does not look at the logicality of creation, but the facts presented by it and how God created the world and rested on the seventh day. In the mythology of Marduk, you see a god being presented as a son Ea and his spouse is presented as Zarpanitu.92 Then the question will be: How can a god have parents and a wife if he is really a god? Did the parents die after becoming the parents of a god And it means that human being gave birth to a god. Myth then presents situations as they are, irrespective of its logical inconsistencies. It is never neutral; rather it has some point in the context in which they are told.93 It “…points beyond history to what is timeless in human existence, helping us to get beyond the chaotic flux of random events, and glimpse the core of reality.”94 The mythological creation account is presented in order to answer the questions about the origin of the world, the meaning and the account of the things created and the purpose of humanity in the universe created by God. There are many myths in traditional African religions. African myths and images are full of symbols and images drawn from the natural and the supernatural world. They are living chronicles in the minds of Africans. They contain and express the history, the culture, and the inner experience of the African.95 They are bound up with the beginning of things: creation, the origin of human being and the concept of life in the world. The myths span the whole of existence, from the heaven to the hut and the heart of the individual, form, cosmos to clan. Macrocosm and microcosm are turned to each other and are included in all-embracing order.96 Bolaji Idowu sees myth as “…a vehicle that conveys a basic certain truth about man’s experience in his encounter with the created order and with regard to mans relation to the supersensible world. It attempts in no small measure to answer the questions about the origin, meaning and purpose of the universe. The answer to the questions are naturally clothed in stories which serve as means 91 Ibid., 262. Every culture has its own mythological stories about the creation of the world. These stories are relevant within the cultural milieu. 92 Spieckermann, Wrath and Mercy as Crucial Terms of Theological Hermeneutics, 5. 93 Edmunds, Introduction: The Practice of Greek Mythology, 4. 94 Armstrong, A Short History of Myth, 7. 95 Onwubiko, Christian Mission and Culture in Africa vol. 1, African Thought Religion and Culture, 40. 96 Sundkler, The Christian Ministry in Africa, 100.

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of keeping them in meaning as well as handing them down from generation to generation.”97 It does not invoke discussion but acceptance. Myth answers the question of human existence.98 The answer given by myth in its explanation of events may not be satisfactory, but it is accepted with faith, because the stories are always fashioned to suit the occasion it is meant for. Through myth, human being grows spiritually, intellectually and socially and comes to grasp the meaning of the world and the significance of things. It is regarded as the spiritual potentialities of the human life. It helps to put the mind in touch with the experience of being alive.99 It tells us about certain realities – including religious truth. The peoples understanding of their environment, geography, history, medicine, social and religious institutions could very easily be revealed in their myths.100 Myth is one of the three forms of religious expression: sacred speech, sacred acts, and sacred places. In most traditions, it occurs mostly with sacred places or objects (symbols) and sacred acts (cult rituals). It can elucidate the entire religious life of the community, shedding light especially on the ritual acts and the sacred objects that by themselves do not speak at all, or certainly not often, and not as

97 Idowu, African Traditional Religion: A Definition, 84. Parrinder also states that myth cannot be dated; they are clearly old and can be placed under ancient migrations. It answers questions about the origin of the world for it is not reasonable to suppose that life and thinking being came from nothing. C.f., Parrinder, Religion in Africa, 28. 98 Cox, An Introduction to the Phenomenology of Religion, 100. “Here the author gives the myth about the origin of man through The Myth of Raven. The first man emerged out of the pod of a beach pea by straightening out his legs and busting the pod. The man fell to the ground where he stood up a full grown man. He then experienced an unpleasant feeling in his stomach and stoop down to drink some water from a small pool at his feet. When he looked up, he saw a dark, winged object approaching him. This was Raven who subsequently landed by the man. Raven lifted his wings, pushed up his beak like a mask, and became a human. When he saw the first man Raven was astonished at the sight and asked where he had come from. The man pointed to the beach pod. Raven exclaimed, Ah! I made that vine but did not know anything like you would ever come from it. Raven then took the man to the hill where he formed other creatures: first; mountain, sheep and then a woman for the man. He then created fish, birds, and other animals and taught the man how to survive in his environment. Man and woman bore a son and a daughter who married and formed the first human family.” 99 Campbell, et al., The Power of Myth, 5. 100 Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 2.

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clearly.101 Through myths, human being tells the origin of the sacred places, object or animal.102 In myth, the intellect tries to explain the basis of human belief by trying to explain the natural movement and also tracing the origin of the movement. It confers, or helps to confer the object of human desire: life.103 In the pre-literate societies, myth was very important since in the absence of writing materials, it was an indispensable means of conserving, preserving and transmitting religious belief. Some myths are associated with esoteric ritual formulae and they enjoy high level of authenticity because they are learnt and recited life prayers.104 It has contributed in the preservation of knowledge. The origin of myth for Maurice Hocart cannot be told at a public feast “…because it is sacred and it must not be told without proper ceremony, for the telling of it must injure the individual.”105 It confers life and cannot be recited without ritual. This is applicable when it serves the interest of the entire community and not when it is personal. Myth is inseparable from ritual. It makes no sense outside a liturgical drama that brings them to life, and is inseparable in a profane setting.106 The combination of myth and ritual transform the believing community by making its space and time non-homogenous.107 It is therefore effective in imparting knowledge, not because it gives us factual information about the origin of life and things in the world, but it leads to knowledge. If however it does not give us new insight into the deeper meaning of life, it has failed. If it forces us to change our minds and hearts, gives us new hope, and compels us to live more fully, it is valid myth. It transforms us, if we follow its directives.108 Myth in religion therefore is an essential guide for what ought to be a good life and inspires humanity to the attainment of spiritual and moral height.

101 Turner, A Few Definitions, 386. 102 Oral interview by Chief Anthony Eze, He told the history of his town, Amagu (Place of Lion). This people do not kill Lions because they believe that it saved their forefather who was about to be killed by the enemies. With this attachment, they have a belief that Lion cannot wound nor kill any person from the community. Every year they celebrate a feast in honour of this deliverance of their ancestors through the merciful act of the Lion. Till today, they do not kill Lions, though I did not see any Lion in that community. 103 Hocart, The Life-Giving Myth, 148. 104 Ikenga-Metur, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 32. 105 Hocart, The Life-Giving Myth, 153. 106 Armstrong, A Short History of Myth, 3. 107 Cox, An Introduction to the Phenomenology of Religion, 99. 108 Armstrong, A Short History of Myth, 10.

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1.1.2.2 The Rites and the Rituals Rites are repeated ceremonial act in religion, while rituals are behaviours prescribed in the religious community. They are characterized with formalism and traditionalism. The terms denote those aspects of prescribed formal behaviours that have no direct technological consequences. They are repeated cultic acts by which the tradition is transmitted, continually re-established and by which traditional adherents participate in its life. The Encyclopedia of Catholicism refers rites to a particular ritual process, such as baptism, involving separation from secular activity, ritual transformation, and the reaggregation with the wider community. Or they can refer to a collection of liturgical, cultural, spiritual, linguistic and musical forms belonging to a particular subgroup within a broader religious tradition.109 Rituals are systems of object and acts of symbols.110 Their expressions are ‘symbolic’ in that they assert something about the state of affairs, but they are not necessarily purposive, that is, the performer of rituals do not necessarily seek to alter the state of affairs.111 Rites and rituals are social customs and the cultic aspect of religious belief. Every religion has its own signs and symbols. They are sacred acts that are life-enabling; whether consciously or unconsciously they refer in some way to human aberrative and a typical religious ritual.112 Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi and Michael Argyle argue: “Religious ritual is a stereotyped sequence of activities involving gestures, words and objects, performed in a sequestered place, and designed to influence preternatural entities or forces on behalf of the actors, goals and interests.”113 Through rituals the actor seeks to place oneself before the supernatural and reinforces oneself spiritually. Through rituals human being shares the quality of offering certainty and completeness in placing a self within a cosmic order. James Cox identifies six characteristics of rituals: I. Rituals manifest the sacred through a re-enactment of the original hierophany. II. Rituals re-establish structures and thus transform and re-new the believer’s existence by making space and time sacred. III. Rituals bring the picture of the sacred to life. IV. Rituals re-enact stories of divine beings and thus re-enforce their inter-relationships with humans and the world. V. Rituals use the local stories, 109 Flinn, Encyclopedia of Catholicism, 553. 110 Versnel, Myth, Ritual and History, 40. 111 Turner, A Few Definition, 386. 112 Lott, Vision, Tradition, Interpretation: Theology, Religion, and the Study of Religion, 17. 113 Beit-Hallahmi and Argyle, The Psychology of Religious Behaviour, Belief & Experience, 50.

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divinities and events to bring the believer into the presence of the universal. VI. Rituals make the myths true by transporting the believer into the space and time of the sacred story.114 Religious rituals are sacred and they go with religious words. Hence “Sacred action goes with sacred words.”115 In Africa, rituals connect people with their society at an early stage; they grow up with it, and learn various aspects of the society without questioning them.116 This is why Africans are religious. There are a number of distinct types of rituals to be found in religious traditions. These are: Sacrifice, initiation, reciting sacred words, observing sacred times, celebrating sacred festivals, congregating at sacred places, bearing sacred marks.117 They are effective instrument of education within a culture and a vehicle for the transmission of culture. The rites are the cultic aspect of religion and culture while rituals are standardized patterns of social behaviour that are symbolic rather than instrumental. They are not pieces of rational behaviour, and they contain strong and non-verbal elements, such as putting on a ring, in addition to verbal ones such as marriage vows. Religious rituals do not only involve verbal utterances, understood as actions, they involve communication in the sense that they contain information and transmit it.118 The actions of the rituals are communicated verbally and symbolically. A common ritual is the shaking of hand in greeting to mark the beginning or the end of an encounter. This is not normally religious, but it could be, if it were a custom for a priest to bless it and give his approval. Rituals can bring about social changes, in the relationship between people as in marriage or changes of state as in burial.119 In the ordination of a priest, the rites and the ritual change the status of the candidate. That is marvelous. We communicate rituals everyday without knowing it. A distinction can always be made between the words ‘rites and rituals’. Action is the dominant trait of a ritual. One can say that every ritual contains at least a gesture or a number of gestures. Particular groups identify themselves by expressing their belongingness through the use of rituals. The rituals then serve as the code through which particular groups express their insertion into the world. They are mostly repetitive and through repetition, the rituals survive among groups of

114 Cox, An Introduction to the Phenomenology of Religion, 99. 115 Lott, Vision, Tradition, Interpretation: Theology, Religion, and the Study of Religion, 16. 116 Theilen, Gender, Race, Power and Religion, 198. 117 Lott, Vision, Tradition, Interpretation: Theology, Religion, and the Study of Religion, 16. 118 Lawson, Rethinking Religion Connecting Cognition and Culture, 54. 119 Beit-Hallahmi and Argyle, The Psychology of Religious Behaviour, Belief & Experience, 49.

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persons and influence relationships. In rituals, the ways they were done in the past control the ways they should be done in the present.120 This conservative nature of rites and rituals make acculturation very slow. Rituals have powerful effect on the community of believers.121 They can be private or public. They are private when they involve only the individual person and public when they involve the entire family or the community with the authorized person leading them. When the rites and the rituals are public, it is only the elderly person who is competent to perform the acts on behalf of the people. This elder must not only be in age, but also in office or entitlements: like priests or titled men or women. Through rites and rituals, symbolic actions are made real. Hence rituals are primarily matters of stepping out of the rational into the expressive.122 They are symbolic ways of expressing innate religious truth. The meaning of the rites and rituals depend above all on the initiators, users and inheritors of the rites.123 There are rites of initiation in every religion. These initiatory rites include cultic acts enabling the ‘passage’ into a new state of ‘enlightenment’ and thus enabling entry into a community consecrated to a specific way of life. Such is the case with religions where sacred vow marks the moment of initiation for the novice.124 In most traditions, the rites of initiation are performed starting with the birth of human being. In some cases the initiation into the higher ‘enlightenment’ may coincide with the entry into the adulthood or the attainment of puberty. This is the case with the sacred thread ‘twice-born’ in Hinduism. In some Christian communities, the initiation rites include: baptism, confirmation and entry into the sacramental life of the community. In orthodox Hindu life, marriage, conception, birth, first rice-eating, first-hair cutting, putting on the sacred thread, death etc, are akin to rites of passage.125 This is also applicable in Igboland where the rites 120 Anyanwu, The Rites of Initiation in Christian Liturgy and in Igbo Traditional Society, 164. 121 The sign of the cross is one of the greatest signs of the Catholics. It is very simple, but a devoted Catholic cannot eat without performing it. It gives one the strength and confidence that Christ will always nourish one’s food and protects one against his enemies. 122 Collins, Religion and Ritual: A Multi-Pespectival Approach, 675. 123 Anyanwu, The Rites of Initiation in Christian Liturgy and in Igbo Traditional Society, 165. 124 Lott, Vision, Tradition, Interpretation: Theology, Religion, and the Study of Religion, 18f. 125 Ibid., 19.

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begin when a child is born; there is circumcision, initiation into adulthood: age mate, marriage and death.126 There are also very many social and religious initiations that require the performance of rites and rituals. 1.1.2.3 Mysticism Mysticism is a word of uncertain connotation. It is etymologically derived from Greek word Mythos meaning to conceal (die Lehre vom Verborgenen: the doctrine of the hidden). Its German equivalent: Mystizismus stands for the cult of the supernatural, for theosophical pursuit, for a spiritualistic exploitation of psychical research; and Mystik, stands for immediate experience of a divine-human intercourse and relationship. It is a term for the internal, temporary experience and a unifying encounter with human being justifying everything existent with divine infinity and a term for the scientific reflection and interpretation of human experience.127 It has to do with spirituality and esoteric experience. Mystical experience is as old as humanity, which is not confined to any racial origin and is one of the original grounds of personal religion. Mysticism is seen as a doctrine of union with the Absolute.128 It is the interior experience in religion. There are elements of mysticism in the religious of the world and it is the core of all religions, because of their involvement with the spiritual entity. “Mysticism of course, needs not be defined as an essential aspect of any religion”129 because it is part and parcel of many religions. The adjective ‘mystical’ is commonly used to describe any object, person, event or belief which has a vaguely mysterious aspect to it. It is applied to ordinary experience of union, whether religious or not, and to the supernatural, the magical and the occult in general.130 Mysticism is a mystical experience and discursive thought that transcends the immediate apperception of a unity or union which is apprehended as lying beyond and transcending the multiplicity of the world as it is.131 Hence, it is regarded as a way of life that acknowledges the validity of personally experienced mystical states.132 Those religions that have historical founders started with a powerful

126 127 128 129 130 131

Ajamma, The Age-Grade System, 115f. Vorgrimler, Neues Theologische Wörterbuch, 440. Jones, Mysticism, 83f. Hood, The Emperical Study of Mysticism, 224. King, Mysticism and Spirituality, 306. Lott, Vision, Tradition, Interpretation: Theology, Religion, and the Study of Religion, 134. 132 Hood, The Emperical Study of Mysticism, 224.

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personal experience of immediate contact with the divine. These personal contacts with the divine happen in one way or the other. Their experiences are subject to personal interpretations. Mysticism occurs in established religious traditions, but its experiences sometimes occur outside the regular forms of worship and devotion to these religions. The experience of the mystics is the means by which they realize and appropriate the traditions of the religious organization in which they belong.133 Mysticism then is a “…type of contemplative experience of inner transcendence to which absolute significance is given, and within great emphasis is given to immediacy and to meditational practice.”134 The mystics claim to have experienced an unmediated experience of the divine is seen by many theologians as a direct threat to the authority of the religious leaders as the sole mediator between the divine and human.135 But all religions regardless of their origin, retains their vitality only as long as their members continue to believe in a transcendental reality with which they are communicated with the divine.

1.2 What is Faith? Faith is the crucial point of existential and transcendental participation in the transcendence. It is a universal characteristic and a fundamental quality of humanity and religious life.136 Faith is a risk and a gamble; absolute certainty can never be faith. It is central to all the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam).137 It is open acceptance of God’s self communication, which places a believer into a free personal and communal relationship with God.138 This definition shows that faith has to do with the divine and the human relationship. The relationship is subject to human obedience to the divine. Through faith, the human mind makes the eternal truth apparent to the human intellect. It gives human being the clarity of the mind necessary for the successful prosecution of one’s journey to God. It is the beginning of the purification of human mind from the errors and conflicting desires which will cause one to lose God. 133 Possomai, Religion and Popular Culture: A Hyper-Real Testament, 38. 134 Lott, Vision, Tradition, Interpretation: Theology, Religion, and the Study of Religion, 136. 135 King, Mysticism and Spirituality, 307. 136 Lott, Vision, Tradition, Interpretation: Theology, Religion, and the Study of Religion, 193. 137 Flinn, Encyclopedia of Catholicism, 270. 138 Ibid.

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There are two main types of faith: the historical faith and the feeling faith. The historical faith hangs on the truth and the honesty of the teller and the consent of many. The feeling faith arises from the historical faith. Therefore, it is the fruit of historical faith. It does not hang on the honesty of the preacher but on the power of God and that of the Holy Spirit.139 The object of faith is God and all things related to God. It is not subject to error, because it relies on the revelation of God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived. The object of faith cannot be at the same time the object of scientific knowledge; hence faith involves internal belief and external confession of that belief.140 Faith has to do with religion and every religious faith shows two sides or aspects: a cognitive and volitional. It is an affirmation of the truth and a surrender of the truth affirmed. Apart from the first, faith will turn out to be blind, and apart from the second, it turns out to be without practical significance. When the volitional aspect of faith is emphasized, we have the notion commonly denoted by the word trust, when the cognitive is emphasized, the word belief is denoted. The object of faith is God and all other things that are related to God. By faith, we have a new power in the intellect, enabling us to accept whatever God reveals simply because He reveals it. We may see it as mysterious; we may feel that it is beyond us, we may not see how to fit it in, either with some revealed truths or with our own experience of life, but we accept it in faith. Faith is the root of the whole supernatural life. By faith the soul accepts God as the source of truth. Through faith we accept God as our teacher.141 It is only through faith that humanity can experience God. For Alister McGrath, “The world and all that happens within it, including history and the fate of peoples, are realities to be observed, analyzed and accessed with all the resources of reason, but without faith ever being foreign to the process. Faith intervenes not to abolish reason’s autonomy nor to reduce its scope of action, but solely to bring the human being to understand that in these events it is the God of Israel who acts.”142 This shows that the presence of faith does not alter the efficacy of reason and it is not the work of faith to limit the scope of reason. Reason authenticates faith. Faith is the mundane cause that awakens human longing for God. It is the person’s or group’s way of responding to the transcendental values and powers as

139 140 141 142

Tyndale, An Answer to Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue, 50f. Gratsch, Aquinas Summa, 144f. Sheed, Theology for Beginners, 76. McGrath, Theology The Basic Readings, 25.

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perceived and grasped through the form of cumulative tradition.143 This cumulative traditional conviction is lived out in our lives. Faith is a truth in the mind that fires the heart towards living conviction of absolute trust in God. It is a power radiating from the Spirit, permeating flesh and blood and so becoming something quite natural not artificial or pretence or force, it is not studies or just a normal life. It is something more than conviction that we live out. Through faith, human being comes to know God and relates with Him in the world. It is only through faith that the Church’s mission can be understood and only through faith that it finds its basis.144 This affirms that faith always goes with conviction and certitude and it has to do with religion and God. It sharpens the inner eye and opens the mind to discover in the flux of events the workings of providence.145 Faith is the purification of doubt; it has to transcend elements of doubt. It is a personal trust in the living, transcendental Being; committal to self-surrender to the divine wills with the result that the life is divinely controlled and guided.146 It is seen and defined by different people according to their disciplines because “…faith is not always religious in its content and context.”147 Through faith human being moves into the force field of life, finding coherent ways and giving meaning to the multiple forces and relations that make up our lives.148 This definition is psychological and also it is limited to this material world; whereas religious faith concerns itself with human relationship, natural and the supernatural. Faith is always associated with religion, though it is not only religion that speaks of faith. But any religion that is devoid of faith ceases to be a religion, because it is faith that ties religion to its ultimate reality. This ultimate reality is God or supernatural and the reward that comes at last. In religion whenever we talk of faith, we must talk about what to hope for as a reward that is to come at last. This reward comes now and hereafter. Faith in the widest sense deals with persons and not necessarily things. It is accepting freely without coercion what a person said or did because of one’s confidence in the person.149 Faith in a purely religious sense is the knowledge of God, which is not merely knowledge in a cognitive sense or intellectual sense ( fides quae) although it is that

143 Fowler, Stages of Faith, 9. 144 John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, (Mission of the Redeemer), 5. 145 McGrath, Theology The Basic Readings, 25. 146 Idowu, African Traditional Religion: A Definition, 25. 147 Fowler, Stages of Faith, 4. 148 Ibid. 149 Okike, Reason for the Islamic State, 83.

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too. It is the key which implies trust and a total commitment of self to God, a commitment of the heart as well as the mind.150 The evidence of faith in the Biblical stories proves this. In the Old Testament, the paradigm and the paragon of faith was Abraham, who left his home in Haran (Gen.12: 1–9). He wandered with the promise of progeny, home and livelihood. With his faith in God’s blessing, God credited him with righteousness (Gen.15: 6).151 He was hopeful, consistent and committed. His active faith was epitomized when he wanted to sacrifice his only son (Gen.22: 1–14), even when there was no hope of getting another. This faith is blind, but it is the actual faith of a true believer. It affirms faith to be a risk and a gamble. The incident in the book of the Prophet Daniel, where Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego replied to King Nebuchadnezzar, Your question needs no answer from us: if our God, the one we serve, is able to save us from the burning fiery furnace and from your power, Your Majesty, He will save us; and even if He does not, then you must know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your god or worship the statue you have set up (Dan: 3: 16–18), is also a manifestation of faith. Faith becomes a continually renewed victory over doubt and continually renewed grasp of meaning in the midst of meaninglessness. In the New Testament, the idea of faith focuses on Christ-events in the person of Jesus Christ who died and resurrected. It is the risen Lord who makes our faith possible.152 The activity of faith is summarized as follows: Only faith can guarantee the blessings that we hope for. It is through faith that the ancestors are acknowledged. It is by faith that we understand that the world was created by God, so from the invisible, the visible comes to be. Through faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain and for that he was acknowledged as upright. Through faith Enoch was taken up and did not experience death. It is impossible to please God without faith. Through faith Noah built an ark to save his family and the whole world. His faith was a judgement on the world, and he was able to claim the uprightness which comes from faith. By faith Abraham obeyed God and sojourned in the Promised Land. Sarah was made able to conceive through faith because she believed that God who made the promise was faithful to it (Heb.11: 1–11). These people were practically committed to faith. Faith then is: “…the assurance of things hoped for, conviction of things not seen.”153 Conviction makes one to be totally involved and dedicated wholeheartedly to the supernatural. Keiji Nishitani 150 151 152 153

Mcbrien, Catholicism, 40. Flinn, Encyclopedia of Catholicism, 270. Okike, Reason for the Islamic State, 84. Pelikan, Faith; Faith and Faithfulness, 250.

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describes faith “…as the acceptance of God’s love”.154 Through faith, the love of God which is a gift to human being is cherished and appreciated. It is this love that orders and redeems mankind in Christ Jesus. Wilfred Cantwell Smith writes “Faith is an engagement: the involvement of the Christian with God and with Christ and with the sacraments and with the moral imperatives and with the community; the involvement of the Hindu with the caste and with the law of retributive justice and the Maya (quality) of this mundane world and with the vision of final liberation; the involvement of the Buddhist with the image of the Buddha and with the moral law and with the institutionalized monastic order and with the dream of a further shore beyond this sea of sorrow, the involvement of primitive animist with the world perceived in poetic if bizarre, vitality of responsiveness.”155 It means that every religious belief has to do with involvement and the hope of something that gives it the satisfaction as a reward from the supernatural. Faith in religion goes with involvement, engagement and commitment. These make faith to be really valid and authentic. For faith to be real, one has to be really involved and deeply committed. It should not be in principle, but in action. He continues: “Since faith is an engagement, to know faith authentically is to become oneself involved, to know it in personal committed fashion in one or another of its varied form.”156 Faith involves personal awareness, knowledge and understanding. It does not mean that one has to understand it in a concrete manner, but one should have theoretical knowledge of what one believes in and understand it in a unique manner so as to explain it to another person. Through faith, human being goes beyond the immediate environment, but one’s life is lived within it; so that as a person of faith, one is to apply that vision to the immediate environment, in all its specific actuality.157 The person of faith lives in the here and now, but always anticipates the world to come as a fulfillment of one’s desire and hope. Such a person makes every effort to actualize one’s vision. One with faith has an imbued courage that pushes one even amidst difficulties and discouragements. He/she does not falter, despair nor be discouraged even when he/she swims against the current of the ocean. To this, Cantwell Smith says: “Faith then is a quality of human living. At its best, it has taken the form of serenity and courage and loyalty and service: a quiet confidence and joy which enables one to feel at home in the universe, and to find meaning in the world and in one’s own 154 155 156 157

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Nishitani, Religion and Nothingness, 26. Smith, Faith and Belief, 5f. Ibid., 6. Smith, Patterns of Faith Around the World, 115.

life, a meaning that is profound and ultimate, and is stable no matter what may happen to oneself at the level of immediate event. Men and women of faith face catastrophe and confusion, affluence and sorrow, unperturbed; face opportunity with conviction and drive; and face others with a cheerful charity.”158 Faith is personal and caanot be imposed or sustained from outside. It is an act performed by the self, immanent in the self and arising from within the self as intentionality towards some objects.159 It is an assent which is not compelled by its object but produced by an act of choice in which there will always be certainty, confidence and no fear.160 Faith keeps us going and hoping that our reward is in heaven.161

1.3 What is Belief? Human being cannot live authentically in the world without belief. Belief gives human being the conviction of what one experiences about oneself, the world and the world after. It can be defined as “…the mental state of assurance or conviction, the attitude of the mind towards its own experience in which it accepts and endorses them as referring to reality, as having real significance or value.”162 What makes belief possible is assurance and conviction. Wilfred Cantwell Smith sees belief as the holding of certain ideas; it is an intellectual transformation (even reduction) of transcendence into ostensible terms; the conceptualizing in certain ways of the vision that, metaphorically, one has seen at a less spontaneous level that one hopes to see.163 This definition brings a connection between the reality and the abstract, the known and the unknown. With belief then, human intelligence can bring the transcendence or the abstract into here and now. David Hume has the opinion that some of our basic beliefs are based on fictions of the imagination. He strongly maintains that we have false and unjustified beliefs.

158 159 160 161

Smith, Faith and Belief, 12. Nishitani, Religion and Nothingness, 26. Hick, Faith and Knowledge, 15. Hick, God and the Universe of Faith, 32. Here a woman who had a disabled child narrated her conviction over the child as follows: Only my religious faith keeps me going. Of one thing I am sure: my childs place in heaven is secure. On Hick’s account, the mother would be saying, it is terrible for my child at the moment, but he is to be compensated later on. Her hope is that this fact will be certainly realized. 162 Mair, Belief, 1. Definition, 459. 163 Smith, Faith and Belief, 12.

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Whether they are false or unjustified, they are beliefs nonetheless.164 We have justified and unjustified beliefs, but it is the reason that demarcates what is true belief and what is false belief, what is justified and what is unjustified belief. The problem with Hume is that he gives no room for belief that transcends human reason. He does not see any reason why people should believe without evidence. For him, any belief that transcends human reason is based on religion and should be discarded for it is sophistory and illusion. The wise people for him will believe strong evidence supporting the law (a well founded proof), rather than testimony of miracles, which rest on weaker evidence (a less well informed probability).165 In religion, people believe differently. One cannot say with certainty which religious belief is real and authentic and which one is not. Some believe one thing and others another. Neither they nor the rest of us are quite sure that they are right; even though many may be confident that even so, the venture is well worth taking.166 Belief is not only applied to religion, but also to other knowledge and disciplines. When one talks of belief, it implies what one knows and it could be subject to change, especially when one is convinced that one’s belief has lost its usefulness. It is only one with reason who knows when one’s belief has lost its usefulness. A reasonable person takes time to believe, but those who do not apply sufficient reason, believe in haste and may be willing to sacrifice their lives to what they are not sure of. “They believe something, perhaps hesitantly or perhaps deliberately, even to the point of being willing to stake their life upon it; yet in either case they are not quite sure. Not quitely sure, with that unruffled awareness of intellectual perspicuity.”167 They believe out of emotion and not out of reason or conviction. Sometimes people believe out of fear or uncertainties. When we talk about religious faith, we couple it with trust in a divine power. But belief is not always certain, and through it, we express our faith. It is one of the overt manifestations of faith. Manifestation of faith comes in different ways and it depends on religious conviction. Wilfred Cantwell Smith argues that each item is given in the religious tradition – a statue of Buddha, a Shinto shrine, an African dance pattern, a Hindu law code, a Christian doctrine have become tangible expressions of someone’s faith.168 These beliefs of the people are the representations of their ideas in a concrete way.

164 165 166 167 168

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Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 31. Ibid., 46. Smith, Faith and Belief, 37. Ibid., 36. Ibid., 17.

In describing belief as an idea accompanied by a non-rational sentiment, David Hume thinks that once we see the psychological mechanisms that lead us to beliefs, we will be impressed by the fact that reason has no determinative role to play. Beliefs, then, are mental states controlled by non rational factors. We can control the evidence on which beliefs are formed, but not the formation of belief itself.169 Wilfred Cantwell Smith is in opposition to David Hume when he says: “Where one cannot know, lets believe, say some; where one cannot know, let’s not believe, say others; where no one knows, many believe, says several. What they do believe has become a standard question about other religious people; what do we or what shall I believe, a standard question about oneself.”170 This statement gives room for those who believe and those who do not believe, but from what he says, those who believe are in the greater number than those who do not believe. Belief is a vehicle that drives people to faith and expresses it. The manifestations of belief that express faith are: the statues, the rituals and poems, the corporate lives of the people, the songs and dances. They introduce the believer to something beyond itself and at the same time point to the supernatural who is the ultimate reality of religious faith. The world of belief is divided into superstitious and scientific or obscure and clear knowledge. They are opposed to one another on the plane of knowledge and wisdom, as a tortuous, obscure knowledge full of contradictions and uncertainties over against a clear knowledge, imbued with evidence and conforming to the logic of a thought at the service of a community.171 Sometimes belief can lead to obscure knowledge that is contrary to clear knowledge. When belief is obscure and not certain, it is ‘emotion of conviction’ hence belief may be regarded as a primary psychical experience, a state which cannot be reduced to factors more fundamental than itself.172 Most times belief comes out of emotion of compulsion and not out of ‘emotion of conviction’ and this belief lacks reason. Sometimes people have come to belief out of cultures, customs and traditions, and not out of intellectual or scientific enquiries. This attitude has led to the consequence of true and false belief and most times some of these beliefs of the people are stagnant and gradually fizzles away. The modes of beliefs are stored in the traditions of the people.

169 170 171 172

Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 23. Smith, Faith and Belief, 37. Duchesne-Guillemin, Knowledge and Ignorance, 343. Mair, Belief, 1. Definition, 461.

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1.4 What is Tradition? The word ‘tradition’ comes from the Latin, traditio (handing over) which is derived from the word tradere (hand-over, deliver). The Greek word is paradosis, meaning hand over. A religious tradition covers whatever the received sedimentary process has handed on.173 In a general sense, it is the totality of all processes transmitted through the insight gained in human history and institutional capacities.174 It is a way of communicating the sacred meaning to the members of the community from one generation to another. The German words: Übergabe, Übertragung, Überlieferung, (something that is transmitted, carried over, handed over) mean tradition. It encompasses all manners and customs, morals and cultures within a group which were passed from one generation to the next. The enforcement and the enactment of the delivery of such content is tradition.175 This enactment and the handing on is from what was in existence. The notion of tradition conveys the sense of continuity of culture. A break in the culture would seem to threaten the possibility of genuine continuity and authentic tradition.176 There is oral tradition as well as written tradition. Oral tradition can be called narrative theology. African oral literature explains the historical and cultural lives of the people. They are religious wisdom found in African idioms, wise sayings, legends, myths, stories, proverbs, oral history and songs.177 African tradition was based on orallity. Tradition is: “A system of thought by definition starts afresh, defines first principles, and augments and elaborates them in balance, proportion and above all, logical order. In a traditional process, by contrast, we never start afresh but we only add to an ongoing increment of knowledge, doctrine and mode of thinking judgement. Here we never start afresh, but we always pick in a received program, the part we choose to augment. Tradition by its nature is supposed to describe not a system, whole and complete, but a process of elaboration of a given, received truth: exegesis not fresh composition. Traditional thought is historical in its manner of drawing conclusion and providing explanations.”178 Tradition describes the whole life of a given community. It is a composition of a rich complex of inner and

173 174 175 176 177 178

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Neusner, The Way of Torah, 4. Vorgrimler, Neue Theologische Wörterbuch, 632. Borsche, Tradition, 1 Philosophisch-anthropologisch, 148f. Houlden, Tradition: Introduction, 164. Nasimiyu-Wasike Feminism and African Theology, 22. Neusner, The Way of Torah, 5.

outer elements cohering in a distinctive living pattern which includes structures of belief, life-style, scriptures and their interpretations, liturgies, cultic celebrations, myths, music, poetry, architecture, literature, remembered history and its heroes.179 These are aspects of tradition. Tradition functions not only as unfolding a story, like the history of a nation or a college, but as a locus of authority. It is seen as a theological truth and its deliverances are binding to the successors. It is an accumulating body of beliefs and insights passed on from generation to generation, able to be added to by way of elucidation and coherent provision for new needs and predicaments, but never reduced by the discarding of what critics or protesters come to see as obsolete or plain false.180 Tradition was commonly used by Latin and Greek Christian theologians to denote the body of teaching preserved and handed down by the Church as ‘the Catholic faith’. The concept of tradition applies to virtually all fields of culture, including science, arts, education, law, politics and religion. It commands respect because it is relative to antiquity and because of the presumed trustworthiness of their authors and transmitters. The positive function of tradition is that, it ensures continuity and provides criteria for classification and evaluation of new ideas.181 Tradition is norms of beliefs and practices handed down.182 It is transmitted from one generation to another. In transmitting tradition, the substance of it is not affected but the accident can be affected. The crystallization points of tradition are: creeds, liturgies, councils and synods, great leaders or teachers or great books. Then all epitomize tradition in a particular context and add to its illuminative power for centuries to come even without end.183 Each tradition creates human being, its own image, for we are not humans in general participating in an eternal platonic essence of humanity, we are humans in one or other of the various concrete ways of being human which constitute the culture of the earth.184 For Marie Mause, “Tradition is the expression of conservatism, which is the touchstone of the traditional societies. Through it, these societies are taught to maintain a primordial order which constitutes the foundations of social organizations. Tradition implies antiquity, continuity, heritability…. In addition to age

179 180 181 182 183 184

Hick, Problem of Religious Pluralism, 30. Houlden, Tradition: Introduction, 164. Vorgrimler, Neues Theologisches Wörterbuch, 632f. Valiere, Tradition Vol. 15, 1f. Houlden, Tradition: Introduction, 164. Hick, Problem of Religious Pluralism, 30.

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and continuity, there are questions about the content of traditional discourse and the nature of information conveyed.”185 Tradition deals with antiquity and heritability. It brings a link between the past and the present without any friction. It is continually nurtured by new ideas. In other words, the notion that the present is descended from the traditional past has given way to the opposite notion. The past is reached through inductive reasoning that takes place in the present.186 The new idea gives vigour and vitality to tradition. It is always nursed and nurtured in order to maintain its originality. When it lacks maintenance, it gradually degenerates and dies away. That means, tradition needs refinement in order to meet up with the modern challenges of the present generation, otherwise, its meanings will be misinterpreted and its value lost. It is purified and refined to meet up with the modern challenges and to be interpreted in different ways by the younger generations. Tradition is a freely accepted way of life.187 In Igbo knowledge, tradition is known as Omenala. This word is a combination of Igbo words: ome n’ala (something that happens in the land). Anozie Onyema writes: “Ome n’ala understood in this sense is inherited, a gift from great forefathers. It is not prone to abrupt change. It is fairly stable and constant.”188 The stability of tradition does not mean that it is stagnant. The Igbo understand it as a gift handed down from the gods of the land to mankind from one generation to the next. Igbo traditions are not written down in books rather in the minds of the people, it is always interpreted by the elders of the community. No one has the right to alter the Omenala or disrespect it. Those who go contrary to it incur the wrath of the community or the gods of the land. This approach has slowed down changes in the traditional lives of the people. The interpretation of the concept of tradition plays a decisive part in the history of religion. From the point of view of history of religion, tradition means something that is very old, that was taken over from pre-historic times and handed down through the ages. This is true both for the so called civilized religions and for the so called natural religions. It does not matter for the definition, whether the transmission is carried out in writing or orally.189 But it does not mean that every tradition has to be pre-historic. In speaking about tradition, St. Paul says: The tradition I handed on to you in the first place, a tradition which I had myself received,

185 186 187 188 189

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Mauze, On Concept of Tradition, 5. Ibid., 6. Borsche, Tradition, 1 Philosophisch-anthropologisch, 148f. Anozie, The Culture and the Formation of Conscience. 127. Schmaus, Dogma Vol. 1, God in Revelation, 215.

was that Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the scriptures (1 Cor.15:3). He received this tradition orally and handed over to the younger generation, now it is no longer oral but in a written form. Paul received the traditional message and passed it on. The message is that Christ died for our sin. He based his argument in accordance with the scripture. The scripture becomes the source of this tradition. Initially this message of Christ was preached verbally, later it was transferred into writing to meet up with the modern challenges and for effective spreading of the tradition and the good news. There are two types of traditions: verbal and non-verbal traditions. Non-verbal traditions are artifact: icons, monuments and symbolic objects, signs, designs, gestures, customs and institutions. They cannot exist in isolation from verbal tradition. The latter is needed to interpret the former. The non-verbal tradition possesses a measure of autonomy in relation to verbal traditions, because verbal interpretations can never penetrate the ‘thicknesses’ of traditional objects. Verbal tradition can be oral or written. Some oral traditions are: hymns, proverbs, riddles and folk tales, but they may also be written down.190 Originally tradition was founded orally before the inventions of writing. Hence, oral tradition is much older than the written tradition and precedes it in the formative period of tradition even after the invention of writing.191 The Jewish and the Christian traditions were initially oral but were later put into writings for proper evangelization. Hence, in the Jewish and Christian sphere, the concept of tradition is determined by the historical character of revelation. In the old covenant the revelations that had occurred in the historical processes were written down. The written formulation gradually received the title of Torah. In the so-called ‘Traditions of the fathers’ the decrees of the Torah were preserved, interpreted and applied to definite situations.192 The continuity of oral tradition is sometimes marred by death. Death carries away those who are the custodians of the cultural and religious traditions, persons who bear their charges in their persons and in their memories. Though some may transmit the tradition, but it continues to lose its substance because of lack of written materials. As one generation passes away after another, so the traditions are remembered in less and less detail and naturally, dislocation, distortions and gaps occur. This is where the weakness of the traditional religion as something dominated by priesthood, with little element of prophecy, is manifested.193 190 Valiere, Tradition Vol. 15, 1f. 191 Ibid. 192 Schmaus, Dogma Vol. I, God in Revelation, 215. 193 Idowu, African Traditional Religion: A Definition, 81.

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1.5 The Relationship between Religion, Faith and Belief Faith and belief are always associated with religion. Any religion that is devoid of them ceases to be a religion, because they are necessary requirements for religions. They are universal characteristics of humanity and the fundamental quality of the religious life. They differ in form, but not in kind. It is faith that determines the belief we hold about transcendence.194 They are reciprocal to each other, but faith is deeper and more personal than belief and religion. Each of them is dynamic, grows or is renewed through its interaction with the other. Faith is awakened and nurtured by the elements from the tradition.195 Cumulative traditions selectively renewed as their content proof capable of evoking and shaping the faith of the new generations. This element of tradition is renewed everyday by belief. “Belief is binding, rendering the believer incapable of free, open reflection on their truth.”196 When one is tied with belief, he/she faces actually what faith is all about. Faith begins where belief ends. As faith expresses religion, belief expresses faith. Faith goes with more conviction and authenticity than belief. One may believe something without having faith in what one believes. People may be ready and willing to die for their faith but may not be ready and willing to die for their belief. They can change and alter their belief as situations and events change. Faith is a thing of the heart but belief is a thing of the mind. Faith involves an alignment of the heart and will, a commitment of loyalty and trust.197 Commitment, loyalty and trust are necessary in faith. It resides both in the heart and in the will. Belief is one among many of the overt expressions of faith.198 Every faith has to be expressed through belief, and this expression of faith can only be manifested in the community through human beings. The community helps to solidify the faith and belief of the people. In this community, the devout believer does not pursue one’s faith in isolation, but rather with the members of the believing community. The believer is involved in a community of individuals who hold the same beliefs. When the beliefs of the people are in doubt, the community serves as an important source of social support. Even when the believer has doubt, one only has to look at the community to be reminded

194 195 196 197 198

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Lott, Vision, Tradition, Interpretation, 193. Fowler, Stages of Faith, 10. Smith, Religion and the Individual, 202. Fowler, Stages of Faith, 1. Smith, Faith and Belief, 17.

that others still believe.199 Community often shades the individual and solidifies one’s belief. The community helps to preserve religious faith and belief of those who have no internal backbone to withstand the crises of faith. It is not easy to influence the religious belief of the community, because the people are intertwined with their belief, culture and tradition. Their belief is developed in a continual process, hence it becomes their habit and this habit is so innate in them that most of the times, they may not know why they do what they do. They stick to their tradition, because it had been handed over to them by their ancestors. In this situation, we may have what is called inherited religious belief and this can be an obstacle to faith. What is needed of the individual is deep religious belief, because it makes one to be authentic and also shows one the way to faith. James Fowler puts it as follows: “Deeply held religious beliefs are resistant to change because they almost, always involve public commitment. Typically the devout believer has acted on his or her beliefs in a number of ways: attending worship services, engaging in personal devotions, reading religious literature, perhaps even trying to convert other people. Friends and acquaintances, both inside and outside the family of faith, know where the devout believer stands. Such public commitment makes it difficult subsequently to deny that one took the belief seriously. To change them, the believer would have to admit being wrong.”200 This is the effort of collective belief of the community and it is not easy to influence the inherited beliefs of the ancestors. Collective or community belief is stronger than the individual belief. In the community belief, each is protected by the fact that others believe and nothing can be disastrous when they stand with each other. But when there is doubt in the case of an individual belief, one takes action immediately, because one has to bear the responsibility of the action and the inaction without looking for where to seek refuge, or someone to help in this moment of trials. James Fowler narrates: “In a situation in which a group of devout believers is confronted with beliefdisconfirming information, each believer may experience doubt. But unsure what to do, each masks his or her doubt while looking to other members of the group to see how they are responding. Meanwhile, the other group members are doing the same. To each believer, the other group members appear calm and unruffled by the new information. So each concludes that the disconfirming information must not be as devastating as he or she thought. Through this process of pluralistic ignorance, believers in a group are more resistance than believers who are 199 Smith, Religion and the Individual, 204. 200 Ibid.

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alone.”201 Human being needs others to be firm in what one professes and believes. Most of the time this pluralistic belief is disastrous and devastating, because when the community is led astray, they will not listen to the only one whose reason is different from their own. They will rather condemn the person than to be convinced by him/her. In the history of mankind, this has led to the misunderstanding, condemnation and the death of many innocent people. On the case of religion, faith and belief; faith stands between the two and is more personally founded and grounded. Religion is the refuge of all who come to experience the Supreme Being and also to some who have come for spiritual solace and social security. One may belong to one religion without believing or having faith in the religion one attends. When one does not believe, one cannot have faith and one may believe in the religion without having faith. Faith appears as generic, a universal feature of human living, recognizable similar everywhere despite the remarkable variety of forms and contents of religious practices and belief.202 When the religious doctrine is not founded on the people, they become only the carriers of the message of the doctrine. For them, the doctrine is secondary and the religion primary. They believe only for reasons of social security. These people can attend their religious activities, recite their belief well but can change their mind in the face of religious crises. Faith is the most fundamental category in human quest for relation to the divine. Religion, faith and belief of the people are sustained by the public commitment and social support that comes from the community of believers. The transmission of faith and belief occur in various ways and they happen without one knowing when and how. It is most of the time unofficial, but in religion human beings intentionally express their belief.

1.5.1 Belief and Knowledge Knowledge is the authentic information that squares with reality. There are two ways to arrive at knowledge: material and transcendental means. Material means are those which are related to the perceptible objects or bodies and the transcendental means are those which are related to what is beyond the body. The first kind of knowledge comes from sense perception: empirical, axiomatic truth and reason. The second comes from revelation and intuition. Revelation and intuitive knowledge begin where sense perception ends. They are the beginning of the 201 Ibid. 202 Fowler, Stages of Faith, 14.

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absolute. It means that the end of the first kind of knowledge is reason, which is related to the physical, but it is very close to what lies beyond it. The end of the second kind of knowledge is revelation, which is related to the transcendental and very close to the absolute.203 God is always the source of knowledge. Knowledge is authentic truth but beliefs are judged to be true or false. knowledge is tested and confirmed. It has to do with the reason behind every belief one has. In knowledge one talks about awareness, while belief has to do with the attitudes of the mind towards its own experience. Knowledge can be seen as the complete assurance to recognize that which is known as completely and firmly fixed within a system of fact.204 It is always good to distinguish belief from knowledge. Knowledge is a universally accepted truth. It enlightens and enriches the mind, but in terms of belief, it can be true or false. Some Philosophers like David Hume assert that certain strong beliefs could be said to be knowledge in order to distinguish them from other beliefs that are weak. One may choose to call one’s strongest belief knowledge, but it cannot be knowledge in the sense of an infallible grasp of truth or an acquaintance with reality and universal acceptance. We can convincingly say: knowledge is belief at its highest power. It is also referred to as an objective ground on which the subjective assurance (belief) rests. Hence, it is sometimes referred to as a genius belief.205 Human knowledge is liable to change and therefore remains weak. But: “Beliefs rooted in good evidence will reasonably beget a pretty strong degree of assurance. This evidence and belief properly proportional to it, is the goal of science and all factual investigation.”206 It is certified belief that leads to knowledge. Knowledge is constant but belief is always in a constant motion and it becomes a channel through which knowledge is obtained. Without belief, human being will be endeavouring and operating in a vacuum. But with belief, human being sheds off and casts away all experiences that hogties one to the threshold of experience and advances into better comprehensible belief called knowledge. Without knowledge, human being will continue to dwell in perpetual ignorance and it cannot be formed without belief.

203 Amini, Reconstruction of the Culture Islam, 31f. 204 Mair, Belief, 1. Definition, 460. 205 Ibid. 206 Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 22.

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1.5.2 Belief without Evidence Belief can mean a proposition believed or it can be defined as an act or state of believing. When we speak of belief, we always mean a rational act or state of believing. These acts of believing can be rational or irrational.207 We say that it is rational, when it is followed with evidence and irrational when there is no evidence, but that does not mean that theological or religious belief is irrational. They are knowledge without factual evidence. Some existential philosophers who attached great importance to the facts at hand called for evidence as a proof of judgement. One of them is David Hume, who argues that we have to believe only with evidence. This statement has invariably excluded theological truths. But Jesus Christ, after his resurrection, affirms that we should believe not only what we have seen, but what we have heard: “You believe because you can see me. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe” (Jon: 20:29). Here he speaks more about the hope of those who believe even without seeing. This aspect: belief without evidence will be more elaborated later in religious and theological truth. It is essential to note that not all beliefs go with evidence. Human being has the body and the soul. The body can be seen but the soul cannot be seen. The fact that the soul cannot be seen does not mean that the soul does not exist. The world is filled with the seen and the unseen realities. To separate them will be catastrophic, because the world is mysterious. The seen realities can be grasped by human intelligence and reason; they can be subjected to human reason and can be interpreted empirically. The unseen realities transcends human reason but can only be grasped by act of faith and revelation. John Hick says: “…we have a moral obligation to believe without significant evidence. It is obvious that belief in God is essential at some point for the soul-making process that leads to salvation, but that, in this world at least, God has intentionally arranged things so that we can come to believe only by willing to believe something for which at the time of the decision, we necessarily have insufficient evidence.”208 This means that God works in His own ways and reveals things for human salvation. We may not have sufficient evidence to accent to this truth of revelation, but we have moral obligation to accept and believe it.

207 Hick, Philosophy of Religion, 72. 208 Mesle, John Hick, Theodicy, 65f. But David Hume who is the apostle of evidence fought vividly against religion because, for him, it is without evidence, full of sophistry and illusion and should be discarded.

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1.6 Theological/Religious Belief Theological/religious belief is treated in depth here because the work focuses more on it. The necessity of theology is derived from the nature of revelation, from the nature of faith and from the nature of human mind.209 Religious belief speaks more about religious experience and hidden truth in it. The proper basicality of religious beliefs that are grounded in religious experience must apply not only to Christian beliefs but also to those of Judaism, Islam, and other religions.210 Religious belief and religious experience apply to all religions, even to African and Igbo religion. It is through religious beliefs that longing for God as the ultimate cause is satisfied. Belief is a vehicle by which human being arrives at the ultimate destination. It gives meaning and essence to human life. Without belief, humanity cannot maintain itself in the universe.211 The believer arrives at one’s destination, by seeking, turning oneself into a certain direction and by putting oneself in a certain mental attitude. It is volitional. Religious belief does not appeal to reason directly, but in acting upon the will and the emotion, it is implanted and fostered.212 One does not believe in religion because one understands everything in it, but sometimes one believes out of tradition, emotion and spiritual satisfaction. When we talk about religious belief, we talk about God who is the ultimate source of religion. Through belief, we hold firm that the world is only a stage through which we must pass in order to see the reward God has prepared for the believers: heaven as a reward and punishment in hell for those who lived unjustly. This is a religious belief that is meant for the adherents of many religious groups. Though there are many religions that do not believe in heaven and hell, but the monotheistic religions we shall discus believe in heaven as a reward for the just and hell as a punishment for the unjust. The Igbo traditional belief has a state whereby those who lived justly and peacefully have their rest and a state where the souls of those who lived unjustly wander perpetually without any rest. For the Christians, it would be utterly arbitrary to cut out all references to resurrection, the life to come, heaven and hell, immortality and the fulfillment of God’s purpose for men and women beyond as well as within this world.213 The reward or the punishment of life after life and the attainment of restive place become the motive of all religious commitments.

209 210 211 212 213

Schmaus, Dogma 1 God in Revelation, 256. Hick, Philosophy of Religion, 77. Mair, Belief, 1. Definition, 462. Ibid., 463. Hick, God and the Universe of Faith, 34.

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The great deal of religious words or languages are used in a metaphoric form and not in ordinary human or literal way. That God is great is not intended to mean that God occupies a large volume of space. That God is high above us, is not intended to mean that God is further from the centre of the earth than we are. That God is our heavenly Father is not intended to mean that God is our biological father. It is important even though elementary, to see that the issue between religion with and religion without transcendence is not whether such statement should be understood literally or metaphorically.214 These languages are subject to human expressions and interpretations. The interpretation is not only literal but applicable. Religious interpretations should be theological, moral, philosophical, and social; otherwise one finds itself outside the truth of religion. In religion, when we talk about the love of God for us, we always use the human expression that we are taken care of by a Supreme Being who is in control of the universe. When we talk about God as being omniscient, it is simply a human expression that God knows all our problems and why things are the way they are. Our human understanding of things is limited to our human level and we apply them mostly to God. Hence: The belief that God loves us, means in a naive realism of traditional Christian belief that there is a Supreme Being who has created the universe, who is unlimited in knowledge and power, who intervenes from time to time in the cause of history and who loves His creation in a manner analogous to that of an ideal human or earthly father. This belief entails that in addition to all the human consciousness that currently exists, there is another consciousness which is the consciousness of God, who is a transcendental being.215 There are many words that transcend human understanding but these are religiously believed by the followers of various religions. Some of these are: Miracle, Sacrament, and Revelation.

1.6.1 Miracle, Sacraments and Revelation Miracle and sacraments are aspects of religious beliefs, their afficaciousness transcend human reasoning. Miracle is not everything that is connected with wonder, marvel or astonishment, but it is an action performed by human being through God and it transcends human understanding and comprehension.216 It is a natural

214 Hick, Dialogue in Philosophy of Religion, 103. 215 Ibid. 216 Vorgrimler, Neues Theologisches Wörterbuch, 690.

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manifestation of God.217 In miracle, God is manifested in a unique way. Many religious founders authenticated themselves as being sent by God through the workings of miracles. “Christ authenticated himself as a Messiah by working miracles. Christ’s miracles suggest unusual and striking power, presumably divine, used for beneficent ends, not to cause wonder, (as magicians do) and this points to the essence of miracle.”218 Among the founders of monotheistic religions: Moses performed miracles before Pharaoh and the people of Israel. Jesus Christ performed miracles too. There is no miracle attributed to Mohammad. Though for Hume a report of a miracle is a report of a violation of a law of nature,219 but this violation is done for the good of humanity and also by somebody who claims to have power above the nature. This statement of Hume shows that miracle is real and he believes in it. His problem is that, he does not understand how God can intervene in human life through miracles and not that miracles do not happen or that they are not real. Miracle transcends human knowledge and understanding that is why it is miracle. For Emmanuel Umeh: “Miracle is an act that does not necessarily follow or logically correspond to the laws of nature. It goes beyond the comprehension of human intellect and above rational explanation. Miracles do not comform to the laws of nature, because God’s mighty works are beyond explanation from natural phenomenon.”220 It is the violation of the laws of nature. It is only God who has greater power over the nature that can violate it. Miracle confirms the mighty work of God. It is then defined as “…an occasional evidence of direct divine power in an action striking and unusual, yet by its beneficence pointing to the goodness of God.”221 The essence of miracle is to point to the divine goodness towards His creatures. It is not for self-exultation or glorification, but for the glorification of God. It is only God who knows when it is necessary to perform miracle. It happens when God wants. God works His miracles not directly from heaven, but through His human agent. Any organized miracle is not meant for the manifestation of God’s goodness but for the exultation of self. This type of wonder turns out to be magic or deception to the people. Through miracle we become vividly and immediately conscious of God as acting towards us. A startling happening, even if it should involve a suspension

217 218 219 220 221

Kelsey, Christianity and Miracle, 549. MacCulloch, Miracles – 1. Introductory, 676. Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 23. Umeh, African Theology of Solidarity and Religion of Self-deceit, 101. MacCulloch, Miracles – 1. Introductory, 676.

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of natural law, does not constitute a miracle in the religious sense of the word, if it fails to make one intensely aware of being in God’s presence. In order to be miraculous, an event must be experienced as religiously significant. Indeed we may say that a miracle is an event that is experienced as a miracle; and this particular mood is accordingly an essential element in the miraculous.222 The essence of miracle is to make one aware that the power of God can suspend the natural power in order to make His presence felt among His own people. It is the manifestation of the supernatural power of the Divine Being fulfilling His purpose in history, through charismatic figures who have succeeded in controlling their consciousness through visions, dreams or the practice of meditation.223 God’s purpose is always fulfilled in various ways and through His agents who call His attention towards the particular activity. Miracles have diverse forms, but the most prominent are healing miracles and exorcism. Some of these miracles are carried out today in the Catholic churches through the effects of the sacraments. The word sacrament comes from Latin etymology Sacrum (Holy). Sacraments are the liturgical symbols of the church224 that point to the intrinsic meaning for human salvation. They are regarded as some ordinary material objects: bread or wine, water, oil or other materials experienced as a vehicle of God’s grace and they become a focus of special intense consciousness of God’s overshadowing presence and purpose. A sacrament has in fact the same religious quality as a miracle but differs from the miracle in that it occurs within a liturgical context and is a product of the rituals. In themselves, apart from the sacramental context of worshipping faith, the bread, the wine, the water, the oil or other materials are ordinary material things: they have no magical properties; they are seen and experienced as a channel of divine grace.225 But after the rituals and prayers, they turn out to be more than that which the eyes can see. The sacraments go with what human being sees in representation of Christ. When these perceptible objects are ritualized, they gain supernatural blessings that transform them into spiritual objects. They bring the presence of Christ into actuality. In the Catholic Church, after the consecration, the host and the wine turn out to be the body and the blood of Christ. One cannot say that it is the heavenly bread, or that it represents Christ. It is Christ in an unbloody manner. How this happens is beyond human understanding and that is why it is a mystry. That is the work of sacrament. 222 223 224 225

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Hick, God and the Universe of Faith, Essay in the Philosophy of Religion, 51. Waida, Miracle an Overview, 542. Vorgrimler, Neue Theologisches Wörterbuch, 548. Hick, God and the Universe of Faith, Essay in the Philosophy of Religion, 51.

Revelation is a theological notion that presents the experience and the self disclosure of God to mankind.226 It is fundamental in many religions. The divine grace is explicitly made known to humanity through it. It is understood as communicating information, messages, the good news and instructions from God.227 Through revelation, God reveals Himself in a special way through various means. He reveals Himself in Jesus Christ; the gift of God and in the kingdom of God. The reaction of the people to whom this revelation is meant is to enter into dialogue, the community celebration of life with God and with others to proclaim the Good News of God’s grace.228 Revelation is the highest form of non-physical means of knowledge. It operates on the ultimate frontiers of human consciousness and it is a Divine gift to human beings.229 It is a free announcement of the divinity that goes beyond hierophanies and epiphanies and involves the manifestation of something holy. It always includes the distinction between the revealing subject and the revealed object, between the self revealing God and the mystery made known.230 It can be oral or written. In the former, God addresses human being directly, using the first person plural; the second is more akin to inspirational.231 Through revelation, God manifests Himself through His message and instruction for human salvation as He revealed His name to Moses (Ex. 314f). The reaction to the revelation of God is belief, obedience and the acceptance of the bearer of the message.232 Revelation is the communication of some truth from God to a rational creature through means which are beyond the ordinary cause of nature, but must be grasped by human being. Through it, the secrets of human life are known, the aim and the purpose of human existence unveiled and human being is led to acquire scientific knowledge that will help one to live comfortably in the existential world. In Vatican II council; Dei Verbum: Dogmatic Constitution on the Divine Revelation writes: “Through divine revelation, God chose to show forth and communicate Himself and the eternal decisions of His will regarding the salvation of men. That is to say, He chose to share with them those divine treasures which 226 Vorgrimler, Neue Theologisches Wörterbuch, 464. 227 Klausnitzer, Glaube und Wissen, 146. 228 Ibid., 146f. This is Offenbarung als Selbstmitteilung Gottes (Revelation as God’s self-communication). 229 Amini, Reconstruction of the Culture Islam, 32. 230 Deninger, Revelation, 356. 231 Zaki Yaqub, The Qur’an and Revelation, 43. 232 Klausnitzer, Glauben und Wissen, 146. It is called Instruktionstheoretisches Offenbarungsverständnis (Theoretical instruction of the revelation). This understanding is seen in the book of the Prophets and the early Christians.

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totally transcend the understanding of the human mind.”233 God makes manifest His goodness and wisdom, intentions and designs and the hidden purpose of His will through revelation (Eph. 1:9). The council also teaches: God, the beginning and the end of all things, can be known with certainty from created reality by the light of human reason (Rom. 1:20); and through His revelation, those religious truths which are by their nature accessible to human reason can be known by human being with ease, with solid certitude and with no trace of error, even in this present state of the human race.234 This shows that God’s revelation is certain and it is meant for human salvation. Revelation in Islam is defined as the act of God, having created the world, proceeds to disclose Himself in His own creation, acting in His capacity as hadi (guide). As such, the term embraces any act of self-disclosure, beginning with God addressing our first parents in the Garden of Eden, and proceeding through a series of disclosures to the Prophets both major and minor, culminating in a final definitive act of disclosure known as the Seal of Prophethood, who is Mohammad.235 Islam sees Prophethood and Scripture as the twin vehicles of revelation: one is the impermanent life, the other the permanent record. Both testify the divine truth.236 It regards revelation of the Qur’an to Mohammad as the unchangeable communication of the divine knowledge from the Angelic messenger. The theology of Mohammad will be defective to the one who finds the revelation to be a mixture of truth and falsehood. It may seem a share waste of time to the one who entirely disbelieves in revelation.237 Revelation for Mohammad is the ultimate source of religion. The words of revelation are reasonable only as religious or theological truth, revealing the hidden nature of the divine grace, but do not make much meaning to those who do not attach much importance to them. There are five different criteria for revelation: I. Origin or author: God, spirits, ancestors, power or forces. In every case, the source of revelation is something supernatural or numinous. II. Instrument or means: sacred signs in nature (the stars, animals, sacred places, or sacred time) dreams, visions, ecstasies, finally words or sacred books.

233 234 235 236 237

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Vatican II, Die Verbum, 6. Ibid. Zaki Yaqub, The Qur’an and Revelation, 41. Ibid., 42. Mackenzie, Faith and History in the Old Testaament, 5.

III. Content or object: the didactic, helping or punishing presence, will, being, activity or commission of the divinity. IV. Recipient or addressee: medicine men/women, sorcerers, sacrificing priests, shamans, soothsayers, mediators, prophets with a commission or information intended for the individual or groups, for a people or an entire race. V. Effect and consequence for the recipient: personal instruction or persuasion, divine mission, service at oracle, all these go through inspiration or incarnation.238 Revelation is a divine knowledge which throws life on the next phase of humanity. It has access to the transcendental reality. The knowledge acquired through revelation is not quantified; it is intuitive. Through revelation, the transcendentals are revealed to human being.239 In revelation, we have natural and revealed theology. Natural theology was held to consist of all those theological truths that can be worked out by human intellect. It was believed for example that the existence and the attributes of God and the immortality of the soul can be proved by strict logical argument involving no appeal to revelation. This knowledge comes from nature and association. Revealed theology on the other hand consists of those further truths that are not accessible to human reason and can only be revealed by God. Human mind attains the truth through right reason, but revealed truth is meant to be accepted from God. God as three persons in one is a mystery of the doctrine of the Trinity and it is considered the item of the revealed theology, to be accepted by faith.240 Both natural and revealed theology share from theological and religious truth because we believe not only by human reason, but through revelation and intuition. We also believe because of our religion. Human reason can challenge the revealed truth, because it is capable of rationalizing. The divine revelation is intelligible only to the people it is meant for.241 It is always accepted with faith.

238 239 240 241

Deninger, Revelation, 356. Amini, Reconstruction of the Culture Islam, 28. Hick, Philosophy of Religion, 57f. Ibid., 77. Hick gave example: there are the disputes between followers of different religions – disputes as to whether the universe was created ex nihilo or is an emanation or is itself eternal, whether or not human beings are reincarnated, and so on. Followers of religion A reject some of the beliefs of religion B because they are inconsistent with their own A-beliefs. These are differences one finds in religious tenets.

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Chapter 2: Abrahamic Monotheistic Religions and their Beliefs 2. Introduction Monotheism etymologically comes from the Greek monos one, single, alone, and theos God. It literally means one God. Monotheism states that there is only one God.1 It is contrary to polytheism2. Monotheism is the belief which recognizes, professes and venerates one God who is Supreme above all.3 Ansgar Paus sees it “…as a philosophical-theological belief in a one personal transcendental Deity”4 who is Supreme above all. The origin of monotheism could be traced back to the creation of the world by one God. Human being in a desire and search for the source of life and the Supreme Being that controls the world, looks forward to worship God in a unique way. Human being made up of the body and the spirit has to be unified with God at the end of life. In this realization, humanity comes to the knowledge that this Being cannot be subject to death, because He lives above the material world and He is the source of all things. He does not live in time because time is the work of His creation. In the ancient tradition, God has become so distant, exulted and inaccessible that the spirits and the gods of the pagan pantheon replaced Him. But the search for the Supreme God who created the material world continued so as to explain the mystery and the tragedy of life.5 The God who created the material, as well as the spiritual world lives in the two worlds and has control over them. Therefore there is the visible and the invisible world. The visible world is known to human being and the invisible is not, but one feels the invisible and communicates to it. Human being has a duty to unify the two worlds in order to arrive at one’s destination. The unification of the visible and the invisible is done in religion. Religion transcends 1 2

3 4 5

Patrick, Philosophy of Religion A-Z, 136. Polytheism is a belief in many gods and goddesses in the world pantheon. These gods and goddesses are assigned their respective functions. They are mythological and have history just as human beings. This belief is contrary to monotheism which believes and professes only one transcendent God. Klausnitzer, Gott und Wirklichkeit, 37. Ansgar, Monotheismus, 1, Begriffsgeschichtlich, 422. Armstrong, A History of God, The 4,000, Years Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, 3f.

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matters of belief, because it shapes behaviour and makes a difference when it accounts for the life of the social group that professes it.6 Religion is uniquely influenced by the culture of the people and it influences the thinking pattern and the social life of the people. In religion, we come in contact with the natural and the supernatural. It is the supernatural that gives the natural the meaning it has, and the supernatural cannot be made known without the natural. They need each other to be concrete and meaningful. Through religion one understands oneself as a being in relation to the world and to God who created it,7 and through it, one comes to know God as the creator of the world. The monotheistic religions are not only the Biblical religious systems of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, but also the old Egyptian religion of Echnaton8 in the world of antiquity and the prehistory in comparison with the henotheism.9 Abraham was a henotheist. The first proponent of strict monotheism was Akhenaten or Echnaton or Ikhnaton. When the young Amenhotep IV (later changed his name to Ikhnaton) ascended the throne as the Pharaoh, he succeeded to enthrone the universal God. He took his name before his God: Echnaton; the rays of Aton,10 and then eliminated other cults and myths.11 He raised the Aton religion to the official religion and thereby the universal God became the only God; all that was said of other gods became a deceit and guile. He resisted the temptations of magical thoughts and discarded the human illusions, particularly to the Egyptians as regards life after death. He recognized in the energy of the sun’s radiation the source of all life on earth and worshipped 6 7 8

Neusner, The Way of Torah, 3. Cohn-Sherbok, Incarnation and Trialogue, 30. Akhenaton or Ikhnaton, also called Amenhotep IV, was Pharaoh of Egypt from about 1350 to 1334 BC. He was the son of Amenhotep III. He searched and found really One God and abandoned many gods of his ancestors. This is the first historical figure to establish a religion based on the concept of monotheism. Some scholars believe that the Hebrew Prophets concept of a universal God preached seven or eight centuries later in a land that Akhenaton once ruled, was derived in part from his cult. Later he gave himself a new name: Echnaton, the beam or the rays of the Aton. C.f., Manfred, Gott Eine kleine Geschichte des Größen, 183f. He worshipped the Sun God and ignored other traditional deities of Egypt. His policies were immediately reversed after his death by his successor Tutankhamen, Cf. Armstrong, A History of God, 23. 9 Ansgar, Monotheismus, 1, Begriffsgeschichtlich, 422. The word Henotheism was coined in 19th Cent., in the history of religion. It is the worship of one God, without denying the existence of others. C.f., Vorgrimler, Neues Theologisches Wörtherbuch, 287. 10 Lütz, Gott, Eine Kleine Geschichte des Größten, 184. 11 Brunner, Echnaton, 439.

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the sun as the symbol of God’s power. He gloried in his joy in the creation and in his life in Maat (truth and justice).12 The evil, bad, and death have no explanation in his religion. The Pharaoh was a deeply religious man.13 He was not a philosopher, but a son of a passionate religious people. The God he found was not an abstract God of the philosophers, but a real God, the God human being can pray to. Aton is the undisputed king of the stars, through His warm comes life and through His heat comes death. He is only and incomparable.14 The king died at the age of 47, but the cause of his death was not known. After his death his successor, Tutankhamen without fanaticism returned the country back to the old religion.15 This is how the first monotheistic religion that sprang from Egypt came to an end. The monotheistic religions outside prehistoric and in the world of antiquity are the three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), and also the Indian reform movements within modern religions.16 In the development of monotheism, Judaism takes a unique position and its monotheistic development has not been broken till today.17 The three Abrahamic religions profess the existence and the supremacy of One true God, who is infinite, eternal and supreme. Judaism has Abraham as the founding father. The idea of God, the creator of the universe and the humanity, was communicated to Abraham by God, who unveils His purpose to mankind. God called him to leave his country and his kinsmen, he obeyed and set out to the land of Canaan (Gen.12:1f). This is the genesis of Judaism. The religion was initiated by Abraham, codified by Moses18 and 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Freud, Moses and Monotheism, 96. Brunner, Echnaton, 439. Lütz, Gott, Eine Kleine Geschichte des Größten, 184. Brunner, Echnaton, 439. Klausnitzer, Gott und Wirklichkeit, 37f. Ibid., 87. Sigmund Freud writes that Moses was the great Hebrew Prophet who inspired the Israelites by his leadership and shaped their lives by giving them the law of God. He regarded Moses as an Egyptian prince, a ruler and a follower of the radical Pharaoh Akhnaton, who tried to replace the ancient Egyptian gods with a strict devotion to one deity: Aton, the sun god. The worship of Aton employed neither images nor superstitious rituals. It stressed purely spiritual god of love and goodness and was revered as a strong guardian of the eternal moral order. When Akhnaton died, his religion failed in Egypt, but not entirely. Moses adopted the Hebrews as his people, united them in the new faith and with great courage led them out of their captivity, C.f., Freud, Moses and Monotheism, 72f. This is the version of Sigmund Freud as regards Akhnaton and Moses but this assertion was not universally proved and accepted.

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proclaimed by the Prophets.19 The initiation of the religion by Abraham, the covenant with God, the codification which Moses made on Mount Sinai, the giving of the law and the proclamation of the Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Amos etc, who came to preach moral sanctity to the people become the bedrock of what we know today as Abrahamic Monotheistic religions. The Prophets and some kings solidified the foundation of monotheism in Judaism.20 In the 9th century BC, the Prophets: Elijah and Elisha and the kings: Asa and Jehoshaphat instituted Yahweh as the national king. The Prophet Hosea in the 8th century BC became the mouthpiece of this movement. In the 7th century BC, King Josiah instituted the cult reform and committed Israelites exclusively as the people of God to Yahweh. It was in the 6th century BC that strict monotheism was instituted in Israel. This is the development of the Jewish image of God from polytheism to monolatrism and to strict monotheism.21 Before the institution of Jewish religion on Mount Sinai, Abraham had covenant with God and the seal of the covenant was circumcision. This religion has influenced the world in so many ways and forms. There are some components that ought to be found in every religion. It is not all religious movements that can be termed religion. These components are: 1. A world view. The world view explains who the people it encounters are, where they come from and what they must do. It expresses the object of their belief and what and why they believe in that. It is how the people see the world and the realities of life around them. 2. A way of life. Religion expresses the way of life of the people, their deeds, their religious systems and their world-views. It links the life of the individual to the community. In this way, it encounters the people and influences them in one way or the other. 19 Frankl, The Three Faces of Monotheism, 3. 20 Polytheism was very strong in Israel until after Babylonian exile. In 9th Cent., in the beginning of the monarch in Israel, there was a show between God and the Baal. The Israelite national God had Baal displaced. Those who fought for Yahweh in the Northern Israel were the Prophets Elijah and Elisha. In the Southern Israel were the kings Asa and Jehoshaphat. In the 8th Cent., comes another movement championed by the Prophet Hosea. In the 7th Cent., Josiah was committed in the reform of God’s people having only Yahweh as their God. It is in the 6th Cent., that the idea of the strict notion of God as one God was developed. The return of the Babylonian exile characterized the fight for the monotheism in Israel. C.f., Klausnitzer, Gott und Wirklichkeit, 90. 21 Klausnitzer, Gott und Wirklichkeit, 90.

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3. A particular social group. Every religion has to affect the social life of the people. This is the group to whom the world-view and the way of life refer.22 Religion is not instituted in a vacuum, rather with the people to guide them to the realization of their spiritual and social ways of life. The essence of religion is to bring salvation to its adherents. The Abrahamic religions have many things in common. They are called Abrahamic religions because they have the same forefather Abraham as a father in faith and they are religions of revelation. They maintain that God is one and unique, transcendent and not subject to the rules of nature. They belief in the revelation to the Patriarchs and Moses and they have due respect to the Old Testament Bible. They believe in heaven, salvation history, prayers, worship and Martyrdom. Judaism differs from Christianity in recognizing as God’s revelation the Hebrew scripture but not the New Testament. It differs from Islam in holding Moses to be unique among Prophets and in recognizing no prophecy beyond the scriptural record.23 The Moslems worship the God of Abraham as the Christians and the Jews; it is a continuation of Abrahamic faith tradition.24 The three religions, speak of Jerusalem and the Bible and one can find out that when the Qur’an is read, one has to work with a stuck of the Bible. They have Jerusalem as a spiritual place where most times, the Benedictines monks from Zion’s mountain in Jerusalem with the Jewish teachers of the law and the Moslem mullah (the Moslem teachers of the law and the religion), sit together on the ground and meditate together. In this meditation, each speaks of God in one’s own language. They speak differently, but in a related name, the Arabic Allah is the same as the Hebrew Elohim.25 They pray to the same God and He understands them according to their belief. Christianity and Islamic concepts of God are different. The later is unitary and the former is Trinitarian (though not all Christians believe in the Trinity). Islam bears witness to God as one with whom no one is to be compared and beside whom no other may be worshipped. Christianity on the other hand bears witness to God as Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, One in three and three in One.26 Islam believes: God is only one, the creator of the heaven and the earth. He cannot

22 Neusner, Judaism, Definition of, 580. 23 Ibid. 24 Esposito and Mogahed, Who Speaks for Islam?, 8. 25 Berger, Jesus, 31. 26 Hick, Islam and Christian Monotheism, 2.

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be represented by any creature as if it had with Him a resemblance or similarity (Sura 42, 11). These religions revered the Torah27 as revealed by God to Moses on Mount Sinai.28 The principal initiators of Judaism are the Jews and their ancestors. They had the revelations directly from God and performed sacrifices and offerings to Him. They cannot be neglected or relegated to the background when one speaks of religions and they are always in front when Monotheistic religions are discussed. Judaism gave rise to Christianity and Islam. These three religions trace their ancestral lineage to Abraham, but they have different developmental backgrounds. “Judaism began as a small group of migratory tribes, grew among the inhabitants of small kingdom, overshadowed and often dominated by mighty neighbours, and achieved its greatest flowering among a people who were conquered, subjugated and ultimately dispersed. Christianity first appeared as the faith of a small minority in a subject province of the Roman Empire and remained through its early formative centuries a religion of the downtrodden and the oppressed. Islam, in contrast, triumphed during the life time of its founder, who created a state which, under his immediate successors, the Caliphs, became a vast Empire.”29 The religions are monotheistic in outlook and their conception about God is unique in themselves. The Orthodox Jews believe that the Pentateuch was revealed by God through Moses. The oral and the written Torah were revealed by God through the rabbinic literatures.30 God chose the people and gave them His law through the revelation on Mount Sinai. The moral law is thus embodied in immutable, God-given commandments. For the Christians, Christ is the end of the law and the principal of salvation, thereby superseding the Torah as the mediator between God and human being. The Moslems accept the validity of the Jewish and Christian revelations, but they believe that the Qur’an replaces all previous scriptures and therefore serves as the basis of ethics.31 Judaism has the leading figure as Moses; Christianity has Jesus Christ, while Islam has Mohammad. As the Jews look to Moses and the Torah, the Christians look to Jesus (as God) and the New Testament; so also, the Moslems regard the Prophet Mohammad and the

27 Torah literally means: the instruction, the teaching or revelation. It is often mistranslated as the ‘Law’ but it is richer than the Law. 28 Neusner, Judaism, Definition of, 580. 29 Lewis, History of Religion, 102. 30 Klausnitzer, Gott und Wirklichkeit, 96. 31 Cohen-Sherbok, Incarnation and Trialogue, 29.

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Qur’an, as God’s messenger and message of the final perfect and complete revelation.32 These people have given their followers the laws and the spiritual directions for God’s religious worship. The religions are concerned with the reality, the oneness and the sovereignty of God, about revelation and mercy, responsibility of human being, eternal life and destiny, God’s call to submission and obedience, the need for decision on the human part, and about reward for the good and punishment for the bad ones on the judgement day. These religions (Christianity and Islam) have great influence in Nigeria. They have contributed positively and negatively towards the growing faith of the people and the political structures in the country. Christianity has contributed positively towards morality and peace in the country. It has greatly enhanced the religious, educational, social and the intellectual lives of the people. It has contributed towards the total abolishment of some inhuman treatments against humanity and women in the name of religion. Negatively, it has succeded in uprooting some of the positive cultural values of the people and replaced them with European culture. Islam has made its positive as well as negative impact to the people. It has contributed positively towards religious, social and moral upliftment of the people. Politically, the Moslems in Nigeria have set political and religious tensions that have become a threat to the security and the unity of the country. They have mangled and bastardized Nigerian politics with their fanatical understanding of Islamic religion, thereby imparting the country negatively. Although Judaism is not much practiced in Nigeria, but it is the source and the foundation of the two great religions: Christianity and Islam. It is the first of all the three Abrahamic monotheistic religions. To neglect Judaism is to do injustice to the foundations of Christianity and Islamic religions of Nigeria. These religions of Semitic origin: Judaism, Christianity and Islam are monotheistic and do not know many gods, but rather One God and this God created human being in His own image.33 There is no other gods beside this Almighty God as we have in many religions. There is no competing evil God as we have in Persian religions as opponent to the One God who prevails as the second principle of equality. There is no female partner goddess as we have in all Semitic chief gods. The word goddess did not exist in Hebrew34 and in these religions. These are the unifying aspects of the monotheistic religions.

32 Esposito and Mogahed, Who Speaks for Islam?, 10. 33 Geißler, Wo ist Gott? 20. 34 Klausnitzer, Gott und Wirklichkeit, 91.

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2.1 Who are the Jews? The Jews are the descendants of Abraham. Historically he is regarded as the father in faith. “God according to the Biblical picture, although He is the creator, ruler, sustainer and judge of all people does not accomplish His purpose of blessing for all peoples by means of a revelation simultaneously and equally available to all. He chooses one to be the bearer of His blessing for many. Abraham is chosen to be the pioneer of faith and so to receive the blessings through which all nations will be blessed.”35 He becomes the pointer of blessing to all mankind. The significant figures in Jewish lineage and religious faith are: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses. They are both historical and social figures and bodies required by the Jewish religious tradition. They are the ancestors of the people of Israel. The Israelites are from their history, a people set apart by God in a special way. Their understanding is: “They are the God chosen people, the elect and they are not elected simply to some heavenly salvation (as election means for many Christians). Rather here the election means, that the Jews are God’s people on earth, representatives of God through whom God ‘speaks’ to the whole world. They tell others who they are and what to do, so that those others are ‘placed’ by the message with which the Jewish people have been entrusted. As Isaiah puts it, they are to be ‘a light unto nations’ (Is. 49:6, 51:4). They are ambassadors of God, Gods messenger.”36 All the three monotheistic religions that have Abraham as their forefather, regard themselves as the elect or the chosen ones.37 These religions believe in God, on themselves as the holy and chosen people, they believe in the Torah and the Promised Land.38 The Jewish religion is today regarded as the religious light to the world, because its theology and the concept of God have great influence in most of world religions. Judaism is not an ethnic but universal religion. In Israel there is a dichotomy between nationality and religion and the religion is not practiced only by the Jews. 35 Newbigin, The Open Secret, 75. 36 Mathewes, Understanding Religious Ethics, 39. 37 Armstrong, A History of God, 55. She writes: The Jews have often been criticized for their belief that they are the chosen people, but Christianity and Islam have been guilty of the same notion of elect. All three of the monotheistic faiths have developed similar theologies of election at different times in their history, sometimes even with more devastating results than those imagined in the book of Joshua. Christianity and Islam have the belief that they are God’s elect and justified these through the holy wars they fought in their religious history. 38 Klausnitzer, Gott und Wirklichkeit, 93.

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There are four different groups in Judaism. These groups: Orthodox Judaism, Reformed Judaism, Conservative Judaism and Reconstruction Judaism interpret the Torah differently. Orthodox Judaism is represented in Israel and America. They identify with tradition: the covenant founded on Sinai.39 Reformed Judaism is a new movement in Judaism, seeking renewal in the liturgy without theological motivation. They propagate the progressiveness of God’s revelation.40 Conservative Judaism stands in the middle between the Orthodox and the Liberal Judaism. For them, human being has to be open to the new developments in scientific and historical research. They sit on the tradition in case of conflict.41 Reconstruction Judaism mediates between the three and tries to situate the rightful position of Judaism in the lives of the people. I will concentrate more on Orthodox Judaism in this work.

2.1.1 Judaism and its Origin The traditional view of the origin of Judaism and belief in YHWH was based on the picture that the Old Testament was drawn from the religion of ancient Israel. There was only one God and Moses was the Prophet. Israel’s exclusive monotheism as it finally took shape after the Babylonian Captivity was projected back into the life of Moses and the people of Israel as norms and rules. This theological view was taken over by, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.42 The theology of the Patriarchs was not extremely rudimentary as regards the strict monotheism during the time of the Prophets. Judaism earlier did not deny the idea of other gods, but they presented God in a way that other gods were unable to interfere with their God’s activity. In the Patriarchic age, God was not presented as a Supreme creator God, but as a family or tribal god under the formality of salvation. That is why He is referred as the God of Abraham, God of Isaac and God of Jacob (Ex.3:6). Judaism as a religious system becomes the vital element which unites the believers in Judaism preserving it and regenerating it anew. It speaks of God who is Omnipresent, Omniscient and Omnipotent. This God has no definite history and He is not subject to human history because He is above history. Judaism does not denote the Jewish nationality, with its political and cultural achievements and aspirations, as those who have lost faith in the religious mission

39 Ibid. 95f. 40 Ibid. 97. 41 Ibid. 42 Becking, et al., ed., Only One God?, 81.

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of Israel. It is not a nomistic or legalistic religion confined to the Jewish people or a religion of pure Theism aiming to unite all believers in one God into a church universal of which many visionaries dream. Judaism is traditionally associated with Jewish identity, traditionally acquired by birth (Orthodox Judaism traditionally regards any child born of Jewish woman as a Jew) or sometimes by choice. A convert can also become an adherent of Judaism, but not all Jews are the adherent of Judaism. Many people understand their Jewishness primarily in ethnic, cultural or political terms.43 The Orthodox Judaism sees Judaism as: “…nothing less than a message concerning one and holy God and one, undivided humanity with a world-uniting Messianic goal, a message entrusted by the divine revelation to the Jewish people.”44 Judaism is then, the religion that worships one God and this God is the creator of all that exists. The origin of Judaism could be ascribed to the Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who later becomes Israel. Although Abraham may be seen as the initiator of Jewish religion, it was God who called him and revealed Himself to him. It took time for the religion to come to a formal organized form.45 Many people have divergent views about this popular religion that gave rise to the foundation of Christianity and Islam. Some maintain that, Judaism began before any of the theologies experienced by the Patriarchs and Jacob/Israel, from whom the Israelites national name and identity is derived. It began when God created Adam in His own likeness and image and gave him dominion over everything (Gen.1:26–29), therefore making him the second only to God. He gave him Eve as a helper (Gen.2:15–23). The narrative in the Garden of Eden establishes the most basic paradigm of Israelite religion. Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command and they were punished. The punishment becomes a return to the part set by God to repair human-divine relationship.46 In the punishment, it was not only the human beings that suffered for the disobedience, the beast and the land had the portion of the curse (Gen.3:14–19). The history started with Adam, but it does not mean that Adam was a Jew. Just as the history of Judaism could be traced from Adam, so it is with Christianity and Islam. The origin of these religions was traced from Adam who is the first man. Adam is identical with the

43 Wright, Judaism, 93. 44 Kohler, Jewish Theology, 7f. 45 Anozie, The Moral Significance of African Traditional Religion for Christian Conscience. 47. 46 Mandell, Judaism, History of Part II, Ancient Israel to 586 B.C.E., 589f.

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Hebrew word man.47 This history is to authenticate these religions as having their foundation from the first man. The fall of human being gave rise to the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. After the expulsion, there came the flood that wiped away the entire mankind, but Noah and his offspring were saved (Gen.7:17–24). God had covenant with Noah and his sons, this is known as Noahic covenant and the sign is a bow in the clouds (Gen.9:9–11, 13). Then came the tower of Babel that scattered the new generation of those who survived the flood (Gen.11:1–9). With this scattering of the Tower of Babel, mankind continued to wander in search of the face of God. It is in this wandering that Abraham came in contact in a unique relationship with God. God then began to reveal Himself in a new and definitive ways. By intervening in Abraham’s life, God entered into human history (Gen.12:1). This belief is a gift of God.48 God becomes the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Ex.6:3), although throughout the Patriarchal period, He was known by many names. The oldest name used is El. The El of Israel stand alone, supreme, without consort and later Elyon: Elohim (Most High God Gen.14:18–22), referring Him as the God of gods and El-Shaddai. God is called King and Lord (Num23:21). Notwithstanding this multiplicity of the names, the God of Israel was One and not many. Israel was unique in that they believe in One God who reveals Himself to their ancestors. This God is one, personal, almighty, transcendent, eternal and deeply interested in them.49 The Patriarchs interacted directly with Him both in persons, in dreams and in visions. They needed no intercessors, whether the Prophets, the Priests, the Seers or other Mediators. They built their own altar and offer sacrifices on whatever ‘high place’ and at whatever time they deem appropriate. The Patriarchs religion is characterized by unilateral, though not necessarily unconditional covenant God made with each of them, in which God blessed and promised them innumerable progeny as well as the possession of the land50 of Canaan (Gen.15, 17). Abraham is the father in faith (Rom.4, Gal.3:6–9). The people trace their faith to him as their forefather. He was a henotheist; he lived with his people who worshipped many gods. He was a deeply religious man. He was called out from his people to worship God who is supreme, greater than all and who created the heaven and the earth (Gen.12:1–9). He had no intention of founding any religion. Judaism 47 48 49 50

Klausnitzer, Gott und Wirklichkeit, 92. Lütz, Gott Eine Kleine Geschichte des Größten, 192. Murphy, Concept of God in the Bible, 538f. Mandell, Judaism, History of Part II, Ancient Israel to 586 B.C.E., 591f.

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was officially founded by Moses and institutionalized by the Prophets and the Kings. The religion was knit and secured in every part on its revelation on Mount Sinai.51 It was founded on Mount Sinai with the covenant God had with the people and the given of the law. This law or revelation is known as the Torah. It is in this law that He has His covenant with His people written down.

2.1.2 The Torah in Judaism The Torah and the temple are the two centres of Judaism at the time of the second temple. After the destruction of the temple, the Torah becomes the sole centre. “Torah is the all-embracing revelation of the will of God. It encompasses the beginnings of the history of Israel as they are depicted in the Pentateuch, including the lawgiving on Sinai.”52 The Jewish Holy Book is called the Pentateuch, Torah or the Law. The term Torah, has variety of meanings in Judaism. It is richer and expansive term than law. In its widest sense, Torah signifies a mark of approval on a human deed. More narrowly, it includes all Jewish religious writings including the Hebrew Scriptures, the Talmud, the rabbinic commentaries and so forth.53 In the Hebrew Scripture, God is totally involved in human affairs. He interacted with human beings directly54 and indirectly. The traditional Judaism regards the Torah as God’s revelatory gift to the Jewish people. It represents the very embodiment of God’s word and presence. The Torah scrolls are kept in the ark and are carried in processions. Within the Torah, the faithful community can find the totality of the divine will not only for the Jews but for all mankind.55 The rules and regulations of life of the Jew are written in the Torah. The Jews insist that, human being is not only a social animal, but a legal animal. The religious character of the Jewish community is not sufficiently defined merely by its customs and rites, but by its rules and regulations. What binds the people together and propels them towards a certain relationship with God is the code of the law by which the community lives. It is this law that defines what is acceptable or not in the community.56 Law is necessary for perfect interaction between human being and God.

51 52 53 54 55 56

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Becking, et al. Only One God? 81. Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide, 9. Pawlikowski, Judaism, 545. Friedman, The Hidden Face of God, 8. Pawlikowski, Judaism, 546. Golding, Rationality and Religious Theism, 107.

The Torah becomes a revelation from God to human being. It was given to Moses on Mount Sinai after the ratification of the covenant God made with the Israelites. When Moses received the Torah at Mount Sinai, it came down to him in two ways: Written and Oral. The former is contained in the canon of the Scripture; the later was transmitted through the process of formulation for ease in memorization, from Moses and Joshua to the most current generation. The doctrine of dual Torah: Torah in two media comes about in response to the problem of explaining the standing and the authenticity of the Misnah.57 In the Torah, certain self evident and universal observations about humanity influence its contents.58 The Orthodox Jew believes that Torah is the valid and binding instructions from God, from the creation of the world until the death of Moses. It is not considered as a load, but as a sign of great love because it is self-descriptive of God’s encounter with Israel.59 He maintains that everything within the Torah is from God, especially the teachings found in the Pentateuch.60 Hence it is said: He, who fulfills what is written in the Torah, has the ability of pleasing God and reaching heaven. The Torah stands for salvation. It accounts for Israel’s worldly condition and the hope for both the individual and nation in this life and in the world to come.61 The Jewish holy book therefore, “…demands that the individual fit his own life into this true history of the Bible, so that ‘I’ may find my own origin in the origin of the world and my own goal in the goal of the world.”62 One then has to fix one’s personal redemptive purpose into the Biblical movement of history and use it as one’s guide to attain salvation. The Orthodox Jew refers the Torah as the already made bridge between human being and God. He believes that it has to be human’s constant preoccupation and the object of one’s meditation both day and night. The study of the Torah is a meritorious good deed, but it is the fulfillment of the Torah and not only its study that is the true principle of life. One who fulfills what is written in the Torah is in effect transcending the requirements of the law. The person is so attuned to God that one is acting as God acts, upright as God is and merciful as God is. Indeed, God 57 Neusner, Judaism and its Social Metaphor, 102. Misnah is oral tradition collected through rabbinic writings. 58 Sandmel, Judaism and Christian Beginnings, 177. 59 Vorgrimler, Neues Theologisches Wörterbuch, 632. 60 Pawlikowski, Judaism, 546. The Jews maintained that everything found in the Torah and the Pentateuch is from God, but their position about the Biblical inerrancy even within the traditional circles has never been quite rigid as that found among Christians. 61 Neusner, Judaism and its Social Metaphor, 103. 62 Biemann, The Martin Buber Reader, 53.

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Himself is portrayed as studying and teaching Torah in the heavenly academy.63 The Torah is necessary for the Israelites to be in good union with God, keep the covenant and be in good terms with one another. It is the rules that govern Israel’s holy community and service to God in the court and in the temple that will be built in time to come. It comprises the message that when Israel keeps the covenant, the contract made with God through the Patriarchs will favour them. But, when she does not comply with the dictates of this covenant, then God will punish her.64 In Judaism, the written Torah is bequeathed into three divisions: the Torah, which comprise the five books of Moses65, the Prophets66 and the Holy writings.67 The Torah is seen as a historical dialogue between God and human beings in which the people are spoken to and they fail to answer, yet in which in their failures they continually rise up and try to answer the call. It is the history of Gods disappointments, but these disappointments constitute a way that leads from disappointment to disappointment and beyond all disappointments. It is the way of the people, the way of humanity – yes, the way of God through mankind.68 There are five basic types in accordance with the successive stages of the situation of dialogue in the Torah: 1. the patriarchs; 2. the leader in the

63 Sandmel, Judaism and Christian Beginnings, 184. 64 Neusner, Judaism, Definition of, 581. 65 The five books of Moses are also known as the Pentateuch. They are: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Genesis talks about the creation of the world and ended with the death of Joseph. Exodus begins with the liberation of the Israelites from Egypt and ended with the furnishing and the building of the sanctuary. Leviticus talks about the ritual sacrifices meant for the sons of Levi whose inheritance was with the Lord and ended with the things to be offered to the Lord. Number talks about the Numbers of the people of Israel and ended with the inheritance of women. Deuteronomy talks about the second law given by Moses and ended with the death of Moses. The word Deuteronomy comes from the two Greek words: Deutero meaning second, and nomos meaning law: the second law. 66 The Prophets are the books written by the Prophets. We have the earlier and the later Prophets. The earlier prophetic books are: Joshua, Judges, Samuel (1 & II), and Kings (1 & II). The later Prophets are: Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, they are also called the Major Prophets. The twelve Minor Prophets are: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zachariah and Micah. 67 Sandmel, Judaism and Christian Beginnings, 17. The Writings or (Hagiographa) are: Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Song of Songs, Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes), Lamentations, Esther (the last five, read on Jewish feast days are known as the five scrolls), Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, 1 and 2 Chronicles. 68 Biemann, The Martin Buber Reader, 37f.

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original sense of the one who leads the people, 3. the Judges; 4. the Kings who are the founders of the dynasty, 5. the Prophet.69 The books of prophesy summon human being who has gone astray to turn or return to the region where the encounter took place, promising humanity that the torn bond will once more be made whole.70 The Torah therefore is a dialogue between God and human being, in order to bring humanity back to the creator.

2.1.3 The Concept of God in Jewish Religion The Jewish concept of God is pure monotheistic. The declaration of the Jewish profession of faith known as shema says: “Listen Israel: Yahweh our God is the one, you must love Yahweh your God with all your hearts, with all your soul, with all your strength” (Deut.6:4). This is a systematic denial for the existence of other gods. Loving God for the Jew is not a matter of choice but a command; it is a mandate without option. The Jews give shema a monotheistic interpretation. Here the existence of other gods was never affirmed. It was written when the Jewish religion was on the stage of full monotheism. The first commandment says: I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, you shall have no other gods to rival me (Ex.20:2). It does not deny the existence of other gods, because they were still a threat and their cults were attractive and could lure the Israelites from Yahweh, who was a jealous God.71 It was later that the Bible denied the existence of other gods in sheman when it says: “…Yahweh is the true God and there is no other”72 (Deut. 4:35). In the Torah, one can trace not only the founding of the Jewish people but the primary Biblical teaching that Yahweh is the God who creates human being in His own image.73 The Conservative Jewish concept of God represents a remarkably high level of abstract thought. The Hebrew idea of Monotheism is abstract in that God does not appear in terms of an anthropomorphic image. He is not represented in a perpetual bodily form, but as a cosmic spirit, endowed with the will, purpose and intelligence. He reveals to human being His words and commandments. In 69 Ibid. 70 Ibid., 51. 71 Armstrong, A History of God, 53. 72 This is the explicit assertion of the non-existence of other gods. The Decalogue simply forbade the worship of foreign gods which had long been regarded as inferior to Yahweh, impotent and contemptible. But now a new step has been reached: these gods do not exist (Jerusalem Bible commentary Deut.4:36 j, 231). 73 Fradkin, Judaism and Political life, 97.

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Judaism, God remains the transcendental74 being irrespective of how people try to bring Him close. He is the creator who created the world out of nothing (creatio es nihilo). His entity and omnipotence transcend the limitation of time and space to which human perceptions and understandings are bound. He is the cause of all things, but He is not caused by anything and thus not subject to causality. He is the beginning of time but not limited to time because He is eternal. He exists but He is not perceptible and not subject to any other power such as fate, for He is fate. He is existence and essence, the One and many. All that exists come from Him. The world of existence is a manifestation of His will and thought. He is not a phenomenon, but a noumenon. All phenomena, existence and perceptible things, including human being are the expression and the embodiment of His mind. But He reveals Himself to mankind through the law inscribed on the tablets of stone and by the words which He speaks through the Prophets.75 The God of the Old Testament was not merely a single, all powerful creator, but rather the one who is the source of all being. He did not emerge from a preexistent primordial realm of power, but is totally free from all limitations that magic and mythology forged among the gods of the non-Israelites.76 He is the uncaused cause of all things. He revealed Himself to Moses in the episode of the burning bush as: ‘I am He who is’ (Ex.3:13). This means that He has no past and no future. He is always present. Willful disobedience to this God could bring just punishment, whether prompt or deferred. Yet God is merciful and prone to forgive the trespasses of human beings when they repent of their evil.77 He is full of mercy and love. His anger lasts for a moment (Psalm 103:8–10), for He remembers His covenant forever. He is both far and near.78 He has no beginning and no end. Being timeless, He is not born and has no history. He has no parents, no love affairs; He does not get married and does not die. His creations especially mankind have a history. He created mankind in time and assigned human being a purpose and in pursuit of this purpose acquired a history. He implanted soul in human beings in order to enable them to comprehend the meaning of the words He speaks and seek Him. He gave them freedom to choose in order to enable them to transcend their natural limitations and reach out to understand His vision. This freedom gave them the ability

74 75 76 77 78

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Zizek, On Belief, 89. Frankl, The Three Faces of Monotheism, 7f. Glasser, Old Testament Conceptualization, 36. Sandmel, Judaism and Christian Beginnings, 169. Klausnitzer, Gott und Wirklichkeit, 94.

to continue to create from where God stopped. He gave them the ability to grow, to learn and also the freedom to choose between wisdom and ignorance, good and evil and to fulfill human purpose through human effort.79 He will judge all on the last day. To the just, He will reward with heaven and to the unjust, He will punish in hell fire for all eternity. The standard of His judgement hinges on the Ten Commandments He gave to the people through Moses. These Commandments are ratified and sealed on Mount Sinai.

2.1.4 Covenant as the Initiation Rite in Judaism A covenant is a binding agreement or bonds between two parties,80 detailing the obligation pertaining to each party. It is often compared with a contract, though typically a covenant is understood to be more comprehensive, more powerfully binding, and more difficult to annul than a contract. It implies both a relationship, with its connotation of openness, ambiguity and growth, than a legal contract with its connotation of fixity, clarity and closure. Furthermore a covenant is typically between two parties,81 superior or inferior. In terms of the Jewish thought, the covenant that God made with the people Israel is powerful and creates the people Israel.82 This means that all the people of Israel are God’s elect.83 In relation to God, the covenant is the centre of everything. There is no access of human being to God except through the covenant. It brings human being into relationship with God.84 This relationship is maintained through the obedience on the stipulated pact. In the covenant between God and human being, there was no negotiation. The term for the divine announcement was not subject to bargaining.85 God initiated it in His own way and form. In theological view, covenant is a partnership between God and human being. The Old Testament states different historical covenants God made with humanity. These covenants are the covenant with Noah, Abraham and Israel. Noahic covenant (Gen.9, 8–17) is the covenant God made with Noah. Abrahamic covenant (Gen.15, 7–21) is the covenant with Abraham and his sons and the covenant God made with the people of Israel on Mount Sinai (Ex.19–24) which is founded on 79 Frankl, The Three Faces of Monotheism, 8. 80 Nowell, Covenant, Definition, Theology, 243. 81 Mathewes, Understanding Religious Ethics, 41. 82 Ibid. 83 Armstrong, A History of God, 46. 84 Stephen, Christian Faith and other Faiths, 32. 85 Silver, and Martin, A History of Judaism in Two Volumes, 23.

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Torah is called Mosaic or Sinaic covenant. The covenant God made with Noah was universal in scope, unconditional in validity and everlasting in duration.86 The initiative was from God. He offered humanity mercy out of His infinite and abundant love. The end of this covenant is to establish the everlasting relationship with humanity. God admitted covenant partnership with humanity on condition that human beings have to adhere to His instructions and obey Him. When they fulfill His instructions, He will be their God and they His people. God is always faithful and absolute to His covenant and He expects human being to be true and faithful.87 There is always a sign to seal or cement all the covenants God had with the people.88 The first covenant has rainbow as its sign, the second has circumcision while the third is embedded on obligation and fidelity to the law. The covenant with the people of Israel, as regards Judaism is founded on the covenant with Abraham. In the making of the covenant with Abraham, God says: As for my part, this is my covenant with you: you will become the father of many nations, and you are no longer to be called Abram, but Abraham, for I am making you father of many nations (Gen.17:4–5). The first time the issue of covenant was mention with Abraham was in Genesis chapter 15. It says: “That day, Yahweh made a covenant with Abraham in these terms: To your descendants I give this country, from the River of Egypt to the great River” (Gen.15:18). This particular covenant has no sign attached to it. In the making of the covenant with God in Genesis chapter 17, there are responsibilities and obligations. There is first a change of name: from Abram to Abraham, from Sarai to Sarah (Gen.17:5, 15). The change of name brings about a change in life style and attitude. He also promised him many offspring when He says: “I shall make you into nations and your issue will be kings. And I shall maintain my covenant between myself and you, and your descendants after you, generation after generation, as a covenant in perpetuity, and the God of your descendants after you” (Gen.17.6–8). This shows that Judaism has to be identified with Abraham who is the father founder and the initiator of the covenant with God. “Traditionally, converts to Judaism have their last name changed to ‘ben Avraham’ or ‘bas Avraham’ son or daughter of Abraham. It signifies not only that the convert has now joined the line of Abraham; but that Abraham who is the original Jew was also the original convert to Judaism. When one is converted to Judaism or born into it, then he or

86 Glasser, Old Testament Conceptualization, 41. 87 Beinert, Lexikon der Katholischen Dogmatik, 46f. 88 Foot note on the New Jerusalem Bible, Gen. 9d.

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she is given his or her own identity through Abraham, as a gift.”89 The newly convert to Judaism lives a life and the faith that is not his or her own but the one that belongs to Abraham who is the father in faith and the source of Judaism. The sign of this covenant is: every Jewish male must be circumcised as soon as he is eight days old, including slaves born within the household, or bought from foreigners. That is the sign of the covenant and has to be marked in the flesh as a covenant of perpetuity. The uncircumcised male must be cut off from the people: he has broken the covenant (Gen.17:9–14). Circumcision is known and valued by the Biblical writers as the rite of initiation into the covenant and physical sign identifying the person who belongs to Judaism. It is a permanent and visible seal of eternal bond with Israel’s God. Abraham the primal ancestor was circumcised at God’s command at the original covenant making.90 This is the responsibility given to the sons of Abraham and those who want to follow Judaism. In commenting about the covenant of circumcision, George Frankl writes “The covenant here means that men offered their penis to God and He will have power over it, and it should no longer act in defiance of Him or be a source of rebellious estrangement. In turn, God will protect His people and never forsake them, because rivalry between gods and sons, and the sins of guilt that have arisen from it, would be abolished forever. The sexual drive will no longer incite the sons against Him but, on the contrary will receive His blessing, and the offspring born of the sexual act would be a glorification to God. Thus the sexual act will be a blessing, an affirmation of the covenant. And the children will be offered to God on the eight day after the boy’s birth, and the circumcision would be a sign of God’s true paternity and assurance of His protection. Thus God is the real father of men,”91 and women who are incorporated to Him through the observance of the covenant and the circumcision. The traditional commentaries never explain circumcision as a reduction to the greater physical or sexual pleasure.92 It was made with Abraham for religious purpose. The covenant was also extended to Sarai his wife, for God said to Abram, “As regards your wife Sarai, you must not call her Sarai, but Sarah” (Gen.17:15). The covenant was not only with the male folk, but also with the female folk, for they are all human beings created in the image and the likeness of God. They need redemption because it was the man and the woman who sinned against God and not the man alone. The covenant is an identity 89 90 91 92

Mathewes, Understanding Religious Ethics, 40. Silver and Martin, A History of Judaism in Two Volumes, 21. Frankl, The Three Faces of Monotheism, 25. Silver and Martin, A History of Judaism in Two Volumes, 20.

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conferring a relationship between those involved in it. This relationship is between God and Abraham, the Patriarchs and the Israelites, then to the entire human race. Once the conditions for the covenant are accepted, it is bound with a ritual that keeps those who are involved. The covenant between God and Israel on Mount Sinai is known as Sinaic covenant.93 The Sinaic covenant is a conditional covenant binding both God and the people. The covenant is made in the midst of Theophany on the mountain. Here the Ten Commandments are incorporated into the court bond on Sinai. It was on Mount Sinai that He gave His ten commandments and thus says: I am Yahweh your God you should have no other God outside me.94 The covenant is sealed by a dual ceremony, a meal and a blood rite (Ex.24:1–11). Both rituals signify the sharing of life. Those who eat together share the nourishment that sustains their lives and the ancient custom understands that to share meal is to become responsible for that person’s life. The sprinkling of the blood on the altar indicates that Yahweh and the people have become blood relation and next of kin. The sealing of the covenant indicates that the bond is understood as more intimate than that of a political treaty.95 It is in this Sinaic Covenant that the wandering Israel becomes a nation. Hence “When Israel accepts the covenant, it becomes Israel: outside of the covenant, Israel was merely an assembly of the people wandering around the desert. The covenant names Israel.”96 It was after the covenant that Israel had a law that regulates them as a nation and the office of the priesthood to offer sacrifices for the people. It is after the covenant that they have the mode of worship that made them unique among other religions. The relationship between Israel and God was decisively realized at Mount Sinai. It was there that God’s own identity as a redeemer was revealed and His intentions given to them in the Decalogue. On their own self understanding, they are that community who on Mount Sinai received the law or Torah, who by accepting and living by the law, keep faith to the covenant that God made with them: the object of this revelation was the tablet of the law.97 Though the 93 The covenant with Abraham was made with a single individual and imposed a single obligation: circumcision. On the contrast, the Sinaitic covenant was to bind the whole nation which then received a law: the Decalogue and the book of the Covenant. This law becomes the charter of Judaism and also identify with the divine wisdom. (Footnote commentary on the New Jerusalem Bible Ex.19a, 105). 94 Lütz, GOTT, Eine Kleine Geschichte des Größten, 195. 95 Nowell, Covenant, Definition, 243. 96 Mathewes, Understanding Religious Ethics, 41. 97 Ibid., 42.

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Jewish people had existed even before Moses, but Moses can be termed as the true founder of Israel’s religion. It was to him that God revealed his name: He who was, the God of your fathers, The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Ex.3:6) was to be called Yahweh “He who is or He who brings into existence whatever that exists (Ex.3:14–15). He is ever present, active and powerful in Israel. He is Ubiquitous as well. He affects the liberation of His people from Egypt and freely and graciously entered into a covenant with them (Ex.19–24).98 Moses becomes a leader who led the people out of slavery into freedom. He is the man who led the people into nationhood and into religious authentication. He gave them religious formation and direction. He gave them the Torah, which exults the humble, strengthens the weak, gives joy to the disappointed and hope to the disheartened. It makes the ordinary life holy, sacred and significant for the people who believe in it.99 The Hebrew Scripture claims that God chose Israel, established a relationship and forms an interpersonal bond with them.100 This made them to be special community given a responsibility as a condition to keep their relationship with each other for all generations. The responsibility to the people is the keeping of the Torah. The notion that God has given the Jewish people the Torah is part and parcel of the Jewish conception of the good relationship with Him.101 This notion implies closeness with God and chosenness by God. For non-Jews to be part and parcel of this communal relationship, they have to join the Jewish people by making a commitment to follow the Torah.102 The best way to pursue the way to righteousness is through the Torah, it is linked with the conception of religious goal. It is central in the relationship with God, as well as to the Jewish conception of the way to attain, maintain and improve that relationship.103

2.2 Christianity Christianity is a religion founded by God through Jesus Christ. It prescribes to all, the way of salvation which God on His salvific will has created for all and

98 99 100 101 102 103

Murphy, Concept of God in the Bible, 539. Neusner, Judaism, Definition of, 588. Golding, Rationality and Religious Theism, 98. Ibid., 99. Ibid., 100. Ibid., 105.

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made radically binding for all to follow.104 Through Christ, salvation is conferred to human beings. The followers believe in the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah and God made man that suffered, died and resurrected from the dead by the power of God, thereby constituted as divine redeemer of all mankind.105 The religion sprang up from the Jewish culture and tradition. Jesus was a born Jew who grew up in the Jewish culture. He was faithful to the Laws of Moses. His teachings were governed not by criticism of the law, but by the commandment of love, the overcoming of the retribution and the expectations of the kingdom of God.106 The kernel of Christianity is: Jesus is God and man. He suffered out of love for humanity, died on the cross, resurrected and ascended into heaven. The detachment of Christianity from Judaism was the creation of the apostles and not Jesus. The religion traces its origin from Adam the first man. It started in Aramaic speaking Galilee and was at first a Jewish movement, then it spread beyond Judea welcoming Gentiles into its midst, and in a relatively short time, it becomes essentially a Gentile movement.107 The Christians regard Jesus as the fulfillment and the reenactment of God’s promises and covenant made with Abraham and Moses and through them with the Jewish people.108 Benedict XVI affirms that Christianity is the bridge from the Old to the New Testament and also the bridge between the natural religion and faith.109 Jesus lived and preached the kingdom of God to the people. He identified with the poor, the socially depraved and the sinners. He worked many miracles and even raised the dead. He was condemned by the authority and he died miserably on the cross through crucifixion which was meant for criminals and thieves (Matt.27:32–50). The manner of his death is regarded as a curse for the people (Deut.21:22–23). The synoptic writers characterized the crucifixion of Christ as explicitly liturgical and cosmic event: the sun darkened, the temple curtain divided into two, the earth quacked, and the dead rose to life. The centurion who was standing before him acknowledged: “In truth this man was the son of God” (Mk 15:39). Benedict XVI comments: “Under the cross begins the church for the pagans. The Lord gathered the people under the cross as the new community of the world church.”110 After his

104 105 106 107 108 109 110

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Rahner, Theological Investigations, Vol. 10, 31. Patrick, Philosophy of Religion, A-Z, 45. Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide, 9. Sandmell, Judaism and Christian Beginning, 305. Patrick, Philosophy of Religion, A-Z, 108. Benedict XIV, Die Heilige Schrift, Meditationen Zur Bibel, 186. Benedict XVI, Jesus Von Nazareth, Band 11, 246.

death, the early Christians suffered innumerable persecutions and martyrdom from the religious and political authorities of the time amidst the proclamation of the Gospel. They suffered ferocious persecutions under many Emperors especially Nero and Diocletian. The succeeding Emperors, Constantine and Theodosius helped to institute and legalize Christianity in the old Roman Empire. When Constantine was converted to Christianity, the religion breathed in the air of freedom. The Emperor changed the face of the Roman world by legalizing Christianity.111 Thus Christianity attained a status of a licit religion. From 312, A.D, the Roman Empire, its government and institutions, came under Christian domination.112 But it was Theodosius who took significant step of declaring Christianity the state religion in early 390 A.D.113 The legalization of Christianity by Constantine and the establishment of Christianity as the state religion by Theodosius began slowly and later became the religion of Roman Empire and in due course of the West. Christianity as it is today is not only one religion under an umbrella, but one religion with different religious sects and tenets. Some contradict the others even in matters of doctrine. Wilfred Cantwell Smith writes: “What all Christians share in common is that they have share in a common history. They have participated in a common process: namely, the Christian church in its ever changing multi-formity. Yet to say in words that the transcendental reality is Christ or God in whose on-going life they variously participate is itself the body of Christ are themselves not transcendent and they are historically not stable.”114 The divisions in the church as it is today began in the first century and had its culmination during the doctrinal crises of the 4th–6th century after the death of Christ.

2.2.1 The Birth of Christ and the Origin of Christianity Jesus of Nazareth plays a central role in Christian theology.115 The religion owes its origin to his birth, but Christian message did not originate with Jesus.116 The religion traces its orgin back to Adam through Abraham the father in faith (Lk.3:23–38). This shows the universality of the origin of Christianity. Though Matthew traced him back to Abraham the father in faith (Matt.1:1–116). This

111 Merdinger, Rome and African Church in the Time of Augustine, 21. 112 Neusner, Judaism and Its Social Metaphors, 98. 113 Merdinger, Rome and African Church in the Time of Augustine, 21. 114 Smith, Towards a World Theology, 5f. 115 McGrath, Theology: The Basic Readings, 67. 116 Ibid.

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is so because Matthew wrote for the Jews and Luke wrote for the Gentiles. The birth of Jesus has no precise year,117 but he lived from approximately 4 B.C to 30 A.D.118 For the Christians, the birth of Jesus is significant; it has its cosmic interpretations. It is the beginning of the new era, the coming of the new heavens and the new earth, the era of salvation. The history and the story about Jesus is preserved more in the New Testament:119 especially in the four canonical Gospels in the New Testament. These books were anonymously written, but in the second century, Christians began to attribute them to four men: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Much information we have about Jesus is limited in the New Testament and it is interested in the theological truth than in bare historical accuracy. Their theological conclusion sometimes shaped the material. With their theological intent, they do not provide us with a simple consistent portrait of Jesus.120 Josephus Titus Flavius had written about him but much information about his life, history and deeds can be found in the Synoptic Gospels writers: Matthew, Mark and Luke. The Gospel of John is rather of secondary importance for historical information.121 It is more theological than other Gospels. From the account of the Gospels and Josephus, Jesus was born at Bethlehem in Judea during the reign of King Herod (Matt.2:1). His birth and mission was foretold by the Angel Gabriel (Lk.1:31–33). He was born at the time when Caesar Augustus issued a degree that a census of the whole world be made. He was born in a manger, the Angels sang for him and the kings from the East brought him gifts (Lk.2:1–14). The news of his birth provoked King Herod and he wanted to kill him. This led to the flight to Egypt which led subsequently to the massacre of the Innocents (Matt.2:1–16). He was often called Jesus of Nazareth (Mk.1:24, Mtt.2:23), because they settled in Nazareth after the return from Egypt. In the Old Testament (Is.7:14, Mi.5:1), many prophecies were made as regards his birth, his life and his mission. Some were made by Simeon and Anna when he was presented in the temple (Lk.2:30–38). The Gospel writers wrote many things about him, but they did not write much about the life of the baby Jesus and all his activities from childhood till death. The focus of their interest is in the public act of the baptism of Jesus by John till his death on the cross.122 Their point of interest is to present

117 118 119 120 121 122

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Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, 153. Sanders, The life of Jesus, 41. Sandmell, Judaism and Christian Beginning, 306. Sanders, The life of Jesus, 42. Klausnitzer, Jesus und Mohammad, 22. Ibid., 23.

Jesus as the Lord, the Messiah and the Saviour of the world. In view of this, they presented his teachings and his miracles more than his personal life. Christianity began officially on the Pentecost day: fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus. It is the official birthday of Christianity. On that day, the Apostles preached and many were converted (Acts 2:1–41). Thus they manifested for the first time their fidelity to the mission which the Lord mandated them.123 This was the first open proclamation of the Apostles that Jesus is the Lord. All the Evangelists spoke about his death and the resurrection. The resurrection is the greatest point in Christian message. St. Paul writes: “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is without substance and so is our faith” (1Cor.15:14). The Christian faith stands with the truth and the testimony that Christ died and resurrected again.124 It was after his death and resurrection that Jesus was given the title Christ. The first Christians were martyred because of Christology and not for defending the historical information about his death.125 The name ‘Jesus’ is a name of a particular and definite historical person. The angel addressed Joseph the husband of Mary: “She will give birth to a son and you will call his name Jesus” (Matt.1:21). Christ is a titular dignity conferred by his followers and has great significance among them. It denotes Jesus exulted status and a unique relationship with God.126 The Greek Christos translates the Hebrew Messiah meaning ‘Anointed’, used particularly of Kings and carries no connotation of divinity. The name means: the Saviour or the Anointed one. The earliest surviving Christian documents: the New Testament described Jesus in a variety of ways: Messiah, Teacher, Rabbi, Son of God, Son of Man, and Logos, all of which reflect the perspective of faith.127 Jesus was born by a virgin, grew up and was baptized by John the Baptist. He chose twelve Apostles (Matt.10:2–4) and made Peter their leader (Matt.16:18). These Apostles were to proclaim his works and teachings to the people. He was a great teacher who taught with authority and not like the Scribes and the Pharisees (Matt.7:28). He was regarded as a revered Rabbi and the Son of God (Matt.4:3), but he usually referred to himself as the son of man (Matt.8:20). He challenged the religious authorities of his time and rode rough-shod over their susceptibilities. For him, traditions and laws were important. There were moments when he

123 124 125 126 127

Nnoruka, Thy Kingdom Come, 89. Benedict XVI, Jesus Von Nazareth, Band II, 266. Klausnitzer, Jesus und Mohammad, 72, C.f., the death of Stephen (Acts.7:55–60). Anderson, Jesus and Christian Origin, 17. Adair, Introducing Christianity, 64, C.f., Teeple, How Did Christianity Really Begin? 100f.

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acknowledged them (Matt.5:17–19); but he believed that everything must be subordinated to love and understanding.128 The law ought to give way to love. The first and the most important message of Jesus is the kingdom of God. He preached this in various ways and forms. He told many parables explaining the kingdom of God (Matt.13:24–30, 31–33, 47–50, Mk.4:26–32). He understood that the reign of God can only be announced in the parables, because it is a hidden mystery that ought to be revealed.129

2.2.2 Jesus as the Word Incarnate In the New Testament, the object of God’s communication is God. The self communication is in Jesus Christ, the word made flesh (Jn.1:14). That is the incarnation. The word incarnation is from the Latin word meaning ‘in the flesh,’ refers to the idea that, in Christ, God took human nature upon Himself in order to redeem humanity. It is the doctrine of the two natures of Christ: his human and divine nature. The ‘doctrine of the two natures of Christ’ was set out by the council of Chalcedon in 451: that Jesus Christ was perfect in divinity and humanity, true God and true human.130 He is the Incarnate Word, a single and indivisible person. The traditional Christian theology declares that Jesus Christ was God incarnate, truly divine and truly human.131 One cannot separate Jesus from the Christ or speak of ‘Jesus of history’ who would differ from the ‘Christ of faith.’ The Church acknowledges and confesses Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God (Mt 16:16). It is in him that the fullness of God dwells bodily (Col 2:9) and from his fullness have we all received (Jn.1:16) eternal redemption. He is the only Son, who is the bosom of the Father (Jn.1:18), in whom we have redemption and he reconciles to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his Cross (Col 1:13–14, 19–20). It is the incarnation that brought about the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. This sacrifice brings back the relationship between God and humanity. Hence Hans Küng writes: “The incarnation is the appearance of the fulfillment of men’s heart.”132 Without the incarnation, human redemption cannot be fulfilled.

128 129 130 131 132

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Taylor, and Gebhardt, Religions for Human Dignity and World Peace, 313. Newbigin, The Open Secret, Sketch for a Missionary Theology, 38. McGrath, Theology The Basic Readings, 65. Ibid., 35. Küng, Existiert Gott? 319.

It is the uniqueness of Christ that gives him an absolute and universal significance, whereby, while belonging to history, he remains history’s centre and goal. The book of revelation affirms: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (Rv.22:13).133 This shows that the existence of Christ did not start at his birth. The doctrine caused a lot of controversies in the early church. In defence to the doctrine of the incarnation, Athanasius of Alexandra envisages: if Jesus was only a human being, he would not have the ability to redeem humanity. The incarnation plays a critical role. Through it, Jesus Christ makes God known and the salvation possible. Because Jesus is God, he is able to reveal God and make Him known personally. And because Jesus is God, he is able to do something that only God can do: to actualize the salvation of humanity134 through his suffering and death. In speaking about the suffering of Jesus Christ, Jürgen Mortman writes: “The crucifixion was to be seen as the supreme moment of God’s sharing in the sufferings of his world.”135 God identified Himself with humanity in the world through the sufferings and the death of Christ.

2.2.3 The Principal Message of Jesus Christ 2.2.3.1 The Kingdom of God Jesus Christ was a Jewish prophetic and apocalyptic figure. He “…is the founder of the ‘renewal movement within Judaism’, whose intensification of Torah and the eschatology corresponds to the ‘radical theocratic’ movements which took another form: the restoration theology about the kingdom of God which the Jews had longed for.”136 The central message of his preaching is the kingdom of God and his mission is the proclamation and the promotion of the kingdom (Lk.14:16). The kingdom is to be announced to the poor through words and liberating acts of the great messianic signs (Lk.4:18–19). God is always the God of the kingdom and the kingdom belongs to Him. So the theocentric and reignocentric are mutually implied.137 The establishment of the kingdom of God is not to establish new church, rather the preaching of repentance towards God. He preached in the synagogue and in the streets for the establishment of the kingdom of God.138 His first 133 134 135 136 137 138

John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, (Mission of the Redeemer), 6f. McGrath, Theology The Basic Readings, 35. Armstrong, A History of God, 116f. Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, 10. Vigil, Theology of Religion, 116. Neil, Christian Faith and other Faiths, 66.

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recorded preaching in Mark after John was arrested is: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent and believe the gospel” (Mk.1:15). The Rabbinic theological interpretation of this shows that, the kingdom of God is perhaps not there.139 He bears witness to the presence of the kingdom of God, not only by overpowering the forces of evil, but by taking their full weight upon himself through his death.140 The kingdom of God is a movement in history and not merely a kingdom of religious virtues. It consists of the will of God in a socialpolitical situation in which humanity, in whose essence is freedom and liberty flourishes. Its essence is for the well being of human beings and their lives.141 In the preaching of the kingdom of God, Jesus revitalizes the traditional Israelites metaphor of the king in the framework of a modified eschatological expectation.142 This kingdom is to be fulfilled in Christ himself. John Paul II argues: “The kingdom cannot be detached from Christ or from the Church. Christ not only proclaimed the kingdom, but in him the kingdom itself becomes present and was fulfilled. The kingdom of God is not a concept or a doctrine, but in the image of the invisible God. If the kingdom is separated from Jesus which means it is no longer the kingdom which he revealed.”143 The kingdom of God represents the most basic and elemental will of God; it represents Gods desire for life over death. It also represents God’s plan for human existence.144 The kingdom of God is in Christ and the fullness of God’s kingdom is perfectly revealed through him and was fulfilled through his death and resurrection. It is the duty of his believers to help to spread the kingdom. The community of believers in Christ is challenged by the spreading of Christ’s message and the proclamation of the kingdom restores human dignity.145 It is the duty of all believers to continue the restoration of human dignity by spreading the kingdom to the utmost bounds of the earth. Christ inaugurated the kingdom of heaven on earth and revealed to us the mystery of that kingdom. Lumen Gentium writes: The inauguration and the growth of the kingdom are both symbolized by the blood and water which flowed from the open side of the crucified Jesus (Jn. 19:34), and they are foretold in the words of the Lord

139 140 141 142 143 144 145

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Drewermann, Wozu Religion? 65. Newbigin, The Open Secret, Sketch for a Missionary Theology, 37. Uzor, The Traditional African Concept of God and the Christian Concept of God, 453. Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, 246. John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, (Mission of theRedeemer), 18. Uzor, The Traditional African Concept of God and the Christian Concept of God, 453. John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, (Mission of theRedeemer), 37.

referring to his death on the cross: “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself” (Jn 12:32). The death and resurrection and also the institution of the sacrament of the Eucharist are the continuation of the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth. As often as the sacrifice of the cross in which Christ our Passover was sacrificed (1Cor 5:7) is celebrated on the altar, the work of human redemption is carried on, and in the sacrament of the Eucharistic bread, the unity of all believers who form one body in Christ (1Cor 10:17) is both expressed and brought about. All humanity are called to the union with Christ, who is the light of the world, from whom we go forth, through whom we live, and toward whom our whole life strains.146 This means that the last supper celebration was ratified on the cross of Calvary. Before the crucifixion of Christ, he offered humanity the Eucharist as his last gift in his remembrance: this is my body given to you in my remembrance, and this cup is the new covenant in my blood poured out for you (Lk.22:19–20). He died and resurrected. By his resurrection, he conquered death and through him, God’s kingsom is definitely inaugurated on earth. During his life time, Christ was the Prophet of the kingdom; after his Passion, Resurrection and Ascension into heaven he shares in Gods power and dominion over the world (Matt.28:18). The Resurrection gives a universal scope to Christ’s message, his action and mission. The disciples recognize that the Kingdom is already present in the person of Jesus and is slowly established in the world through a mysterious connection with him.147 The presence of Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the kingdom he preached. His teachings are simple and radical: ‘Love your enemies’ ‘the kingdom of heaven is within you’ and ‘my father is greater than I’.148 2.2.3.2 The Concept of Love in the Teaching of Jesus Christ The commandment to love is the distinctive feature of Christianity. It is the ‘new commandment’ which Jesus Christ left behind to his disciples.149 It is one of the central themes of Christ’s teachings. The love of neighbour and the love of God are the declarations of the great commandments in the Synoptic tradition (Lk 10:27) and the epitome of the Old Testament revelation in the Scriptures and the Prophets (Mt 22:40), greater than which there is nothing (Mk 12:31). Furthermore in this Synoptic theology of love, it certainly must not 146 147 148 149

Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, 3. John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, (Mission of the Redeemer), 16. Joscelyn, Mystery Religions in the Ancient World, 90. Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, 381.

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be overlooked that in the eschatological discourses about Judgement, love of neighbour is given in Matthew’s Gospel as the only explicit standard of judgement at the end (Mt 25:34–46). The Christian love does not begin with and end in the philosophical speculations of the reasoning which has its centre in the head, but it arises from the theological speculations of the heart and moves towards the neighbour and God. The love preached by Christ is in triangular form: it is vertical and horizontal. Christ summarizes the law and the teachings of the Prophets as follows: loving God with your hearts and soul and loving your neighbour as yourself (Matt.22:37–40). “God is love, and he who abides in love, abides in God and God in him” (1 Jn. 4:16). If God is love and can only be realized through the existence of one who loves, then the beloved and God are bound together. Through love one can thought of as absolute self-giving (first step of love), as absolute freedom (receiving, second step) as absolute openness of giving and receiving (third step). This triple steps are a numerical plurality for the human horizon.150 God is love and He gives to us His love freely and unconditionally that we may receive freely and give unconditionally. He pours out His love into human hearts through the Holy Spirit (Rm 5:5). Thus the first and the most necessary gift is love, by which one loves God above all things and the neighbour because of God. Indeed, in order that love, as good seed may grow and bring forth fruit in the soul, each one of the faithful must willingly hear the Word of God and accept His will, with the help of God’s grace.151 The perfect imitation to this love is the washing of the feet of the disciples (Jn.13:14–15).152 He called for the love of the enemies (Matt.5:44), not because they seek to harm us, but because they are human beings capable of friendship with God.153 Jesus command to love God is radicalized in three respects; as love of the enemy (Matt.5:43–48) as love of the stranger (Lk.10:25–37) and as love of sinners (Lk.7:36–50).154 The love of one another for Christ is without limit. Loving one another is the New Commandment from Christ. By loving one another, says Christ, all will know that you are my disciples (Jn.13:34–35). “This is my commandment, love one another as I have loved you” (Jn.15:12). Jesus continues “No one can have greater love than to lay down his life for his friends,

150 Uzor, The Traditional African Concept of God and the Christian Concept of God, 513f. 151 Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, 42. 152 John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, 20. 153 Gratsch, Aquinas Summa, 158. 154 Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, 362.

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you are my friends if you do what I command you” (15:13–14). These indicate the sacrificial gift of his life on the cross, as a witness to his love (Jn.13:1).155 He preached love on the Sermon on the Mount: to love ones enemies and to turn the other cheek (Matt.5:39–44). He lived out what he preached in the Sermon on the Mount on the Mount of Calvary. They represent the highest practice of his Gospel of love. Some people can love themselves, most people can love their neighbours, and only few can extend the term to include the despised ‘Samaritan’. But to love your enemies and not to resist their assaults: that is a counsel of perfection and to follow it a true imitation of Christ. It is the same thing as ‘Loving God with all thy heart, mind and strength’ because it involves perceiving and loving the divinity within each human being.156 It is the love of God and the love of one’s neighbour which point out the true disciple of Christ.157 Whoever fails to love does not know God, because God is love (1Jn.4:7–9). The beginning and the end of love is sacrifice. The proof of God’s love for us is that He sent His own son to redeem us. Hence love is self giving and emptying of oneself.158 To love is to know God and not to love is not to know God. The love of God meant by Jesus Christ is in three ways: I, You and God.159

2.2.4 Christian Concept of God The concept of God in Christianity is immanence. He is revealed in Jesus Christ in a bodily form. God is spirit and cannot be seen and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth (Jon. 4:24). Christ calls Him Father (Matt. 6:9) and regards himself as the son whom the Father entrusts everything unto his hand (Matt.11:25–27). Christ is the Son of God who is equal with the Father. He told Philip: “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn.14:9). “You must believe when I say that, I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (Jn.14:11). Christ is the Son of God and it is in him that we know the truth about God and the things of God.160 He teaches: God is our Father in heaven and addresses Him as Father. As Father, He automatically becomes the head and source of all. He did not refer Him as his Father alone, but as OUR FATHER.

155 156 157 158 159 160

John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, 20. Joscelyn, Mystery of Religion in the Ancient World, 90. Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, 42. Uzor, The Traditional African Concept of God and the Christian Concept of God, 512. Büchele, Gott Finden, 48. Benedict XVI, Licht der Welt, 182.

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He exemplified this in the prayer: Our Father in heaven (Matt.6:5–13). After the resurrection, he told his disciples: I am ascending to my Father and your Father (Lk.20:17). So God is his Father and our Father too. With this teaching of God as Father, the Christians see God as a loving Father who takes care of His people. God as Father does not literally suggest that He is the father of human beings with wife, but rather He acts towards mankind in a manner like a certain kind of father acting towards his children. The Father can of course be good or bad, loving or cruel. In words of sayings and parables, Jesus shows clearly what kind of Father he was referring to. For example: What man is there of you, whom if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish will give him a serpent? If you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father in heaven give good things to them that ask Him? (Matt.7:7–11). Jesus portrays the image of God as the merciful and forgiven God who rejoices over a single repentant sinner. This is clearly shown in the parables, such as the lost sheep, the lost coin and the prodigal son (Lk.15:4–24). In the return of the prodigal son, the father says: my son was dead and is alive: he was lost and is found (Lk.15:24). This is the kind of Father Jesus means.161 Not the worldly cruel fathers. The Christian monotheistic notion of God is: God is one and there is no other. He is eternal, omnipotent, omniscient and immutable. God is immutable, that is to say: He is in no way subject to change. He gains nothing and He loses nothing because He possesses the fullness of being to a limitless degree which leaves nothing to be gained or to lose. If God is immutable then He is eternal.162 “Eternity is the measure of an unchanging being, while time is a measure of a being subject to change. God is eternal because he continues to exist of himself without having begun and without the possibility of ceasing, neither acquiring anything nor suffering the loss of anything. God’s eternity, therefore supposes his immutability which excludes all change in God.”163 In His response to Moses in the burning bush, He says, I am He who is (Ex.3:13–14), this shows that God is always present; He has neither beginning nor end. He is infinite, which means He is only one God. The Christians believe that God is a Supreme Being, Pure Act, First Cause of all provident conserver and governor of the Universe: the Absolute – infinite, eternal, immutable, intelligent, Omniscient, all powerful and the creator to whom creatures owe homage, respect and obedience. The sovereign Good, diffusive of all goodness towards which everything tends as to its ultimate final cause: the 161 Hick, Islam and Christian Monotheism, 4. 162 Gratsch, Aquinas Summa, Bangalore, 14. 163 Ibid., 15.

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supernatural source of Revelation, the God-head comprised of three divine persons in one divine nature, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.164

2.2.5 Trinitarian Notion of God The Trinity is the specific expression of Christian faith in One God.165 This belief considers: Father, Son and the Holy Spirit as one in essence and existence. The history of the church from its earliest days has been beset by heresies and wrong teachings about Christ. Councils had been convoked to clarify issues and set out the official teachings of the church. In the early centuries, the church of Christ battled with Christological heresies which go contrary to the doctrine of the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity is unquestionably one of the most perplexing aspects of Christian theology and requires careful discussion.166 It had led many people who wanted to explain it into difficulty with the church. It is so complex that, it is only one with faith that will understand and believe it. Traditional Trinitarian language – Father, Son and the Holy Spirit – is drawn from the New Testament and expresses the fundamentally personal understanding of God that lies behind the doctrine.167 The Trinitarian God is one in divine essence though a Trinity of three distinct divine persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In the Blessed Trinity, the Father as the first person expresses His divinity in the Word, or the second person who is equally God with the Father and who becomes human in Jesus Christ by the power of God. The relationship between the Father and the Son, begets the third person of the Blessed Trinity, the Holy Spirit who is equal in divinity to the Father and the Son, the first and the second persons.168 This doctrine goes contrary to the early Christian Jews who recited the ancient words of the Jewish shema in their daily prayers: “Hear O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deut.6:4–5). The earliest Christians were in agreement with their fellow Jews in confessing one God, but from the beginning, Christianity sets itself apart from Judaism by the veneration she gave to Jesus Christ. This is apparent in the exalted language to describe Jesus Christ as, the Son of God, the image of the invisible God, the eternal word who is with God, the one in whom the fullness of

164 165 166 167 168

O’Neill, God, 535. Vorgrimler, Neues Theologisches Wörterbuch, 642. McGrath, Christian Theology, An Introduction, 247. McGrath, Theology The Basic Readings, 128. Patrick, Philosophy of Religion A-Z, 221.

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Godhead dwells and in the baptismal formula:169 baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matt.28:19). The Trinitarian doctrine generated controversies in the early church and those who taught contrary to the church’s teachings were termed heretics. Some of these Trinitarian heretics were: Arius, Eunomius and Macedonius. In 318, Arius, a priest of Alexandria denied the divinity of the Son. The Father alone is God. The Son is simply part of the created order and thus not divine in essence.170 He came to this conclusion from the book of Proverb: “Yahweh created me, first-fruit of his fashioning, before the oldest of his works. From everlasting I was firmly set, from the beginning, before the earth came into being. The deep was not, when I was born, nor were the springs with their abounding waters. Before the mountains were settled, before the hill, I came to birth” (Prov.8.22–25). Arius interpreted these words to be the Logos and said that the Logos has beginning from God before the time of the world (aion). Hence everything that is not God in the real sense has a cause or a beginning.171 “The Son was not the same in substance as the Father and there was a time when the Son was not.”172 Arius wanted to emphasize the essential difference between the unique God and His entire creatures and that the Logos belongs to another level of being than the only true God the Father.173 For him: “God was the only unbegotten, the only one without beginning, the only true, the only one who has immortality, the only wise, the only good, the only potentate.”174 He argues futher: “The Son of God is not God’s inner Logos, God’s own reason and wisdom, which gains independent existence through the process of ‘begetting’ the Son came into being out of nothing as God’s image, by the will of God.”175 Which means for him, the son is not true God and not unchangeable and immutable: he

169 170 171 172 173 174 175

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Wilken, The Truine God of the Bible and the Emergency of Orthodoxy, 188f. Merdinger, Rome and African Church in the Time of Augustine, 18f. Dünzl, A Brief History of the Doctrine of the Trinity in the Early Church, 43. Cross, Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 472. Dünzl, A Brief History of the Doctrine of the Trinity in the Early Church, 44. Armstrong, A History of God, 109. Dünzl, A Brief History of the Doctrine of the Trinity in the Early Church, 44. Arius continues in his heresy: precisely because Jesus Christ is God’s image, he is also called Logos and Wisdom, but these designations are not used in the real sense. The Son of God is not true God, he only bears the title God. Ontologically, the Son belongs more on the side of the creature who comes into being out of nothing. God the Father and the Son belong to different levels of being and the Son is subordinate to the Father and cannot know the nature of the Father.

belongs to nature and can be compared with other creatures. This is pure attack on the divity of the son and against the teaching of the church. Eunomius denied that the generation of the Son took place within the divine nature, but regarded him as a being immediately produced by the Father, from whom he received the creative power which caused him to resemble the Father. Among the being created by the Son the Holy Ghost held the first place. He is the Sons instrument for the sanctification of souls.176 Which means the son is produced by the Father and he is like Him and not the same in essence. Then the Holy Spirit is created by the son as the instrument of his work. With regard to the Trinity, the early church in her wisdom defended her position in the council of Nicaea. The ecumenical council of Nicaea in 325 CE affirms: “The Son is begotten from the Father and did not come into being from nothing, even though no one can describe his begetting. He has always existed; however, he is not unbegotten… but begotten in truth and in the real sense, and also unchangeable and unalterable in his being.”177 Athanasius in his defence of the Trinity adopted a classical statement in the triune God and the statement becomes a creed.178 This creed was reaffirmed and expanded at the council of Constantinople in 381 CE. The structure of the creed is: “We believe in one God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth…and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God, begotten of the Father…and in the Holy Spirit the Lord and life giver.”179 This creed has remained till date as the profession of faith to the true followers of Christ. The eternity of the Son with the Father is drawn from the prologue of the Gospel of John (John 1:1–18). The Christian understanding of God is in line with the Jewish and the Islamic notion of God, only that Christianity developed the notion of God as Trinity, which is contrary to Judaism and Islam. One can say that monotheism in Christianity is not exactly as it is in Judaism and Islam. Some may argue that there is no monotheism in the Christian religion by characterizing the Trinity as three different Gods. The Trinitarian God of the Christians does not mean three Gods, but One God in the persons of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The image of the “Father, Son and Spirit are related to one another like spring, river and canal, the canal being drawn from the river to irrigate the field. Like the spring, the Father is the inexhaustible origin of

176 Cross, Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 472. 177 Dünzl, A Brief History of the Doctrine of the Trinity in the Early Church, 51. 178 It was in this council that creation ex nihilo was first inscribed as the official Christian doctrine, insisting that Christ was not mere creature or aeon but rather the Creator and the Redeemer. C.f., Armstrong, A History of God, 110f. 179 Wilken, The Truine God of the Bible and the Emergency of Orthodoxy, 187.

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the deity; and just as the river rises from the spring, so the Son comes forth from the Father and brings salvation to human beings; and just as the water is distributed over the fields of canal, so the Holy Spirit is distributed to believers in baptism and makes them fruitful. It becomes clear here that there is only one divine substance.”180 This divine substance is the source of human creation, human salvation or redemption and human sanctification. John Hick argues: “Within the early Christianity, Jesus was identified as God’s new anointed one of the royal house of David, who would in his second coming usher in the great Day of the Lord. However as the second coming failed to occur, Jesus was gradually elevated within the Gentile church to a divine status, and Christ came to be equivalent in meaning to the Pre-Trinitarian ‘Son of God’ and eventually to the Trinitarian ‘God the Son’”.181 Hick’s developmental process of the Trinity is quite contrary to the understanding of the Trinity by the church. The doctrine of the Trinity was a gradual development of the early Christians sieved out from the claims of Christ’s teaching and the teachings of the Apostles in the New Testament. So the Trinity is founded on the teachings of the scriptures and tradition. In the Trinitarian mystery, there is in the Father the pervasive love unlimited by space and time. The Son provides a grace in every human encounter to liberate him from selfishness and make him to love one another. The Holy Spirit acts in the depth of people’s consciences and accompanies them on the secret part of their hearts towards the truth.182 The Trinitarian God: Father, Son and the Holy Spirit are equal in essence and existence. They are really distinct from one another, eternal and perfectly equal; yet they are one and the same God, because all have one and the same divine nature. Of these three persons, the Son proceeds from the Father by an eternal generation; and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son by an eternal spiration. This is a revelation by God and there is no way human being can come to the knowledge of this truth. Even after the revelation of this mystery, we cannot understand it fully; but we believe it because we have God’s word for it.183 In analyzing the Trinity, Gregory of Nyssa outlines the important doctrine of the inseparability or coincidence of the three divine person’s hypostases. One should not think of God splitting Himself up into three parts; that was a grotesque and indeed blasphemous idea. God expresses Himself wholly and totally in each of these three manifestations when He wishes to reveal Himself to the world. Thus the Trinity gives an indication of the pattern of

180 Dünzl, A Brief History of the Doctrine of the Trinity in the Early Church, 32. 181 Hick, The Metaphor of God Incarnate, 4f. 182 Secretariat for Non-Christians, The Attitudes of the Church Towards Followers of Other Religions, 22f. 183 Gratsch, Aquinas Summa, 23.

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‘every operation’ which extends from God to creation. As the scripture shows, creation has its origin in the Father, proceeds through the agency of the Son and made effective in the world by the means of the immanent Spirit.184 From the New Testament, God is the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ: the Son of God and yet in virtue of this timeless generation from the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit fully share the Father’s divine nature and therefore also God. By their point of origin and relationship to one another: the One God is the unbegotten Father of Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who is begotten from the Father and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father185 through the Son. This makes sense as a mystical or spiritual experience. It has to be lived, not thought, because God goes far beyond human concepts. It was not a logical or intellectual formulation, but an imaginative paradigm that confounded reason, hence it is a revelation.186

2.2.6 Jesus as the Saviour and Mediator between God and Humanity For the Christians, salvation is linked with Jesus Christ. He provides the model and the paradigm for the redeemed life.187 The real message of Christianity is: Christ is the Saviour of all, the only one able to reveal God and lead to God. Peter says: “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:10–12) except by the name of Jesus Christ. Christ is the centre of economy of salvation, the recapitulation of the Old and the New Testament of the promises of the law and the fulfillment of the Gospel. He is the eternal link between the Old and the New Covenant.188 The universality of the salvation in Christ is asserted throughout the New Testament. St. Paul acknowledges the risen Christ as the Lord. He writes: “Although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many ‘gods’ and many ‘lords’, yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom all things come and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things come and through whom we exist” (1Cor 8:5–6). One God and one Lord are asserted by way of contrast to the multitude of ‘gods’ and ‘lords’ commonly accepted. The characteristic of Christianity is: the belief in one God and in one Lord sent by God189 who is our Lord Jesus Christ.

184 185 186 187 188 189

Armstrong, A History of God, 116f. Beerley, Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity and the Knowledge of God, 204f. Armstrong, A History of God, 117. McGrath, Christian Theology, An Introduction, 339. John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, 15. John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio (Mission of the Redeemer), 5.

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The salvific universality of Christ embraces all the aspects of his mission of grace, truth and revelation. He is the Word of God, and the Word is “…the true light that enlightens every man” (Jn.1:9). And, “…no one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made Him known” (Jn.1:18; Mt 11:27). God’s revelation becomes definitive and complete through his only-begotten Son: “In many and various ways, God spoke of old to our fathers by the Prophets; but in these last days He has spoken to us by a Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom He also created the world” (Heb.1:1–2; Jn.14:6). In the definitive Word of His revelation, God made Himself known in the definitive possible way. This definitive self-revelation of God is the fundamental reason why the Church is missionary by her very nature. She cannot do, other than to proclaim the Gospel, that is, the fullness of the truth which God has enabled humanity to know about Him. Christ is the one mediator between God and mankind. He achieved this by offering himself as a ransom for all, the testimony to which he was borne at the proper time. Paul affirms that because of this, he was appointed a preacher and apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth (1Tm 2:5–7; Heb 4:14–16). No one can enter into communion with God except through Christ, by the working of the Holy Spirit. Christ as a universal mediator is the way established by God. Although participated forms of mediation of different kinds and degrees are not excluded, they acquire meaning and value only from Christ’s own mediation, and they cannot be understood as parallel or complementary to his. The Church’s universal mission is born of faith in Jesus Christ, as is stated in our Trinitarian profession of faith: “I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father…. For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man.”190 The redemption event brings salvation to all, through Christ’s death and resurrection. For a Christian, everything begins and ends with Christ. Christ is the first, absolute and essential ‘Truth,’ inasmuch as He is the Word of God, con-substantial and co-eternal with the Father, He and the Father are One. He is the way, the truth and life (John 14:6). When the truth is sought by human intellect, it must first of all submit to Jesus Christ, and securely rest upon His teaching, since the truth speaks through him. The teaching of Christ, upon which our salvation depends, is almost entirely about God and the things of God. No human wisdom has invented it, but the Son of God has received it from His Father.191 Christ is the beginning and the end of all things. 190 Ibid. 191 Leo XIII, Temetsi Futura, (Jesus Christ the Redeemer), No 9.

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2.2.7 The Bible/Scripture and the Tradition as Inspired by God The Greek word Biblion192 for book and Biblia (books) is the name of a book – one composed of many books. It is really one book, for one basic theme unites all the stories and songs, sayings and prophesies contained within it. The Bible in the Christian religion is referred to the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. The theme of the Bible is the encounter between a group of people and a One without Name (Namenloser) who, in the course of history, will address the group and be addressed by it and whom the group has dared to call by name.193 The content of the Bible swings from the historical document of the world, between creation and redemption experienced through revelation. Martin Buber argues: “The Biblical revelation is focused in the middle, creation in the beginning and the revelation in the end, but everyday, God renews the work of the beginning”194 through mankind. The creation by God did not stop immediately after the seven days creation of Genesis. The stories in the Bible are the stories of creation by God, the stories of revelation from God through His Prophets and Judges and the stories of redemption through God in Jesus Christ. The Bible is the authentic source book of the Christians,195 but the Catholic Church goes with two sources of revelations: the Bible and the Tradition. The Christian revelation is contained in the tradition and the scripture. The tradition 192 193 194 195

Patrick, Philosophy of Religion A-Z, 33. Biemann, The Martin Buber Reader: Essential Writings, 51. Ibid., 55. When we talk about the Christian Bible, there are two versions of the canons of the Bible in Christian faith. The adjective canonical is used to refer to the Scripture. It is derived from the Greek word kanon (meaning rule or yardstick). It indicates that limits have been set for Christian community to the texts which may be regarded as Scriptural. This led to a long standing debate between Catholic and Protestant theologians concerning the status of further group of texts which are often referred to as ‘Apocryphal’ or ‘Deuteron-canonical’. The Greek translation of the old Sacred Scripture came to be called Septuagint. This name was given during the time of Augustine of Hyppo. The other is Masoretic text. It is the authoritative Jewish text of the Bible. It is widely used by the Protestants. There is comparison between the Old Testament Jewish Bible version called the Masoretic text and the Greek version called the Septuagint. In the Masoretic text of the Hebrew version, ‘Apocryphal’ books are not found, while they are found in the Greek version called the Septuagint. It was in 1546, that the council of Trent defined the Old Testament as those Old Testament works contained in the Greek version of the Bible, thus eliminating the distinction between ‘Old Testament’ and ‘Apocryphal’. C.f., McGrath, Christian Theology, 163. The Hebrew version has 39 books, while the Greek text has 46.

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stands for the collective acceptance and communication of the truth and custom in the community. It is the process by which the divine revelation coming from Jesus Christ through the Apostles, gives his assistance in the fulfillment of their task. Tradition should not be relegated because every truth of faith comes through the way of tradition. It is through the earliest tradition that the sacred books were written and through the church they were recognized as inspired and gathered together in the Bible as the written word of God.196 The Bible is unique among the sacred books of the world’s religions in that it is in structure a history of the cosmos. It claims to show us the shape, the structure and the cosmic history. It does not accept a view of nature as simply the arena upon which the drama of human history is played out. “It sees the history of the nations and the history of nature within the large framework of God’s history – the carrying forward to its completion of the gracious purpose which has its source in the love of the Father for the Son in the unity of the Spirit.”197 It is a sacred book that unveils the match of world history toward salvation. The term ‘Bible’ and ‘Scripture’ along with the derived adjectives Biblical and Scriptural are interchangeable. They are recognized as authoritative for Christian thinking.198 The authority of the Sacred Scripture and its necessity for salvation with the ‘unwritten tradition’ has equal authority and are matters necessary for salvation. The unwritten tradition is primarily the teachings handed down orally by Christ and the Apostles. They are not embodied in the written record of the New Testament. They include doctrines and practices which had risen since and become universally accepted throughout the church. It was ‘unwritten’ in the sense of not being found in the Scripture but they were handed over and that is why they are called ‘tradition’.199 The Bible is divided into the Old and the New Testaments. The Old Testament describes Gods relationship with the Jews and the New Testament is centred on Christ. The Christian Bible depicts the culmination of Gods covenant with Abraham and Moses in the covenant with God through Jesus Christ.200 The Christians believe in God through the Bible. It directs people to God. Benedict XVI succinctly puts it: “We believe in God, not in the Book”.201

196 Neuner and Dupuis, The Christian Faith, Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church, 71. 197 Newbigin, The Open Secret, 33. 198 McGrath, Christian Theology, 163. 199 Jenkin, Bible and the Church in the Writings of Thomas More, 157f. 200 Patrick, Philosophy of Religion A-Z, 33. 201 Benedict XVI, Die Heilige Schrift, Meditationen Zur Bibel, 7.

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The faith of the Christians does not depend on the book, but on the personal meeting with the living God.202 The Catholics believe that there exists a close connection and communication between the Sacred Tradition and the Sacred Scripture. Both of them flow from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and end toward the same end. The Sacred Scripture is the Word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, while the Sacred Tradition takes the Word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles and hands it on to their successors in its full purity, so that, led by the light of the Spirit of truth, they may in proclaiming it, preserve it faithfully, explain it and make it more widely known. Consequently, it is not from the Sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore, both the Sacred Tradition and the Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence.203 They form one sacred deposit of the Word of God committed to the Church. It is clear, therefore, that the Sacred Tradition, the Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, in accordance with God’s most wise design, are so linked together that one cannot stand without the others, and that all together and each in its own way under the action of one Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of the souls.204 The understanding of the Scripture hangs on the church. The Scripture alone cannot make us to understand the Scripture, it is the duty of the church to teach people the content or the meaning of what the Scripture says.205 Man cannot fully know the Sacred Scripture without the guide from the authority of the church (Acts, 8:32–40). The Christians believe that the Sacred Scripture has been committed to writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The holy mother Church, relying on the belief of the apostles, holds that the books of both the Old and the New Testaments in their entirety, with all their parts, are sacred and canonical because, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author and have been handed on as such to the Church herself. (1) In composing the sacred books, God chose human beings and while employed by Him, (2) they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in them and through them,

202 203 204 205

Ibid. Vatican II: Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, 9. Ibid., 10. This is pure Catholic theology. Tyndale, An answer to Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue, 136.

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(3) they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things He wanted.206 Therefore, since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be inspired by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of the Sacred Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted to put into sacred writings, for the sake of salvation. Therefore: “All Scripture is divinely inspired by God and useful for refuting error, for guiding people’s lives and teaching them to be upright, so that the man who belongs to God may be efficient and equipped for good work of every kind” (2Tm.3:16–17). However, since God speaks in the Sacred Scripture through human being, the interpreter of the Sacred Scripture, in order to see clearly what God wants to communicate to the people, should carefully investigate what meaning the sacred writers really intend, and what God wants to manifest by means of their words.207 The Sacred Scripture must be interpreted by the church. When exegesis is not in theology, the Sacred Scripture cannot be the soul of theology and vice versa. When theology is not essentially the interpretation of the scripture in the church, then theology has no more foundation.208 There is need for those who know the Sacred Scripture and teach it to others to understand. In the Christian Bible, the terms the ‘Old Testament’ and the ‘New Testament’ are strongly theological in nature. They rest on the contents and the belief that the Old Testament belongs to a period of Gods dealing with the world which has in some way been superseded or relativized by the coming of Christ in the New Testament.209 The New Testament Scripture has its origin in the Jewish synagogue where Christians and Jews prayed together and studied the Holy Scripture. Christianity historically arose not from the temple, but from the Synagogue of the Jews. In the synagogue, they saw with the followers of Judaism the conviction of the sanctity of the Scriptures. In due course, Christians elevated some circulating writings into Christian Sacred Scripture; they gave these writings the name, ‘New Covenant’ and it means the same thing as ‘New Testament’. The older collection, they called the Old covenat: Testament. In the Christian view, the Old and the New Testaments are a single continuous Bible. The occasional Christians who speak of the Old Testament as the Jewish book are deviating from the normal Christian view in

206 207 208 209

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Dei Verbum, 11. Ibid., 11f. Benedict XVI, Synod of Bishops, 27. McGrath, Christian Theology, 166.

which the Old Testament is invariably regarded as a Christian book.210 The foundation of the New Testament is the Old Testament. The Christians therefore affirm that all Scriptures, with all their parts, are sacred and canonical because, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author and have been handed on to the Church. In order to keep the Gospel forever whole and alive within the Church, the Apostles left the bishops as their successors, ‘handing over’ to them ‘the authority to teach in their own place.’ The Sacred Tradition and the Sacred Scripture: the Old and the New Testaments are like a mirror in which the pilgrim Church on earth looks at God, from whom she has received everything, until she is brought finally to see Him as He is, face to face (1Jn.3:2). The Apostolic preachings are preserved in a special way in the inspired books. Therefore, the Apostles, handing on what they had received, warn the faithful to hold fast to the traditions which they have learnt either by the word of the mouth or by the letter (2Thes.2:15), and to fight in defence of the faith handed on once and for all (Jude 1:3). Now, what was handed on by the Apostles includes everything which contributes toward the holiness of life and increase in faith of the People of God. So the Church, in her teaching, life and worship, perpetuates and hands on to all generations all that she herself is, and all that she believes.211 It is clear, therefore, that the Sacred Tradition, the Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, are linked together for the salvation of human soul.

2.3 Islamic Religion Islam is a monotheistic religion like Judaism and Christianity.212 It is a religious faith founded by the Prophet Mohammad or Muhammad. His believers are known as Moslems or Muslims. A Moslem is one who carefully keeps the outward writings of the law but when one adds Ihsan or devotion, one becomes muhsin: one who does good works as well as pays attention to the ceremonial observances. When one adds sincerity of heart and exercises faith (iman), one becomes a mu’min or believer.213 His followers believe that the religion is the final and the perfect religion revealed by God to the Prophet. Islam recognizes

210 211 212 213

Sandmell, Judaism and Christian Beginning, 418f. Dei Verbum, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, 8. Klausnitzer, Gott und Wirklichkeit, 105. Sell, Islam, 437.

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Biblical figures like Abraham, Moses, and Jesus as Prophets,214 but for them Mohammad is the greatest and the seal of all the Prophets. They see him not only as the ideal political and military leader, statesman, merchant, judge, and diplomat, but also the real husband, father and friend.215 Islam means ‘a strong commitment to God, and shares the same Arabic root as the word for peace or salaam. Some Moslem theologians define Islam as attaining peace through commitment to God’s will.216 Islam is a confession of faith and a mode of conduct. It is the ‘exclusive confession’ of the One Almighty God and a complete surrender to His revealed command. The revelation of the religion is God’s manifestation and God’s command to humanity. ‘Islam’ therefore denotes acceptance of the revelation and the implementation of the command, and in a broader sense the historically evolved system of law which regulates both the worship of God as well as the conduct of the believers within the community.217 Islam deals with, not only religious aspect of humanity; rather it encompasses everything about it. There is not much difference between politics, culture, social life and religious life in Islam. Moslems surrender everything to the will of Allah. They do not make the same kind of distinction as Westerners make between the sacred and the secular, between religion and other human concerns. They do not think of one community which is the church and another community which is the state. For them, God revealed to Mohammad a total pattern of life, in which politics, ethics, economics, social order are bound together in an indissoluble totality by the will of God which is the transcendental element in the compound. This is the way in which humanity ought to live. A Moslem is the one who is committed to bringing to realization, by devotion and effort, this society as God has willed it to exist to the ends of the earth. He or she is interested in history for the purpose of God to be carried out through it.218 Moslems believe that Islamic religion did not begin with Mohammad. It includes the history of earlier Prophets and their missions, and also of people to whom they were sent. The earlier history is chiefly Biblical and Arabian, within a framework defined by the historical allusions in the Qur’an.219 Islam traces its history back to Adam through Abraham, just as other two monotheistic religions.

214 215 216 217 218 219

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Patrick, Philosophy of Religion A-Z, 103. Esposito and Mogahed, Who Speaks for Islam? 11. Ibid., 7. Endress, Islam: An Historical introduction, 21. Stephen, Christian Faith and other Faiths, 40. Lewis, History of Religion, 117.

This proves that all these religions have their origin from the first man Adam and through the covenantal man, Abraham. The word Islam comes from the SLM in Arabic meaning ‘to be in peace, to be an integral whole’ from this root comes Islam, meaning ‘surrender’ ‘to surrender to God’s law and thus to be an integral whole and Moslem means a person who so surrenders.220 Those who profess Islam (Muslimun) form a religious and political community (the umma) which was founded by His Prophet according to God’s will.221 A Moslem is one who is surrendered to the will of God and is committed to bringing to realization, by one’s devotion and efforts, this society as God has willed it to exist to the ends of the earth.222 He surrenders himself to God and His will in order to actualize God’s wish and purpose in the world. He has faith to the revelation of God’s will.223 In practical terms, Islam means that Moslems have a duty to create a just, equitable society where the poor and vulnerable are treated decently.224 It means that egalitarianism is its watch word. In the explanation of the word Islam, Inamullah Khan writes: “The word Islam is an Arabic word meaning peace. Peace not only with the one’s creator, but it is also peace with our fellow men.”225 It is a natural religion that creates peaceful atmosphere for the worshippers. In the word of Holy, Qur’an, it calls it, din al-fitra which means it is ‘religio naturalis’ (natural religion). It is the religion of human nature, the religion of Adam the first man or the first Prophet and the religion of all the Prophets of the world. It stands for peace, peace for all, peace without discrimination, peace on the basis of justice. It is the duty of every Moslem to establish peace, that is why when a Moslem meets another person, not only a Moslem, he or she always addresses the person, assalamu alaicum wa, rahmatullah wa barakatuhu (may the peace and blessing of God be upon you). If the person happens to be a Moslem, he or she replies, waalaikum assalam wa rahmatullah wa barakatuhu (may the peace and blessings of God be upon you also).226 Mohammad realizes his mission to be extending the call of Israel and Jesus to the whole world, and reforming it, dedicating the believing community to total commitment to one God (which is where the Allah comes from). It is derived from al-llah which simply means the

220 221 222 223 224 225 226

Deninger, Revelation, 356. Endress, Islam: An Historical Introduction, 21. Stephen, Christian Faith and other Faiths, 40. Frankl, The Three Faces of Monotheism, 16. Armstrong, A History of God, 142. Taylor and Gebhardt, Religions for Human Dignity and World Peace, 28. Ibid., 28f.

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gods. Islam understands itself to be most simply the final refinement of these traditions, their consummation and correction regarding God’s expectations for humanity, definitely detailed in the Qur’an,227 revealed by God to the Prophet Mohammad. In the course of Mohammad’s religious and political experience, he sees his religion as the legitimate continuation of the earlier monotheism. “The society in which Mohammad grew up was a society in flux, from a nomadic to a sedentary way of life, from tribal collectivism to individualism, from superstitious polytheism to monotheism; a society which could not find a new direction out of its conflicts. To this the Prophet ordered them to reflect and to change their lives, not by a radical negation of the existing order but by transforming it.”228 Islam developed very gradually as a new arrangement of regulations and doctrines, carefully defined practices and elaborate theories. It has no church and clergy and rejects the standard Christian doctrines of incarnation and Trinity.229 It regards Christianity as a religion that deviated from the worship of true God by elevating Jesus Christ as equal with God. The religion is also political, social and cultural. It differs completely as regards other religions’ attitude to politics. The founder of the religion assumes the political leader of his time and encourages his followers to follow suit. He integrates them completely into the political, cultural and social lives of the people of his age. Hence in comparison with other religions’ of the world, Islam is a political religion per excellence which defines for the believers the totality of their spiritual and temporal existence. If it is the private duty of a Moslem for example to give daily thanks to God in prayer, it is his or her public duty and equally a sacred one, to wage war against the infidels (Jihad). The Pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj), fasting during the month of Ramadan and almsgiving are also among the religious duties of the Moslems which have spiritual as well as social importance. Hence each member of the Islamic community at least in theory is a religious, social and political being.230 Apart from directing the way to individual salvation, Islam has been a social religion which has set a code of ethics for social action. It is a political religion which has both united and governed the community of believers, and a legalistic religion which has laid down a series of legal rules that later formed the basis of Islamic law.231

227 228 229 230 231

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Mathewes, Understanding Religious Ethics, 66. Endress, Islam: An Historical Introduction, 24. Baldick, Mystical Islam, 2. Toprak, Islam and Political Development in Turkey, 22. Ibid., 22.

2.3.1 The Life of Mohammad Abdul Muttalib, the grandfather of Mohammad was born in 497 AD. He dug the sacred well of Zemzem, in the courtyard of Kaaba,232 from where pilgrims have drunk. In 570 AD, the year of the Elephant,233 it was Abdul Muttalib who saved the city from the invasion of Abraha, the Abyssinian governor through his prayer. He prayed to God to defend Kaaba, with the result that He sent birds to drop pebbles on the Abyssinian army. As a young man, he had vowed that, if he had ten sons, he would sacrifice one of them to Kaaba. When he had ten sons, he cast lots on them and it fell on Abdulla, a youth and yet unmarried. Because he did not want to kill his son Abdulla, he offered one hundred camels to release himself from his vow. Abdulla (Servant of God) was so called234 later married Amina, a woman of the Beni Zuhra clan of Quraish in Medina. He died few months later on his business trip leaving his young wife pregnant. She gave birth to Mohammad, the future Prophet and the founder of Islam in the year 570.235 His mother Amina who came from Medina died when he was 6 years old.236 He was brought up by his grandfather Abdul Muttalib and Uncle Abu Talib. As a youth, he traveled with the trading caravan from Mecca to Syria. He married Khadija a rich widow when he was twenty – five and the wife was fifteen years older, which is unusual combination.237 He was highly influenced by Jewish and Christian monotheism. Among important

232 Kaaba is the name of the place of Pilgrimage in the ancient Arabian Pantheon. It was a sacred place in the Arabian Peninsula before the birth of Mohammad. After the foundation of Islam it becomes the centre of Pilgrimage to the Moslems all over the world. Some Moslem traditions assert that it was there that Abraham sacrificed to God. Ishmael his son inherited it from his father Abraham, but this is not historically founded. 233 Glubb, The Life and Times of Mohammad, 68. The most famous Abyssinian viceroy of the Yemen was Abraha who governed the country from 537f. Moslem historian alleged that Abraha was about to capture Mecca when his army was attacked by vast flights of birds, which droped pebbles on the Abyssinian troops. As a result, the army beat a hasty retreat, Abraha himself died before reaching his headquarter Yemen. It has been suggested that an epidemic of smallpox may have caused the withdrawal of invaders. Tradition relates that he came to Mecca ridding on an elephant, this was in the year 570. The year is remembered by the Hejaz Arabs as the year of the Elephant. It was in this year that Mohammad was born. Ibid., 50. 234 Klausnitzer, Jesus und Mohammad, 88. 235 Glubb, The Life and Times of Mohammad, 68f. 236 Klausnitzer, Jesus und Muhammad, 88. 237 Klausnitzer, Gott und Wirklichkeit, 99.

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towns of Islam were Medina and Mecca.238 It was in the city of Mecca that he was born, but when he was persecuted in Mecca, he fled and took refuge in Medina where his mother came from.

2.3.2 The Call of Mohammad Mohammad was in the habit of spending the month of Ramadan every year in a cave of the mountain for meditation, fasting and self denial. Before Islam, other Meccan’s practiced fasting, abstention from alcohol and other forms of self denial. He lived the life of solitude and engaged himself on meditation on Mount Hira. A vision came to him one night in the month of Ramadan in 610 and said to him: ‘O Mohammad, thou art the messenger of God’. He fell to his knees. The vision cried, read, but Mohammad replied, ‘I cannot read’. The process repeated the second and the third time. After the third repetition and the answer, the vision replied: Read in the name of thy Lord who created man of blood coagulated. Read thy Lord is the most beneficent, who taught by the pen, who taught what they knew not to men. After the vision Mohammad was left in agitation and mental confusion. He went home and narrated the whole incident to his wife Khadija who encouraged him to remain steadfast.239 Islam began with the conversion of Khadija the wife of Mohammad and Abu Bakr who later became his successor. Apart from few boys from Quraish who were cousins and relatives of Mohammad, many of his earliest converts were slaves or the poor classes. The great and the powerful were in general more engrossed in the worldly duties, not necessarily money making but glory, study, power, rule, administration, art and family pride. His followers were bound over to strict secrecy. Three years after this prayers and meetings, came an order from Mohammad after an interval of doubt and timidity that his believers should preach publicly.240 Like many Prophets of the Old Testament and Jesus Christ, Mohammad was not well received by his own people. When he started preaching publicly, his preaching attacked the lives of the rich and the elites. When he was about to be eliminated, he flew to Medina in 620 AD. This flight from Mecca to Medina is known as Hijra.241 The Moslems then date their era neither from the birth of Mohammad nor from the year of the revelation of the religion, but from the year of

238 239 240 241

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Frankl, The Three Faces of Monotheism, 143. Glubb, The Life and Times of Mohammad, 84f. Ibid., 100f. Okike, The Practice of Sharia in Nigeria, 43f.

the Hijra (the migration to Medina): when Moslems began to implement the divine plan in history by making Islam a political reality.242 In Medina he came into deep contact with Judaism, Christianity and also Paganism. He later accused the Jews of having disobeyed and corrupted the Scripture. He also accused the Christians of worshipping Jesus as the Son of God, although God has expressly commanded to worship none but Him. Having thus gone astray they must be brought back to the right path with Islamic command of unquestioning submission to the will of God.243 He started persecuting Christians, the Jews and Pagans so as to convert them to his religion.

2.3.3 Sources of Authority in Islamic Religion 2.3.3.1 The Qur’an as the Islamic Holy Book The Qur’an (Koran) is the Islamic Sacred Scripture regarded by Moslems as the infallible word of God, a perfect transcription of an eternal tablet preserved in Heaven and revealed to Mohammad through the Angel Gabriel in Arabic language. It was verbally received according to the style of its rhetoric. It is regarded as immutable in both form and content, and its translation has traditionally been forbidden. Moslems throughout the world thus continue to recite its surahs (chapters) in Arabic, although they may not understand the language. Today, nonetheless there are many translations of the Qur’an in many different languages of the world.244 This is to ensure its perfect understanding. It is the greatest source of authority in Islamic tradition. Its precepts and principles form the basis of the Islamic faith245 and law. It is ‘the recitation’ or the sacred text of Islam. Mohammad as God’s human instrument is the recipient of the Qur’anic revelation. It was his mission to ‘repeat’ and ‘recite’ the message of the heavenly revelation. ‘Recite in the name of your Lord’ (sura 96), that he found himself called to be a Prophet. Then followed the command ‘Stand up and warn’ (sura 74), that designates him as a messenger of God to his people.246 For the believers, it is the literal word of God, divided into sections: chapters (sura) 114 of them. They are composed of verses called ayat. It is central to the spirituality of Islam, just as Jesus, the logos is to Christianity (some Moslems found this elevation of Qur’an 242 243 244 245 246

Armstrong, A History of God, 155. Frankl, The Three Faces of Monotheism, 146. Anazodo, Liturgy of the Hours and Islamic Salat, 77. Insoll, The Archeaology of Islam, 18. Endress, Islam: An Historical introduction, 22.

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as blasphemous just like some Christians who had been scandalized by the idea that Jesus had been the incarnate logos).247 It is a compilation of the revelations received by Mohammad. Unlike the Torah which was revealed to Moses in one session on Mount Sinai, the Qur’an was revealed to Mohammad bit by bit, line by line and verse by verse over the periods of 23 years. The revelation to him was a painful experience.248 Sometimes one finds it difficult to distinguish the divine and the human element of the Qur’an. The Qur’an is not like the Bible which comprises of books with different authors in different epochs. It is a single homogenous work, which purports to record the words of God as revealed to Mohammad.249 It was not delivered to him as a finished book, rather a revelation for many years.250 Moslems regard Qur’an as the divine utterance and the Logos. It is uncreated and co-eternal with God. When we say that Qur’an is uncreated and co-eternal with God, it means that it embraces three levels of meaning: Language and utterance, letters and writing, and spirit and meaning. The uncreatedness and co-eternity of the Qur’an with God depends on the spirit and the meaning the Qur’an conveys to the believers251 and not on the language and the utterance or on the letters and the writing. Mohammad is seen as the principal person in the work of Qur’an. Bernard Lewis sees Qur’an “…as a scripture in the Moslem view, literally divine, having been dictated to the Prophet by an angel. A written and authorized text was established at an early date, and, apart from a few minor and insignificant variants, there is no argument about the accuracy or authenticity of the canon.”252 A Moslem has the conception that there is nothing that one cannot find in the Qur’an in so far as life is concerned. He conceives that everything human being possibly needs to know about God and the meaning of human life is to be found in the pages of the Qur’an.253 This view is not totally held by all the Moslems for they know that things always change. The ‘Qur’an’ means ‘a reading’ and it comes from the very first word of the first revelation to Mohammad.254 Revelation is necessary in Islamic religion and it is classified as a revealed religion or religion of the book,255 because it is the 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255

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Armstrong, A History of God, 140 and 62. Ibid., 139. Glubb, The Life and Times of Mohammad, 77. Klausnitzer, Jesus und Mohammad, 44. Zaki, Qur’an and Revelation, 53. Lewis, History of Religion, 104. Stephen, Christian Faith and other Faiths, 53. Zaki, The Qur’an and Revelation, 48. Klausnitzer, Gott und Wirklichkeit, 100f.

product of revelation. Anyone who seeks to understand Islam must have recourse to the Qur’an. The Qur’an according to Islam is the word of God, the revelation of His divinity and His command to humanity. The Prophet always uses obscure language in Qur’anic narration. He occasionally uses foreign words, to which the people sometimes attach new meanings. There are new words in the Qur’an and they are understood with great difficulty.256 For the community of believers the revelation becomes an integral part of the worship of God; a text to be recited, the Holy book, which joined to books of the old religions.257 A Moslem does not admit any human element in the Qur’an, he or she believes that it is the word of God Himself, existed with Him from the beginning; it is a word addressed to Mohammad, and in no sense at all a word of Mohammad.258 It is basic in Islamic religion and remains unaltered during the course of history, even if it is constantly experienced and interpreted anew.259 2.3.3.2 The Authority of Sunnah in Islam The Orthodox or the traditional Moslems are sometimes referred as Sunni and they uphold the practice of Sunnah. They are found throughout the Moslem world.260 The word Sunni comes from Sunnah: Überlieferung (Tradition). It is the recorded practice or habit of Mohammad. The overwhelming majority of Moslems are Sunni.261 They follow the traditions of Mohammed and his ways of life and teaching. The Sunnah (trodden part) of Mohammad plays a pivotal role in the creation of Islamic cultural strategy. It functions as a compliment to the Qur’an and as a second source of interpretation.262 It is the examples the Prophet sets in his life. This is typically mediated through gathered collections of sayings and stories of the Prophet, conveyed in narratives which are evaluated for their trustworthiness that comprise the ahadith (singular hadith), meant to compliment and to unfold the Qur’an.263 Volumes of stories about his life and what he did are recorded in Sunnah. He is regarded as a ‘living Qur’an’ the embodiment in his

256 257 258 259 260 261 262

Jansen, The Interpretation of the Koran in Modern Egypt, 55. Endress, Islam An Historical Introduction, 22. Stephen, Christian Faith and other Faiths, 53. Endress, Islam An Historical Introduction, 22. Insoll, The Archaeology of Islam, 19. Klausnitzer, Gott und Wirklichkeit, 103. Westerhund, and Svanberg, Islam in the West: Critical Concepts in Islamic Studies, 126. 263 Mathewes, Understanding Religious Ethics, 68.

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behaviour and words of God’s will.264 He functions as a paradigm for believers. The acts of his life and the word of his sayings remain normative in a powerful way for the faithful. He is regarded as a beautiful model or pattern of conduct for all humanity and his nickname – al – Almin, the trustworthy is meant to compliment that he is the paradigm of proper behaviour. The Prophet mediate the divine, either mediating the divine message, when he became a recorder of the Angel Gabriel’s recitation of God’s verses or mediating the divine presence through his exemplification of God’s will. If it is the presence that is mediated, the emphasis is more on mercy; if the message, the emphasis is more on duty. The Qur’an and the Sunnah form the source material out of which Shari’ah Islamic law is composed.265 The Sunnah on the other hand, though divinely inspired was human, and therefore subject to error and even fraud. It consists of a multiplicity of traditions, orally transmitted for generations before they were committed to writings. Human memory is always fallible, and the bitter religious, social and the ethnic struggles of the early Islamic period encouraged the distortion or even the fabrication of traditions, designed to support an argument, a faction or a cause.266 Mohammad said many contradicting things that go against history and his followers posited so many myths and unverifiable things to him without much verification.267 The Sunni Moslems look to the ideal portrait of the first generations of Moslems as their model.268

2.3.4 The Idea of God in Islamic Religion The Moslem profession of faith: Shahadah says: ‘I bear witness that there is no god but al-Lah and Mohammad is His messenger’ is not simply the affirmation of God’s existence but an acknowledgement that Al-Lah was the only true reality and the only true form of existence. He was the only true reality, beauty or perfection all that seem to have these qualities participate in this essential being.269 The 264 265 266 267

Esposito and Mogahed, Who Speaks for Islam?, 11f. Mathewes, Understanding Religious Ethics, 68. Lewis, History of Religion, 104. The statement in the Qur’an that the sacred house of Allah, the Ka’aba at Mecca, was built by Abraham as a resort and the sanctuary for mankind, and that Abraham lived at the time when the Ka’aba the sacred shrine of Moslem was built in the 7th century AD, is historically wrong. Abraham lived in 1800 BC and the place where he lived was hundreds of miles away from Ka’aba. Faces of Monotheism, 146f. 268 Esposito and Mogahed, Who Speaks for Islam?, 10. 269 Armstrong, A History of God, 150.

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concept of God in Islam is strict monotheism and God is a transcendental reality. Mohammad believes that, Al-Lah, the high God of the ancient Arabian pantheon whose name simply means ‘the God’ was identical with the God worshipped by the Jews and the Christians.270 In realizing this, he associates the God with the ancient Arabian pantheon. For the Moslems, God is the only God. Mohammad sees his mission as a reform for the image of God. His reformation is against the Christian view of the Trinity. His teaching is to reformulate the image of God: a return to the original monotheistic revelation. He called Abraham the first monotheist, but history proves that Abraham was a henotheist. The monotheistic God in Islamic version means that only one Lord prevails.271 Mohammad has the concept of God as the originator of the world. He regards Him as: the One, the Eternal, the Living, the Powerful, the Knowing, the Hearing, the Seeing, the Desiring, the Willing. He is not an accident or a body, nor a substance, nor a thing formed, nor a thing bounded, nor a thing numbered, nor a thing divided, nor a thing compounded nor does He come to an end in Himself. He is not described by quiddity nor by modality, He does not exist in space or time, nothing resembles Him and nothing without His knowledge and power exists.272 Though Mohammad was elevated as the greatest of all the Prophets, but he never equates himself as the divine. For his followers, there is only one God. There is also His authoritative Prophet named Mohammad. That brings us to the confession of Islamic commitment or profession: “There is no other God outside God, and Mohammad is His Prophet.”273 God cannot be compared with anything at all. God has many names in Islamic religion. He is given ninety nine names or attributes. These attributes just as in the Christian religion show the infinite nature of God, His goodness, benevolence and might. The world exists because God is al-Ghani (rich and infinite). He is al-Muhyi, (the giver of life), al-Alim, (the knower of all things), al-Kalimah, (the producer of speech), without Him there will be no life, no knowledge and no speech. He is regarded as al-Qahter, (he who dominates and he who breaks the back of his enemies), al-Basit, (he who gives abundantly) or al-Khafid, (he who brings the lowly) and ar-Rafic, (he who exults). These names play a central role in Moslem piety. They are recited, recounted on rosary beads and chanted as a mantra. This is a reminder to the Moslems that the

270 271 272 273

Ibid., 135. Klausnitzer, Jesus und Mohammad, 145. Zaki, The Qur’an and Revelation, 52. Klausnitzer, Glaube und Wissen, 109. Cf. Daniel and Bernard, A History of Judaism in Two Volumes, 320.

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God they worship cannot be contained by human categories and refuses simplistic definition.274 The message of Mohammad was like the message of the Hebrew Prophets of the Old Testament. God is one. He is all powerful. He is the creator of the universe. There is a judgement day and splendid rewards await in paradise those who carry out Gods commands and terrible punishment in hell for those who disregard them. Such was the gist of his message.275

2.3.5 The Five Pillars of Islam Islam sees no distinction between the religious and the secular. The whole life is to be lived in the presence of Allah. This is the sphere of God’s absolute claim and limitless compassion and mercy. God’s centredness is not only an inner submission to the sole Lord of the universe, but also a pattern of corporate life in accordance with God’s will. It involves both salat (worship) and falah (the good embodied in behaviour).276 Mohammad affirms: “The most important duties of the Moslems are faith in God, and His apostle Mohammad, prayer, alms-giving, fasting and pilgrimage to the sacred house of Mecca, built by Abraham for the worship of One God.”277 These are called the five pillars of Islam and every devout Moslem ought to be abiding by them in his or her life time. 2.3.5.1 Shahada (Confession of faith) The confession of faith in Islam is called: ‘Shahada’. It is implicit of the acceptance of all the teachings of Islam, including the contents of its creed. It therefore serves as a declaration of the acceptance of Islamic faith on conversion by the Moslems.278 The Moslem professes, ‘I bear witness that there is no gods, but God, and Mohammad is the messenger of God’.279 This is interpreted by the Orthodox Moslems to require not only the repudiation of all forms of polytheism, but as a strict prohibition against any representation of God. Representational art was prohibited in the mosque and generally even in the palace.280 To bear this witness is a public act and one has a new place when one is ready to give such testimony.

274 275 276 277 278 279 280

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Armstrong, A History of God, 150. Glubb, The Life and Times of Mohammad, 77. Hick, Interpretation of Religion, 48. Frankl, The Three Faces of Monotheism, 146. Anazodo, Liturgy of the Hours and Islamic Salat, 15. Al-Ráziq, The Caliphate and the Bases of Power, 25f. Silver and Martin, A History of Judaism in Two Volumes, 323.

It is the first step towards making one’s life entirely a vessel of testimony to one’s faith. It is also the first step towards martyrdom which comes from the same root (Shahada) as witness. To say that there are no gods, but God and Mohammad is the messenger of God is to underscore the powerful purity of the Islamic vision of God.281 The Shahada firstly affirms: the existence of God, His ontological unity and His unicity. Secondaly, it affirms Mohammad’s special role as chosen (Mustafa) medium through whom God discloses Himself to His creature through the Qur’an and Hadith. The first is the written revelation while the second is the oral revelation.282 It is these revelations that form the heart of Islamic profession of faith. The Shahada is the fundamental act of Islam, without the explicit and self conscious acceptance and of the rule of witness and without the explicit affirmation of the unique sovereignty of God, nothing else matters. It has not only the form of Shema, but it is based on it. The functions of the two are the same. What is involved in Shahada is a rejection of polytheism, intermediaries and association with God in popular beliefs. In Sufi mysticism, it involves the rejection of all earthly gods like wealth.283 So the profession of God and the acknowledgement of Mohammad are central to Shahada. 2.3.5.2 Salat: Daily Prayer There is no single official accepted prayer book in Islam.284 The word Salat means worship, bowing, homage and prayer. It is the most excellent way of worship in Islamic religion. It is the pillar of faith and includes within itself the invocation of God, the declaration of His transcendence and gratitude to Him. It is the rejection and renunciation of immorality and of blameworthy or insolent conduct. It is offered five times a day by the Orthodox Moslems: between dawn and sunrise (Salat al-fajr), after noon (Salat al-zuhr), before sunset (Salat al-’asr) and after sunset (Salat al-maghrib) and when night has fallen (Salat al-’isha).285 The prayer is said facing Mecca as best as can be determined.286 Prayer for a Moslem is the supplication to the Almighty God, bowing down and submitting to the creator. It is the expression of religious consciousness in which the Moslem puts 281 282 283 284 285 286

Mathewes, Understanding Religious Ethics, 69. Zaki, The Qur’an and Revelation, 43. Woodbery, Contextualization Among Muslim, 288. Anazodo, Liturgy of the Hours and Islamic Salat, 77. Ibid., 15. Mathewes, Understanding Religious Ethics, 69.

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oneself into relationship with God in the simplest and most direct way and surely in the heart and the centre of Islam.287 A Moslem has to pray at least five times a day in order to be pure. There is also midday worship on Friday,288 the religious holidays at the end of Ramadan (Eid al-fitr) at the completion of pilgrimage to Mecca. Friday is not a day of rest as Judaism and Christianity have Saturday and Sunday, but an obligatory public worship held at noon.289 Ritual prayers had been introduced by Mohammad at an early stage of his mission. These prayers were intended as tribute of praise to God and they do not include personal petitions. The ritual prayers resemble the Christian singing of Psalms, although the Moslem prayers are only said, not sung because Mohammad did not like music and he forbade it to his followers.290 The Prayer has its rituals to be observed. Before one begins to pray, one has to wash oneself symbolically. The connection between prayer and cleanliness is not superficial one, as is shown by hadith about Mohammad. He asked his companions, ‘if there was a river flowing by your house, and you bath in it five times a day, would you ever be dirty? They said ‘No’. He said, that is what prayer is. ‘Ritual prayer is the ascension of the believer’ meaning that the ritual movements of Salat can be seen as re-enacting Mohammad’s ascension to God. Regular prayer trains the individuals in certain ways and constantly calls them back to relationship with God. It recognizes the import of the community, as it is a communal exercise as well.291 The ritual prayers are divided into sections, called raka or prostrations. A prostration consists of the following procedure:

287 Ndiokwerre, The African Church Today and Tomorrow, Vol. I, 102. 288 Friday is a day of worship for the Moslems. Just as Judaism has Saturday known as Sabbath, Christianity has Sunday as a day of obligation, so is Friday for the Islamic religion. There is no specific reason for the choosing of this day as a day of worship, but Judaism and Christianity have reasons for the day of their worship. Judaism has Sabbath: Saturday to commemorate the day God rested after the creation of the world. Christians have Sunday as the day Christ Jesus resurrected from the dead. There are many reasons stated why the Moslems hold their prayers on Friday, but those reasons are speculations and can be far from the truth. But it is evident that Mohammad might have chosen this day so as to distance his religion from Judaism and Christianity and to compete with them. C.f. Goitein, Studies in Islamic History and Institutions, 111f. 289 Ibid. 290 Glubb, The Life and Times of Mohammad, 133f. 291 Mathewes, Understanding Religious Ethics, 70.

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1. The worshipper stands facing Mecca, raises one’s hands to the ears and says, Allahu akbar: God is most great. 2. The hands are then joined on the breast and the worshipper says, ‘Glory be to thee O God, Thine is the praise, blessed is Thy Name, exulted is thy Majesty and there is no god but Thee. I take refuge with God against the devil that is stone.’ 3. Then the opening chapter of the Qur’an called the fatiha is recited. It says: In the name of God the Merciful, the Compassionate, Praise be to God, the Lord of the World. The Merciful, the Compassion, Ruler of the Last day, we worship Thee and ask Thy help. Guide us in the straight path, the path of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace, not those with whom Thou art angry, nor those who have gone astray. Amen 4. A chapter of Qur’an, which the worshipper knows by heart, may be recited. (Some of the short chapters consist of only three or four lines.) 5. The worshipper says, ‘Allahu akbar’ (God is most great) and bows forward from the waist, placing the palms of the hands on the knees. In this position, he or she says three times, ‘Glory to my Lord the Great.’ 6. The standing position is then resumed, with the words, ‘God hears those who praised Him. O Lord Thine is the praise.’ 7. The worshipper then prostrates oneself, falling first on the knees and then bending the body forward until the forehead touches the ground. In this position, the following words are repeated three times, ‘Glory to my Lord the Most High.’ 8. The worshipper then straightens the body, but remains for a few seconds in a kneeling position sitting back on the heels. He or she then repeats the prostration, his or her forehead on the ground. The worshipper has now completed one rakaa.292 After this stage, one assumes the standing position and recommences at the beginning for the second rakaa. This has to be repeated at least five times a day. The number of prostration varies on different occasions. It is preceded by ritual ablution and the whole service will be terminated by two or three final prayers and a greeting of peace. The whole service does not contain a single petition, unless the phrase, ‘Guide us in the straight path’. This ritual of praise, repeated five times a day is called in Arabic Salat. A petition offered to God is called dua.293 When Moslems pray in the mosque, they form an equal mass, a compact block behind 292 Glubb, The Life and Times of Mohammad, 133f. 293 Ibid.

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the Imam (the leader).294 None bows unless the Imam bows, none prostrates unless the Imam prostrates and none moves or remains motionless unless following Imam’s example. The Imam is limited by the teachings and rules of the prayer and if he stumbles or makes mistakes in his reading or in his action, all those behind him: young boys, old men or women at prayer, have the imperative duty to tell him of his error in order to put him back on the right road during the prayer and he is bound absolutely to accept this advice and forsaking his error, returns to reason and truth.295 The external gestures help the Moslems to cultivate the internal postures and reorient their lives.296 While praying, emphasis is laid on the duty of remembering God during the busy occupation of the day. Mohammad used to say; people will not sit remembering God without the Angels surrounding them, mercy covering them, peace descending upon them and God mentioning them among those who are with Him. God also says; I am present when my servants think of me and I am with them when they remember Me. Moslems make use of ejaculatory prayers. For instance, a Moslem setting out in the morning will say, ‘O God I trust in Thee.’ When starting on a journey one will say, ‘I have placed my confidence in God’. A pious Moslem will always pray privately saying: ‘I ask pardon of God’.297 Ejaculatory prayers help one to be before God who is powerful and ready to protect those who seek refuge in Him. The purpose of prayers is not only words or movements; rather their aim is to direct the whole person, heart, mind and body at the same time towards Allah.298 One morning he said that he visited Jerusalem and was accompanied by Gabriel. When he reached Jerusalem, he found Abraham, Moses and Jesus waiting for him, they prayed together. Tradition relates that from Jerusalem, he mounted up to the seven heavens, where he met Adam, Noah, Moses, Abraham and Jesus. He passed beyond them, until even where the Archangel Gabriel dare not go further, he was allowed a glimpse of paradise.299 He said that he had this encounter when he was in prayer. Ever since Mohammad began reciting the formal prayers, he had faced towards Jerusalem, for Jerusalem was the Holy City of his religious friends,

294 The Imam is referred as the leader of prayer in the mosque and he can be the community leader. 295 Al-Banna, Islam and the Modern State, 62. 296 Armstrong, A History of God, 142. 297 Glubb, The Life and Times of Mohammad, 134f. 298 Qutb, Social Justice in Islam, 57. 299 Glubb, The Life and Times of Mohammad, 134f.

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the Jews and the Christians. In the later development of his religion, instead of directing his followers to face Jerusalem, he ordered them to be facing Mecca. The facing of Mecca in prayer is one of the moves that assert the autonomy of Islam in history. The interconnection of prayer with other important aspects of Moslem faith is captured in the saying: prayer carries us half way to God; fasting brings us to the door of His praises; almsgiving procures for us admission 300 into His presence. 2.3.5.3 Zakat al Fitr (to thrive or to be pure) – Almsgiving Zakat is the religious obligation for the Moslems. Whoever offers prayer but does not pay Zakat, the persons prayer is in vain.301 Almsgiving is of great importance in all the three monotheistic religions (Deut. 15:11, Prov. 19:17), (Matt. 6:1–4; 25:35–46) and (sura 9:60).302 It is the responsibility laid on the Moslems to give alms. In one aspect, it is a form of worship, in another, it is a social responsibility. The word ‘Zakat’ means purification and growth. It is purification of the conscience and of the moral sense. It purifies the soul and the heart from the natural instinct of avarice. It is the purification of property, by paying what is due after which its possession is legal.303 It is a religious duty that the faithful are expected to fulfill. The fulfillment of this duty is obligatory or mandatory. This is well specified in the Qur’an, sura 2:177. Moslems donate a regular proportion of their goods to others less fortunate than they are. The idea is that almsgiving purifies and loosens the attachment to material treasures and pleasures and help those who are in need. And by tending to other people’s need, one is genuinely forced to help them. The practice of Zakat loosens the bonds that tie humans to the worldly possessions and wealth and calls their attention away from the goods to focus on the people, thereby realigning their values and vision.304 This shows that through Zakat, one gives precedence to human being over material goods. The obligatory charity of Zakat comes at the end of the month of Ramadan. The purpose is to purify one who has fasted from any type of indecent act or speech that one might have committed while fasting. It is used to help the poor and the needy. Through Zakat, the messenger of Allah enjoins on the one who fasts to shield one from any indecent act or speech and for the purpose of providing food 300 301 302 303 304

Esposito and Mogahed, Who Speaks for Islam?, 14. Chapra, The Islamic Welfare State, 243f. Woodbery, Contextualization Among Muslim, 299. Qutb, Social Justice in Islam, 162. Mathewes, Understanding Religious Ethics, 71.

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for the needy.305 In Islamic tradition, one has to give out of love for Allah to the neighbour, the orphans, the needy and the way-farers or slaves. It is an essential duty for a Moslem to give 2.5% of one’s cash balance to the poor and the needy in the society. At the end of the Ramadan fast, Moslems pay a charity called zakatu, in order that the poor may share in the festivities marking the end of the fasting.306 Those who have right to Zakat are: 1, those who possess less than statutory amount and those overburdened with debt. 2, the destitutes, they should have more than the poor. 3, those employed on the Tax itself. 4, People whose hearts are to be reconciled: those who have recently entered Islam so as to strengthen them in their faith. 5, slaves to be ransomed or set free (this practice is no longer obtainable). 6, debtors: people whose wealth is submerged by debt. 7, in the way to Allah: equipping a military expedition, caring for the sick, teaching the ignorant and helping those in needs. It covers all social work in every country. 8, the wayfarer: one who carries no money and has no money to spend. These are the refugees in time of war raiding and persecution.307 There are two times to pay Zakat al-Fitr. It is paid either one or two days before the Eid, or the day of the Eid before the Eid prayer. The Prophet ordered that Zakat al-Fitr should be paid before the performance of the Eid prayer. He says: “If one pays Zakat al-Fitr before the Salat, it is considered an accepted Zakat, if one pays it after the Salat, it is considered an ordinary charity.308 The Qur’an in support of Zakat al Fitr says: “Give to others out of what God has provided you for assistance” (36:47).309 Withholding the Zakat is a form of polytheism and of unbelief in the world to come: “And woe to the polytheists who do not pay the Zakat and do not believe in the world to come (46:5–6), but the payment of the Zakat is a method of gaining the mercy of Allah.”310 This idea of the Zakat may lead many into life of laziness and at the same time impoverish the nation. But Islam has a synthesis of two points of insistence; first that every individual shall work as far as he can and shall not rely on social assistance while remaining idle oneself; and second, that the needy must be helped to avoid destitution, in order to relieve them of the weight of necessity and the pressure of need and set them free for a nobler form of life.311

305 306 307 308 309 310 311

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Oladeinde, Prophet Muhammad on Zakat-ul-Fitr and Eid, 46. Ndiokwerre, The African Church Today and Tomorrow, Vol. I, 100f. Qutb, Social Justice in Islam, 165f. Oladeinde, Prophet Muhammad on Zakat-ul-Fitr and Eid, 46. Esposito and Mogahed, Who Speaks for Islam?, 15. Qutb, Social Justice in Islam, 98. Ibid., 167.

2.3.5.4 Ramadan (Fasting) Fasting is associated with Abrahamic religions. The prominent figures in Judaism and Christianity fasted for many days in preparation for their supernatural undertakens.312 Moses, Elijah and Jesus Christ fasted forty days and nights (Deut.9:9, 18; 1Kgs. 19:8; Lk.4:1–2).313 In Islam, Ramadan is a time for physical discipline and spiritual reflection. During Ramadan, Moslems abstain from food, drink and sexual activity from dawn to dusk. They spend time in religious reflections and prayers; perform good works and distribute alms to help the less fortunate.314 The feast is in commemoration of the Holy Month in which the Qur’an was revealed to Mohammad. The faithful are expected to fast from dawn to dusk, but the sick, infants and nursing mothers are exempted. Fasting, as the exercise of self-control, stands out as a negative type of worship of temporal deprivation.315 The Moslems have the conception that all sins are forgiven to those who keep Ramadan out of sincere faith and hoping for a reward from God. Ramadan has developed the meaning of contrition and forgiveness. When it begins, the gates of heaven are open and the gates of hell closed.316 It is a bodily and moral exercise and spiritual purification, for persistence in physical desire prevents the acquisition of the divine inspiration and the pleasure of communion with God. So God made this devotion as a means to strengthen the body, the mind and the spirit.317 Ramadan gives the worshippers a sense of spiritual pleasure, the extent of which one alone appreciates. Fasting is of medical value and when the worshipper suffers the pangs of hunger, he or she appreciates the hardship suffered by the poor and becomes more sympathetic with their plight.318 Ramadan is a joyous and a holy time, a time when one remembers the real pleasures of life and scrapes away the dead layers of merely fleshly pleasure. It is not fixed to any one natural season. The feast tends to alter one’s pattern of living, and to break out from usual pattern, reset one’s mind and reorient one to God. It reminds us of upra-temporal human aims.319 The month of Ramadan ends with one of the two major Islamic 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319

Goitein, Studies in Islamic History and Institutions, 90. Woodbery, Contextualization Among Muslim, 301. Esposito and Mogahed, Who Speaks for Islam?, 14. Ndiokwerre, The African Church Today and Tomorrow, Vol. I, 107. Woodbery, Contextualization Among Muslim, 302. Jansen, The Interpretation of the Koran in Modern Egypt, 79. Ndiokwerre, The African Church Today and Tomorrow, Vol. I, 107. Mathewes, Understanding Religious Ethics, 71.

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feasts (Eids): the festival of breaking the Fast, called Eid as-Fitr. The celebration resembles Christmas in its spirit of religious, special celebration and gift-giving.320 At the end of the Ramadan Zakat al Fitr is paid as a mandatory responsibility to help the poor. 2.3.5.5 Al – Hajj (Pilgrimage) Al-hajj is to make a religious journey to Mecca and precisely to Ka’aba, the very house of worship for Moslems on earth. It is a holy outing in the strict sense and an act of worship with many rituals and obligations.321 All Meccans are proud of Ka’aba, which was the most important holy place in Arabia. Each year all the Arabs from all over the peninsula make the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, performing the traditional rites over the period of several days.322 Moslems are encouraged to make this pilgrimage, at least once in their lives. It is obligatory, provided you have the financial means. It is a commemoration of the sacrifice story of Abraham taken to be a representative of the true faithful and the centre-piece of Moslem’s life. It is a focus of asceticism and to emphasize the pilgrimage character of the moral struggle and the life of Moslems.323 The believers travel from all over the world to the city where the Prophet was born and first received God’s revelation. Here men and women are seen wearing simple coverings to symbolize purity, unity and equality. They participate in the rituals that re-enact the key religious events.324 The essence of the pilgrimage to Mecca is to make the life of the pilgrim simple and devoted to worship and contemplation.325 They remember Mohammad, but the rites performed in this pilgrimage have been interpreted to remind them of Abraham, Hager and Ishmael rather than the Prophet. These rites are unleashed expression of the communal and personal aspect of Islamic spirituality.326 Hajj is the fulfillment of the Moslems’ intention that faces Mecca while they pray. “The faithful Moslems pray five times a day towards Mecca, but the Hajj takes them where their body has been aimed and then returns them to their everyday lives, with everything the same, yet everything transformed. It reminds the faithful once in a life time, that every human on earth is a pilgrim, going 320 321 322 323 324 325 326

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Esposito and Mogahed, Who Speaks for Islam?, 15. Ndiokwerre, The African Church Today and Tomorrow, Vol. I, 112f. Armstrong, A History of God, 135. Mathewes, Understanding Religious Ethics, 72. Esposito and Mogahed, Who Speaks for Islam?, 16. Ndiokwerre, The African Church Today and Tomorrow, Vol. I, 113. Armstrong, A History of God, 156.

towards a day of judgement at the end of time. So we are pilgrims on our way to a heavenly home.”327 At the end of the five days’ Hajj, Moslems all over the world celebrate Eid al-Adha, the Festival of sacrifice commemorating when God sent Abraham a ram as a substitute to sacrifice for his son. This is the time of grand celebration for Moslem families, just as the Jews and the Christians in their celebration of Hanukkah and Christmas come together to visit and exchange gifts.328 The Hajj offers each individual Moslem the experience of personal integration in the context of the ummah, with God at its centre. The creation of the feeling of the community and the intermingling of the people during this pilgrimage can lead to the spread of new ideas and have much political significance.329 Peace and harmony are important pilgrimage themes and once the pilgrims have entered the sanctuary, violence of any kind or harsh words are forbidden.330

327 328 329 330

Mathewes, Understanding Religious Ethics, 72. Esposito and Mogahed, Who Speaks for Islam?, 16. Insoll, The Archeology of Islam, 111. Armstrong, A History of God, 157.

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Chapter 3: African Traditional Religions and Igbo Objects of Worship 3. Introduction African traditional religions are the religions in Africa before the coming of the Europeans. Most times many writers see the religions in Africa as homogenous while others see them in plurality. In this chapter, we shall concentrate on the belief in African religions, explain why they are ‘religions’ and not ‘religion’ in homogenous sense, and narrow it down to Igbo religion: an ethnic group in Nigeria. We shall look into the general understanding of belief in African religions, their foundation and present the factors that make them impossible to trace the origin of these religions and why they have no sacred writings. We shall look in-depth the Igbo people, discuss the objects of their belief and see how they affect the people’s ways of life. In Igbo traditional religion, Chukwu is the Supreme God whose power and might is without equal. People come to know about Him through various means. The knowledge of God is preserved and expressed in proverbs, short statements, songs, prayers, names, myths, stories and religious ceremonies. They are easily preserved and passed on to others.1 These have sustained the religions before the introduction and the development of writing as a means of preserving and documenting peoples’ ways of life and their religious beliefs. In Africa, God is worshipped as the Supreme Being and He has no equal. There are other created spirits that help to discharge the duty of governing the world. These spirits are assigned various functions and are called the divinities or the deities.2 These divinities in the forms of the gods and the goddesses are: the

1 2

Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy, 29. Divinities or Deities: Bolaji Idowu uses Deity to refer to the Supreme Being and Ikenga-Metuh uses deities to refer to the divinities. These have the same meanings. Metuh argues that he prefers not to use the word deities for it seems to evoke the image of the Graeco-Roman polytheism in which the gods were autonomous entities and operate independently of any superior force. In contrast, African deities have been variously described as sons, servants’ manifestation, and refraction of the Supreme Being. African religion is not polytheism in the Graeco-Roman sense. Emefie Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 65.

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Earth, the Heaven, the Sun, the Thunder or Lightening and many other small deities who are man-made. They are venerated and not worshipped. The Sun is given respect as the symbol of God,3 but not God. In Igbo traditional religion, outside God, the divinities and the deities, there are the ancestors. The ancestors have a prominent place in the life of the Igbo. The people sacrifice to them and revere them. “The ancestors are not worshipped”4, rather they are venerated. We shall discuss how these Spiritual realities affect the lives of the people.

3.1 African Traditional Religions There has been argument whether the name African traditional religion or religions is most suitable for African religions as a whole or not. Many scholars are divided as regards this opinion. The first camp maintains that African religions are not homogenous and should be treated not in singular but in plural. The second group maintains that the religion is homogenous and should be treated in singular because it has only one object of worship: the Supreme Being. The first camp led by John Mbiti and Tim Wood, argue that, one cannot safely treat African religions in singular; rather, in plural because of the cultural, ethnic and religious differences. Tim Wood argues: One can hardly take African religions homogenously; one needs to recognize the plurality of cultural experiences. But scholars like Aylward Shorter, Bolaji Idowu and Emefie Ikenga-Metuh5 took a uniform position that the religions ought to be referred in singular, for there are so many similarities as regards the belief in different communities. Bolaji Idowu is of the view that African traditional religion stem from one religious tradition and therefore should be addressed in singular irrespective of cultural and linguistic differences. He argues: “The fact that the black Africa comes from one common stock argues the fact that they must retain certain common racial traits as well as similar

3 4 5

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Kirwen, The Missionary and the Diviner, 5. Umeh, African Theology of Solidarity, 20. Isizoh, Christianity in Dialogue with ATR and Culture, 85. Ikenga-Emefie argues: “According to the synod, there seem to be sufficient common features in traditional religion in Africa to justify the usage of the appellation “African Traditional Religion”, in the singular. It points out that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish in this religion what pertains to religion and what pertains to the culture. The same vernacular term often covers the two. It is a religion which involves the totality of life.” He speaks here, the oneness of African culture and tradition and therefore argues that they should be regarded in singular.

cultural and religious beliefs.”6 Although they were separate and self contained systems, they interact with one another and influence one another to different degrees. This justifies one using the term African Traditional Religion in singular to refer to the whole of African religious phenomena, even if we are in fact dealing with a multiplicity of theology.7 If one were to speak of African Traditional Religion (ATR) in plural one main distinction would be between people who worship nature gods and those who do not.8 African religious landscape is pluralistic, formed by cultural cosmologies and belief systems.9 Africa is a continent with many people of different cultural heritages, traditions, social and political ideologies, mentalities and with different geographical locations. Africa is hardly what one might call homogenous because of many differences in the continent. The cultures and histories are neither continuous nor uninterrupted. One needs to recognize the plurality of the cultural experiences when dealing with Africa as a whole.10 At times, some think that Africa is a community with one culture, one religion and one language.11 Emmanuel Obuna writes: “…given the vastness of the African continent, and the great diversity of its people, it would be more correct to talk about African cultures rather than an African culture.”12 The cultures and the traditions of the people form a single unit in interpreting people’s way of life. There are different cultures and traditions in African. This is evidence of plurality rather than unicity. “In view of the great diversity of population groups, cultures and historical influences in Africa, one cannot speak of Africa as a homogenous whole.”13 Yes Africa is larger than many people think. 6 7 8 9 10 11

Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 17. Shorter, African Christian Theology, 1. Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 21. Abusharaf, Gender, Justice and Religion in Sub-Sahara Africa, 134. Wood, African Past, Memory and History in African Literature, 111. Most people think that Africa is a village, without knowing that it is a continent. When some people in Europe hear that you come from Africa, they presume that you must know all from Africa. Emmanuel Obuna narrates his experience: “I am a Nigerian, but when some in Europe heard that I came from Africa, they started asking me of their friends who came from Kenya or Tanzania. One told me that he can speak African language. It took me several hours to try to explain to him that in Nigeria only, we have over 250 languages. He could not understand it because of his conception and what they were told about Africa.” Obuna, African Priest and Celibecy, 28f. 12 Ibid., 29. 13 Verstraelen, Ghana, Western Africa: Between Traditional and Modern, 65.

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When we talk about African Traditional Religions, we mean that there are many religions in Africa. But when we talk about African traditional religion, we mean that it is a religion where one can speak of one indigenous religion for the whole of Africa. It becomes a religion with the same founder and practiced by the same group of people with the same historical origin and people who speak the same language. In Africa, people believe differently because of the divergencies in their religious beliefs. To attest for the uniformity or the plurality of African traditional religious worship, we have to address these questions: is the religion in Africa one or many? Is the religion in Africa uniformly practiced by different cultural and ethnic communities or is there diversity in unity or unity in diversity? One cannot give an authentic answer to these questions if one is not well informed about Africa, their ways of life, their modes of worship, the various cultures and the traditional institutions of their religious and political leadership. Following the multiplicity of African cultural heritage, the different ideologies, traditions, political, social and religious differences, we cannot comfortably say that there is a religion called African Traditional Religion, rather there are many religions in Africa. The coined word negritude aptly expresses this. The word negritude expresses aptly that there is a common Africanness about the total culture and religious beliefs and practices of Africans,14 but this does not make it to be uniform or for them to have the same origin and the same mode of worship. Bolaji Idowu writes: “There is a common Africanness about the total culture and religious beliefs and practices of Africa. This may be due to the fact that most Africans share common origin with regard to race and customs and religious practices.”15 Some of these similarities listed above can also be accidentals that have nothing to do with cultural, religious or traditional origin. Accidental beliefs ought not to justify African religions as homogenous. Certain beliefs and customs consistently found in most of African religions are: beliefs such as monotheistic creator God, lineage ideology, and nominal reincarnation; cultures such as polygyny16, divination, widow inheritance, witchcraft17 and even the mode of sacrifice. These beliefs are evident when the societies are living in the state of nature.

14 Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 18. 15 Idowu, African Traditional Religion: A Definition, 103. 16 Polygyny, the word is from Greek poly, meaning many and gyny meaning woman or wife. It is a form of marriage in which a man is allowed to marry many wives. It is the most common form of polygamy. 17 Kirwen, The Missionary and the Diviner, introduction, xvi.

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It is pertinent to talk about African religions in plural, because it is a collection of different autonomous and independent religions each having its particular mode of worship. Some of these religious traditional worships are incomprehensible when one is not born or groomed in them. It is good to speak about these religions in plural form. The pluralistic hypothesis about the cultural relativity of religious truth-claim and that one’s religious disposition are primarily set according to one’s social cultural environment.18 The linguistic and cultural barriers and the religious and social barriers make it impossible to talk about the unitary or the homogenous aspect of religions in Africa. It is safe and more comfortable to talk about them in plural because of these differences in the traditional and cultural lives of the people. When we talk about ATR, we mean the religions in Africa before the advent of Christianity and Islam and also before the advent of European invasion of African continent. The religions were then practiced without bias, prejudice, segregation and animosity though in a crude form. There were excesses in worldly religions, but these were inevitably refined with time. What we know today as ‘African traditional religion’ was first coined by the outsiders who were the earlier casual observers: European travelers, business explorers and missionaries. It is quite unfortunate that some of them wrote with bias and prejudice. They presented the religions as unitary without consideration of the differences, because they saw the black race as one. Some of them were only involved in an armchair research as seen in their conclusions about African religions. In their research they often left the important aspects of African cultures and religions and made caricature of the African, precisely in those moments in life when the African sets in motion the most genuine values. They analyzed the external in order to amuse their listeners, but missed the core of the religious aspect of the Africans. They made a great deal of the shadow, but left out the substance which counts in religious analysis. They confused symbols to what is symbolized and thus arrived at absurd conclusions of the belief in Africa. They elevated magic, sorcery, conjuration (or voodooism) and animal or human sacrifice, as the essence of African religion. Focusing on the strange, the bizarre and the sensational, they trivialized the religion and thus could be accused of sacrilege.19 They presented some negative aspects of these in order to make their stories interesting to their listeners. Because of their ignorance of African culture and civilization, which they termed barbaric, pagan and evil, they failed to grasp the true nature of

18 Mbogu, Christology and Religious Pluralism, 71. 19 Ehusani, An Afro-Christian Vision “Ozovehe”, 77f.

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the traditional African religion.20 Bolaji Idowu writes: “For the Western world, Africa was such a physically and spiritually dark continent that nothing good could reside in, or come out of her. This concretizes the question some posit: ‘Can anything good come from Africa?’ Indigenous African to them was barren of culture or any form of social organization. If anything in her could be called religion at all, it could only be because in Africa the Devil in all his abysmal, grotesque and forbidden features, blackest of aspect, armed to the teeth and with hors complete, held sway. Naturally then, all rituals had to be propitiatory and of the crudest and most fantastic nature. And of course all worshippers of such a power must take after their own ‘god’ in character and manners of life.”21 This shows the prejudice of the researchers who came to study Africa. Some even think that the people are sub-human beings and they make caricature of their ways of life. People with such mentality and approach will find it difficult to write positive things about the cultures and the traditional life pattern of the people. Adrian Hastings writes: “When the European came to Africa what struck them undoubtedly was the darkness of the continent: its lack of religions, and sound morals, its ignorance, its general pitiful condition made waste by the barbarity of the slave trade. Evangelization was seen as liberation from the state of absolute awfulness and the picture of unredeemed Africa was often painted in colourful as gruesome as possible the better to encourage missionary zeal at home.”22 They were prejudiced and cannot present positive things about the religion and the culture of the people. Such approach to the study of religion lacks understanding, openness and sympathy. When there is no understanding, openness and sympathy, it is detrimental to the religion studied, and inevitably, leads the hearers’ astray. They study African religion with Eurocentric23 mentality without knowing that the religions and the cultures in Africa are quite different from European culture and tradition. African cultures and traditions can never be unitary with European religion and culture. They studied the religion from outside 20 21 22 23

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Ogbaa, Understanding Things Fall Apart, 12. Idowu, African Traditional Religion: A Definition, 86f. Hastings, Church and Mission in Modern Africa, 60. Ehusani, An Afro-Christian Vision “Ozovehe”, 112. Ethnocentric is the psychological and philosophical framework which projects European-white-Caucasian people, their history culture, philosophy values etc, as the centre of the universe on which all else depend and around which all else revolve. Piero Gheddo calls this frame of mind a mania, and he says Europeans and Euro-Americans will begin to understand something about the ‘third world’ when they are freed from their ethnocentricism, Gheddo, Why is the Third World Poor? 41.

and not from African perspective. They employed Eurocentric methods to analyze and study black people,24 without knowing that the mentalities of the people are not the same. Such approach will yield negative result because of the wrong approach, methodology and application. Traditions, cultures and the religions of the people are always intertwined. They cannot be properly studied unless it is studied from within. It is only those who are prepared to allow the truth to reveal itself to them and those who are prepared to enter into the feelings of the worshippers, as much as possible, ‘sit where they sit’, ‘walk around with them’ and ‘eat what they eat’ that can make any profitable study of the traditions and the religions of the people. It is only in this way that a scholar can appreciate the genius of a religion as known to the worshippers. Religion therefore must be seen in terms of its own perspective; otherwise what is studied cannot be the real thing.25 There are some European writers who wrote with sympathy as regards African religions. John Mbiti observes on Geoffrey Parrinder’s: “The writer is both sympathetic and critical, and handles his materials from many parts of Africa in a simple but scholarly way…. Taylor was too sympathetic to African culture but sufficiently critical, but nevertheless says that from the point of view of Christian contact with African traditional world, ‘this is the best study so far.’”26 These show that, though there are some who studied the religions with prejudice, does not justify that all Europeans who had contact with Africa, or those who studied African traditional religions are predjudiced. Those who studied it with open mindedness have made their positive contributions. There are some who studied the religions from within and they have made their positive contributions toward the growth of the religions. Among them are African contemporary writers, who have contributed immensely towards the development and the study of African religions. These people are: John Mbiti, Bolaji Idowu, Emefi Ikenga Metuh, Luke Mbefo and many others. They have succeeded in giving African religions honour, dignity, relevance and integrity. The best account of African religions practiced in any community are those written by authorities who have stayed long enough with the group that they have not only learnt their language and culture, but also shared their lives and lived in the traditional society.27 These people succeeded because they studied the religions from within and presented what those who studied them externally could not see and what they could have presented 24 25 26 27

Asante, Afrocentricity, 8f. Idowu, African Traditional Religion: A Definition, 17. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy, 16. Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 38.

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to the world which they did not present. These African theologians presented what they know and not what they heard, they wrote what they experienced and not what they were told. They wrote to inform the people about African religions and not to taunt the people or amuse the listeners. They presented the true picture of African religions because they are involved in the religions. They are Africans who were influenced by the religions of their environments: they were born and brought up in these religions. One is always fashioned by the religion of one’s tribe. John Mbiti writes: “Even within Africa itself, religion takes a different form according to different tribal settings. For that reason, a person from one setting cannot automatically and immediately adjust himself to or adopt the religious life of other African peoples in a different setting.”28 That is why the religions are autonomous. Conversion to another religion can be seen as an imposition to Africans from the European religious mentality. In Africa, one practices one’s religion without any interference from the people or from the group of the people. Each is entitled to worship one’s gods or goddesses as one chooses. This does not mean that one should defy other people’s worship or gods. When one does that, one stands the risk of facing the anger of the entire community or the gods. This pluralistic approach to religion does not mean a diversity of fundamental belief of religion. Their basic world view is the same, but their approaches differ. One can speak convincingly from the religion where one is born and can compare them with the religions of the other tribal religions around. They could arrive at the conclusion because the differences found among them are not many, but that does not make the religions to be the same, just as Judaism, Christianity and Islam have the same notion of God but are different religions. African Traditional Religions have differences that can be found in people’s mentalities, their ways of expressions and their cultural differences. The differences are based on distinctive life style of the people. These life styles affect their religious symbols.29 Every religious life and symbol in African is based in a community. It is a community oriented religion and through it one finds that he or she is part of the community and cannot do without the community. People are held together by the community. The individual is subsumed in the community’s religious interest but he/she does not loose one’s autonomy. To be human is to belong to the community and to participate in the beliefs, ceremonies, rituals, and festivals of that community. A person cannot detach oneself from the religion or the group. To do so is to be severed from one’s root, foundation, context 28 Mbiti, An Introduction to African Traditional Religion, 13. 29 Magesa, African Religion, the Moral Traditions of Abundant Life, 17.

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of security, kinship and the entire group who make the person aware of one’s existence. To be political in Africa is also to be religious.30 Therefore to be without a religion amounts to self excommunication from the entire life of the society and the people do not know how to exist without religion.31 No African will like to live a life that is devoid of God and others. The religions in Africa are diversified, but they are also unified in one way or the other. This is unity in diversity.

3.1.1 The Origin of African Traditional Religions The origin of many world religions and their founders are known and the Abrahamic or monotheistic religions have history of their foundations and the names of the people who found and gave them religious undertone. These religions have their Sacred Scriptures as their sources of authority. They wrote how their religions were inspired and how they were brought into existence. In the case of African religions, it is not so, because of its wide horizon, cultural differences and religious diversities. The religions lack written documentation and literacy. For the survival of the religions, all were dependant on oral traditions. The authenticity of this oral tradition is sometimes doubtful because most of them are founded on myths and speculations of the people. In the system where oral tradition is institutionalized, what is transmitted is most times not authentic, because, along the line of transmission, some vital information could be lost through generational process. As regards the founders of African traditional religions, John Mbiti writes: “African Religions have no founders or reformers. They may incorporate national heroes, leaders, rulers and other famous men and women into their body of beliefs and mythologies. Some of these figures are elevated to the high national positions and may be regarded as divinities responsible for natural objects or phenomena. These heroes and heroines form an integral part of religious milieu of their society, whether or not they played a specifically religious role in their time.”32 They could be associated with the ancient mythological Roman and Greek gods and goddesses. The religions are embedded in the social, religious and political lives of the people and it is very difficult to obtain changes in the wholistic lives of the people. Changes affecting African religions spring up out of the historical changes in the lives of the people concerned. For example where one society 30 Okolo, The African Synod: Hope for the Continent’s Liberation, 46. 31 Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy, 2. 32 Ibid., 4.

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fought and conquered another and ruled it, no doubt the religious life of the conquerors often left its mark on the life of the conquered people. Where a strong king or chief wished to see new ceremonies or sacrifices made, he in no doubt made it obligatory for them to be introduced. In time of danger, religious activities are revived in order to meet the needs of the time. Changes come to African Religions from place to place and from time to time, through leading personalities, the intermingling of the people and through natural necessities.33 Any person who tries to bring abrupt change into the religion is considered as the one who fights the tradition of the land. Changes sometimes occur, but it takes time because the people are always conservative to their religions.

3.1.2 Lack of Written Materials in African Traditional Religions The introduction of writing materials or written documentation is a later development in some parts of Africa. This makes it impossible to trace out when the religions started and those who gave them foundational religious tenets or to identify the real doctrinal tenets, the dogmas, and the theologies or theologians. The religions have no scriptures of their own, no ancient texts, and no old expressions of faith which will reveal what it was like.34 Everything is based on oral tradition. The theologies and the dogmas of the religions are written in the hearts of the people. It was enshrined in the customs, traditions, cultures, festivals, myths, legends, proverbs and the sayings of the people.35 One does not need to teach the African the necessity of religion, because the person has directly or indirectly learnt it in the community and in association with the elders. The religions point towards the existence of God in practical ways. To talk about the non-existence of God is meaningless, because one learnt it from infancy that all human existence depends on the Supreme Being. The assertion of Friedrich Nietzsche ‘God is dead’ in the book of ‘The Gay of Science’36 is meaningless to a typical African religious believer. Though the 33 34 35 36

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Ibid., 15. Parrinder, Religion in Africa, 8. Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 38. The death of God by Nietzsche is described as a story of a hunting man with a lantern in a bright morning looking for God. He was met with ridicule. He concludes that he had come too early that the news of God’s death has not yet reached humanity, even though they have killed him. This means that the belief in God has become unbelievable. William Bernard, ed. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, with a prelude in German, xii. For him without God the society will enjoy freedom determined by ones will to power. Rhythm and an Appendix of Songs, xii.

African does not see God, but one knows that God exists. Nietzsche’s frustration made him to suggest that men need politicians and revolutionary preachers with or without repentance.37 Such a revolution is impossible in Africa, for there is always need for repentance. The world without God or repentance is impossible. God is spirit and His being speaks for itself. The theology of the death of God is simply a laughing matter to the African. Life itself is a supreme evidence of the existence of God38 who creates, the God who saves and the God who will redeem. Thomas Aquinas proof of the existence of God is an affirmation of what African knows already. The dogma of the religion is enshrined in the rules of conduct known as Nso Ala (what is forbidden) among the Igbo people.39 These are written not in the books or stones, but in the hearts of the people. The people learnt them consciously or unconsciously from their infancy and they become their ways of lives. Emefie Ikenga-Metuh writes: “Devoid of a written language and trained theologians, Igbo traditional religion has not developed a systematic theodicy. God is rather conceived in terms of His activities and His relationship with the universe, the world of the living and the underworld.”40 For Africans, God is not only a theoretical God, but a practical God. He is not only in a speculative or written form, but the people live and associate with Him in their daily lives. Judaism, Christianity and Islam have their sacred books. It is in these sacred scriptures that their dogmatic tenets and the inspirations are written. But that is not so with African religions. Africans rather confined their religious institutions, their rites and rituals into oral tradition41 and most times, oral tradition lacks durability and authenticity. The religion for the Igbo is written in the history: Igbo calendar and events of the people, the hearts and the experience of the people. Having no sacred scriptures, it has moved with the times and has produced no religious controversies or heresies with the believers. People are free to hold different views and beliefs without the danger of being accused of heresy or falsehood.42 The religion is not proclaimed rather it is lived by the people. One finds it very difficult to study African traditional religions because of the lack of written sources. At times people who write on African traditional religions have to be involved extensively in dialoging with the people to dig out information

37 38 39 40 41 42

Nietzsche, The Gay Science (The Joyful Wisdom), 22. Ehusani, Ozovohi, 209. Ikwuagwu, Initiation in African Traditional Religion, 24. Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 45. Oral tradition will be treated extensively later. Mbiti, An Introduction to African Religion, 15.

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from the bounty of the people’s hearts and minds and also to penetrate into the oral tradition of the people. In Africa, the lives of the people are filled with religious activities and every body is known as a religious carrier, but religious personages like the priests, the elders and even the kings are the authoritative dispensers and the harbingers of the religious beliefs. Therefore in studying religious beliefs, one has to study not only the belief concerning God and the spirits, but the religious journey of the individual from birth to death and the persons responsible for the common rituals and ceremonies.43 People in various religious departments transmit religious beliefs that are handed over to them to their successors in order to achieve continuity. This process of handing over has kept the religious practices alive and active. Though one cannot authentically say that what was transmitted or handed over is not devoid of falsehood or error. In commenting about the documentation of the religion, Onwumere Ikwuagwu writes: “Documentation is beyond the level of material writings. This religion, with its doctrine, liturgy, ritual values are documented and preserved in various ways, namely in signs, symbols, music and dances, prayers, ejaculations, proverbs and riddles, customs and beliefs, names of persons and places, rituals, festivals, shrines, sacred places and works of art.”44 This is true, but his argument hinges not on the lack of written documentation, but on documentation. The religions are documented, but not in a written form. The documentation in African traditional religions before the coming of the Europeans is only in oral and perceptive forms as he narrated, but they were not written down. Bolaji Idowu summes it up in affirmation: “These oral traditions of the people constitute the scriptures as well as the breviaries of African traditional religions: therefore no one can expect to see the religions from inside unless he sees through them. They are, in fact, probably of more value to the student than some printed scriptures and common orders, because they are indeed ‘living and active’.”45 Religions in oral societies are primarily a question of human feelings rather than of thought and such feelings remain the characteristic of the religions. Religious worship has to do with awe, which is not simply fear of the divine, but a compound of feelings involving wonders, admirations and love.46 African religions lacked scientific writings, but they preserved their values and transmitted them from generation to generation. 43 44 45 46

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Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy, 3f. Ikwuagwu, Initiation in African Traditional Religion, 27. Idowu, African Traditional Religion: A Definition, 85. Cunningham, Religion and Magic, Approach and Theory, 24.

The religions are insinuated into the lives of the people. They are born into the religion, live and practice the religion. John Mbiti remarks: “African religion is an essential part of the way of life of each people. Its influence covers all of life, from before the birth of a person to long after he has died. People find it useful and meaningful in their lives, and therefore, they let it spread freely. They teach it informally to their children through conversation, proverbs and myths, as well as through practices. Young people also learn about it through participating in religious activities such as ceremonies, festivals, rituals and so on.”47 Religion is part and parcel of African way of life. George Ehusani writes: “The growing child does not have to be formally taught there is God, as indeed the Fanti proverb says: ‘No one teaches a child God’. The child catches religion as he or she grows up – from the language, the songs, the names of the people and places, the proverbs, the folklores; from the ceremonies and festivals, and from the general beliefs and customs. African religions are written in the lives of the people.”48 They are expressed in the lives of the people and that is the secret of their survival. It is difficult to trace their origins, since they are devoid of authentic history and Sacred Scriptures. The origin of African Religion is as old as the first African and the first Africa is its founder.49 Since it is impossible to trace the founder of the religions in Africa we can safely conclude that the founders of African traditional religions are beyond scientific research and their tenets can then authoritatively hinge on oral tradition. This oral tradition states five componental elements in the religions of Africa. They are: belief in God, belief in the divinities, belief in the spirits, belief in the ancestors, and the practice of magic and medicine.50 These characterize the religions in Africa, in Nigeria and in Igboland.

3.2 The Country Nigeria Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa with over 160 Million inhabitants. The country is located in the West African region. It is bordered to the South by the Bights of Benin which are on the gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean. On the West, it is bordered by Benin, on the North by Niger, and on the East by Cameroon. In its extreme Northeast corner, Lake Chad separates Nigeria from the

47 48 49 50

Mbiti, An Introduction to African Religion, 13f. Ehusani, An Afro-Christian Vision “Ozovehe” 207f. Igwegbe, Sacramental Theological Thinking in the African Symbolic Universe, 41. Idowu, African Traditional Religion: A Definition, 139.

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country of Chad.51 Nigeria has 36 states with the capital territory Abuja making it 37. The Hausa is located in the Northern Savannah, the Yoruba in the Southwestern, the Igbo in the Southeast and with other minor tribes. The official language in Nigeria is English since 1960, because of several years with the British traders and later colonial authorities.52 The main religions in Nigeria are Christianity, Islam and the Traditional Religions that can be found in every cultural setting in Africa. Islam is concentrated in the Northern part of Nigeria. The spread of Islam from Arab countries into Northern Nigeria started in the 11th century. The reason was that most of the Islamic scholars who made their way into Northern Nigeria were merchants and traders from North Africa. Because most of their traditional rulers were converted to Islam, it paved way for their subjects. This was followed by a great jihad carried out by the founder of Sokoto Caliphate Usman dan Fodio in the 18th century aimed at the expansion of Islam.53 The Igbo people that live in the Eastern part of the country are mainly Christians with only 10% Traditional Religious worshippers. They are religious people and could be said to form the greatest majority of Christians in Nigeria and they could be found in every part of the world.54 They are scattered all over the country, that makes them often victims of the Moslem-Christian Political power game that often manifests itself in the Religious riots and mutiny in the Northern part of Nigeria. Among the Yoruba living in the West, there are the Christians, the Moslems and the Traditional Religious worshipers. Among the Hausa living in the North, there are the Moslems, the Christians and the Traditionalists, but the greater number of the people in the North are Moslems. The country has many ethnic groups with different language, religious, cultural and traditional differences. These ethnic groups are above 250 in number. The three major ethnic groups that form the greatest numbers of Nigerian population and the languages are: Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba. These ethnic groups are really distinct in all things. Their differences militate against the unity of the country Nigeria. The present day country Nigeria can be said to be very far from coherent nation. The name was known to have been suggested by Miss Flora Shaw to the British Royal Niger Company and was adopted in 1898 to designate the British

51 52 53 54

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Falola, and Heaton, A History of Nigeria, 2. Ibid., 4. Eberhard, Reisefuehrer mit Landeskunde, 40f. Idowu, African Traditional Religion: A Definition, 139.

Protectorate of the River Niger.55 The area that covers today’s Nigeria was a conglomeration of ethnic units, kingdoms and emirates. The name Nigeria which is the amalgamation of ancient independent kingdoms, Caliphates, Empires and City-states with a long history of organized societies56 was taken from the river Niger that runs through the country. Flora who suggeseted the name later became Lady Lugard, the wife of the first colonial governor elect of Nigeria.57 The name Nigeria was artificially created geo-political amalgamation between Northern and Southern protectorate founded in 1914. This amalgamation has been a source of monumental crisis for a people with divergent history, ethnicity and culture.58 Bolaji Idowu writes: “There is the bewildering situation of myriads of languages and innumerable dialects. In Nigeria there are at least two hundred and fifty languages – languages not dialects; while in each language area there are several dialects some of which are almost distinct, different languages.”59 These ethnic groups have different life pattern, religious worship and culture. They have also different religious, social and traditional ways of life. The Great Britain in order to maintain a territorial integrity of her colony through indirect rule merged the different entities in the region into a nation called Nigeria in 1914. With this formation, a central government was raised to administer the various ethnic entities together. Afterwards steps towards a common constitutionality were taken, and lasted almost till the period of self governance (independence) in 1960.60 Because of the different cultural, religious, and world view mentality of the people, Alan Burns, one time British governor in Nigeria before the independence describes Nigeria as “…kingdoms, dynasties, and units with autonomous and organized administration based on specific and independent cultural identities. They (Great Britain) made a significant mistake in taking the whole of her territories for granted as a possible nation. They did not put into consideration the diverse cultural and ethnic differences that were apparent before merging them together”.61 This mistake made by the British government has been a problem since the independence of the country Nigeria and has kept the people

55

Umeh, African Theology of Solidarity and Religion of Self-deceit, 7. The author quoted from his previous work ‘The Promotion of Human Right and Social Justice,’ 105. 56 Ibid. 57 Ojoajogwu, Social and Cultural Identity of an African Society, 23. 58 Udechukwu, The Problem with the Igbo, 11. 59 Idowu, African Traditional Religion: A Definition, 82. 60 Ojoajogwu, Social and Cultural Identity of an African Society, 23. 61 Ibid.

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aghast. The two monotheistic religions: Christianity and Islam could be found in Nigeria, but in Igboland, it is highly dominated by Christianity.

3.2.1 Who are the Igbo? The origin of the word Igbo is historically not certain.62 They are one of the major ethnic groups located in the Southeastern Nigeria. The word Igbo or Ibo can actually mean the same thing.63 The word could be used in three senses, it refers to the territorial location, to the people themselves and finally to the language of the people.64 What unifies the Igbo living in the Southern Nigeria together are: the language, the geographical location, the traditions and the cultures of the people. The aspect of Igbo identity which cannot be overlooked is the language. Linguistically, Igbo has a complicated system of tones employed to distinguish meaning and grammatical relationships.65 The language as the principle vehicle of communication transmits values of the people from generation to generation. It transmits their philosophy, their thinking pattern and their social life. It is the strong instrument for the maintenance of Igbo identity. Hence the uniqueness of the Igbo people is enhanced by their language.66 “The Igbo of the South East of Nigeria speak the same language, though with some dialectical differences. They also occupy continuous geographical delimitations of areas

62 Arinze, Sacrifice in Ibo Religion, 1f. 63 The word Igbo and Ibo are the same. It all depends on the first Europeans who were the first to write the first Igbo alphabets. The language remained unwritten until the last 1800s when white missionaries developed Igbo alphabets that enabled them to translate the Bible to Igbo language for their new converts. The alphabets have thirtysix letters instead of the twenty-six in the English alphabets. Some extra letters known as twin letters, for eg, ‘gb’ are used to represent the sound found in Igbo that are nonexistent in English. The absence of such sounds in English made it difficult for the early missionaries and British administrators in Igboland to spell many Igbo words incorrectly, including names of the towns, the language and the people whom they called the Ibo. In Igbo orthography, clusters of consonants are not found without the interpolation of vowels, except in the cases of sounds produced with twins letters (gb, gh, kp, ch, gw, kw, nw, sh and ny). The misspelling of some Igbo words in books written by white authors were forced on colonial Igbo students and writers. Even Achebe followed the British way, spelt Igbo as Ibo in ‘Things Fall Apart’. C.f., Kalu Ogbaa, Understanding Things Fall Apart, 104. 64 Uchendu, The Igbo of the Southeast Nigeria, 3. 65 Ozoigbo, Roman Catholicism in Southern Nigeria 1885–1935, 19. 66 Obiefuna, Titles and Conflict of Identity in the Igbo Christian, 63.

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that have in common the same dominant and significant cultural traits, complexes or elements that developed around socio-cultural, political, economic, ritual and other cultural themes; again with understandable varieties among the different groupings. Because of these factors, we speak of them as a single people and the territory they occupy as Igboland.”67 Elizabeth Isichei writes: “No historical question arouses more interest among present-day Igbo than the enquiry, ‘where did the Igbos come from?”68 Many people have written many contradicting history about the Igbo. All these are based on interviews or oral history of the people which is not written document. The Igbo civilization dates over 4500 years ago when it is separated from a common body of languages known as Niger-Congo. Many historical records suggest that the people known as Igbo may have migrated into the modern day Igboland from areas further North and this is collaborated with ancient Nri stories which claim affinity with the Northern group of Igala in Benue State of Nigeria.69 “The first human inhabitants of Igboland must have come from areas further north – possibly from the Niger confluence. But men have been living in Igboland for at least five thousand years, since the dawn of human history. One of the most notable facts of Igbo history is its length and continuity.”70 They have not been completely destroyed or annihilated. The states where the Igbo live include: Abia, Anambra, Eboyi, Enugu and Imo state of Nigeria. They are also found in non Igbo states, including Akwa Ibom, Delta, Port Harcourt, and Rivers. These are the areas one can point to as Igbo territories on any map of Nigeria.71 Many people have traced the origin of Igbo from many places or sources, but these are subject to criticism because they lack scientific and historical approach. The non-literary record of ancient African cultures and traditions make it difficult to ascertain the date of the origin of Igbo people. This affects not only the origin but also the means of interpreting and understanding the religious, social and political systems of the people. The only records on hand are oral history, myths and legends, all of which have been recorded in the recent times.72 These available records at hand are subject to misinterpretations and even contradictions, because some of the earlier writers of Igbo history were not Igbo, and they wrote

67 68 69 70 71 72

Uzor, The Traditional African Concept of God and the Christian Concept of God, 171. Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 3. Ndiokwere, Search for Greener Pastures, 14. Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 3. Ogbaa, Understanding Things Fall Apart, 78. Iloanusi, Myths of the Creation of Man and the Origin of Death in Africa, 67f.

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down what they heard through oral narratives which were based on here say or myths. Some Igbo authors have strong opinion that Igbo people derive their origin from the Hebrews. They link up Igbo people with the lost tribe of Israel. They come to this conclusion through some Igbo cultures and traditions which show some striking similarities with the old Hebrew culture and tradition. Some of these similarities in culture include the following; circumcision and blood sacrifice, the rites of presentation and redemption of the first born son, the inhibitions and the taboos with respect to food and drinks imposed on individuals, respect for old age, observance of new moons and harvest festivals, mourning the dead, purifications, marriage customs73 and the use of proverbs. Other cultural similarities are: seclusion of women during menstural period, seclusion of women after child birth, respect for ancestors, naming of child after specific events and causes, polygamous family nature, gender preference, industrious nature, religious nature, etc.74 They have the same regard for their communities: the Igboland and the land of Israel. A true Jew would not forget Israel: “If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand wither” (Ps.137:5). This is a great promise which means: no matter how difficulty things are, a Jew will always remember the land of Israel. No matter how rich, how poor or how difficulty things are, the true Igbo man would not forget Igboland. The people are attached to their land. While the people labour for their daily bread in a foreign land, often half of the earning goes home to the support of the family, the community and the projects at home. No matter what one amasses in a foreign land, one will not fail to appreciate building a befitting house at home: Igboland. It is in this personal and family house that one will lay in state, if one dies in the place of the sojourn and is brought back for burial. If one has not enough money for the bringing of the corpse back home, one’s people around will organize and send the corpse home, in order that one may be buried in one’s family. When one is brought home for the burial, the family members will be fully involved. It is always a tragedy if a worthy son of Igbo man is buried abroad (in the land of his sojourn).75 Hence the people will say: Ozu Dike anaghi ato n’ mba (the body of a great man is not buried in the foreign land). All Igbo people would like to be buried at home town or in their families in order to identify with their ancestors. To be buried outside their home town means to be severed from their ancestors and kinsmen in the spirit world. 73 Uzor, The Traditional African Concept of God and the Christian Concept of God, 175. 74 Okwelogu, The Origin of Igbos and their Cultures accepted by the Church, 5. 75 Ndiokwere, Search for Greener Pastures, 22.

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This opinion linking the Igbo people of Nigeria with the lost tribe of Israel cannot be historically or anthropologically justified. There are many things that separate the cultures and the traditions of these people, just as there are many things that unite them too. The Jews singled themselves out wherever they live and tag themselves as God’s special people and cannot culturally mingle with the people who live with them. They are proud of their Jewishness and always identify with their cultural and their religious observance of the Torah. They have the temple to offer sacrifices and build synagogue wherever they are to offer prayers to their God. Though Igbo have their shrines and town union’s halls at home and wherever they are, these can serve as a centre of religious, political, social and cultural activities, but they cannot be equated with the temple and the synagogue of the Jews. It is quite clear that the laws of the Igbo were written neither in the tablets of stones nor in the scroll, but in the hearts of the people, and the Igbo language and alphabets are in no way associated with the Hebrew or Jewish language and alphabets. The art of writing in Igboland and the alphabets was first formulated to the Igbos by the European missionaries and merchants, whereas the culture of writing had already existed many years in Israel. One can confidently say: Cultural associations and religious similarities found in the two cultures may be a sort of accidents and cannot be enough evidence to prove that Igbos are the lost tribe of Israel. Nathaniel Ndiokwerre argues: “… there are some common qualities and idiosyncrasies that link people in various ways – social, economics, religious, and political spheres of life.”76 These are accidents of life and culture. He asks vital questions: Do these people have common ancestors or common destiny? What has the Igbo of dispersion, namely those living outside Igboland got to do with thousands of the Jews scattered all over the world? He deemed it ironical that, the Igbo who are associated with the Jews have in a way, contrary way of life. He writes: “…while the Jews everywhere see unity and number as crucial to their survival, in a hostile environment, the Igbo of Nigeria are scattering more and more all over the world (without seeing the danger in the country they are living). Some have lost links with brothers, sisters, families and friends in Igboland. In fact very few Igbo in Diaspora think that they would one day return and settle in their fathers land. And for their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, such a possibility is very remote in their mind. This is a sad phenomenon in the history of the Igbo people.”77 Many are today ashamed of their identities as Igbo, 76 Ibid., 14. 77 Ibid., 17.

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they speak foreign language more than the owners of the language, and many have even changed their names and their family names in order not to be associated with Igbo people. The mentality is contrary to the Jews. The Jews are always comfortable to tell of the story of the migration of their forefathers, the feasts their forefathers celebrated and how God saved them and gave them the law, but it is not so with the Igbo. The Igbo, unlike other people of Nigeria, are very skeptical about traditions that tell of lengthy migrations of their ancestors from other parts of Nigeria or anywhere else in the world. They do not have one uniformed story or myth about the culture and the origin of the world just as the Jews have.78 This proves the fact what Elizabeth Isichei in her interview with an Mbaise man when he says: “We did not come from anywhere and anyone who tells you we came from anywhere is a liar. Write it down.”79 This means that Igboland comes into being the very day their creator God, Chukwu created the universe and located them where they are today. From the archeological findings, oral and written history, the Igbo as a people, have never been carried into captivity to any other place on earth, nor have they colonized other people of the world.80 It is a common opinion that its origin is unknown and they found themselves in their geographical location as God had situated them after the creation of the world.

3.2.2 Igbo Traditional Religion Africans generally have profound religious sense, a sense of divine. This sense of divine has made John Mbiti to describe them as – “notoriously religious”.81 “The Igbo whether in ancient or modern times, are very religious people.”82 This religiosity is evident in their lives as individuals and as a group. In Africa there is a strong belief in the Supreme Being. This belief has led many scholars to argue whether morality in African society is dictated by religion.83 The divine reality

78 79 80 81 82

Ogbaa, Understanding Things Fall Apart, 78. Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 3. Ogbaa, Understanding Things Fall Apart, 78. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy, 1. Ogbaa, Understanding Things Fall Apart, 127. The piousness of the Igbo as regards their attitude to the religion made it easier for the early Christian missionaries to make easier converts, who then aided British government agents in their efforts to conquer, evangelize and colonize Igboland in early twentieth century. 83 Addai-Mensah, Mission Communion and Relationship, 110f.

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begins in wonder at the majestic God who is interested in us.84 This is the act of religion which unites the visible and the invisible, the human and the divine. The Igbo are not left out in this association with the Supreme Being, the invisible spirits and ancestors with the people. Luke Mbefo writes: “Judging from Igbo lived experience and inferring from their religious response to their spiritual horizon, God’s existence was assumed generally in the Igbo religious space. This belief in God’s existence gives foundation and stability to the life of the religious Igbo.”85 There are divergent cultures and traditions among the Igbo people, but in spite of that, the name Igbo has, however, become a unifying and identifying factor for the Igbo speaking people today (though with many dialects). What the Igbo have in common is more significant and overwhelming than the differences which exist between them. There are common elements which make it possible to talk of Igbo communities and societies (in contradictions to Igbo states as they exist today). These include the language, ritual elements, oracles, four market days (the traditional Igbo week) and the attitude to the dead.86 All the rituals performed in Igboland and the four market days: Eke, Orie, Afor, Nkwo, have their religious significances. In Igboland, religion imbues all parts of life and there is no split between religious belief and the people’s daily activities. There is a great openness to mystery and they do not demarcate between a strictly material, sensual world and purely spiritual world.87 This can be seen fully in their relationship and attitude with one another and with the dead. The Igbo life activities are enshrouded in the religion which is built up on the community based on the philosophy of life: live and let live. It serves also as a proper reply to the puzzles of the individual being and daily experiences of life. ‘To be without religion’ amounts to self banning ‘from the entire society’. Igbo religion instils fear, influences and affects the people’s daily life activities and centres on the belief in One Supreme Being called Chineke (God the creator), Chi-ukwu, (the Supreme Being) and Chukwu: God.88 These names are descriptive of the character and the nature of God and they are emphatic of the fact that He is a reality and not an abstract concept.89 His existence is not subject to the rational 84 Stiver, Life Together in the way of Jesus Christ, An Introduction the Christian Theology, 3. 85 Mbefo, The True African, 125. 86 Okorie, Priesthood in Igbo Traditional Religion, 95. 87 Obiora Ike and Ndidi, Understanding Africa, 22. 88 Okonkwo, Marriage in the Christian and Igbo Traditional Context: Towards an Inculturation, 8. 89 Idowu, African Traditional Religion: A Definition, 151.

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or utopic speculation. The people are born into this tradition and its purpose is to enable the individual to live a decent, respectable and responsible life, because one must give the account of stewardship after death to the Supreme Being.90 This stewardship account is found in Abrahamic monotheistic religions. In Igbo religion, the reward or the punishment is given out, not on the resurrection of the dead, but immediately, because judgement comes after death. The spirits of those who are rewarded immediately join the ancestors, but the spirits of those who are punished, wander aimlessly in the evil forests causing great harms to the living.

3.2.3 The Igbo World-View The world-view of the people is described as the complex of their beliefs and attitudes concerning the origin, nature, structures, organization and interaction of beings in the universe with particular reference to humanity. It answers questions about the fundamental problems and the relationship of human being with the universe. It enables human being to control the environment and establish social and political institutions. The knowledge of the world-view is a key to the understanding of the people’s social, political and psychological problems.91 The world-view of any culture presumably originates in a series of agreements by the members of original group concerning their perception of reality and how they should regard and react towards that reality.92 How the people view and interpret the world cannot be an imposition from outside. It has to originate from the people and be part and parcel of their day to day living. Anozie Onyema writes: “World-view has to do with thinking pattern and ways of dealing or grappling with life.”93 The Igbo world - view is based on the belief in the ontological existence of the two worlds: the material or the sensible world and the immaterial or the spiritual world. They are called the world of the living and the world of the dead. There is a constant interaction between the two worlds. The world of the living is the existential world and the world of the dead is the spiritual world. It is called the world of the dead, but the people there are still living in the world of supersensible. The two worlds have visible and invisible forces. There is always a dual but interrelated phenomenon involving the interaction between the material and the

90 91 92 93

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Addai.-Mensah, Mission Communion and Relationship: 107. Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 61. Kraft, Christianity in Culture, 53. Anozie, The Igbo Culture and the Formation of Conscience, 96.

spiritual, the visible and the invisible, the good and the bad, the living and the dead. The later are a part of Igbo social world.94 The Igbo world-view is one and not two. The visible beings, the deities and the spirits have no separate world different from that of human experience.95 The visible world is populated by human beings and all material surroundings familiar to humanity: sky, earth, rivers, forests, mountains and so forth. The invisible world consists of the heavenly realm, said to be the home place of the creator and the deities which is thought to be located somewhere in the sky and the ‘spirit land’ said to be the home place of the ancestors, the spirits, disembodied spirits, located somewhere inside the ground.96 John Mbiti argues that the universe is in the form of three tier creation namely: “…the heavens, the earth and the underworld, which lies below it. Africans do not think of these divisions as separate but they see them as linked together.”97 As a metaphysical expression, Igbo invisible world comprises of two ‘spirit lands,’ one of them is the abode of the dead living ancestors, which is a replica underground of the abode of Igbo humans on earth. The second Igbo spirit land is the world of Chi, one’s personal spirit guardian angel, soul or spirit double. Although this second spirit land is also known in Igbo as: Ala Mmuo (land of the spirit), it is not underground like the abode of the dead-living ancestors; instead, the realm of Chi is above, and a person’s Chi normally resides with the sun.98 In Igbo world-view, the unborn, the living, the living dead and the unknown dead are included. Life is like a cycle: at the top are the unknown ancestors, at the bottom; the living, at the right; the recently dead, and at the left; the unborn. We see each of these stages as part of the people’s life cycle as they share their lives with the next generation and then enter into the land of the ancestors. To forget one’s ancestor is equivalent to forgetting one’s children. The unity of human being with the living dead gives one the ultimate meaning in life.99 All have a share in this world and none is disregarded and they play their major role in existential world. It is a world in which all these forces interacting, affecting and modifying behaviour; a world that is delicately balanced between opposing forces, each motivates by its self interest, a world whose survival demands some form of co-operation among its members, although that co-operation may

94 95 96 97 98 99

Ogbaa, Understanding Things Fall Apart, 97. Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 52. Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 62. Mbiti, An Introduction to African Traditional Religion, 32. Ogbaa, Understanding Things Fall Apart, 80. Kirwen, The Missionary and the Diviner, 114f.

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be minimal or even hostile in character. It is a world in which others can be manipulated for the sake of individual status advancement. It is a world of constant struggle which recognizes that conflict situations exist and therefore demand from the individual constant adjustment and still insisting that good citizenship demands transparent living and that human interdependence with the spirit is the greatest of all values. It is a world that is spoilt by human being and not by the spirits, yet human being is allowed wide latitude of behaviour, an important factor in the dynamic of Igbo culture.100 The Igbo world-view is a continuum that is in stark contrast to the dualism present in Greek antiquity and Western philosophy and it extends to the demise of the material self.101 This continuum gives relevance to the living being who takes the material world as a passage into another world called the world of the spirit. The material world is the world peopled by all created beings and things, both animate and inanimate. The spiritual world is the abode of the creator, the deities, the disembodied and the malignant spirits, and the ancestral spirits.102 The existences of these elements are well recognized, respected and revered because the living and the dead need each other for mutual reciprocation. The people interact and offer sacrifices to the dead in order to appease them and accommodate them within the activities in the material world. The dead offer their spiritual help by offering their protection to the people and sustain them with abundance of food in their agricultural endeavours. They sacrifice to the dead because they believe that one day, the living will join them. There is constant interaction between the human world and the world of the dead, the visible and the invisible forces.103 The end of all the sacrifices offered in Igbo traditional religion is Chukwu (God). “…coupled with the notion of the Supreme Being are three other levels of spiritual beings which we may refer to as: modes, mediators and divinities. In the first place, we are speaking of something inseparable from the experience of the Supreme Being himself (whose unicity and unity may be only dimly or imperfectly apprehended). In the case of the mediators we are speaking of only created beings that are nevertheless associated with the activity of the Supreme Being. Finally in the case of the divinities, we are speaking of subordinate beings whose activity is, to a greater or lesser extent independent of the Supreme Being.”104 In affirmation to this, Emefie

100 101 102 103 104

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Uchendu, The Igbo of South East Nigeria, 11f. Obiora Ike and Edozie, Understanding Africa, 22. Ogbaa, Understanding Things Fall Apart, 96. Ibid., 97. Shorter, African Christian Theology, 97.

Ikenga-Metuh succinctly puts it, “In Igbo traditional religion, there are objects of belief and they can be classified into the following four: The Supreme Being – God The non-human Spirits Other Spirit forces The Living dead or Ancestors”105

With this notion of the Igbo, some may argue that the people are polytheistic in their attitude to God and religion. It is not true. Ikenga-Metuh further writes: “African religion is definitely theistic, but many authors raised the question whether it should be described as monotheism, polytheism or even pantheism. Those who argue for monotheistic model, point to the widespread belief in a universal God, creator and providence. Those who think that African religion is polytheistic based their argument on the prominent role of the deities in African belief and worship. While some think that African beliefs are best interpreted as a belief in one universal power which manifests itself in different beings and thus conclude that pantheism is the best label for African religion.”106 African traditional religion is monotheistic in nature. Its objects of belief do not necessitate different gods, but rather hierarchy of messengers in their degree of importance. These messengers are created by God to serve His purpose in the administration of the worldly activities.107 In an interview between a missionary and a diviner, the diviner affirms: many of us do not see these lesser beings as gods at all, rather, as beings who mediate the creator’s power to us. They are like God’s overseers, God’s special workers who enable us to see, remember and respond to God.108 The Igbo have only one God. He is Chukwu, His essence and existence precedes others and His might cannot be compared with others because He is the creator and the Father of all, even the spirits.

3.3 Chukwu: God as the Supreme Being in Igboland There is always a debate whether the God worshipped in African traditional religions is the same God, Judaism, Christianity and Islam worship. Most missionaries 105 Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of Africa Traditional Religions, 63f. See also Ogbaa, Understanding Things Fall Apart, 127. 106 Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 103. 107 C.f., Spieckermann, Wrath and Mercy as Crucial Terms of Theological Hermenuetics, 4. 108 Kirwen, The Missionary and the Diviner, 15.

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thought that they made the idea of the Supreme Being first known to the Africans. It is not true. If it were so, does it mean that God was not initially present in Africa before the coming of the missionaries, or that after creating the world He circumvented His presence from African continent? Or is Africa not among the world God created when He was creating the universe? Is this God the Biblical God who created the world and human being? These are some of the questions that need to be addressed. If He is the same God, why did the early missionaries condemn the religions of our forefathers as pagan and encouraged them to abandon their religions and their mode of religious worship to follow their own religions? Why did they use their religion as a dagger to put into what had united Africans leading them ultimately to disintegration? Why did they term the Africans pagans or heathens who need conversion in order to attain heaven and why did they associate them as witches and wizards? Has the Almighty God condemned African religions or those early missionaries in their ignorance or domineering tendencies to assert their religious supremacy, criticized all that is not from their own cultures, forgetting that culture is not and cannot be homogenous or unitary? Do Africans need to worship God in their own cultural and traditional settings or do they need to worship God as the Europeans and Americans worship God in their cultural and traditional understanding? These questions are what we have to put into consideration in addressing the religions found in Africa. It is through the unprejudiced answer to these questions that one can arrive at the conclusion of what religion in Africa is, and how religion that affects the people’s way of life should be respected and encouraged. In Igbo traditional religion, Chukwu is the Supreme Being. He is the Being that orders the theocratic universe. The other divine beings that collaborated in the system do not struggle or compete with Him.109 He is outside the manipulations of human beings. He is immanent and also transcendent. The Igbo regard Him as ‘ono nso erughi aka’ (the immanent transcendent), while being available to everyone in a free and personal way as Chukwum (my God). This implies that He is transcendent God and at the same time immanent. He is the creator, the ruler and the one who is above all things.110 The attributes of God is both abstract and human. Thus the wholly otherness and hiddeness of Chukwu is an essential attribute of His being. The first two names for the Supreme God in Igboland are: Chukwu (Great God)111 and Chineke (God who creates). They are composed of two words. Chukwu is 109 Njoku, Phenomenological Critique of the Igbo God-Talk, 81. 110 Parrinder, Religion in Africa, 40. 111 The word Chukwu is from two Igbo words: Chi (god) and Ukwu (big) which means there are other gods, but Chukwu is the greatest of all.

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composed of Chi na Ukwu while the second is composed of Chi na Eke.112 Chukwu is never represented in symbols or figures, He is pure spirit. He is referred to as God in the heavens and is thus the creator and the Father113 of both material and spiritual realities. The people make His existence present in the community. The unification of Chukwu, human being and the nature in the community is founded in Omenala (tradition).114 The Supreme Being is the creator and the redeemer of humanity. He is the source of human origin and the final destiny.115 He is all powerful and surpasses all other existing things, whether organic, inorganic or transcendental. In His creative aspects, Chukwu is regarded as Chineke (the God who creates); Chukwu okike or Chi Okike, (all meaning God the creator), Oseburuwa, (the pillar that carries the world); He is the author of all life including mankind. He sends the rain, makes the crops grow, and is the source from which people derive their Chi, Destiny or Soul.116 (Chi as a personal god will be discussed later). Beside these names: Chukwu, Chineke and Oseburuwa, there are other names given to God in various localities, but these three are universal within the Igbo communities.117 Chukwu is not a tribal deity, but generically found in Igbo communities. The tribal deities are not much significant because; most of them have no influence outside the villages that own them. Chukwu’s sovereignty cuts across all tribal boundaries; He owns and rules the world118 and His might is unlimited just as His creative activities are boundless. The names such as Chukwu, Chineke and Osebuluwa are pan-Igbo. They underline three main themes: God’s creative power, His might or greatness and His providence.119 112 Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 21. 113 Obiora-Ike and Edozie, Understanding Africa, 23. 114 Omenala, some may call it Omenani depending on the dialect in Igboland. Omena-ala, comes from Ome: done, or to do. ‘Na’ is a prefix or preposition and Ala means land, earth or ground. Omenala is a body of socio-religious law, customs and traditions passing from generation to generation. It has its origin from the ancestors. It is the oral tradition of the people as regards their ways of life. Though it is dynamic, but it is always static, for the substance of the law does not change. In Igboland, Omenala differs in accident from village to another in matters such as marriage, burial rites, breaking of Kola Nuts, title taking such as Ozo and masquerade rites. C.f., Obiora-Ike and Edozie, Understanding Africa, 62. 115 Uzor, The Traditional African Concept of God and the Christian Concept of God, 197. 116 Obiora Ike and Edozie, Understanding Africa, 14. 117 Most of these names can be heard especially when the elders break the Kola Nut, in the communal sacrifices and also in the traditional cultural songs and music. 118 Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 27. 119 Ebelebe, Africa and the New Face of Mission, 2.

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In his bid to explain the name Chukwu, Bolaji Idowu writes: “The Igbo name Chukwu, illustrates the name of Deity120 which adds a suffix to the generic name for deity in general, it is made up of Chi and Ukwu, Chi meaning Source Being or spirit, and ukwu meaning, great, immense or undimensional.”121 Chukwu is ominipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. His abode in heaven does not mean His absence in human affairs. He is beckoned when His intermediaries fail to function. He is approached through the making of the sacrifices to the lesser gods He created, for a great man is approached through his servant and God should be loved, but He is feared by those who do not do His will.122 The people believe and 120 Supreme Deity: Bolaji Idowu made use of Deity or Supreme Deity. They mean God or Chukwu. People have local names for God in Africa. God’s principal name may be the generic name for the deity in general; in which case, there is a qualifying suffix or qualifying word belonging uniquely to God. Sometime, the name for the Supreme Being is uniquely his, and no part of it is shared by any other being. Where the divinities share the basic generic name with the Deity, it only serves to emphasize the fact that the divinities derive their being and nature from Him. C.f., Idowu, African Traditional Religion, 149. 121 Ibid., 150. 122 C.f., Achebe, Things Fall Apart: This is the discussion between Akunna and Mr Brown. “You say that there is one Supreme God who made heaven and earth,” said Akunna on one of Brown’s Visits. “We also believe in him and call him Chukwu. He made all things, the world and the other gods.” There are no other gods said Mr. Brown. Chukwu is the one God and all others are false. ‘You carve a piece of wood-like that one (he points at the rafters from which Akunna’s carved Ikenga hung), and you call it a god. But it is still a piece of wood.’ Yes said Akunna. ‘It is indeed a piece of wood. The tree from which it came was made by Chukwu, as indeed all other minor gods were. But He made them His messengers so that we could approach Him through them. It is like yourself. You are the head of your church.’ No, protested Mr. Brown. ‘The head of my church is God Himself.’ I know, said Akunna, ‘but there must be a head in this world among men. Somebody like yourself must be your head here.’ ‘The head of my church in that sense is in England.’ This is exactly what I am saying. The head of your church is in your country. He has sent you here as his messenger. And you have also appointed your own messengers and servants. Or let me take another example the District Commissioner. ‘He is sent by your king.’ ‘They have a queen,’ said the interpreter on his own account. Your queen sends her messenger, the District Commissioner. He finds that he cannot do the work alone so he appoints kotma to help him. It is the same with God. He appoints the smaller gods to help Him because His work is too great for one person.’ ‘You should not think of Him as a person,’ said Mr. Brown. ‘It is because you do so that you imagine He must need helpers. And the worst thing about it is that you give all worship to false gods you have created.’ ‘That is not so. We make sacrifices to the little gods, but when they fail and there is no one else to turn to, we go to Chukwu. It is right to do so. We approach

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worship Him, in spite of the presence of other divinities. He is the creator and the over-Lord of all created things.123 He controls time, dividing it into night and day and into the four-day week.124 He is a being who is present among the people and whose presence means life and goodness. His presence in His entire creature is mysterious; that means, He is not to be conceived as a vast, inert, static being, but as Being who is actively present in all that He creates, and continuous to create and manifesting Himself in some daily human activities.125 The Igbo come to believe in the nature of Chukwu through faith and experience. By seeing His creations (some of which are worshipped as gods and goddesses), they know that God exists, but He is not fully known, because His dwelling place is beyond human reach and comprehension. That is why He is not represented with statues (nkwa) and other religious icons used in representing the lesser gods and goddesses, who are closer and better known to humans.126 He is like the Jewish or Islamic God who cannot in any way or any form be represented in an object or statue. To represent Him, means to limit His boundlessness which is impossible to imagine. His knowledge among the people is indigenous and they associate Him with what He is known for. He is the spirit who creates.127 His existence is undoubtedly manifested in the names the people bear: Chukwudi (God exists), their wise sayings, and their lives events. In affirming this, Luke Mbefo writes: “We find in Igbo tradition the existence of God affirmed without any apologies….We do not find in Igbo tradition any conscious denial of God’s existence.”128 His existence is commonly understood and it pre-existed the world as it is presumed in Igbo myth. The Igbo mythology explains the existence of the world by means of special and direct interventions by Chukwu, who is the

123 124 125 126 127 128

a great man through his servants, but when his servants fail to help us, then we go to the last source of hope. We appear to pay greater attention to the little gods but that is not so. We worry them more because we are afraid of worrying their Master. Our fathers know that Chukwu was the overlord and that is why many of them gave their children the name Chukwuka - Chukwu is Supreme. You said one interesting thing, said Mr. Brown. ‘You are afraid of Chukwu. In my religion Chukwu is a loving Father and need not to be feared by those who do his will.’ ‘But we must fear him when we are not doing his will,’ said Akunna. ‘And who is to tell his will? It is too great to be known.’ 126f. Iloanusi, Myths of the Creation of Man and the Origin of Death in Africa, 67f. Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 11. Edeh, Towards an Igbo Metaphysics, 130. Ogbaa, Understanding Things Fall Apart, 128. Iloanusi, Myths of the Creation of Man and the Origin of Death in Africa, 79. Mbefo, The True African: Impulses for Self Affirmation, 22.

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uncaused cause, an uncreated creator.129 He created when there was nothing and He continues to create new things, shapes and reshapes what He created130 through human beings. His creative activity is continuous and He creates every minute of the day and every person’s Chi is directly created by God at the very instant of conception.131 The name Chineke brings the creating activity of God into light. Chukwu is known and worshipped even before the coming of the European missionaries to Africa and the idea of Chukwu as the Supreme Being is monotheistic oriented. Oliver Onwubiko affirms: “Before the coming of the Europeans, the Africans have specific ideas and belief about deities and their activities.”132 In most African traditional theologies, the idea of the Supreme Being and the deities are more or less distinctively present. Whether He is conceived as a creator or begetter, He is a part of human’s proximate experience. He is strong and ubiquitous enough to make nonsense of the term “animism” which is so frequently and mistakenly applied on African religions.133 God has fundamental and a unique position in African religions and particularly in Igbo religion. Their belief in Chukwu is part and parcel of their lives. They address Him by several names and give Him titles and attributes, which give us some idea of what they think of Him.134 These attributes show that: ‘God is everywhere’. ‘God is good’. ‘God is the one who blesses mankind with children, abundant food, cattle, and wives’. All wealth comes from God. God is not a human being. He does not eat food. He is different from all creation. He is God.135 These attributes are the expression of what the people have in mind for Him. They offer Him sacrifices through the deities and the ancestors. As His messengers, they receive these on His behalf.

3.3.1 Manifestations of God’s Attributes in Igbo Names 3.3.1.1 God as the Provider - Chinenye The Igbo generally believe that God’s activity in the world did not end with creation. He created the universe, sustains it and maintains its order. He is believed to have 129 130 131 132 133 134 135

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Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 33f. Mbiti, An Introduction to African Traditional Religion, 44. Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 34. Onwubiko, African Thought, Religion and Culture, 4. Shorter, African Christian Theology, 97. Ebelebe, Africa and the New Face of Mission, 2. Kirwen, The Missionary and the Diviner, 6.

a well mapped out plan to the whole universe and for each individual being in it.136 The works and the activities of God are manifested in the names which the people bear. All the Igbo names have meanings. When the people see God as the One who provides, they concretize it in the name they answer or give their children: Chinenye (God – gives). This shows the goodness of God toward the whole universe. He provides life, sunshine, rain, water, good health, the fertility of the people, animals and plants, food and protection. They call Him the giver of things. They believe that God gives good things.137 Bad things and misfortunes are from the evil one and it originated from human disobedience. This is in parallel to the disobedience of our first parents in the Bible as regards misfortune of suffering and death (Gen. 3:1–19). Since He provides for the needs of the people, the people will not be tired of asking for good things. He gives when human being asks. Jesus Christ affirms thus: “Ask and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you” (Matt.7:7). The Igbo see God as the Father and the people as His children. The idea is shown in the prayers the people offer to God in the communal gatherings and sacrifices. The prayer is addressed to Him in a manner similar to that of children speaking to their parents about themselves and their needs.138 Whenever the people want to show their imperfections in prayer, they sometimes say: Chukwu, “We are like little innocent children who wash their stomach only! But your eyes see us.”139 This shows that the sin of human being is not voluntary but due to human imperfection. One does not deny it that is why one says: we are like the fish that lives in the river and does not deny itself of water. Which means humanity is surrounded by sin. The image of God as the Father brings the idea of a family in close relationship between the people and God. It implies that God has not only begotten or made the people, but He is also their protector, provider and keeper.140 God’s providential care is not limited in any way or form rather it is universally extended to the general concern for the universal order. He cares and provides for all. 3.3.1.2 God’s Omniscience - Chukwuma Chukwuma (God knows), is the Igbo traditional belief that God has eventually the last word because He knows all. For the oppressed, it is a consolation that the 136 137 138 139 140

Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 113. Mbiti, An Introduction to African Traditional Religion, 46. Ibid., 47. Obiora Ike and Edozie, Understanding Africa, 14. Mbiti, An Introduction to African Traditional Religion, 47.

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oppressor could not get away with his or her unjust ways of life. It is a warning to the oppressor that personal interest is not the end of the case. The people could continue even in unjust situations, strengthened by the belief that God comes sometimes as a liberator.141 He knows and sees everything in the past, present and future. He is omniscient and there is nothing hidden before Him. The people hand over misfortunes and injustices to Him for justice, with the hope that, since He knows why things happen, He is the only one to take the course. Certain expressions indicate that God knows the most hidden secrets, understands the most incomprehensible facts and even the thoughts in human hearts. They say: Onwere ihe gbara Chukwu gharii? (Is there anything which could come as a surprise to God?) When a person suffers from injustice or is falsely accused, one may in despair exclaim, Chukwu omuzikwe anya? (Is God no longer awake?) Why should He let this happen to me? The person may draw conclusion by saying, Chukwu ga ekpe, (God will judge). He will eventually give justice when the time is due.142 Being all knowing and just, He apportions lots equitably. He judges with mercy, heals the sick, protects the orphans, the widows and the whole town. He brings the wicked to their doom and rewards the good. People pray to Him to remove barreness and counteract the evil machinations of the enemies of progress.143 They believe that everything happens with the permission of Chukwu; hence He knows why they happen. Justice and judgement are left for God. Luke Mbefo writes: “The people have seen widows unjustly treated after the death of their husbands. They have experienced the arrogance of the rich and the strong that deprived them of their land or property. They are not strong enough to fight for their rights. As consolation, they are called upon to put their trust in the God whom they know is not ignorant of the suffered aggression. Chukwuma actually means, God will vindicate you in his opportune time.”144 This is not a call to fight and address the injustice of the people, rather a call that God who sees all things will bring perfect judgement at last. To this they answer: Ogechukwu ka mma, (Gods time is the best). John Mbiti writes: “Some people in Nigeria say: ‘Only God is wise’ he is seen as the All-seeing and the All-hearing, the watcher of everything, the All-seer, and the discerner of hearts. This expression means that everything is within the reach of God’s understanding and knowledge: so the wisdom and the knowledge of God penetrate into and 141 142 143 144

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Mbefo, The True African, 25. Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 42. Njoku, Phenomenological Critique of the Igbo God-Talk, 84. Mbefo, The True African, 24.

through everything, and nothing can be hidden from him.”145 There is nothing hidden before the face of God. 3.3.1.3 The Mercy of God: Eberechukwu The Igbo name Eberechukwu is an expression of the mercy of God. He is regarded as the God of justice, but His mercy is always evident and attested by the people. He executes justice, but it is only carried out by His messengers. Wrong doers are adequately punished by the lesser gods or spirits on His behalf. As a merciful God, He grants favour to mankind.146 When the people sin and repent from their sins, offer sacrifices in atonement for their sins and that of the community, they receive the forgiveness of God. The sins of the individual may affect the entire community when they condone them. The community then is always vigilant over the individual sins. They appease the deities when sins or abominations are committed. When special help has been received from God, people sometimes say, God had mercy on me, or if God had not shown mercy on me, I would have been dead by now. The mercy and kindness of God are shown to the people especially when they escape from danger, misfortune or serious illness.147 The expression of God as merciful, loving and kind are manifested in the names given to the children and some daily expressions. Children, who are believed to be a special gift from God, especially when all hope of getting children seemed to have faded, are given names to express the mercy and kindness of God.148 Some children born after Nigerian – Biafran civil war are named: Eberechukwu. This means that, it was because of the mercy of God that the war came to an end. Another name that tells of God’s providence and kindness is Olisaeloka. This name expresses one’s intimate experience of God’s mercy and kindness in a wholly unexpected fortune which comes exactly when one most needs it.149 God is loving and kind. His favours are sometimes solicited with prayers and sacrifices. He is a moral God: on the one hand, nothing evil can be associated with Him. He is upright, just and faithful; on the other hand, He requires good conduct on the part of the worshippers.150 He protects those who are faithful to Him. 145 146 147 148 149 150

Mbiti, An Introduction to African Traditional Religion, 50f. Obiora Ike, and Edozie, Understanding Africa, 14. Mbiti, An Introduction to African Traditional Religion, 49. Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 44. Ibid., 44. Ibid., 46.

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3.4 Non-Human Spirits, Divinities and Oracles The belief in one God and many deities does not portray the Igbo as polytheistic religion. It compliments their unique notion of one God. The unicity is enhanced rather than compromised. God is essentially the uncreated creator of everything. There cannot be two such beings. The existence of non-human spirits or the divinities in Igbo religion is undoubtable. Emmanuel Umeh regards them as “…ontological beings existing between God and human beings. The spirits are created spiritual beings with spiritual powers and subordinate to the Supreme Beings.”151 The Igbo deities form the great circle of non-human spirits, they come next to God in the ontological hierarchy and are believed to be His agents, helping Him to shepherd different sections of His creation.152 They have their local names in the local language, which is descriptive either of their allotted functions or the natural phenomenon which is believed to be a manifestation or emblem of their being.153 They mostly derive their names from the nature. In Igbo tradition, deities play intermediary roles between God and humanity.154 They are like God’s overseers, God’s special workers who enable the people to see, remember and respond to God.155 They have no absolute existence – they are in being only as a result of the being of the Deity: God. They derive their powers and authorities from the Deity and they are meaningless apart from Him.156 God is their creator just as He is the creator of all things. The spirits have the status between God and human being, and are not identical with God or with human being. The people speak about them in human terms and treat them as though they have human characteristics such as thinking, speaking, intelligence and the possession of power which they can use as they will. Because they are created by God, they are subordinate and dependent on Him. They are used by God for His purposes.157 They serve as His agents or messengers who bring either good or bad fortune to the people. They are regarded as the sons and the daughters of Chukwu. They are powerful and intelligent beings that roam about in the world,

151 152 153 154 155 156 157

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Umeh, African Theology of Solidarity, 15. Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 34. Idowu, African Traditional Religion: A Definition, 169. Umeh, African Theology of Solidarity, 17. Kirwen, The Missionary and the Diviner, 15. Idowu, African Traditional Religion: A Definition, 169. Mbiti, An Introduction to African Traditional Religion, 65.

but have their permanent homes in the rivers, mountains, caves, forests, and trees, which worshippers regard as the shrines of individual divinities.158 The divinities were brought into being as functionaries in the theocratic government of the universe. They are apportioned the kingdoms of the sky, the sea and the earth. They are the ministers with their own definite portfolios in the Deities monarchical government. Each is in its own sphere an administrative head of a department. They are sometimes described as kind, hospitable and industrious; at other times, they are conceived as fraudulent, treacherous, unmerciful and envious. They are, in general, used to further human interests.159 They inhabit natural phenomena with which they are associated. Anyanwu, (the Sun), is the deity that inhabits the sun. Igwe, the sky deity, inhabits the sky. Amadioha linked with thunder and lightning, is also a sky deity.160 They are the agents of Chukwu to humanity, and they carry the petitions, the offerings and the sacrifices of the people to Chukwu.161 They serve the purpose of the Supreme Deity. Bolaji Idowu argues from the point of view of the theology of African traditional religion: “It will not be correct to say that the divinities were created by God, rather it will be correct to say that the divinities were brought into being, or that they came into being, in the nature of things with regard to the divine ordering of the universe. They are the sons and the daughters of the Supreme Deity vested with the power and the authority of the divine sonship: these sons and daughters are vested with power and majesty by the father.”162 To say that they are created or that they are brought into existence by God has the same connotation. Their existence is subjective to the creative acts of God that brought them into existence. In addition, to say that they are the sons and the daughters of Chukwu contradicts the notion that Chukwu has no wife. Whether they are created or that they are brought into existence by God as his sons and daughters, a crucial factual aspect remains that they are ordained to serve God for the purpose of human being and for maintaining order in the world. The divinities are superior to human-made gods. Their origins are not known,163 but quite often different narrators give a conflicting 158 159 160 161 162 163

Ogbaa, Understanding Things Fall Apart, 130. Ibid., 148. Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 53. Obiora Ike and Edozie, Understanding Africa, 23. Idowu, African Traditional Religion: A Definition, 169. Chief Kalu Ogoro of Ihechiowa, narrated how he was instructed in a dream to fashion gods for the troubled communites. He did that and they received their spirits from the spirits that visited him in the dreams. C.f., Ogbaa, Understanding Things Fall Apart, 130.

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mythological account of the origins or the existence of the deities. Their origins are subjected to Igbo localities. To Igbo worshippers, what cannot be scientifically proved is accepted unquestionably through fate and tradition which is the basic and necessary ingredient of religions.164 Unlike the man made deities, these natural deities: Ala, (Ani), Anyanwu, Amadioha, and Njoku (Ifejioku, Nfijoku), whom the Igbo regard and revere as the spirits of nature or the personification of natural forces are of utmost importance. The natural deities cannot be treated with disrespect when they fail to fulfill human expectations; rather human beings are always prepared to accept blames for the apparent failures of such deities. Natural disasters are always attributed to offences that people commit against them. They believe that, however great an offence might be, it can be atoned for, with a matching sacrifice, which might include the sacrifice of human beings.165 The great Sun deities: Sun deity, Thunder deity and Sky deity surround the Supreme Being above, just as the large heavenly bodies decorate the sky. While the earth mother presides on earth as the queen of the underworld inhabited by some other deities associated with the ground like the Yam deity, Divination deity and the Fertility deity.166 The great and powerful deities such as Anyanwu, Igwe and Amadioha serve God above, while Ala, the Earth-mother-goddess, presides as queen over the innumerable deities inhabiting the rivers, the mountains, the caves, the forest, and many other spirit forces found on earth.167 In Igboland, the greatest of the deitites is called Ala (or Ana, Ani, according to the locality); this is the same word used for ‘earth’ or ‘ground’ – Ala is the Earth goddess, and is the archdivinity.168

3.4.1 The Deity of Ala (Earth) There is a tradition that God created the universe in two parts: namely Igwe (the heavens) and Ala (the earth). Igwe in Igbo language is a fluid term that is ambiguous. As a physical reality, it may mean ‘blue dome’ of heaven or firmament, the highest heavens above where God Himself is believed to dwell; and also the whole of the ‘court of heaven’. It also means the atmosphere or the sky. Ala is sometimes used to mean quite specifically ‘the dry land’ as opposed to the sea. It is used to

164 Ibid., 130. 165 Ibid. 166 Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 69. 167 Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 53. 168 Idowu, African Traditional religion: a Definition, 169f.

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signify Uwa (the earth) and this includes everything that is tangible, e.g., human being, animal, forest and sea or rivers.169 Human beings lift up their eyes to the sky and naturally regard its spirit as transcendent and mighty, but they live on earth, plant the seed, derive food from it and bury their dead in the land. So earth is nearer to human beings and links to them with many bonds.170 Ala is the foothold of God and the abode of human being. She protects and at the same time kills when the people sin against her. Her anger is always terrible, yet she is the nearest and the dearest to the human being. She is the merciful mother, who increases the fertility of the soil and makes the fruit of the earth available to human livelihood.171 She nurses, nurtures and harbingers humanity, beasts and plants of the earth. Ala is the earth goddess and the only major female deity. She is very pronounced among the people. The image of Ala deity is comparable to Italian Madonna. Every village has its shrine of Ala. She is the most important divinity after Chukwu. She is regarded as the guardian to humanity and the custodian of morality. She is in charge of the fertility of the womb (including the animals) and also the soil. She bears in her womb the dead living ancestors. Hence she is the mother earth.172 She is called the mother Earth, because human beings are born on the earth, feed on the products of the earth and when they die, they are buried in the earth.173 Obiora Ike affirms: “Obviously, central to the entire existence of the Igbo is the soil, the land or the earth. It is in the land that the ancestors are buried and wherein their souls and bodies rest. Life springs from the soil, on the soil grows yam and cocoyam (Ji na Ede) vegetables and fruits. We speak of the soil as the mother earth for it is sacred to the Igbo.”174 The Earth Spirit ‘Ala’ as the mother of Igbo people is characterized by sacredness and peacefulness. Therefore human being made from the clay of the earth, also carries the sacredness of the Earth-spirit. Plants, animals and humans go back into the womb of the earth and the dead ancestors play their peculiar role in the world of the living from the yonder – in ‘Ala’.175 She is the great mother goddess with the mystic power of which everybody stands in awe. “She increases the fertility of man and the productivity of the land. Without her, life would be

169 170 171 172 173 174 175

Uzor, The Traditional African Concept of God and the Christian Concept of God, 204. Parrinder, Religion in Africa, 52. Obiora Ike and Edozie, Understanding Africa, 49. Ogbaa, Understanding Things Fall Apart, 131. Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 66. Obiora Ike and Edozie, Understanding Africa, 50. Ibid., 50.

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impossible for the Igbo who attach much sentiment to the land.”176 She is the merciful mother who intercedes for her children with God and other spirits; a mother whom the other spirits ask to warn her children on earth before they take action against them, but when she decides to punish, no other spirit may intercede or intervene. She is a mother who does not punish in haste but quite reluctantly, after a series of warnings had gone unheeded. The great mother of all: of plants, animals and humans both living and dead.177 The people petition her for children and also for necessary things. She is notified before the people go to war. When the Kola Nut is broken and distributed, Ala receives her own. The importance of Ala goddess is great among the Igbo because the traditional Igbo villages were practically dependent on crop cultivation, and festivals are largely determined by the cycle of the agricultural year.178 Human beings depend on her for agriculture and fertility. Human being sacrifices to her in order to have fruitful and abundant harvest. She plays an important role for the survival of the people. The relationship between Ala and human being is a filial one. She is the owner but not the maker of humanity. She is the respectable and the abode of ancestral spirits.179 The traditional Igbo thus looked up on Ala for a portion of good, arable land for grazing their cattle, erecting their houses, fishing and farming their crops. Ala is obliged to give everyone land to live and to cultivate. She must allow every subject to fish in the public waters (except on days prohibited or some prohibited waters). She helps the people to hunt game and birds, to gather wild fruit and to use the clay, iron ore, grasses, reeds and trees with which the Igbo mould their pots, utensils, mats, baskets, weapons, implements, nets and traps, furniture and huts.180 She is kind and benevolent to the people. Ala exercises the main ritual sanctions in disputes and offences. Crimes such as adultery, incest, homicide, suicide, unnatural birth, e.g. birth of twins are all offences against Ala, the Earth Deity. They are called Nso Ala (taboo of the Earth Deity). Sanctions for such crimes includes propitiatory sacrifices to Ala.181 In some places in Igboland, the offenders are ostracized from the community for a

176 Ogbaa, Understanding Things Fall Apart, 148. 177 Uzor, The Traditional African Concept of God and the Christian Concept of God, 297. 178 Isichei, Igbo and Christian Beliefs, Some Aspects of a Theological Encounter in African Affairs, 124. 179 Iloanusi, Myths of the Creation of Man and the Origin of Death in Africa, 89. 180 Obiora Ike and Edozie, Understanding Africa, 121. 181 Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 67.

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specified number of years before they are later re-integrated back into the community. Before the re-integration, the offender must perform propitiatory sacrifices as stipulated by the Ala priest or priestess. Otherwise if he or she dies in this situation, the body will be thrown into an evil forest (ajo ohia)182 without proper burial rites. The consequence of this is that the spirit of the dead will have no peace and cannot join the ancestors in the land of the spirit nor reincarnate among the living. Ala goddess is believed to have helped the ancestors (Igbo patriarchs) to found the habitable enclaves: towns or villages. She is believed to have got the law from Chukwu and handed them to the ancestors. The ancestors made all subsequent laws under her direction, as did their descendants. Hence the Igbo laws are always socio-religious laws and are believed to derive their sanctions from Ala. These laws are called Omenala.183 Because of the importance of Ala Deity in Igboland, “Her cult is organized at the family, village and clan level, so that there are family shrines, village shrines, and clan shrines to Ala. Public rites are performed at various stages of the farming cycle, and whenever divination indicates.”184 Whenever public rites are performed, they involve everybody, because of the communal way of life of the people. The unity in performing the rites among the people is highly manifested in the way the people celebrate their New Yam Festival.

3.4.2 The New Yam Festival Celebration This is an important occasion in Igboland. It is the period of merry-making and the custom forbids fighting and quarreling of any kind. Any person who dies in the New Yam Festival celebration is ignominiously thrown into the evil forest and is denied befitting burial.185 It is the period when the people and the gods are brought

182 When Okonkwo committed suicide by hanging, the people said: we cannot take him down for it is against our custom. It is an abomination for a man to take his own life. It is an offence against the Earth and a man who commits it will not be buried by his clansmen. His body is evil and only strangers may touch it or bury it, (otherwise he will be thrown into the evil forest). After the burial the people will perform their duty by making sacrifices to cleanse the desecrated land C.f., Achebe, Things Fall Apart, 147. 183 Uzor, The Traditional African Concept of God and the Christian Concept of God, 298. 184 Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 67. 185 Onwubiko, Christian Mission and Culture in Africa vol. I, African Thought Religion and Culture, 52.

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together in one crowd.186 In this festival, the people entertain themselves with music and dancing. In Igboland, it is one of the socio-religious celebrations that portray human being as a social as well as a religious being. It is of utmost importance. The cultivation of yam is as central as the earth and it is regarded as the king of the crops. The yam spirit is called Ifejioku.187 This is a celebration in honour of Ala, the Earth goddess. It is like the feast of the harvest of the Israelites (Deut.26:1–5). The New Yam Festival is popularly known as Iri Ji ohuru188 (eating the new yam). The feast is celebrated in the end of the Old Year and the beginning of the New Year in Igbo calender.189 It is not uniformly celebrated in Igboland. Before the planting season, sacrifices are performed to Ala, for the productivity and the fertility of the land. In this period, there should be no war and sound of battle should not be heard, absolute peace and observation of the regulations for the rites of the celebration are necessary. Should the peace of the mother earth be broken, she will permit the ground to bring forth scanty harvest, but if universal peace reigns at such time, crops will spring up with luxuriance, flocks yield great increase, and a multitude of strong and healthy babies be sent to gladden happy hearts.190 In preparation for this celebration, the land is at peace in honour of the land deity. In the book “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe, Ezeani the priest of Ala addressed Okonkwo for beating his wife during this week of peace thereby committing Nso ani.191 He reminded him: “You know as well as I do that our 186 Achebe, Arrow of God, 202. 187 Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 28. 188 Ji (Yam) for the Igbo is the most precious food. It is the ‘king crop’, and it is related to – wealth, status, power and influence. C.f., Obiora Ike and Edozie, Understanding Africa, 114. In some parts of Igboland, a successful farmer is awarded with a title, Eze ji, (Yam King). Cassava was and is grown on land too poor for yam cultivation, but was regarded as very inferior, a poor man’s food. C.f. Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 28. It is a serious offence to steal yam in Igboland. Any person who steals Yam is tagged as Onye oshi ji (one who steals yam). There were severe punishments when one steals yam. The punishments can be: fine, death penalty or slavery. The wealth of an Igbo man was reckoned with the number of yam barns he had. That is why our forefathers married many women in order to have many children to cultivate yam in their lands. 189 Achebe, Arrow of God, 201. 190 Iloanusi, Myths of the Creation of Man and the Origin of Death in Africa, 91. 191 Nso Ani (what the land forbids). In Umuofia it is a rule that before they plant their crop, they have to observe a week when a man does not say a harsh word to his neighbour. When Okonkwo broke the rule, Ezeani reminded him; it is necessary that we live in peace this period to honour our great goddess of the earth without whose

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forefathers ordained that before we plant any crop in the earth we should observe a week in which a man does not say a harsh word to his neighbour. We live in peace with our fellows to honour our great goddess of the earth, without her blessings our crops will not grow. You have committed a great evil. Your wife was at fault, but even if you came into your obi and found her lover on top of her, you would still have committed a great evil to beat her…. The evil you have done can ruin the whole clan. The earth goddess whom you have insulted may refuse to give us her increase, and we shall all perish. …You will bring to the shrine of Ani tomorrow one she-goat, one hen, a length of cloth and a hundred cowries.”192 There is no argument with the priest or the priestess of the deity especially when he or she speaks on behalf of the goddess Ala. When one is sanctioned for committing offence against Ala, one does not hesitate to bring the required things. It is better to appease Ala goddess with material things than to allow her to unleash her anger against the people. After the week of peace, the people will begin to clear the bush in preparation for the planting of the crop. New Yam Festival is an occasion for giving thanks to Ala, the earth goddess and the source of all fertility. The feast is held every year in different parts of Igboland. It attracts visitors and sons and daughters of the land from far and wide. It is an occasion of joy. In an interview with Mazi Ikoroha, he says: “No family can be too poor as not to provide things needed for the celebration of the New Yam Festival.”193 Before the New Yam Festival celebration of any town, no village or individual is expected to eat or celebrate the New Yam before the Iwa ji (breaking of yam) of the Eze or the Eriri ji (eating yam) of the town. Before this particular day, some sacrifices are offered in honour of the deity and the ancestors. On the festive day, the New Yam should be eaten cooked, roasted or pounded. Men and women, young and old look forward to the New Yam Festival because it is a time of plenty. On the last night before the festival, Old Yams are disposed. The New Year must begin with tasty, fresh and not the shriveled and fibrous crop of blessing our crops will not grow. It is abomination for someone to die in this week of peace. If a man dies this time, he will not be buried, but cast into the Evil Forest. It was narrated that in the past, a man who broke the peace of the mother goddess was drag on the ground through the village until he died. Later this custom stopped because its action spoilt the peace which it was meant to preserve. C.f., Achebe, Things Fall Apart 22f. 192 Ibid., 22. 193 Mazi Ikoroha was an old man from my village whose interest for festive occasion attracted him respect.

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the previous year. All cooking-pots, calabashes and wooden bowls are thoroughly washed, especially, the wooden mortar in which yam is to be pounded. Yam fufu and vegetable soup is the chief food in the celebration. So much is cooked that, no matter how heavily the family and those invited eat, there is always a large quantity of left over at the end of the day.194 It is a yearly celebration and the people are meant to eat to their satisfaction and to thank the mother earth. Obiakoizu Iloanusi narrates the prayer of sacrifice at the New Yam Festival: “Ala our mother on behalf of my dear people I make this sacrifice to you as thanks for the good harvest. You have brought us rain and have given us a good harvest, let your children eat grain of this harvest calmly and peacefully. Do not bring us any surprise or depression. Guide us against illness of the people, on our herds and flocks, so that we may enjoy this seasons harvest in peace of mind. Remove death and anything that may bring misfortune to your children. Give us good health to enjoy the fruit of our labour which we have received from you.”195 This prayer is offered by the priest of Ala deity. It is also presumed that every family head has to say this prayer on behalf of the family. The Ala deity is so respected that the people find it difficult to sell the land without performing proper rites to appease the goddess. The people believe that the land belongs to the community and the ancestors who handed them over the land are laid to rest in the land, so one has no right to sell it without informing the community one belongs to. It is out of respect to the earth goddess and the ancestors that the Igbo are ideologically opposed to the sale of land. In Igbo tradition, one can pledge a land to cancel a debt, or to pay a bride price. The land which has been pledged is normally redeemable at any time and at the same rate to which it has been pledged.196 Where there is a sale of land, the earth goddess must be ritually pacified if the transaction is to be consummated. The Igbo feel guilty and ashamed to sell their land.197 They believe that to sell the land is to betray their ancestors who handed them the land and the earth goddess whose care and protection for the people is undeniable. Obiora Ike writes: “And where land was sold in later years, especially after the foreign influence in Igbo culture, the earth goddess had to be ritually purified if the transaction was to be accepted as consummated.”198 Otherwise the handing over of the land is not consummated.

194 195 196 197 198

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Achebe, Things Fall Apart, 26. Iloanusi, Myths of the Creation of Man and the Origin of Death in Africa, 95. Obiora Ike and Edozie, Understanding Africa, 131. Ogbaa, Understanding Things Fall Apart, 148. Obiora Ike and Edozie, Understanding Africa, 50.

3.4.3 Amadioha or Igwe (Heaven) Igwe is first regarded as the abode of Chukwu and the husband of the Earth deity. Just as a husband fertilizes his wife, so Igwe, in the form of rain fertilizes Ala, the Earth goddess.199 He is responsible for rain. He fertiles the earth with rain and makes possible the growth of abundant harvest for human being. The Igbo distinguish two aspects of this spirit: Igwe as the source of rain and Igwe as the thunder deity.200 The god of thunder is also connected with rain.201 Amadioha is the god of lightening and war, he is the very opposite of Ala in the sense that, while Ala is seen as a mother figure, nurturing and caring, Amadioha is a destructive god. His worshippers use him as the ‘angel of death’. His main role is to rake deadly vengeance on those who hurt or offend his worshippers. In the time of war, Amadioha is invoked to strike dead the enemies of the people. The victims of his vengeance are never mourned, but are buried only when very expensive ritual cleansings have been performed by the priest of Amadioha. In various parts of Igboland, Amadioha is known as Igwe, Kalu, Kamalu, Kanu or Akanu.202 The god enjoys a great prestige, because he employs either a thunderbold or swift illness for his vengeance. No person is intrepid enough to swear with him when one is guilty.203 He is highly feared or dreaded and no one will like to be associated with his anger. People use him to curse those who offend them in various ways.

3.4.4 Anyanwu (Sun) The Sun is like the eye of God moving back and forth.204 Without the Sun, darkness will envelop the whole world. It is regarded as the eye by which Chukwu sees through human beings, knowing their inner thoughts, their joys and sorrows. With the Sun, nothing is hidden before God. Anyanwu is honoured as a male counterpart of Ala in the cyclic process of reproduction, growth and maturation of Igbo crops. His two roles as the eye of God on earth and as reproduction agent in the agricultural life of the people make Anyanwu an important Igbo god.205 It is the

199 200 201 202 203 204 205

Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 64. Uzor, The Traditional African Concept of God and the Christian Concept of God, 305. Amadi, The Concubine, 8. Ogbaa, Understanding Things Fall Apart, 131. Amadi, The Concubine, 15. Kirwen, The Missionary and the Diviner, 5. Ogbaa, Understanding Things Fall Apart, 132.

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Sun that brings the air that dries the crops for the harvest.206 This role of helping the Ala to produce good harvest is also in association with the work of the Igwe. The two have a major role to play because of their interrelatedness. They live together, because the abode of Anyanwu is Igwe, so their functions affect each other. “Anyanwu is regarded in a special way as a deity bringing wealth and good fortune. His altar consists of Oha or Ogilisi (Newbouldia) tree, at the foot of which a small mound of red clay is fashioned, into which a round pottery dish is sunk bottom downwards. The dish which usually contains some sacrificial water is called oku awale, (vessel of fortune). Before a man goes to the market, he may pour a little palm wine into the bowl of Anyanwu, dip his fingers in the bowl, touch his tongue with his finger, and say, I am going to market; may Anyanwu grant that my words may sound sweet to those with whom I trade.”207 This belief is highly practiced, because the people want good fortune and they always like to associate freely with all especially business partners. The Sun deity is nearer to Chukwu. He is regarded as the deity who mediates between Chukwu and human being. The Sun’s position as the intermediary nearest to Chukwu in connection with fortune and prosperity has had such influence on some Igbo people, that the Sun is identified with Chukwu Himself. Some regard him as the son of God: Chukwu.208 He is sometimes personified in myths or regarded as the manifestation of God.209 The Luo people say that the Sun is a sign given by God in place of Himself.210 We hear sometimes the Sun spoken of as Nwa Chuwu – son of Chukwu or son of God.211 To be regarded as the son of Chukwu is to be identified as Chukwu. That is Christian theology about Jesus Christ as the Son of God. To be the Son of God is to be equal with God in essence and existence. In Emefie Ikenga-Metuh’s interview with Ezeana Nwaezeako the chief priest of Umudioka villge Awka, he writes: “The same God who made man is called Anyanwu na Agbala: the Sun and the Great Deity. God is the creator of the world, Anyanwu na Agbala are like his messenger. Having begotten a son who is his messenger, both have become one.”212 This statement is in confirmation with the doctrine of the Trinity which states the equality of the Father with the Son. But 206 207 208 209 210 211

Kirwen, The Missionary and the Diviner, 5. Meek, Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe, 23. Uzor, The Traditional African Concept of God and the Christian Concept of God, 303. Parrinder, Religion in Africa, 42. Kirwen, The Missionary and the Diviner, 5. Ezeanya, God, Spirit and the Spirit World, 37. This position of Sun as the Son of Chukwu is not generally accepted in Igbo religion. 212 Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 64.

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the question is, can the Anyanwu be regarded as Christ in Igbo religion? To do this is to make caricature of Christ and the incarnation. It cannot, because Christ is a historical figure who came in human form and said who he is. But Anyanwu as a mythological figure is regarded as a god whose essence and attributes are given to him by human beings. He is not an existential figure. He is highly feared and respected and is regarded as the god of justice. He vindicates the just because as the eyes of Chukwu, he sees everything and when judging, he judges justly. That is why when a person is wrongly accused of the offence he/she did not commit, he/she throws up open the palms towards the sun, saying, Chukwu lekwa akam di ocha (look, Chukwu, my hands are clean). This act is to proclaim the innocence which no one but Chukwu can establish.213

3.4.5 Chi’s: Other Spirit Forces Chi214 is the fundamental word in Igbo traditional religious system. It is so difficult to be grasped because of its position and understanding in the religion. “The word Chi used in a religious context evokes three relative concepts namely: the Supreme Being, the Guardian Spirit and the Idea of Destiny or Fortune. Only the context can show which of the three is uppermost in an Igbo’s mind when he uses the word Chi.”215 The Igbo, who have lived the religion, whose culture and language it is and whose modes of thought and expression are permeated by it, can explain the terminology and the meaning it implies.216 It can only be understood well by those who have lived or influenced by the culture. Chi is a person’s spirit double, a concept that is derived from the Igbo belief in duality: that all things have their complimentary opposite even in the realm of the spirits. Chi is the personal spirit being in the spirit world, complimenting the human being in the human world. It comes from Chukwu and reverts to Him at the person’s death. Each person has one’s Chi who may be well or ill disposed.217 Unlike Chukwu who

213 Ogbaa, Understanding Things Fall Apart, 32. 214 Animals also have their Chi, and if a hunter misses an animal he ascribes his failure to the animal’s Chi. An animal may become the Chi of a man, and people who behave in a brutal manner are believed to have the Chi of an animal. It is said that the children of hunters are liable to have the Chi of animals slain by their fathers. In this way animals revenge themselves on men. C.f., Meek, Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe, 55. 215 Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 22. 216 Ibid., 22. 217 Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 25.

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is far removed from human beings, but can only be reached through intermediaries, Chi is always in close proximity to the people and functions as a transcendent force, guardian angel, personal god or spirit, or soul of individual human double.218 Its presence around humanity gives one protection from any accidental eventuality. The proper assignment of Chi is to accompany a person to one’s own destiny. In terms of strictly principal role, Chi is the creator, fate or destiny. The Igbo believe that as the dead living ancestor in the spirit world prepares for reincarnation into the human world, one is presented a number of gifts and talents by Chi-na-Eke from which one with one’s Chi (as creator spirit) makes choices that becomes the portion or fortune in the human world.219 The Chi is associated with a child from the moment of its conception. When a dead person is reincarnated one is given (by Chineke) a different Chi from that possessed by one in the former life. A person’s abilities, faults and good or bad fortune are ascribed to the Chi and it explains, to some extent, the fatalistic attitude of the Igbo. If one’s conduct gets one into trouble, one is excused by saying (and believing) that the Chi is responsible. If one stumbles on the road or is bitten by a snake, the misfortune may be ascribed to the Chi who is annoyed because one has failed to offer it sacrifice. When a child whimpers in the sleep, it is a sign that he or she is quarrelling with the Chi and when one derives no benefit from the food one eats, it is because the Chi has devoured the essence or nourishing qualities of the food.220 The Chi chooses the child’s destiny from the many parcels of fortunes put by Chukwu. Eke lets the child out into the world. Hence Chukwu gives each person existence, Chi gives one the destiny and Eke gives one the personality.221 The understanding of Chukwu, Chi and Eke show that human being has Chukwu as the source of all creation but Chi and Eke become a complimentary of the creation of God. After the birth of a person into the human world, the ancestor, now a person makes use of the chosen gifts and talents under the strict supervision of the Chi (as guiding spirit). If the use of talents results in misfortune despite every cautionary measure, people will normally rationalize by saying, obu otu ya na Chi ya siri kwuo (it is how one and the Chi bargained). This is a philosophical way of attributing personal responsibility for misfortune to one’s Chi.222 “The creative role of Chi and Eke are secondary and subordinate to that of Chukwu.

218 Ogbaa, Understanding Things Fall Apart, 134. 219 Ibid. 220 Meek, Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe, 55. 221 Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 68f. 222 Ogbaa, Understanding Things Fall Apart, 135.

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They are themselves creatures of God, and their creative role is limited to choosing the destiny and the personality of the individual. It is believed that once Chi and Eke make their choices, they are irrevocably sealed and indelibly or immutably imprinted by the creator on the palms of the person’s hands, the Akara Aka or Akara Chi, (the signs on the palm or the signs of Chi). A skilled diviner can read a person’s fortunes by interpreting the lines on his palms.”223 The people attach great importance to the interpretation of the signs on the palm. In Igbo religion, good or bad luck does not come by chance. It is always destined through the Chi. One who has always good fortune is regarded as onye Chi oma (one with good Chi), but one with bad luck is regarded as onye Chi ojoo (one with bad Chi). That means that all is destined from the creator through the Chi and nothing happens without the approval of the Chi God gave the individual at the moment of creation. We may be forced to ponder if this attitude of Chi is possible when effort and talent of one counts? The Igbo believe in personal effort and hard work. They believe that the Chi is always available to guide and lead when one initiates an action. Hence the people say: ‘Onye kwe Chi ya ekwe’ (when one says yes, the Chi will also agree).224 The Igbo have on the other hand the notion that the Chi decrees all in human existential world. The decisions and the package of Chi are unalterable and cannot be challenged. This can be regarded as a doctrine of pre-destination. When one is pre-destined, it cannot be changed but for the Igbo, it can be changed. The Igbo believe that Chi is unalterable and at the same time alterable. It is unalterable in so far as the contents of the destiny are concerned, the package cannot be changed. It is alterable in so far as human being can pray to the Chi to withhold the misfortunes in the destiny’s package and allow one only the good fortunes in it.225 And so whatever effort one makes is ratified by the Chi. Prayers and efforts or hardworks are of great importance in alteration of one’s destiny. Chi then is a kind of spirit associated with a person’s destiny and which directs its realization.226 Whether the human destiny is good or bad, one must live it to the end of one’s human existence. Chi will not allow one to be deprived of the opportunity to experience one’s total destiny. That is why when a person escapes an accident, the Igbo will say, Chi ya mu anya (one’s Chi is awake).227 Chi guides and directs human being

223 224 225 226 227

Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 69. Ogbaa, Understanding Things Fall Apart, 134. Ikenga-Metuh, African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes, 28f. Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 24. Ogbaa, Understanding Things Fall Apart, 135.

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all the days of his/her life. The unshakable confidence in Chi is expressed by the proverbs. Mgbo adighi egbu onye ya na Chi ya so, (A bullet does not kill a person who is with his/her Chi). Onwu agaghi egbu onye Chi ya na azo, onwu agaghi ahapu onye Chi ya ga egbu, (Death cannot kill a person his/her Chi wants to save, nor can death leave a person whom his/her Chi wants to kill).228 Again Onye Chi ya choro igbu aghaghi inwu, (one who his/her Chi wants to kill must surely die). Hence one who the gods want to kill must surely die.

3.5 Igbo Belief in the Ancestors The Igbo world-view is the world of the living and the dead. The living is always in communication and communion with the dead. Death is seen as a transformation into another state of life where one experiences the power of the Supreme Being: Chukwu who is the creator of all things. Chukwu is pacified through the activities of the divinities who are pure spirits and the ancestors. The ancestors are people believed to have lived life worthy of integrity and emulation, and those who have positively influenced their communities. They could be understood in two ways; all those who have died mostly unnamed or named relatives who are dead.229 The Igbo believe in the ancestors and their power to mediate between them and Chukwu. They are very close to their ancestors more than to Chukwu. Every family, clan and lineage has its own ancestors and where they perform religious rites on specific occasions.230 The ancestors receive more attention in daily and annual acts of worship than the Supreme Beings and the deities. As members of the family, they are invited to be present and participate in most family activities. They are invoked to share in the Kola Nut communion, whether it is blessed at the public gatherings or split at home to entertain a guest. They are invoked to participate at naming ceremonies, marriages and funeral rites of other members of their family.231 They are called upon every day to come, take their position and to guide the gathering of the people. They are highly venerated. Ancestral veneration is the invincible conviction that those who have departed from this world have only changed from this life to another form of

228 Ibid., 69f. 229 Anozie, The Moral Significance of African Traditional Religion for Christian Conscience, 80. 230 Ekem, Priesthood in Context, 32. 231 Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 95.

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life. In consequence of going into that life, they have been released from all the restraints and burdens imposed by this earth; thus they are possessors of limitless potentialities which they can exploit for the benefit or for the detriment of those who still live on earth.232 Most often people think that the ancestors are worshiped in African traditional religions. The Africans especially the Igbo venerate their ancestors and do not worship them. Emmanuel Umeh writes: “Ancestors are not worshipped in African traditional religion, but they are venerated. Their veneration maintains the unbroken relationship between the living and the dead. The relationship with them is mutual and symbiotically significant.”233 The veneration is in solidarity with the dead members of the community. Bolaji Idowu who made use of ancestral worship later emphasized: “Ancestral worship is a wrong nomenclature for that which in fact is no ‘worship’ but a manifestation of an unbroken family relationship between the parent who had departed from this world and the offspring who are still living here.”234 Hence they are venerated and not worshipped. The veneration of the ancestors suggests that, life does not end with death. Death becomes a passage into another form of life that interrelates with the material world. It is not annihilation, but a transition from the human world to the world of the spirit.235 The ancestors receive special power from the Supreme Being and are identifiable with Him in a special way. Their relationship with the Supreme Being is not that of a mode or quality, it is a unique kind of mysterious link. They are separate beings with mystical unity.236 Their mystical nature gives them the opportunity to perform the works the people expect from them. Their power helps them to see what the future holds for the living and warn them against it when necessary. The ancestors are venerated, just as Christians venerate the Saints. Through this veneration, the livings maintain unbroken relationship with the dead. Since they are intermediaries, any offering given to them would not be for their own sake, but in recognition of the vital role they play237 between Chukwu and the people. They bring life and prosperity to the members of their families. They may also inflict

232 233 234 235 236 237

Idowu, Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief, 207f. Umeh, African Theology of Solidarity, 20. Idowu, Olodumare, God in Yoruba Belief, 207. Umeh, African Theology of Solidarity, 20. Shorter, African Christian Theology, 103. Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 92.

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some punishment on their relatives if they are neglected or for misconduct.238 They help to keep the traditional order intact and coherent. They enliven and transmit their powers and good qualities to the younger generations. So humanity lives consciously in the light of and protection of the ancestors. They are the guardians of life and happiness. Respect for them brings blessings and abundance. Ignoring them can only lead to bad luck, sickness, loss of wealth and status. They are not easily forgotten and are revered long after they have passed away.239 These reverences are given to them in their shrines and in the people’s gatherings. The ancestral shrines are sometimes located in the open, so that animals like dogs or vultures may consume the food left on them. This does not affect the value of the sacrifice since the spirits consume the spiritual essence of the food.240 The life of the ancestors in the spiritual world is a reality. They have their independent existence. One carries his/her prestige and honour to the spirit world. Human status in life determines one’s status as an ancestor in the spirit world. The king remains a king, the village and lineage heads remain so. Those who have taken titles still belong and are accorded the respect due to their rank in the ancestral cult.241 Their existence does not depend on their remembrance by the living. In the invocation of the ancestors in certain African localities, the liturgy embraces those remembered and those not remembered: the known and the unknown. It is often said, we cannot remember all by names, nevertheless we invoke you all.242 This shows that the unknown or forgotten ancestors are still ancestors whose power is still relevant among the people.

3.5.1 Who are the Ancestors? Bolaji Idowu succinctly puts it: “The ancestors are truly members of the family on earth; but they are no longer at the fleshly order as those who are still actually living in the flesh on earth. They are closely related to this world; but are no longer ordinary mortals. Because they have crossed the borderland between this world and the supersensible world, entering and living in the latter, they have become freed from the restrictions imposed by the physical world. They can now come to abide with their folk on earth invisibly, to aid or hinder them, to promote prosperity or

238 239 240 241 242

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Ikenga-Metuh, African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes, 31. Kirwen, The Missionary and the Diviner, 8. Ikenga-Metuh, African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes, 31. Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 148. Idowu, African Traditional Religion: A Definition, 188.

hinder adversity. They are intermediaries between the Deity or the divinities and their own children; this is the continuation of their earthly function whereby they combine their headships of the families or communities with the office of family or community priests or priestesses.”243 This definition is the summary of who the ancestors are and the work they do among the living members of their communities. Their bodily absence does not mean their spiritual absence. They always abide by their families. They are good spirits believed to be not only well disposed, but also look after the welfare of their kinsmen. The funeral rites of their descendant have helped them to reach the spiritual home of the clan which is in intimate communion with its living members. As spirits, they have enhanced powers and influence. They are believed to be closer to the Supreme Being and the deities and they act as intermediaries between the Deities and the people.244 Aylward Shorter sees them as: “…simply dead elders, who enjoyed a continued social existence, receiving foods and drinks and other marks of respect and concern as if they were still alive.”245 The honour of being an ancestor is given to some dead members of the community and not the living. The dead discover their ultimate worth only in relation to the living and the unborn; the latter’s existence is also considered meaningless without the former.246 In Igbo religion, it is the funeral rites that make the spirit of the dead to reach the land of the dead: the home of ancestors. The funeral rites introduce one to the presence of Chukwu: God. If Chukwu approves one’s life on earth, one becomes an ancestor, Ndichie. If not one is banished, between the human world and the spirit world.247 Ancestors are therefore, the dead elder members of the family who jealously maintain discipline in their families, and may inflict severe punishment on those members whose behaviours threaten the existence and the progress in the family.248 Simeon Eboh, sees them as “…those deceased members of the community who in their life time held positions of importance, such as heads of the families, lineages, clans, tribes, kingdoms and other social groups.”249 They were elevated to the status of ancestors by the living kinsmen of the community because of their exemplary earthly

243 244 245 246 247 248 249

Ibid., 185. Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 149. Shorter, African Christian Theology, 124. Ekem, Priesthood in Context, 32. Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 91. Ikenga-Metuh, African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes: 120. Eboh, An African Concept of Law and Order, A Case Study of Igbo Traditional Society, 149.

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existence, and most often by their heroic acts and services to their community.250 They are always remembered by the members of the family and are known as the living dead. To forget their names is to invite their anger. When they are completely forgotten, they are said to be completely dead. Then they join the company of the unknown ancestors.251 Their power does not cease even though they are no longer remembered. They are the noble custodians of morality and can be appealed to as authority and an authentication on certain moral issues in the community.252 They are spiritual beings and not spirits in themselves known as Muoo, agbara or arusi. Agbara or Arusi are generally referred as deities. The ancestors are not deities. They are the living dead who lived good lives, but now they enjoy the vision of the Supreme Being and stand as the custodians of faith and morals.253 African religions venerate them because everyone wants to be united with them for the continuity of life hereafter. This ancestral cult belief makes it more meaningful in African belief that, death is not the end of life but rather a continued existence of the family or community in the world of the ancestors. The cult is therefore a means of communion and communication between the living and the dead in the spirit world of the ancestors.254

3.5.2 The Role of the Ancestors in Igbo Traditional Religion The ancestors play a special role and occupy a special place in the life of the Igbo and in their religious practices. They are seen as the invisible segment of the lineage. People come and go, and humanity arises out of the life of the ancestors and goes back into the community of the ancestors.255 From the relationship between the ancestors and Chukwu the Igbos in their traditional beliefs, summarize the works of the ancestors as follows: 1. They are the Custodian of law, Custom and Morality. 2. They Mediate between God and humanity. 3. They control the social relationship pertaining to the sphere of domestic productivity. The Igbo laws are also culture bound and they have their foundation from Ala, in conjunction with the ancestors. The ancestors cannot do anything without the consent of the mother Earth goddess. 250 Umeh, African Theology of Solidarity, 18. 251 Kirwen, The Missionary and the Diviner, 110. 252 Anozie, The Moral Significance of African Traditional Religion for Christian Conscience, 46. 253 Ibid., 80. 254 Iloanusi, Myths of the Creation of Man and Origin of Death in Africa, 61f. 255 Kirwen, The Missionary and the Diviner, 9.

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The original documentation of the laws and the customs which the people believed to be authentic and genuine are handed down from generation to generation through oral tradition in the form of myth, folklore, legends etc. The medium of these transmissions are the ancestors. They are taught the content of Omenala (tradition) by Chukwu and passed them down to the later generations.256 They constitute the basic categories of the moral and legal order and make sure that the laws: Omenala are maintained. They are thus the symbols of peace, unity and prosperity in the family. At the same time, they are the protectors of the traditional laws and customs, Omenala, and the welfare of their families and they may punish the offenders.257 Their main concern is about the life and the health of the living. It is this function which raises them above the transitory human level and invests them with sacred significance. They are superior and powerful beyond all human conceptions. They are also the founders of Umunna (fraternal) community lineage system which is everywhere in Igboland. In the spirit world, they long for reunion with their sons and daughters. Their unhappiness and anger with the living cause them to suspend their protective power and as a result evil begins to disturb the human community. The way to overcome the evil is to be reconciled with the ancestors.258 It is the duty of human being to make them happy in order to obtain many benefits. Their spiritual nature elevated them to the position to render invaluable help to their people. They are credited with more than human power and knowledge. They know the hidden thoughts of the living as well as their future. They can possess people and reveal secrets to them and they can send sicknesses and misfortunes as well as cure them or take them away.259 If the people want to live in peace and prosperity, they have to be united with them, because they are the essential stabilizing forces in their lives.260 They are regarded as the ‘go-between’ God and humanity. They provide the living with council.261 They help to grant prosperity both to the crops and to the animals. It is from this religious conviction that the people believe that the ancestors are the best interpreters of the mind of God. During their life time on earth, they have interpreted the laws well, laying the social and cultural foundation of the community on a good moral basis. Because of this, they exercise a lot of

256 257 258 259 260 261

Iloanusi, Myths of the Creation of Man and the Origin of Death in Africa, 100. Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 96. Kirwen, The Missionary and the Diviner, 114. Shorter, African Christian Theology, 126. Kirwen, The Missionary and the Diviner, 114. Eze, Jesus Christ the Ancestor, 91.

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influence on their descendants. The people believe strongly in the daily intervention of the ancestors in their daily affairs.262 In times of trouble or natural disasters people offer sacrifices to them. These sacrifices are performed by the elders as representatives of the community to unite them with their ancestors.263 The ancestors are believed to eat the sacrifices offered to them. The people believe that as they ate food when they were alive, so they are capable of eating food and drinking wine too. The elders pray to them as follows: “You, our ancestors, drive away the evil thing that is destroying us. Our fathers, we are disappearing from the face of the earth. Help us. All good spirit of the land, eat this sacrifice, especially you who were named after the spirit of this household. All you people who have gone to your rest, may you bless your homestead. Take away all the evil things. Look here, you bring peace to your children and their mothers together with the cattle and the gardens.”264 At the end of the prayer, those present will answer iseeeeeee (may it be so). They can be reprimanded for failing in their duty by closing their eyes to the depredations of the evil spirits which cause death to the family, crop failure, and make trade unprofitable.265 They are scolded so as to remind them, that they were once part of the family and anything that happens to the family will also affect them in the spirit world. They can also be threatened with starvation.

3.5.3 Qualities of the Ancestors in Igbo Traditional Religion In Africa, there is nevertheless a qualitative differentiation of the dead. Not all the dead people are accorded the same honour and significance in the society. Depending on the impact they made on the society during their life time, some may be entirely forgotten or lapse into insignificance, while others may long be remembered and held in honour by posterity, the latter are properly termed the ancestors.266 In Igbo religion, not all who lived and died would receive the honour of being the ancestors. There are four requirements necessary for ancestorshood in Igbo religion: Old age, offspring, good moral life, and the appropriate funeral rites. The funeral rites are absolutely necessary, for they are the rite of passage by which the dead are welcomed and installed as the ancestors. Death before old age

262 263 264 265 266

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Iloanusi, Myths of the Creation of Man and the Origin of Death in Africa, 101. Kirwen, The Missionary and the Diviner, 6. Ibid., 8. Ogbaa, Understanding Things Fall Apart, 149. Kwamena Ekem, Priesthood in Context, 32.

is regarded as unnatural for which various explanations are given. These unnatural deaths are sometimes seen as punishments from God.267 At death, the ancestors are not considered to be dead, but living and at the same time communicating with the living. They are the heroes and the heroines who contributed to the expansion of the well-being among their contemporaries in various ways.268 They may be called the Saints in the Christian concept. They made life more meaningful and worth living for their progenitors.269 They suffered that their progenitors might live well. They lived a life worthy of emulation: life of sincerity, truthfulness, faith, honesty, and worked for peace and justice. Africans generally believe that only good people are named ancestors after they have received the well done judgement of the Deity or of the court of the ancestors. Bad or wicked people will be cast into a place of rubbish heap or into the hell of potsherds. In some cases they become random wanderers in a place of no abode. The departed who have no offspring whether they be old, young men or children generally do not become ancestors, they are regarded as a disgruntled spirits because they have no body to venerate them. They are believed to be malignant and liable to cause misfortune.270 But Bolaji Idowu adds: “Those who departed in the prime of life or relatively young can become ancestors, provided they have offspring before their death. It appears also that there are those who although they have not strictly qualified in the ways described above, may be admitted into the spirit world of the deceased because they are good and their days on earth are done, even though they may be young and childless.”271 This shows that the attainment of ancestorshood is open for people who lived faithfully, genuinely, sincerely and contributed immensely during their earthly lives. It also depends on the community. Deaths by suicide, leprosy, dropsy, small-pox, epilepsy, etc are regarded as bad deaths. The victims are not given the full funeral rites and consequently cannot become ancestors.272 Witches, sorcerers, notorious criminals and those who died of other loathsome diseases cannot become ancestors.273 To make them ancestors is to attract the wrath of the gods of the land who inflicted them with the sicknesses.

267 268 269 270 271 272 273

Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 147. Amu, Religion and Religious Experience, 27. Mbefo, Towards a Mature African Christianity, 67. Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 148. Idowu, African Traditional Religion: A Definition, 187. Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 91. Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 264.

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The Igbo’s believes that in life and in death, one is in association with the family and the ancestors. We are in them and they are in us. This is expressed by the living through the customs of the clan and extended family and for the dead, by the cult of ancestors.274 With the amount of power given to them, some may term them as deities. It is not true. Africans distinguish between the Deity, divinities and the ancestors. The Deity and the divinities are distinctly out of the super sensible world, while the ancestors are of the living persons, kith and kin. The ancestors are related to the living community in a way that cannot be claimed for the Deity or the divinities who are definitely of a different order. They are regarded as the heads and parts of the families or the communities to which they belonged while they were living human beings. What happened to them in consequence of the phenomenon called death was only that the family life of this earth has been extended into the after-life or the super sensible world. They are spiritual super-intendents of family affairs and continue to bear their titles of relationship like ‘father’ or ‘mother’.275 They are at the centre of cyclic existence of human being in the Igbo world, often described as the world of human and the world of the spirits. They are described as dead-living or living dead because they may be dead in the world of humans, but alive in the world of the spirits.276 The Igbo idea that the ancestors and other deceased members come back to ‘temporal life’ is rooted in reincarnation (Ilouwa).277

274 275 276 277

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Hastings, Church and Mission in Modern Africa, 67. Idowu, African Traditional Religion: A Definition, 184. Ogbaa, Understanding Things Fall Apart, 133. Ibid., 149.

Chapter 4: R  eligious Functionaries in African Traditional Religions 4. Introduction In the previous chapter, we discussed the spiritual realities in Igbo traditional religion. These spiritual realities have Chukwu at the head and other deities serve as the messengers or the intermediaries of God to mankind. The most immediate intermediary between Chukwu and mankind are the ancestors. They were in the human form and have experienced human miseries and shortcomings before being elevated as the ancestors. They receive sacrifices and offerings on behalf of Chukwu and relay human needs to Him. They stand between Chukwu and the people. Chukwu punishes and blesses the people through them and other intermediaries. Chukwu is a merciful God, but He does not relent to punish human evil. He relents when adequate sacrifices and offerings are offered to Him. His essence and existence are beyond human comprehension that is why there are intermediaries between humanity and Chukwu. In this chapter we shall look into the functions of human intermediaries between Chukwu, the spirits or deities and humanity. They include: priests, kings, medicine men, seers, oracles, diviners, rainmakers and ritual elders.1 Ikenga-Metuh regards them as: “Authorities and specialists in various aspects of African life. They are the mediators and also the medium who a deity or spirit uses to communicate his messages or benefits on the people.”2 These intermediaries conduct religious matters: ceremonies, sacrifices, formal prayers and divination. They help to bring healing to the people suffering from various kinds of sicknesses ranging from physical, spiritual, psychological, political, economical and otherwise. They are authorities and specialists, because they are trained men and women as regards the office they hold in their various communities. They know more about religious, social and ethical affairs of the people and they are respected in their communities. They are the harbingers of the people’s culture, religion and traditions. They are respected because of the offices they are holding for the people. Without them, religious activities would neither survive

1 2

Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 62. Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 213.

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nor function properly, and without them most of the wisdoms of the African people would have been forgotten. They are specialists and experts in religious matters and are human keepers of the religious heritage.3 In Africa, especially in Igboland, religion, culture and tradition are intertwined and they influence each other. It is difficult to separate them. In the traditional cult of the Deity and the divinities, the mediating act is reserved to the office of the Priesthood, the Diviners and the Medicine men. Almost every tradition in Africa has their priesthood and the rules and regulations surrounding them. It is the work of the priest to conduct the acts of worship, sacrifice and offering for the people. Any individual can perform private offerings and sacrifices, but when it comes to the communal worship, the priest takes over. Most time the Dibias (Medicine men) and the elders in Igbo traditional religion can perform sacrifices for the people. It is the work of the priest and the Medicine men to offer sacrifices before God. Sometimes their works are closely linked that one finds it difficult to find the difference between them: the priest and the medicine man (Onye Nchuaja and Dibia). The priests do their works conscientiously and meticulously. Their actions are dictated by the rites, the symbols and the rules of the office. They do not work like magicians whose sole aim is to deceive the people. The office logically does not belong to human being but God.4 The office entrusts one with the responsibility of offering sacrifices on behalf of the people. The responsibility regulates the life of the one who is called into the office.We shall discuss: What priesthood is, the priesthood of the Old and the New Testament, the distinctive works of the priest as the one who offers worship, performs the acts of offerings and sacrifices for the people. We shall discuss prayer as the important interaction and communication, through which humanity praises God, asks favours and presents one’s petitions to the Spiritual Being. Medicine men/women and the Diviner will also be discussed. These offices are important in Igbo religion and they help one to solve the religious as well as the physical, spiritual, psychological and sociological problems.

4.1 What is Priesthood? Priesthood exists in many religions of the world. It is a normal term in the history of religion and it is very important in Judaism and Christianity, but 3 4

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Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 11. Ansgar, Priester, Priestertum, Religionsgeschichtlich, 558.

there is no priestess in these two great religions. The priests and priestess serve as the mediator between the people and their deities through the perfomance of ritual activities.5 Wherever there is sacrifice in religion, there is always priesthood. Priesthood is according to the traditions and cultures of the people it serves. Diversity allows priesthood no universally valid, unique religious history.6 When we talk of priesthood, we can think of divergence as regards different cultures and traditions of the people. The divergences are converged at the functions of the priesthood in various cultures. It unifies the natural with the supernatural. It is a ladder through which humanity builds a bridge with the supernatural being. A priest or priestess is always in contact with the Supreme Being, without running the risk of destruction, yet sufficiently human to make intimate contact with humanity.7 With the office of the priesthood as a human mediator, God becomes accessible to humanity through sacrifice and offerings. In the Old Testament there were two kinds of mediators between God and the people. These mediators were always chosen by God to represent Him and to communicate Him to the people. They were to communicate His mind and will to the people. They warn the people when they start moving away from the precepts of the law. These mediators were called the prophets8 and the priests. It is the work of God to choose His prophets but the priesthood is hereditary. The prophets of God in the Old Testament receive their message directly from God and deliver it to the people. They are always in conflict with the ruling class for their message is not always favourable with them because they speak out the mind of God. They speak most often when the people are departing from the precepts of the law given to them by God. Their work is regarded as downward mediation: from heaven to earth, directly from God to humanity. Their mediation is from the people to God; to offer God the adoration of the people, invoke His aid, and beg His mercy for the sins of the people. These were in the Old Testament called the priests. They exercise upward mediation: from earth to heaven.

5 6 7 8

Vorgrimler, Neues Theologisches Wörterbuch, 517. Ansgar, Priester, Priestertum, Religionsgeschichtlich, 558. Idowu, Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief, 133. In this work we shall concentrate on the Priesthood and the works of the priests in Igbo traditional religion. The Biblical Prophets are not popular among the people. The work of the Prophets may be ascribed to the diviners, but the diviners are quite distinct from the Prophets as seen in the Old Testament. To read more about the Prophets in Igboland see: Ndiokwerre, Prophecy and Revolution.

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In Igbo religion, the upward mediation and the downward mediation are combined in the work of the priest known as ‘Dibia Aja’ (the priest) and ‘Dibia Afa’ (the diviner). Priesthood has a distinctive role to play in the spiritual and the religious lives of the people. This office is not a job. It is a vocation. It is not a profession, but a call (Christian point of view). There is a difference between a profession and a vocation. People can conduct themselves professionally but may not consider their work as calling. Those who consider priesthood as a vocation derive their identity from an inner motivation that allows them to shape their roles rather than merely occupy them. The idea of profession stresses public recognition, greater autonomy and larger rewards. The sense of vocation finds expression in an obligation to the people they serve and personal fulfillment.9 Priesthood is a call to serve the people, with the intention of reconciling humanity with God and the spiritual realities. It is surrounded with assertions and traditions which have set the priests apart and make them, an extraordinary personage in their communities.10 They are extraordinary people because of their ability to interact with the deities and humanity without being wounded. They represent God and humanity. Nobody calls oneself unto the office of the priesthood; rather one is chosen to represent humanity before God. “Every high priest is taken from among human beings and is appointed to act on their behalf in relationships with God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins; he can sympathize with those who are ignorant or who have gone astray, because he too is subject to the limitations of weakness. That is why he makes sin offering for himself as well as for the people. No one takes this honour on himself; it needs a call from God, as in Aaron’s case. And so it was not Christ who gave himself the glory of becoming high priest” (Heb.5:1–5). In the New Testament, priests are called according to the mind of Christ. They have their qualities and restriction written in the New Testament, the canon law, the councils of the fathers and the writings of the church (for Catholics). In African traditional religions, there is neither the Old nor the New Testaments; rather, the people have their rules, regulations and the restrictions in the traditions where priests function. These are not written in books, but in the minds of the people. The office of the priesthood is always hierarchical both in the Old Testament, in the New Testament and in African traditional religions. In Nigeria, among the Yoruba, Idowu writes: “Yoruba priesthood is hierarchical in nature. At the same time each cult group has its own order of priesthood which is graded. There is a chief priest who is assisted by other sub-priests, according to their ranks. Each member of the cult 9 Manalel, Priest as a man, Counseling for the Clergy, 55. 10 Ibid., 9.

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staff is treated according to his status in seating arrangement and in sharing of emoluments.”11

4.1.1 Who is a Priest? In discussing the nature, the person and the habit of the priest, Joseph Cafasso writes: “In his nature he is a man like others. In his person, his dignity is above that of all other men in the world. In his conduct and habits, he should be a man totally different from all others as he is by his dignity and office.”12 A priest generally designates a person ordained with authority to practice the religious cult of certain divinities or spirits. Since these spirits and the divinities are believed to direct and influence human existence, they must be worshipped, prayed to, consulted, influenced by prayers, offerings, sacrifices, and the likes for the continuing welfare of the human community.13 Hence, one has to take the charge of the duty between the human and the divine and it falls unto the hands of the priest. Aylward Shorter writes: “A priest is a ritual agent who officiates in religious worship on behalf of a community. In traditional ethnic religion, heads of families and clans, and political leaders often have priestly functions. The idea of a specialist class of priests exercising a universal role in the society is uncommon. However, priests associated with a localized cult at a temple, shrine or grave is more common. Often, they are also mediums. Many are women.”14 A priest is a person set aside by God or the gods through human beings in order to serve God and humanity respectively. His words are not questionable, because they are the words of God, the gods or the deities he represents. He is listened and adhered to by all. Through this office: “The priests were made elders by virtue of their initiation rite into the priesthood”.15 But this honour in virtue of their office does not make them not to respect their elders. The word priest connotes a special person in the world, a person truly divine. He is raised to the dignity that places him between God and humanity. He is in touch, to both ways, between the object of the worship and humanity. He hears them and speaks on behalf of one to the other. It is his duty to offer worship and bless humanity in the name of his object of worship.16 He is the mysterious individual who unites in himself what is most

11 12 13 14 15 16

Idowu, Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief, 136. Cafassso, The Priest the Man of God His Dignity and Duties, 16ff. Ludwig, Ordination, 98. Shorter, African Culture an Overview, 74. Kirwen, The missionary and the Diviner: 95. Idowu, Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief, 133.

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sublime in heaven with the baseness of earth, who forms in himself that complex being, that mixture of the human and the divine which makes him such a hidden mystery that we do not know what to call him, whether a god or a man.17 He brings gifts and offerings from the people, sacrifices them to the supernatural and gives humanity the blessings of the divine or the Supreme Being. The Latin sacerdo and its Greek equivalent hierus are sacred terms. They refer to priests and those who are usually associated with sacrifices and temples.18 The priests (sacerdotes) as a group derive their title from the sacred rites (sacra). The word pontifices is a Latin word applied to the priests. It comes from the verb to be able (Posse) and ‘to do’ (facere). It is derived from the word ‘bridge’ (pons). It was by these officials that the Sublicians Bridge was first constructed; and it has often likewise been repaired by them. In fact, in that connection, sacred rites are carried out on both sides of the Tiber with considerable ceremony. They are appointed to perform sacred rites.19 The work of the priests is the constant repairing of the connection between humanity and God through the acts of worship: prayers, sacrifices and offerings. They carry out these works in accordance to the rites and rituals of the office. The priestly functions move across cultures and religions in the general framework of ritually regulated intermediary between the people or community on the one hand and the respective socially and individually recognized transcendental Deity or deities on the other hand.20 John Mbiti specifies: “In some of these societies, the priests are formally trained and commissioned (ordained). The duties of priests are mainly making sacrifices, offerings, and prayers, conducting both public and private rites and ceremonies, giving advice, performing judicial functions in some societies, helping in search of lost things (in some societies), caring for the temples and shrines where these exist, and above all, fulfilling their office as religious intermediaries between men and God.”21 Their work embraces all aspects of human life. The principal works of the priest is to offer prayers, performs offerings and sacrifices for the people for the expiation of their sins and that of the community. Prayers, Sacrifices and offerings are elements considered central to the ethical life and feature prominently in the practice of African Religions.22 These functions

17 18 19 20 21 22

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Cafassso, The Priest the Man of God His Dignity and Duties, 16. Donovan, What are They Saying About the Ministerial Priesthood? 4. Beard – North and Price, Religions of Rome, 76. Ansgar, Priester, Priestertum, Religionsgeschichtlich, 558. Mbiti, Concepts of God in Africa, 220. Magesa, African Religion, The Moral Theology of Abundant life, 195.

are carried out mostly by priests in Igboland, although most adults in Igbo society perform some priestly functions, but they are not officially priests.23 In a formal sense they are not priests, but they are priests in an informal sense. The priests do their works conscientiously so that the angers of the gods may not swallow the people. They mediate between the gods and humanity. They live in the two worlds: the spiritual and the physical world. They intercede before the gods for humanity and present the intentions and the petitions of the people to the gods. They protect the community from the misfortunes arising from the angers of the gods or from the witchcrafts.24 They are divinely chosen for the service of the divine and humanity. In African traditional religions, the priest as a public functionary is usually attached to some cultic centre, a shrine or a temple to perform certain prescribed forms of rituals on behalf of the people. He is differentiated from medicine man. A medicine man is self employed, and offers his services to the individuals or the groups who may request for help and pay for the services.25 In Igboland, almost all priests are medicine men, but not all medicine men are priests. In some African countries, it is difficult to distinguish between the political and the religious role of the priest.26 Priesthood is a dignified office in the eyes of the people.

4.1.2 Priesthood in the Old Testament The main function of the priest in the Old Testament is to offer sacrifices to the Lord. This act of offering sacrifices does not make everybody who offered them to be priests. In the Old Testament, Noah built an altar and offered burnt offering to the Lord (Gen. 8:20). Abraham offered a sacrifice to the Lord (Gen.22:13–14). Offering of these sacrifices does not make them priests according to the mind of the Old Testament tradition. The Old Testament priesthood as an organized cult was instituted by Moses at the command of the Yahweh: “From among the Israelites, summon your brother Aaron and his sons to be priests in my service”

23 24 25 26

Ikenga-Metuh, African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes, 168. Landtman, Priest, Priesthood, 278. Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 213. Ibid., 214.

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(Ex.28:1). Aaron received the mandate as the priest of the Lord. He and his brothers from the tribe of Levi are mandated to be answerable for offences against the sanctuary and they are to undertake the priestly duties, perform the liturgy and the duties entrusted to their priesthood (Num.18:1–7). With this command, Moses purified, clothed and anointed them as the priests of Yahweh. After the consecration rites of the priests, they assumed the priestly functions of the people. Moses ordered Aaron, “Go to the altar and offer your sacrifice for sin and your burnt offering, and so perform the rite of expiation for yourself and your family. Then present the people’s offering and perform the rite of expiation for them as Yahweh had ordered” (Lev.9:7). The Old Testament priesthood is hereditary among the people of Israel. They were chosen by God through Moses from the tribe of Levi. They were called Levitical or Aaronite priesthood because they were from the tribe of Levi and Aaron was the first priest. Their mediation is upward: from earth to heaven. Moreover, the priests of the Old Testament were not only to mediate between the people and God, they were to do so in a distinctive and unique way. They were to offer sacrifices of goats and sheep, of oxen and cattle, of bread and wine, of wheat, barley and oats, and fruits of trees (Lev.6:1f). There are many rules and regulations to the priests of the Old Testament. Moses states the holiness of the priesthood, the impediments to the priesthood and the holiness in consuming the sacred food in the book of Leviticus (Lev.21–22:1–16). One who is not holy or pure is not expected to present himself as a priest before the Lord. The priests of the Old Testament are mandated to be holy for Yahweh they serve is holy. They are consecrated to their God and will not profane the name of their God (Lev.21:6). When due to human limitations they go contrary to the ethics of their office, they have to make atonement so as to rise from their fall. The Old Testament priesthood is only for men.

4.1.3 The New Testament Priesthood: The Priesthood of Christ In the New Testament, every baptized person has a share in the priesthood of Christ (Catholic position). All the faithful share in the holy and royal priesthood of Christ. They offer spiritual sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ and proclaim him to the world. So every member has a part in the mission of the body of Christ and his spirit of prophecy.27 There is the common priesthood and the ministerial priesthood. The ministerial priesthood is also known as the sacramental priesthood, because the 27 Presbyterorum Ordinis, 2.

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ordained receive their priestly vocation within the priestly people of God. They share in the priesthood of Christ though in different ways.28 The priesthood can be distinguished as baptismal priesthood and the hierarchical priesthood. In writing about priesthood in the New Testament, I have to concentrate on its Biblical foundation and on the ministerial or hierarchical Catholic priesthood. The priesthood of the New Testament is not hereditary like the Old Testament priesthood. It is vocational. It is in accordance with the mind of Christ. It was instituted at the Last Supper which occured during the feast of the Jewish Passover in commemoration of the freeing of the people of Israel from Egyptian bondage. But for the Christians it has another meaning, it commemorates not the Jewish Passover, but the sufferings and the death of Jesus Christ on Mount Calvary which is the fulfillment of the promise of salvation. In the New Testament, the letter to the Hebrews writes extensively about the priesthood of Christ. It is the only document in the New Testament where Jesus Christ is explicitly called a priest. It refers to him as the High Priest on the analogy of the Jewish High Priest who once a year on the Day of Atonement entered into the holy of holies.29 The letter gives the interpretation of Christ as the High Priest of the New Covenant. The priesthood of Christ is greater than the Levitical priesthood of the Old Testament. It writes that Christ did not give himself the glory of becoming the High Priest, but the one who said to him, you are my son, today I have fathered you. It traces the origin of Christ priesthood to Melchizedek: You are a priest forever, of the order of Melchizedek (Heb.5:5–6). It goes further to prove that for Abraham to have paid tithe to Melchizedek and received blessing from him means that he is greater than Abraham (Heb.7:4–10). The priesthood of Melchizedek is unique in the Old Testament. His sacrifice is sacramental and unbloody. He did not offer goat and bullock but bread and wine. “Melchizedek king of Salem brought bread and wine; he was the priest of the Most High God” (Gen. 14:18). This is the type of the priesthood that is associated with Christ. Though the sacrifice of Christ is bloody on the Mount of Calvary, but its commemoration in the celebration of the Eucharist is always unbloody. In the New Testament priesthood, Christ is both the victim and the priest. He offered himself for the redemption of humanity. In the sacrifice of Christ, he is the High Priest who sacrificed not the blood of the goat and bull, but himself. In this sacrifice, he unites in himself both his priesthood and victimhood.30 This sacrifice 28 Donovon, What are They Saying About the Ministerial Priesthood? 28. 29 Ibid., 77. 30 Sheen, The Priest is not His Own, 14.

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is commemorated everyday in the Eucharistic celebration. St Paul commenting on the institution of the Holy Eucharist writes: “On the night he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread, and after he had given thanks, he broke it and he said: ‘This is my body which is for you do this in remembrance of me.’ And in the same way, with the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Whenever you drink it, do this as a memorial of me. When you eat this bread, then, and drink this cup, you are proclaiming the Lord’s death until he comes” (1Cor. 11:23–27). This is the tradition that was handed over by the first century Christians. Hence the priest of the New Testament has the power to consecrate the body and blood of Christ and to forgive and retain sins.31 This shows that Christ instituted the sacrament of the Eucharist at the Last Supper, when he says this is my body and this is my blood. And he instituted the sacrament of the priesthood when he told his apostles: do this in memory of me. Through the power they received at the Last Supper, the apostles have the authority to renew the sacrifice of the Eucharist with his command. The priest of the New Testament is regarded as the one who performs the acts of Christ on Calvary at the Eucharistic celebration. Through this act, he unites the divine and human in a unique way. “…he unites in himself what is most sublime in heaven with the baseness of earth, who forms in himself that complex being, that mixture of human and the divine which makes him such a hidden mystery that we do not know what to call him, whether a god or a man.”32 He is beneath God but above human being. He cannot be called God, but neither can he be called a mere man. He is like a middle person between God and human being, but nearer and more closely belonging to God than to human being.33 He is like other men but his office gives him a special privilege to communicate both with God and with human beings. In presenting Christ through the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, he becomes another Christ (alter Christus) and lives the life of Christ among the people.34 One of the principal acts of the priest is the preaching of the Gospel. Before Christ ascended into heaven he gave his followers the instruction to preach for the forgiveness of sins to all nations (Lk.24:47). Throughout his public ministry, he spent his time preaching the kingdom of God. The priest as the follower of

31 32 33 34

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Gratsch, Aquinas Summa, An Introduction and Interpretation, 272. Cafasso, The Priest the Man of God, 16. Ibid., 22. Ukomadu, 21st Century Church Leaders: The Will and the Way, 20.

Christ is the messenger of the word that Jesus Christ preached.35 In speaking about the priests of the New Testament as regards preaching, the fathers of the church through Vatican II writes: “In the measure in which they participate in the office of the apostles, God gives priests a special grace to be ministers of Christ among the people. They perform the sacred duty of preaching the Gospel, so that the offering of the people can be made acceptable and sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Through the apostolic proclamation of the Gospel, the People of God are called together and assembled. All belonging to this people, since they have been sanctified by the Holy Spirit, can offer themselves as ‘a sacrifice, living, holy, pleasing to God’ (Rom 12:1).”36 The Catholic priests have also power to forgive sins. The power of the priests to forgive sins was received from Christ after the resurrection: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven; if you retain anyone’s sins they are retained” (Jon. 20:22–23). The ministerial priesthood of the New Testament is a vocation, a special call, in this call the candidate is invited to be “…a man of God (Homo Dei) and a mediator of God and man.”37 It is hierarchically structured: the bishops and the priests. They are ordained to minister to the people. The bishops are the representatives of the apostles on earth. The sacramental priesthood of the New Testament does not take its origin from the community as though it was the community that calls or delegate. It is rather a gift for the community and it comes from Christ himself who is the fullness of the priesthood.38 All priests of the New Testament participate in the priesthood of Christ who is the fullness of the priesthood.

4.2 Priesthood in Igbo Traditional Religion In Igbo traditional religion, there is not much distinction between the works of the priest (Onye Nchuaja), the diviner (Onye Ogba afa) and the medicine man/ woman (Onye Dibia). It is also the same in some tribes in Africa. Most times, one can do the whole work alone, for all is related to the interaction with God, spirits or the deities, spiritual and physical healing and the offering of sacrifices to the spiritual beings. There is a belief that sickness comes from the gods and it is only the work of the mediator between the gods and human being that can

35 36 37 38

Klausnitzer, Glaubst du, dass sie würdig sind? 157. Presbyterorum Ordinis, 2. Stockums, The Priesthood, 70f. Donovon, What They are Saying About the Ministerial Priesthood, 28.

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perform acceptable sacrifices so as to bring healing to the sick. Priests, diviners and medicine-men/women occupy different positions and play different roles in Igbo societies to actualize the healing of any kind. They represent three different professions, which however could be combined by one person. This is often the case, though it is not the rule.39 Priesthood in Igbo traditional religion is hereditary as well as vocational. It is not hereditary like the Levitical priesthood of the Old Testament whereby every member of the family or the tribe of Levi automatically becomes a priest. It is not vocational whereby the members are being recruited from the pools of young men in the community just as we have in the Christendom. It is a call, just as in other religions. No one wakes up over night and becomes a priest and no one can fake to be a priest because priests have their shrines in their communities. Priesthood is not a profession because “Priests are, however, not like professionals who earn their living through their trade. They lead normal life like any other citizen and earn their living by farm work or other trades. They do not depend on the people for their livelihood.”40 But they accept the offerings of the people who come to offer sacrifices to Chukwu or the deities. They accept gifts and sometime charges from the people when necessary. They are called by the gods or the deities so as to help people in their spiritual needs. They keep the shrine in good repair and attend the devotees who have come to offer sacrifices, to make offerings, to swear or to ask for the protection and vengeance of the deity.41 Their devotion to their deities attracts people from various parts of the land. Their work is not for personal aggrandizement, but for the good of the entire community. In Igboland, Chukwu as God has no priest like Ala, Earth deity, or other nature earth deities.42 These deities receive sacrifices on behalf of Chukwu and present them to Him.

4.2.1 The Call to the Priestly Function There is always a call to the office of the priesthood. It is a call to serve both the divine and human. Priestly call in Igbo religion is either hereditary or a call from a particular Deity. Among the Yoruba of Nigeria, there appears to be no specific call to the priesthood. It is wholly hereditary. Bolaji Idowu writes: “The person who succeeds the family priest or the town priest is usually the person to him next

39 40 41 42

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Ikenga-Metuh, African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes, 167. Okorie, Priesthood in Igbo Traditional Religion, 184. Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 215. Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 127.

in rank. He should have been with the priest and should have ‘understudied’ him by assisting and watching him during the conduct of rituals. If the priest grows to an old age, he normally delegates some of his more strenuous functions to his younger and more able second-in-command. When he dies, the assistant steps in automatically.”43 Here the priest learns through association and practice. This act of participating or working with the old priest makes him fully in control of himself and the office before he is handed over officially as the priest of that particular deity. It also builds his confidence as a priest and the people will also build their confidence and trust on him. Among the Akan of Ghana, the initiative of who becomes a priest rests entirely on the deities. For this reason, a person cannot independently work his/her way into the priesthood and expect the people to accord him/her the recognition and the honour due to the priests and the priestesses. There must be a call. The communities have criteria for measuring a genuine call into the priesthood. One of the principal characteristic of the call is possession by a particular deity who desires to enlist a possessed individual into its service. This is determined by an experienced priest/priestess. Possession alone does not automatically make one a priest or priestess into this culture. When one is tested and affirmed that one has a special call from the deity, one must undergo a period of training so as to be instructed on the ways of the deity and be equipped for the effective service to the community.44 The possession may come in different ways and forms which may force the person or the family to seek the help of a diviner. It may come through illness or sickness, sudden possession by a deity anywhere and anytime. In this situation, one may reveal so many secrets that are above human understanding and through mysterious disappearance into the forest after which one will later reappear unharmed by the wild beasts.45 These signs and acts are subject to the interpretation of the diviners or the priests/priestess of the deities. If the possessed person is needed in the office of the deity, these acts will continue and can only stop when the person accepts to minister in the cult of the deity or after various sacrifices have been performed. It does not stop automatically, but rather gradually. Theo Sundermeier affirms: “A relationship with the divinities comes about through possession and through heredity. The divinity takes possession of individuals like a sudden illness. After being healed, they know that they are bound to this divinity. Their children inherit this 43 Idowu, Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief, 136. 44 Kwamena, Priesthood in Context, 41. 45 Ibid., 42.

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bond. If they struggle against it, the same sickness can suddenly strike one of their descendants. The divinity appears and influences people in this way. This applies particularly to those called to be prophets. The divinity is everywhere. Wherever there are people, there is the divinity. People cannot get away. They are surrounded on all sides.”46 When one is initiated through possession, he and his descendants will continue to function as the priest of that deity, unless the deity says otherwise. In various communities in Igboland, it is the right of the god, (gods) or ‘Chi’ or Arusi47 to choose who serves him. Cletus Okorie writes: “It is not the community who makes the priest, but the deity who calls.”48 The deity chooses and calls because the priest is going to serve him and represent his interest before the people. The call is experienced spiritually and sometimes outwardly through possession (just as among the Akan people of Ghana). Sometimes the person may be seriously sick and when the Diviners or Dibias are consulted, through offering of sacrifices to the gods, it may be revealed that he/she has a call from the spirit to be a priest/priestess. Sometimes it may be through dreams. When the call comes and the person agrees to serve the deity, as a priest, the spirit will restore him/her to health and he/she will learn the act of being a priest and how to balance the demands of the possessing spirit and one’s own sanity.49 These are the ways the spirits direct human being towards the intention of the gods. There was a case of an Arusi (spirit), who through signs revealed by the diviner that his priest was yet unborn and that the present minister was only acting on behalf of the unborn priest. One could compare this to the vocation of the Prophet Jeremiah: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; and before you were born I consecrate you” (Jer. 1:5).50

46 Sundermeier, The Individual and Community in African Traditional Religion, 150. 47 Arusi is a strong spiritual force residing in the shrine built for it in the community or village. It has the power of blessing or destroying according to the circumstances with the people. Unlike Chukwu whose attributes was goodness and benevolence, Arusi was responsible for externalizing Chukwu’s powerful qualities, and for punishing offenders in the community. Hence it was revered in Igboland and sacrifices were made to placate it. The diviners – (Dibia), Ogba-afa and priests – (Eze-ani) were involved in interpreting the wishes of Arusi and placating it for the general good of the people in the community. C.f., Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 25. 48 Okorie, Priesthood in Igbo Traditional Religion, 172. 49 Kirwen, The missionary and the Diviner, 81f. 50 Onwubiko, African Thought, Religion and Culture, 74f.

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4.2.2 Four Categories of Priesthood in Igboland Emefie Ikenga-Metuh writes: “There are four categories of priesthood in Igboland. There are the Okpara: family head who are priests of the ancestral shrines. The Isi Mmuo: head of the spirit-cults, takes charge of the village spirit shrines. The Eze ala, the chief priest of Ala Earth-mother, is the priest of the central shrine of Ala of each village group. Finally there is Eze Nri, the priest king of Nri town, who is the High priest of the cult of Ala for a large cult of Igboland.”51 The priest king of Nri is important in Igbo traditional religion.52 The people from Nri are highly respected because they perform the sacrifices of expiation of the sins of the communities or individual offences that are regarded as Nso Ala (what the land forbids) across the entire Igboland. The priests in Igbo traditional religion can be classified as follows: i. The Okpara is the family father and priest (paterfamilias) and is responsible for the spiritual needs both in the nuclear and the extended families. ii. The Onye Isi Ala is the priest of Ala (of the village or the whole town). iii. Onye Isi Mmuo or Eze Arusi is the priest of a particular deity whose influence extends beyond the town. iv. Aro or Nri priests: cleanses abomination in all over Igboland.53 They are stated in the hierarchical structure both in essence and importance. None interferes in the work that pertains to the other, and they respect the functions of each other. 4.2.2.1 The Okpara or Paterfamilias Priest The Okpara54 or the paterfamilias priest is a supreme priest head of the family. He is the eldest male of the senior lineage in the Umunna. “As a head, he is the custodian of the ancestral shrine, Okposi, the ancestral cult staff, Ofo55, and the 51 52 53 54

Ikenga-Metuh, African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes, 168. Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 6. Okorie, Priesthood in Igbo Traditional Religion, 181. Ebelebe holds that Okpara is the political authority in Igbo traditional religion. He holds the family Ofo, the Igbo symbol of truth and justice with which he acts as the ritual head or priest of the family. This makes him to be the intermediary between the living and the dead. To be the Okpara makes him closers to the gods and the ancestors of the land. C.f., Ebelebe, African and the New Face of Mission, 15. 55 Ofo is a little piece of well carved wood, about one foot long. It is usually cut from a root or branch of Ofo tree. It is the staff and the symbol of authority in Igboland. It is passed

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ancestral cult spear, Otonsi or Alo. The position of the Okpara is hereditary.56 He is respected, honoured and dignified in the family and in the community. He represents the family in social, political or religious matters. Succession is affected in a simple ceremony after the funeral rites of the last Okpara (father or elder brother), in which the new Okpara takes charge of the ancestral shrine and the cult objects. The ceremony takes place in the ancestral shrine in the Obi (family reception house), in the presence of at least four elders of the Umunna. There the Ofo is presented to him, and taking it, he touches it with a chicken and says: “Ofo, I cleanse you of defilement (i.e. of death); I take you into my care, as I am the rightful person to do so. May I hold you for my years.”57 After saying these, he will thank the people and bless them with the Ofo. His power is from hence recognized among his people and in the community. The Okpara is in charge of the family land and other properties inherited from the ancestors. He is the symbol of love, unity and peace in the lineage and settles disputes among its members. The Ofo among the people becomes not only a symbol of authority but it is respected as the intermediary between the family and its ancestors.58 With his Ofo he could interdict any recalcitrant member who could not accept his decision or constantly flout the traditions and customs received from the ancestors.59 Ofo is capable of killing the individual members of the family when they are guilty and it can protect them when they are innocent. Oaths sworn to it are believed to be binding and it kills any person who swears falsely upon it. His priesthood is limited to his family and his extended families. The supreme head is entitled to this priestly function because he is the senior of the

56 57 58 59

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from the father to the son or from the eldest person in the community to the next. This passage marks the transfer of authority from the father to the son and the maturity of the son requires him to speak the truth whenever he holds the Ofo in his hand. The holders bring it to the family gatherings as symbol and mark of peace, truthfulness and sincerity during the discussion. It is normally handed over to the eldest son with this prayer: To you my eldest son I bequeath my Ofo. You are today appointed to be my successor as the head of the family. To this, your uncles and your brothers will agree with you. They are to respect you in all things, and this Ofo must remain with you and your descendant. Meek, C.f., The Law of Inheritance is Clear, Obiora Ike, Understanding Africa, 120. The holders are men of reputable characters and they are respected because it is believed that Ofo has the power of the gods. Ofo tree is called osisi Ofo detarium elastica. C.f., Onyema: The Igbo Culture and the Formation of Conscience, 174. See also: Onwubiko, African Thought, Religion and Culture, 77. Ikenga-Metuh, African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes, 168. Parrinder, Religion in Africa, 94. Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 215.

blood relations in the extended family and therefore succeeds the priestly function which used to belong to the common ancestor from whom the family descended.60 The Okpara has the right of performing sacrifices within the family and the extended families. He has the final say with regard to the matters in these families. His authority is derived from the fact that he is regarded as the intermediary between the living members of the family and the living ancestors. In the immediate family, the eldest son succeeds his father as the Okpara, but if the first born dies before his father, he loses his right to the second son who automatically becomes the Okpara. In the level of Umunna or Ikwu, (village) succession to the office of Okpara follows the adelphic principle: passing from the incumbent to his next brother in line of age, rather than from father to the son.61 The rule of succession is well known. It is not subject to debate and no one will ever try to alter the formation. To do that is to attract the anger of the gods and the ancestors of the land. It is his religious duties to offer libations, offerings and prayers to the ancestors on behalf of the Umunna. He makes sacrifices every four days of the Igbo week and at the annual festival of the ancestors. He controls the land and the trees growing on it. No member of the family can have any dealing as regards the land without his permission. Socially and politically, he represents the group in their dealings with the outsiders.62 He has the final say with regard to the welfare of the family in the communal deliberations. Politically he is the president over his group, and he gives advice on the customs and traditions, indicating where a proposed action agrees with or violates them. 4.2.2.2 The Onye Isi Ala (The Priest of Ala) The priest of Ala is in-charge of the whole village or the whole town. In Igbo Traditional religion, every village or town has its own shrine and somebody has to be responsible for the shrine. The shrine of the village belongs to Ala deity; that is why the priest is regarded as Onye Isi Ala (the head of Ala). He offers communal sacrifices on festive periods and when there is any threat from the gods or the deities against the village or the town. He represents the people before the deity and the deity before the people. The priest of Ala is simply the high priest of any Igbo village, town or clan. In some areas, he is also seen as a political leader63 as well as the spiritual leader of the people. He offers sacrifices that lie beyond paterfamilias priest. 60 61 62 63

Idowu, Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief, 135. Okorie, Priesthood in Igbo Traditional Religion, 169. Ikenga-Metuh, African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes, 169. Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative studies in African Religion, 215.

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In Igboland, if a new piece of land is newly acquired, the Ala priest is invited to perform the consecration ceremony before the new owner can begin to use it. In performing the sacrifice, the priest immolates the victim, which may be a goat, and allows the blood to gush out in that piece of land. He prays to Ala to protect the new owner of the land, not to injure him, but rather to allow him to live there in peace. The slaughtered fowl or goat is used to prepare yam porridge for the people who are present. The former owner and the new owner partake of the meal together with the priest and all who are present. The priest, the former owner of the land, the new owner of the land and the witnesses will always be present in this important occasion. Through this ritual, the ownership is formally transferred to the new owner. If this consecration or ritualization is not performed and the new owner begins to use the piece of land, it is regarded as abomination (aru) and the people believed that Ala deity will visit the new occupant of the land with punishment. And the new owner will according to the belief of the people begin to experience such difficulties as bareness of the land and if a building is erected on it, it may collapse, sudden death may be the result and this may happen very often.64 But when the land is leased out or used to borrow money from an individual, the rituals are not performed for there is no permanent transfer of the land and the new possessor of the land has no right to erect any structure in the land. He can use the land for economic reasons only: cultivating in the land, until when the money can be paid back. In Igbo traditional religion, many offences are regarded as taboos or abomination: Nso Ala. They are called Nso Ala because they offend her: the land: the goddess of the land.65 When these offences are committed, it is the priest of Ala that performs the sacrifice of Imedo Ala (appeasing the land). It is a sacrifice to appease the Ala for the offences or minor taboos committed against her. Apart from these sacrifices, the Ala priest is in charge of people’s calendar. It is his duty to determine when the ancestors will be fed and when some festivals are to be celebrated and some rituals to be performed. He proclaims the time for the yearly planting and the harvesting of the food items. It is in the harvesting period that thanksgiving ceremonies are performed in the shrines of Ala, Njoku (the spirits in charge of yam) and also at the graves of the departed fathers of the family who qualified for ancestorhood. His work is enormous and the people hold him in esteem.

64 Okorie, Priesthood in Igbo Traditional Religion, 190. 65 Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 27.

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4.2.2.3 Onye Eze Mmuo or Eze Arusi (The King of the Spirit) Onye Eze Mmuo or Eze Arusi, is regarded as the king of the spirit or the deities or Arusi in Igboland. These deities are meant to guard and protect the entire village, but when they are provoked, they become a security menace to the people. Elizabeth Isichei writes: “Unlike Chukwu, who is always benevolent, the alusi are forces for blessing or destruction depending on the circumstances. They punish social offenders and those who unwittingly infringe their privileges.”66 When they become security menace, it is the duty of their priests or medicine men to offer special sacrifices in order to pacify them and avert their angers against the people. The Eze Arusi (also called Isi Mmuo) is the official minister of specific Mmuo (spirit) that have shrine or organized cult. He enjoys political and social power in the society. The ministry of an Isi Mmuo broadly speaking consists of two functions – performing the traditionally prescribed regular worship of the spirit and attending to the individual problems of the devotees. If a devotee wants to make a good will sacrifice or petitions, he/she can go straight to the priest of the spirit or consult a diviner who will direct him/her to Onye Eze Mmuo.67 He is sometimes called the one who ‘carries’ the spirit (Onye bu Mmuo). The vocation to this office is not uniform. In some cases, when initial relationship is established between a deity and a family, the father assumes the priestly responsibility for the deity. At his death his descendants may continue to inherit the priesthood.68 The deity may also decide to move the priestly office to another family especially when there are no good representatives in that family. This is exactly what happened in the first book of Samuel, when the sons of Eli could not be true representative of their father Eli. In this situation God chose another person in the name of Samuel (1Sm. 2:30–36). When such a thing happens, the deity reveals this through signs which will be interpreted by the Diviners or the Dibias of the land (we have explained this above). 4.2.2.4 The Aro or Nri Priests Elizabeth Isichei writes: “What is most ancient is not necessarily most typical, as witness the institution of Nri, with its priest-king, which are most untypical of Igboland as a whole. What is important may not be ancient, as witness the great importance of the Aro oracle and trading network in nineteenth-century in 66 Ibid., 25. 67 Ikenga-Metuh, African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes, 171. 68 Onwubiko, Theory and Practice of Inculturation, Vol. II, 74.

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Igboland.”69 Aro or Nri priests are priests with special assignments in the whole of Igboland. Through rite of ordination, the spirit of Eri, is the mythical ancestor believed to have been sent down by Chukwu to reorganize the world and found the Nri priesthood. He is regarded as a god, since he is a god; the Eze Nri does not administer any territory, not even his home town (Agukwu Nri). His important function is the abolishing of Nso Ala, (sacred prohibitions and taboos). He is always present when the sacrifices of cleansing are performed.70 It is believed that the streets of Nri is the street of the gods through which all who die in other parts of Igboland pass to the land of the spirit. They travel throughout Eastern and Western Igboland with special functions of cleansing and purifying communities from abominations.71 They are called to work mainly for the communities, especially when the Aru (abomination) is greater than what the Ala priest can handle. They move around like business men and whenever they perform rituals of cleansing in any community, they are paid with certain items connected with particular functions they perform.72 They charge money to perform their sacrifices. One does not make a promise to the priests of Nri, for the Igbo say: Arusi ana ekwe nkwa anaghi egbu egbu (The deity one can promise for his pay is not strong enough to kill).73 They are always settled so that the anger of their deity will not bring misfortune to the people of the community. It is their work to bury people who committed suicide and those who died of deadly diseases. These were abominations among the people and the victims were thrown into the evil forest without a befitting burial. They can be buried by these specialists from Nri after performing some sacrifices. These acts made the entire Igbo people to be afraid of them and also to distance themselves from them as outcasts who deal with the dead, the spirits and abominations. In an interview granted by Mazi Mbagwu Ogbete, reflecting on the attitudes of the ritual specialists from Nri, he says: “What can you learn from Nri people who buried people who died of deadly diseases or people who hanged themselves? In our land these were abomination. People even found it difficult to eat with them.”74 They confer the Ofo which is the symbol of authority and the ankle cords to the candidate title of Ozo.

69 70 71 72 73 74

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Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 6. Ikenga-Metuh, African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes, 173. Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 10. Okorie, Priesthood in Igbo Traditional Religion, 184. Umezi, Oba Ilu Igbo, 213. Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 48. C.f. Okolie, Akokwa from the earliest time to 1917, 91.

In Igboland, Ofo and the ankle cord signify honour and title. Ofo is a symbol of authority and can only be one in any family and it belongs to the eldest member of the family. The ankle cord is a sign that one is qualified to belong to the prestigious member of Ozo group.75 It is only the Nri priest who has it as a right or duty to cleanse abomination in the land, confer prestigious titles such as Nze and Ozo. They bury those who died of deadly diseases and those who committed suicide without being harmed by the spirits. They travel different Igbo communities to provide services and to perform sacrifices to establish and abrogate sacred prohibitions or cleanse pollutions.76 They are regarded as the Levites of the Igbo people.

4.2.3 The Training of Priests in Igbo Traditional Religion In Igbo traditional religion, priests: male or female, hereditary or otherwise are formally trained and commissioned (ordained). Though they are trained, but there are no formal institutions for the recruiting of priests in Igbo traditional religion. The prospective candidates learn by association and observation from the elderly priests. This is correlated with the pattern of succession found among the Yoruba of Nigeria. The young will always succeed the elderly priest when one grows too old or when one can no longer be functional or when one dies. In preparation for this necessary handover, the aging priest will normally choose as assistance a son or a close relative who is interested in the cult and who would in due course

75 Ozo members are respected people in Igbo traditional religion. It has a status of politico-religious character. They are highly respected and treated with honour. They are the judicial members of every community. Before one becomes a member of Ozo title, he has to be initiated and some sacrifices performed on his behalf. To be a member, one should be a person of unquestionable character and a man of great influence. As a member of this group, one has to restrain himself from certain behaviours that will put him to ridicule. The conditions for one to be initiated into this noble title is: 1, one must be obliged to have a great reputation of courage, generous, just man, worthy of trust and confidence, well instructed in the customs and the traditions of the land, especially in manners of appeasing the gods and the ancestors in order to perpetuate peace in the community. 2, He must have lived an exemplary life and must have influenced the community positively. 3, He must have come from a good and well known lineage. 4, He ought to be financially boyant which could put him above the ordinary members of the community. 5, They are initiated and subjected to all the religious, moral and social rules and regulations of the group. C.f. Aligwekwe, The Continuity of Traditional Values in the African Society, 192. 76 Ikenga-Metuh, African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes, 175.

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be chosen or feel called by the deity in the service.77 By being nearer to the aged priest, one learns the rites and the rules patterning to the office of the priesthood. With some deities, the office of the priesthood is hereditary, with some; succession to a vacant priestly office is as a result of a direct call by the deity through some extra-religious experience. The authenticity of the call is usually confirmed through divination.78 When one is formally or informally chosen as a priest, he/she has to undergo priestly training in order to allow him/her to discharge the duties confidently and peacefully. There is no particular institution with regard to the training of the priests in Igboland. But because of the enormous works that surround this office, one has to be prepared in order to meet up with the priestly challenges. In the priestly training, “He is taught rituals, rules of priestly life and conduct, how to communicate with the various spirits, and so forth.”79 But Emefie Ikenga-Metuh succinctly puts it: “The training of the priest is a simple affair. Where succession to the priesthood is by inheritance, the successor is designated even from his childhood days and he gradually learns by assisting his father or uncle in his priestly duties. No special training is required and no uniformity is required with the rites and operation in different communities in Igboland. In cases where the candidate receives his call from the deity he is going to serve, because the ritual duties of a priest are not very complex and any elder who has been close to a priest would have a fairly good knowledge of them, the deity normally chooses the person who is competent for the job. For the rest he learns from experience.”80 The priestly function is not as simple as Ikenga-Metuh presented it. Whether the call to the priesthood is formal or informal, hereditary or by appointment; when one who wants to be a priest attains the age of wisdom, understanding and maturity, he/she has to learn things necessary for the office. In undertaking this prestigious function; one has to be equipped intellectually, socially, psychologically and otherwise. There are many intricacies involved in this noble office which we shall enumerate later. In Igboland, the training of priests lasts many years. These years are learning period for the candidate. One learns to activate and actualize one’s potentialities, interaction with the people and with the spirit one will serve. In this period, there is always the training in general to blend three components that one could term the practical, the theoretical and the disciplinary life of the priest. 77 78 79 80

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Ibid., 170. Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 216. Ludwig, Ordination, 98. Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 216.

The practical life of the priestly training has to do with the priestly behaviour in relation with the people and the office. It includes most saliently the skills the community expects from the priest for the correct performance of the rituals. A priest is expected to know how to approach the shrine with awe and reverence. In many traditional settings, the efficacy of prayers and incantations has been held to depend on the acoustic correctness of its utterance. Then to tap the divine power, the formula may need to be invoked in the right language, in the right words, with the right pronunciation, and even with a precise musical intonation.81 One who cannot correctly use these words in a right place and in a right manner cannot win the confidence of the people and when one loses the confidence of the people, one attracts the anger of the god or the gods one is representing. The theoretical aspect is the learning of the duties and the functions of the priest. A priest has to learn how and when to associate with the people and when to withdraw from them to be in solitude with the god or the goddess and the spirits. One has to know when to interact with the spirits in the life of solitude. As a servant of humanity and deities, one should know the time to devote to the people and the deity. In this aspect of the priestly training, one learns the formal and the informal duties of the priest and the approach to certain problems provided by the people who come to seek advice and those who come for spiritual healing. One is expected to know how to work on the psychology of the people and win their confidence and when to prescribe offerings and sacrifices to the spirit of the land. He/she is expected to know the myths and the mysteries, the legends and the stories of the community he/she belongs and the things surrounding the spirit he/she is serving. When one knows these, then he/she becomes more relevant to the people in the community. A priest is a man of discipline. The disciplinary aspect of the life of the priest is not innate as a human being, but it is acquired through habitual learning and training. A priest ought to avoid certain aspects of life that is not worthy of a reputable dignified public office holder. He has restrictions as regards his relationship with women. Though married with many wives, but the priority of his work offers him some restrictions as a rule of life that, he should restrict himself from his wives when it is necessary for the effective execution of his work with the deity and the people. There are certain days and periods he is not expected to meet his wives for the sake of his office. He is not expected to commit adultery. He has to abstain from eating in the public gathering and avoid the association of the people with bad reputation or something that will bring him ill repute. He should not in 81 Oxtoby, Priesthood Training and Ordination, 530.

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any way or form involve himself in stealing. This is a great offence against the gods and the goddess of the land. As a harbinger of moral and ethical norms in Igboland, his behaviours and relations have to be attuned to the traditional customs of the people. He has to make effort in order to distance himself from what the people termed as sin (Mmehie) or aru (abomination). There are three types of ‘Mmehie’82 (transgression) of moral faults. The first is ‘ajo omume’ (bad behavior), it is the breach of rules of etiquette and social convention and other minor faults. They have no specific sanctions. The second is ‘Njo’ (bad deeds), they are always deliberate, they flout the law of the land and they carry some social or mystical sanctions. The third is called ‘Nso Ala’ (taboos or prohibitions of the Earth-Deity). Its infringement threatens the natural order and the very existence of the society itself. Some of these are immoral acts.83 These actions should not be committed by the priest in any way or any form for they make one unclean. He loses the confidence of the people especially when he commits them. His family should live a decent life that should not bring him any ridicule because in Igboland, an individual failure or success affects the entire family. This is what is called: “collective responsibility.”84 He is expected to be the harbinger of the laws and the traditions. When he commits these sins, the punishment from the gods and the goddess of the land will be greater, than when the ordinary person commits them. After the training which may take several years as required by different cultures and traditions, the priest is consecrated. As a consecrated person, he has the full right and the privilege to perform the rites and the duties due to a priest: offering prayers and sacrifices to the deity, custodian to the things dedicated to the deity and eating the things offered in sacrifice to the deity. Cletus Okorie

82 Ikenga-Metuh, distinguishes three types of mmehie (sin) in Igbo traditional religion. The first is what the Igbo called ajo omume: bad behaviour. It includes disapproved behaviours such as not greeting the elders, laziness, unhygienic habits, gossiping and so forth. The second called Njo or Ajo Oru, such have sanctions attached to them. They include, insulting ones parents, theft, fornication and adultery. The third one is called Nso Ala, (prohibitions of the land). These include immoral acts; they can be voluntary or involuntary acts of human being. They are voluntary and involuntary murder, incest, bestiality, theft of yam, twins, a child who cut one’s upper tooth before the lower one. C.f., Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religion, 250f. 83 Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 250f. See also, Shaibu, The Concept of Sin in African Traditional Religion, 34f. 84 May and Hoffman , Collective Responsibility, 62.

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argues: “Consecration may apply to Igbo priesthood because the candidate for the priesthood is not necessarily ordained by other priests rather consecrated for a particular deity. The call he receives from the spirit is taken to include an a priori divine ordination”.85 John Mbiti argues that priests in African traditional religions are formally trained and commissioned (ordained). He calls it ordination or commissioning but Cletus Okorie calls it consecration. These convey the same message that a priest is set apart for spiritual purpose. The consecration or the initiation ceremony or the ordination involves specific sacrifices after which the priest takes control of the shrine and chose a time for the installation ceremony. It is in this installation ceremony that the feast is celebrated before the people who acknowledge him as a priest of the community.

4.2.4 Installation of Priests in Igbo Traditional Religion In Igboland, a deity does not have more than one priest at a time. One is chosen and installed after the death of the incumbent and interregnum ensures which may last from few months to a year.86 The installation of a new priest in a community is a great occasion. It comes after the consecration might have taken place. “Installation can be applied to the Igbo priesthood in a restricted sense because the candidate is installed when the necessary conditions have been dully fulfilled.”87 The things necessary to be fulfilled are in accordance with the demands of the traditions and the cultures of the people. On the installation day, the initiate is robbed with Nzu and Uhie (cohise chalk and canwood respectively). Nzu and Uhie signify life and death. These present the priest as half human being and half spirit. Secondly, the candidate has to be vested with the priestly gab of the deity. This shows the concrete participation in the world of the deity. Thirdly, the wearing of the anklet of the deity (ola muo). This establishes the union with the deity. Fourthly, the carrying of the sacred symbol of the deity in a sacred pot or the basket, this is the public appearance of the new priest and through it; he/she is openly proclaimed the priest of a particular deity.88 The installation day is a great day for the community and the priest. It is the duty of the new priest and the Umunna to invite the guests for the occasion.

85 86 87 88

Okorie, Priesthood in Igbo Traditional Religion, 171. Ikenga-Metuh, African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes, 170. Okorie, Priesthood in Igbo Traditional Religion, 171. Onwubiko, Christian Mission and Culture in Africa vol. I, African Thought Religion and Culture, 77.

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The Umunna take it as their full responsiblity because a priest is a priest not for oneself but for the whole community. This influence has been extended to the Christian priesthood whereby the community takes it upon themselves to cater for the ordination of the new priests. It is the duty of the community to invite and feed the people who will attend the priestly installation ceremony. The community contributes money for this great occasion. Before the appointed day, they will organize themselves to clear the place where the occasion will take place. This is a communitarian act of Umunna in Igboland. They do this as their responsibility. Priesthood imposes an obligation both on the candidate (to answer the divine call and to live up to it) and on the community (to repose their trust and loyalty on the new priest and also to help him when necessary).89 On this day, priests of other deities will come to identify with the new priest. Francis Arinze writes: “On the very day of the assumption of office, the candidate is not obliged to invite every priest. Even those who come for the ceremony do not play any role like transferring power and authority to the new priest (just as it is done in the Catholic Church)”.90 They are invited to be there so as to witness the occasion like any other person.

4.3 Functions of Priests in Igbo Traditional Religion Priesthood is an important cult in Igbo traditional religion. When the angers of the gods are aroused, it is only the priest who can offer sacrifices and offerings in order to appease them. The language of the priest is more intelligible to the gods than the language of the ordinary person. He/she is the capable representative of the people before the gods and the goddesses of the land. In the prayers led by the priest, the ancestors are called to join; they are called upon because the community is under their protection. Without their encouragement and consent, the people will be exposed to danger.91 Things work well only through the priestly prayers, sacrifices and the offerings. Their work is summed up in worship.

4.3.1 Worship in Igbo Traditional Religion Worship may be defined as a human encounter with the spiritual being, which one believes that influences human life and destiny. It Expresses submission to the

89 Ibid., 172. 90 Arinze, Sacrifice in Ibo Religion, 70. 91 Kirwen, The missionary and the Diviner, 82.

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spirit and therefore proceeds by supplication, adoration, petitions and resignation to the object of worship. It is a special form of prayer which human being manifests in different religions. Those who serve in the religious worship are: priests/ priestesses they stand between the Lord and the ancestors, paying homage and adoration. Through worship human being uses elaborate series of manipulative rituals designed to harness the resources of the good deities in order to ward off the machinations of the evil spirits and to control space-time events.92 It is expressed through various forms: bowing, kneeling, prostrating the body to kiss the ground, folding or raising of the hands to the divine, touching sacred object and maintaining worshipful devotion through prayer, thanksgiving and praise and even through silence.93 The end of all spiritual worship is the mutual communication with the Supreme Being. Through worship, human beings express their belief in the Supreme Being and venerate other spiritual entities. In Africa, it is the work of the priest to lead in worship because he/she is the link between the supersensible and the mundane worlds. Worship is offered in many ways and in many forms, and it involves the whole person. Obioha Ike writes: “Worship and celebration involves the whole person, body and soul, and piety cannot be relegated to some private realm. With its symbols, gestures and prayers, religion even accompanies public life, without positing any division between the sacred and the profane. Religion was one of the principal factors which gave unity to life and held it together.”94 Through worship human being offers praise and thanks to God in a unique manner. It can therefore be expressed by actions as well as by words. It may be public or private, formal or informal, regular or extempore, communal or individual, direct or indirect.95 Worship can be seen as: “…a means of linking the spiritual and the physical worlds, putting the invisible into touch with the visible. Through worship, man becomes the intelligent bridge between these two worlds, and between the creator and the creation.”96 Through worship, human being exercises the position as the priest of the universe, the one who awakens the universe and links it with God its creator,97 whose supernatural force is beyond all. The human relationship with these supernatural forces takes the forms of prayer, sacrifice and worship. They

92 Kalu, Church Presence in Africa, 16. 93 Nebel, Anbetung, Religionsgeschichte, 608. 94 Obiora Ike Understanding Africa, 22. 95 Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 131. 96 Mbiti Introduction to African Religion, 55. 97 Ibid.

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are termed religion as distinguished from sorcery which is magical coercion. Corresponding to the beings that are worshipped or entreated may be termed gods in contrast to demons which are magically coerced or charmed.98 Through worship human being repairs the broken relationship with the spiritual beings who are offended in one way or the other. It is the renewing of the contact between the people and God or the invincible world.99 Through worship humanity pays homage to the divine and cultivates a spiritual outlook in life. Worship reminds human being that one is body and spirit, and that one needs to look after them in order to have full integrity and spiritual undertone. It gives sense of peace and religious harmony in human life and in the world at large. Without worship, humanity will feel lost in the great universe, and life would seem to have no meaning.100 Through worship humanity finds the meaning of life and what life is all about and comes to realize that human being is a dependent being whose essence and existence are fulfilled in the interaction with the supernatural reality. It brings people of the same motive together to offer praises, thanksgiving and petition to God. It restores that original link: brought about by sin, to a certain extent and helps the people to feel that relationship or communication with God is possible. Worship brings people together, so that they can feel as the children of God and also regard God as the Father who sustains the needs of the people. It creates a sense of friendship with God and strengthens the belief that God is approachable,101 capable of solving spiritual and physical problems of humanity. In Africa, nature is regarded as a book of revelation. It is there that the people offer praise and give thanks to God.102 Places of worship include: temples, shrines, altars, homesteads, groves, caves, waterfall, hills and mountains. Times of worship include occasions of individual and national needs, festivals, and ceremonies; before, during or after an undertaking or whenever the people feel like making sacrifices and offerings.103 These are periods and occasions that demand for worship among the people. The people worship God at anytime and in any place.104 In worship, there are sacrifices as well as offerings. Sacrifice is the highest form of

98 Cunningham, Religion and Magic, Approaches and Theory, 12. 99 Mbiti Introduction to African Religion, 54. 100 Ibid. 101 Ibid., 55. 102 Lukwata, Integrated African Liturgy, 96. 103 Mbiti, New Testament Eschatology in an African Background, 93. 104 Mbiti, African Religion and Philosophy, 71.

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worship, and it consists in symbolic destruction of the victim in order to present it to God or to the deities and the spiritual forces, so as to appease their anger or to seek their favours. But offering is a material presentation to God or the deities as a token of love and devotion. In Igboland, offerings and sacrifices are made to the intermediaries to relay the people’s request to God.105 The people sacrifice to them because they found themselves as being unworthy to be in the presence of God who is the Supreme Being and whose essence and existence are overwhelming. Humanity then has a go between because of the reverential fear of God.

4.3.2 Sacrifice and Offering in African Traditional Religion Sacrifice and offering are most often used in worship. They constitute one of the commonest acts of worship among the Africans. Most often they are used interchangeably, but they do not have the same meaning. In sacrifice, blood is poured out while in offering, material things are given. The word sacrifice comes from the Latin sacrificium (sacer, ‘holy’; facere, ‘to make’). It carries the connotation of religious act in the highest or fullest sense. It can be understood as the act of sanctifying or consecrating an object106 for worship purpose. As regards the essence of sacrifice in religion, Bolaji Idowu writes: “It is inconceivable to have a religion without some form of sacrifice however refined or modified it may be.”107 Humanity appeases the anger of God or the gods through ritual sacrifices and offerings performed by the representative of the Deity or the deities among the people. Sacrifice may be defined generally as a rite in the course of which something is forfeited or destroyed; its objective being is to establish a relationship between the sources of spiritual strength, for human benefit, or to strengthen a relationship with the divine. It refers to the case where animal life or human life is destroyed in order to present the victim in part or in whole to God, the supernatural being, the spirits or the living dead. Here the blood is shed for the spirits. Sometimes the blood is symbolically spilled; in this case, the victim may be allowed to live after using the animal or the person involved to perform the needed rituals or sacrifices. Offerings refer to the cases which do not involve the killing of an animal. What is involved is the presentation of a living being, foodstuff and other items to the spirits or the deities. Sacrifices and offerings are 105 Mbiti Introduction to African Religion, 60. 106 Heinninger, Sacrifice, 544f. 107 Idowu, Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief, 119.

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directed to the spirits or the living dead, they are regarded as the intermediaries between God and humanity. In sacrifice, God is the ultimate recipient whether the worshippers are aware or not.108 Sacrifices and offerings are the acts of restoring the ontological balance between God and humans, the spirits, the departed and the living. When the balance between God and the people is upset in one way or the other, people experience misfortunes and sufferings, in this situation, sacrifices and offerings are needed to bring back the lost relationship. They help spiritually and psychologically to restore human inbalance. They are acts and occasions of making and renewing contact between God, spirits and the people. When they are directed to the departed, they are symbols of fellowship, communion and recognition that the departed are still members of their human families, and tokens of respect and remembrance of the departed. The departed who are still remembered by the family members are chiefly the recipients of sacrifices and offerings from the family group. These go back four or five generations, and we may call them the living-dead.109 Their death does not severe them from the family bond or participation. Sacrifices and offerings involve the setting apart of an item, usually associated with human use for the supernatural powers. Animals and food products are often used for sacrifice and their forms of dedication (offering). The item for sacrifice is killed or destroyed by ceremonial immolation, by fire or by ‘abandonment’ the emphasis is on separation by destruction. The emphasis on offering is on separation by dedication (not necessary involving destruction). Generally sacrifices are usually made of items of values and the ritual is ‘bloody’ whereas items of offerings are symbolic and the ritual is usually ‘bloodless’. In either case, however, the item is meant to be removed from human possession or use and transferred to the mystical powers, who become the new ‘owner’ of the sacrificial or offered items. If the sacrifice is meat, the human beings may partake in consuming it, but they have to do so in accordance with the specified rules. In eating the sacrificial offer, they have to do so essentially as guest for the purpose of obtaining blessing.110 They mark the point where the visible and the invisible worlds meet and show human intentions and project human being to the invisible world.111 Therefore, sacrifices involve the shedding of the blood of human beings, animals, or birds;

108 109 110 111

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Mbiti, African Religion and Philosophy, 58. Mbiti, Concepts of God in Africa, 179. Magesa, African Religion, The Moral Theology of Abundant life, 201. Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 57.

but offerings do not involve blood cut, rather they concern the giving of things such as foodstuffs, water, milk, honey, or money and also living things.112

4.3.3 Sacrifice: (Aja) and Offering (Nhunye) in Igbo Traditional Religion The people use the words Ichu aja (sacrifice), Onye Nchuaja (the priest), Onye Isi Nchuaja (the High Priest), and Aja Nhunye (the offering). Sacrifice is the highest form of worship in Igbo religion. The priest offers sacrifices to God or the Deity on behalf of the people. Chika Okpalaike describes “Aja (sacrifice) as a ransome paid to win divine favour.”113 Geoffrey Basden writes: “The idea of sacrifice amongst the Ibo people is very similar to that of many other primitive peoples, i.e. sacrifices are offered, not from any desire to give, but because of the fear that, unless they are offered their lives and interests will be blighted. Every man must contribute his share in public festivals, and all join in the subsequent carousals, but no man offers sacrifice privately until he feels compelled to do so by adverse circumstances; it is never a voluntary offering. Sacrifice is offered solely to appease a malignant god whose imperative demands are indicated by the god’s executive, i.e. the medicineman (dibia).”114 The diviner proffers the sacrifice, and the medicine man, the priest or the elder of the community offers it. When the sacrifice is offered, it is only the leader of the ceremony who knows precisely to whom it is directed to. The rest of the participating crowd may not always know or even care, as long as the ceremony is done properly.115 In Igbo religion, sacrifices and offerings are made to feed the spirits, the gods, the goddesses, the ancestors and also to purify the land. It is evident that: “Such powerful spirits must be regularly fed with sacrifices, and they must be obeyed whenever they demand extra sacrifices. If they are not fed properly, if they are neglected or given niggardly sacrifices, their retaliation is swift and definite. The gods are, of course, appeased by gifts, and the more serious the god’s manifestation of power, the more important the offering ought to be.”116 Sacrifice is primarily a means of contact and communion between humanity and the Deity. What is offered in sacrifice and how it is offered depends upon the nature of a particular

112 113 114 115 116

Ibid. 57f. See also, Mbiti, New Testament Eschatology in an African Background, 93. Okpalaike, Ichu Aja in Igbo Traditional Religion, 151. Basden, Among the Igbo of Nigeria, 223. Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 60. Shelton, The Igbo – Igala borderline, 152.

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cult as well as the occasion of the sacrifice.117 In sacrifice, life is always taken and there is the shedding of blood: destruction of life. Life is associated with blood, because the life of the creature is in the blood and blood is what expiates for a life (Lev.17:11). When blood is shed in the making of the sacrifice; it means that the human or the animal life is given to Chukwu, who is the ultimate source of all life. Sacrifices are made when necessary and when the lives of many people are in danger.118 Emefie Ikenga-Metuh writes: “Sacrifice in Igbo traditional religion is called ‘Aja’. Sacrifice usually involves the slaughtering of animals before a shrine or on any selected spot associated with the cult of the deity. The blood and part of the flesh of the victim are offered to the deity while the remaining meat is consumed by the worshippers.”119 The eating of the meat strengthens the spiritual relationship between the spirit and the worshippers. They may be left on the spot to be consumed by the wild animals or to rot away. In some cases, the offerings which have been blessed are given back to the owners for normal use.120 And sometimes they can be thrown out. In some cases, the victims of the sacrifices are not killed but they are allowed to live around the shrine as the properties of the deities. These animals remain under the custody of the deities, the Arusi, or the ancestors without being harmed by the people. Sacrifice is always performed in a special place, dedicated to the gods or the goddess of the community. It can also be performed in accordance with the order of the diviner or the medicine man. As regards the sacrifice, the sacrificer and the victim in the religious traditions of Africa, Aylward Shorter writes: “In a sacrifice, the place, time and instruments used are all sacred. They are specially chosen and reserved for this exchange with ultimate reality. Above all, the victim and the sacrificer are sacred. The victim is consecrated or sacralized, especially chosen as being pure and unblemished, whole and integral. When the victim is given over to the spirits, it is rendered even more sacred. The sacrificer must observe many taboos since the victim is his gift and represents himself, and he desires to share in the sacred character of the victim. When his gift is sacralized, he, too, is sacralized. The sacred qualities of cleanness, integrity and power pass from the victim to the sacrificer. Sometimes this is made even more explicit by a rite of communion. Communion is not simply sharing a meal with the spirits, as in the first-fruits, 117 118 119 120

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Idowu, Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief, 119. Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 59. Ikenga-Metuh, African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes, 32. Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 60.

but it is receiving spirit-power from something consecrated to them. Usually, the sacrificer cannot consume the best part of his offering, certainly not all of it; this belongs to the spirits. Or it may belong to a sacred class of people—priests, if they exist, or the poor. Alms-giving always partakes of the notion of sacrifice. The poor and the stranger are sacred, and gifts to them are gifts to the spirits.”121 The sacrificer of the victim has to observer some taboos in order to make himself spiritually clean. After the sacrifice, the offering of the victim of the sacrifice to the poor and the strangers because they are sacred does not apply in Igbo traditional religion. The strangers rather, do not partake in the sacrifice and the meat of the victim cannot be singled out for them with the poor. The meat is eaten by the priest or with those who participated in the sacrifice. To eat the meat means that you have involved yourself in the sacrifice. That is why Christians do not partake in the eating of the meat sacrificed to the idols in Igboland. One does not sacrifice in vain. There must be motive and intention in every sacrifice. Some sacrifices are offered because the diviner proposed them. Some are offered in thanksgiving to the gods and the goddess of the land. Some are offered at a particular time of the year in honour of a particular deity or for yearly celebration. Some are offered to drive away evil spirits. In the sacrifice for driving away evil spirit, the victims of the sacrifice are not eaten, but they are thrown away into the bush or at the cross roads.122 The meat is not eaten for the fear that those who eat it may be possessed by the evil spirit that is meant to be driven far away into the bush or out of the land. When one is possessed by the evil spirit caused by the eating of the meat, it may result to madness and eventually death. One is careful with such meat. It can be dangerous to the physical and the spiritual health of human being. It is left in the bush or on the cross road to be devoured by the birds of the earth and the beast of the field. When the sacrifice is for peace offering, protection of the people, long life or thanksgiving to God, the meat is always shared among those present or distributed according to the families in the communities as a symbol that they participated in the sacrifice. The efficacy of the sacrifice is the same whether the victim of the sacrifice is slaughtered and eaten or not. There is a sacrifice where one is expected to bring a goat to sacrifice to the spirit and this animal is meant to live and wander around the village without being harmed or killed by the people of the town. It can happen in the case of human sacrifice. This is how the Osu caste system started.123 121 122 123

Shorter, African Culture and the Christian Church, 150f. Ikenga-Metuh, African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes, 32. Osu (outcaste) system has its roots in the practice of human sacrifice in Igboland. Osu was a person sacrificed to the deity by the community, the group or the family.

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Sacrifices are offered in times of trouble beseeching the unseen spirits and the ancestors for their help. These sacrifices are performed by the priests or the elders as the representatives of the community.124 They slaughter the animal, pour out the blood as libation and the members of the group share in the eating of the meat there and then. They perform the ritual and the people watch from a distance.125 This act of watching the rites and the rituals of the sacrifice shows the participation of the people in the performed sacrifice. They are offered to propitiate the deity and in atonement for the sins of the people and for long life, good health and prosperity.126 In sacrifices, the gift given to the receiver represents the giver. The receiver is thereby placed under obligation to the giver, not only not to refuse the gift but also to repay it in due course. The gift expresses and creates a social relationship. It is even clearer when the gift is food or drink. This is one of the social importances of feasts and ritual meals. A sacrifice can be seen as a gift to God or spirits, but it has to be transformed or sacralized, that is to say, made sacred, oblatio rei sensibilis cum aliqua immutatione (the offering of a material thing which undergoes a change,). God cannot be placed under an obligation by human beings through sacrifice. Everything belongs to Him. The sacralization of the gift may take the form of dedication, destruction, libation, burning (holocaust), immolation and so on. The sacrifice or immolation of the living things is significant, depending on the significance of the victim, its organs, blood, stomach contents and so forth.127 The victim is not totally killed at the sacrifice; rather, he is allowed to live with the people, but not to mingle with the people through inter-marriage or title taking. A person can contract it by marrying an Osu. Onwubiko remarks that those who contracted Osu unknowingly can be cleansed but writes that it was very rare C.f. Onwubiko, Facing the Osu Issue in African Synod, 30. Achebe writes: Osu is a person dedicated to a god, a thing set apart – a taboo forever, and his children after him. He could neither marry nor be married by the free-born. He was in fact an outcast, living in a special area of the village, close to the great shrine. Wherever he went, he carried with him a mark of his forbidden caste – long tangled and dirty hair. A razor was taboo to him. An Osu could not attend an assembly of the free-born, and they in turn could not be sheltered under his roof. He could not take any of the four titles of the clan, and when he died he was buried by his kind in the Evil Forest. C.f., Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, 111. 124 Kirwen, The Missionary and the Diviner, 6, C.f., Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 59. 125 Mbiti, New Testament Eschatology in an African Background, 92. 126 Ikenga-Metuh, African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes, 32. 127 Shorter, African Culture an Overview, 79.

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Communal offerings and sacrifices are usually made at the shrines or in sacred groves or other holy places such as hills, lakes, waterfalls and so on. These are quiet places regarded as sacred and where the gods or the spirits can receive the sacrifices offered to them. Personal sacrifices and offerings are normally made in or near the home, and in some areas people have shrines in their homes. They may also be made in public places of the sacrifice, or as the ritual elder or the diviner may directs.128 Sacrifices are offered for personal or family needs like: health, marriage problems, remembering the departed or request for prosperity or success. Usually domestic animals are sacrificed either by the family head or by the local ritual elder.129 A sacrifice for the good of the entire community is only reserved to the priest whose duty it is to bridge the gap between the community and the gods of the land. There are degrees of sacrifices. The quality of the victims used in the sacrifice depends on the deity and the reason for the sacrifice.130 The victim determines the nature of the sacrifice. Fowls can be used when the matter is important, goats can be used when the matter is of great importance, and cows can be used when the matter is of greater importance, but human beings can be used when the matter is of urgent importance. Human sacrifice is the highest form of sacrifice that could be found in all religions of the world. Many religions of the world have at one time or another offered human sacrifices. The basic purpose of the sacrifice is for the maintenance or restoration of the relationship between humanity and the Deity. The more urgent it is, the higher the condition human being is prepared to fulfill.131 Abraham at a point wanted to sacrifice his son: Isaac, (Gen.22:11–12) in order to maintain his relationship with God. Jephthah made a sacrifice of her daughter to God in fulfillment of his promise (Judges 11:34–40). Christ offered himself as a living sacrifice and sealed the new covenant with his blood (Heb.9:15–28). One can argue that in the performance of a sacrifice, there should be a priest to offer the sacrifice, but in the Christian religion, Christ is both the victim and the priest that offered the sacrifice. It is a mystery and that is why he is God and man.

128 129 130 131

Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 59. Ibid., 59., See also, Mbiti, New Testament Eschatology in an African Background, 93. Fisher, West African Religious Traditions, 123. Idowu, Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief, 122.

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4.3.4 Human Sacrifice in Igbo Traditional Religion The highest form of sacrifice that could be found in Igboland is human sacrifice just as in other religions. The people are always ready and willing to give the best to the gods and the goddesses of the land. Elizabeth Isichei writes: “The desire to offer the most precious possible sacrifice led to human sacrifice – for what is as precious as human life? The belief that the world of the dead mirror the world we know encouraged the sacrifice of slaves at funerals, to provide a retinue for the dead man in the life to come.”132 They attribute the human sacrifice as the wish of the gods and the goddesses. In Igboland, some deities demand human sacrifices during their festivals to remove the abominations committed in the community within the past year. This is seen as imperative if the deities are to continue their believed task in the community. When it is human sacrifice, the victim cannot be a fellow-townsman, he is always a slave purchased especially for the purpose or a captive of war. The buying of the slave is the responsibility of the whole community, because it is for the good of all. Since it is for the general good of the community, each individual has to contribute to the general purse to purchase the slave to be sacrificed. The contribution is called utu-aja (collection for sacrifice). The money collected is used to procure a victim to be sacrificed to the gods. This is done when all other forms of sacrifices proved abortive. It is the last resort. The victim must be a young man for choice, strong and vigorous, able to bear the sins of those in whose behalf he was to die. Explicitly and implicitly, by this payment, everyone has been involved in the sacrifice, during which a human being bought is immolated or renounced as a living victim – carrying the iniquity of the people. He then personifies the rage of the god or the gods of the land. His presence reminds the people of the rage of the god and the calamity that caused his being sacrificed.133 This form of sacrifice is no longer applicable in Igboland due to Christianity and civilization. Where such is obtained, it must be done in secret so as not to attract the wrath of the law. There are two types of human sacrifice. The first is where the victim is killed and offered to the deity or buried alive. This type of sacrifice is performed especially when a great man or a traditional ruler of the land dies and they want to use human being or human head to bury him. When such death occurs, the strong men in the village are sent out to go and scout for the victim

132 133

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Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 26. Onwubiko, Facing the Osu Issue in African Synod, 25f.

of the sacrifice. When the political affairs become unusually complicated, or the town be threatened by a powerful enemy, or laid under a devastating epidemic, or afflicted by any catastrophy whatsoever, the king or chief consult with the medicine men, they may inform him that certain malignant spirits were against the town. Every reasonable measure will be taken for the removal of the antagonism. These spirits of the lower regions might be manifesting their wrath against the whole town for its sins, or simply for those of one man, possibly even of the king himself. The Medicine men alone could discern the root cause of the calamity and indicate the remedy. In the majority of the cases resort was first for the sacrifice of animals. This was the simplest approach to the situation.134 But if the spirits need human being, it has to be fulfilled. The second type of human sacrifice is where the victim is not totally killed; rather he is used to perform a ritual after which one is allowed to live. The victim’s body is ritually cut and some drops of blood are allowed to gush out which are offered to the deity. The person will be allowed to live in the community, but will be treated as Osu (outcast). He will be dedicated to the deity with his lineage. He has the right to live in the community, but has no right to take any traditional title of the community. Intermarriages with his children are forbidden, and any person who goes contrary is invariably contaminated and ceases to be a free born. Oliver Onwubiko writes: “Osu name bears a specific connotation and designates a particular group of people who have been stigmatized from time immemorial as social outcast from the point of dehumanization.”135 His life in the community is filled with ridicules and insults. In the first human sacrifice, the blood is shed, and human life lost, but in the second form of sacrifice, the blood is allowed to be gushed out but human life is saved. In human sacrifice, whether totally or partially, the priest is not expected to shed the blood, rather the shedding of the blood is done by young men. The priest is contaminated with blood if he touches it. This brings us to the Jewish conception of the priesthood which was also exemplified in the attitude of the priest in the story of Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Luke, (Lk. 10:30–42). It is expected in Igbo traditional religion that, the priest may not shed human blood nor touch one who is contaminated with blood. So he prepares the victim to be sacrificed and hands him over to the young men to do the killing. In the case of dedicating an ‘Osu’, a young man would be ordered to cut off the part of the body required for the ceremony, while the priest seals the dedication 134 135

Basden, Among the Igbo of Nigeria, 28. Onwubiko, Facing the Osu Issue in African Synod, 25.

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by letting some blood drop on the altar of the deity and ends the ceremony with a concluding prayer.136 When Osu is about to be sacrificed, the following items are necessary: a goat, a ram, a new basket – avo, a new piece of cloth, a special breed of fowl called Ntukpuru, a tortoise, Nzu (cohise chalk), odo: (camwood) and oil. These are put into the new long basket, the content of the basket are called ‘Nkwatakwa’ and these include the personal belonging of the Osu to be. The eldest daughter or female of the family or the kindred carries the basket and leads the movement to the shrine of the deity, with the Osu to be, following, dragging the goat and the ram. When they arrive at the shrine of the deity where the sacrifice is to be performed, the items are presented with the Osu to be. The goat and the ram are killed and the Osu to be is disheveled and canwood (uhie) and the cohise chalk (nzu) robbed on his head. By this act, the dedication is made, and this is done by the priest of the deity. A part of his ear is cut off to mark him as dedicated to a god and his blood taken and mixed with the sacrifice showing that he has been immolated. The god in question is believed to have tasted his blood. Since he is in danger, or rather has become a danger for the people, he is not expected to shave his dedicated hair; hence a razor becomes a taboo for him. At the end, four gun shots are fired for the male members of the kindred or group responsible for the sacrifice showing that the god has been placated and peace is once more restored.137 Percy Amaury Talbot writes: “In most Yoruba towns there was at least one annual human sacrifice, but the number was greatly increased if there were trouble of any kind, such as pestilence, defeat in war, etc.”138 Bolaji Idowu narrates the type of human sacrifice found among the Yoruba of Nigeria, but specified that no one can be sure that this type of sacrifice is not being offered secretly and only on urgent occasions even these days, although after the establishment of British rule, human sacrifice was made illegal. He specifies: “The sacrifice was offered whenever it was believed expedient that someone should die as a sacrifice of appeasement in order that the community might be saved.”139 Before the sacrifice, the victim was usually made to bless the people in some prescribed way which bore upon the occasion of the sacrifice. He was then given a special message which he was to deliver on arrival in the presence of the Deity or the divinities. He is then ritually completely buried alive, or buried with just the head showing above the ground; his throat might be cut before he was buried. His blood will be drained and 136 137 138 139

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Ogbalu, Omenala Igbo, The Book of Igbo Custom, 84f. Onwubiko, Facing the Osu Issue in African Synod, 31f. Talbot, The People of Southern Nigeria, 859. Idowu, Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief, 121.

his extremities with certain members of his body cut. These put together, would be exposed in the shrine; his corpse might be exposed in an open place; there the carrion-birds and the weather would eventually finish up the remains. The greater the avidity, with which the carrion-birds disposed of the body, the better omens it was believed to be for the cause for which the sacrifice was offered.140 In this sacrifice, “The one sacrificed is known as the scapegoat; he takes upon himself the sins of the people and brings them good-fortune. He was usually treated with the greatest respect and indulgence by all and given the best of everything. When the time came for his death, the Oluwaw, as he was called—who might be either bond or free, rich or poor, and was chosen by the priest—was paraded through the streets, when many people took the opportunity of laying their hands on him and transferring their sins to him.”141 He is regarded as a messenger who carries the people’s message to the gods and brings back to the people good fortunes from the gods. Women long to be the ones to born him when he will return back to the world, so that the good fortunes he brings will reside with their families. He will die for the good of others and to deliver the message of the people to the gods or the divinities of the land. In this human sacrifice found among Yoruba people, the priest has the right to choose the one to be sacrificed either from the free born or from the slave. These sacrifices found among the Igbo and Yoruba are quite different from the type of the sacrifice found among the Gande people of Uganda. Here the victim (ebyonziira), human and animal, were escorted to the frontier by strong men who had to take care that the victim will not come back into the home country. The escorters under this command had to break the limbs of the victim, to make it impossible to creep back into their land. The victim will finally die at the frontier of the neighbouring country, as reconciliation142 between the people and their deities or gods. This shows that the misfortunes and the evil spirits have been driven away and cannot come back to their community again. When the victim will be escorted, the people will ritually lay their sins upon him, so that the person will bear the sins of the people he represents in the sacrifice. In human sacrifice, the victim is not only offered to please the gods, but to go before the gods, represent the people and carry their petitions to them. That is why Bolaji Idowu writes as regards Yoruba tradition: “Before the sacrifice, the victim is treated with reverence and accorded with extraordinary status. Ironically enough, he was expected to put in every good word possible on behalf of those who 140 Ibid. 141 Talbot, The People of Southern Nigeria, 858. 142 Kyewalyanga, Traditional Religion, Custom, and Christianity in Uganda, 342.

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offered him up. Because he was sent as an ambassador, he was accompanied in the burial with certain things to be delivered with his message; those were things which were calculated to be efficacious in securing the pleasure of the divinities or the ancestors.”143 But in Igboland, most often the victims to be sacrificed or killed do not know. Some were captured and killed in order to fulfill the promises made to the gods. This is exemplified in the “Things Fall Apart” when Ikemefuna was killed as a sacrifice to the gods.144 Human sacrifice is found in many cultures of the world, but with the development of religion and clearer knowledge of the will of the Deity, humanity inevitably corrects the interpretation of that will. Humanity comes to acknowledge that God who is spirit ought only to be worshipped in spirit and in truth.145 Sacrifices could be made for those present and absent. The blessings of the spirit can reach all wherever they are and the curses follow them wherever they may be. Poverty is not an excuse for failure to offer sacrifices. The people do not approach God empty handed. They give God what is good in order to receive good things. They also give in appreciation for the wonderful things especially; life, good health and other gifts. They know that God will not eat those things, but they want to show their humility and the seriousness of their need before Him.146 One can borrow to perform sacrifices suggested by the diviner or the medicine man, for one believes that the blessings one will receive can always be greater than what one borrowed for the sacrifice. Insincere offerers of sacrifices who try to cheat the spirits are warned that they are courting trouble and their worthless sacrifices are unacceptable to the spirits. This is evident in the Old Testament when the sacrifice of Abel was considered as better and acceptable to God than that of Cain (Gen.4:1–7). In the offering of sacrifice, internal disposition is essential for its efficacy. One who makes sacrifice with a right disposition and appropriate gifts has fulfilled one’s part of the deal, and the spirits are bound to fulfill their own part. Through sacrifice, humanity receives abundant gifts from God: good health and prosperity. To have wealth to perform sacrifices cannot exonerate one from death, because it is believed that: when the spirits want to kill a person, they start to make impossible demands.147 In Igbo traditional religion, prayers always accompanies sacrifices, but sacrifices do not always accompany prayers.

143 144 145 146 147

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Idowu, Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief, 119. Achebe, Things Fall Apart, 43. Idowu, Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief, 123. Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 59. Ikenga-Metuh, African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes, 33.

4.4 Prayers in African Traditional Religion Prayers are necessary for the enhancement of human relationship with the divine. Worship and sacrifice cannot go without prayers. They “…are the commonest acts of worship, some of which may be long and formal, but most of them are short, extempore, and to the point. Most of the prayers are addressed to God, and some to the living-dead, divinities, or other beings, many of whom serve as intermediaries.”148 Through prayers human beings (or the believing community) present their needs to God. There lies the conscious knowledge that prayers can dispose the Supreme God.149 Prayer expresses the faith, life, work and the motive of the religious believer. It is a sign of active religion. Through it different cultural identities are revealed.150 Prayer may be verbalized in speech or demonstrated symbolically through singing and dancing. It is seen as a living communication and communion with God in an intrinsic and extrinsic way. The communication and the communion have to involve the whole person and the whole life. It is a vehicle through which we convey all our emotions and the desires to the ultimate reality. It is the basic and the foundation of every human worship offered to the spiritual realities. Prayer is a dimension of life that transcends and re-interprets every social relationship and social experience. It differs substantially from techniques of auto-salvation, such as magical rites. Ultimately, prayer is a continuous mode of living, a living communion, by no means limited to occasions of formal utterance or formal communication.151 In African traditional religions, prayer takes a central position in the lives of the people. Their life patterns hang on the ultimate reality and they device every possible means to make their request known and their problems solved. “One frequently hears it said that traditional Africa knew only one kind of prayer, the prayer of petition. Such an accusation can only be born of ignorance, for careful study reveals an extremely rich prayer tradition among the peoples of Africa. Petition plays its part in spoken prose, but poetry and song lend themselves more easily to the sentiments of praise and thanksgiving. This fact, it seems, may explain why such sentiments are commonly overlooked. A study of traditional prayers in Africa must include religious panegyric and hymns.”152 Prayer is common to all

148 149 150 151 152

Mbiti, Concepts of God in Africa, 194. Vorgrimler, Neues Theologisches Wörterbuch, 99. Shorter, Prayer in the Religious Traditions of Africa, 1. Ibid. 4. Shorter, African Culture and the Christian Church, 106.

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African societies and the omniscience and omnipresence of God are vital realities expressed in the prayer text.153 It is a collection of words that cohere to human communication directed towards a spiritual entity. It is the commonest method of approaching God in a prepared way. In prayer the people realize that they are in the presence of God. This makes them to be fully prepared for this presence and to bend the whole of their being and unreserved spontaneity towards it.154 People may pray privately: as individuals or as families. Other prayers are made communally, at public meetings and for public needs. African style of praying is vivacious, topical and expressive of the spiritual, psychological and emotional state of the petitioner.155 They generally include: praise, thanksgiving, a declaration of the state of affairs in which the prayers are offered. Such prayers have concrete intention, and people do not beat about the bush. In prayer, the people request such things as: good health, healing, protection, safety in traveling, prosperity, preservation of life, peace and other things. The community at large may ask for rain, peace, the cessation of epidemics and dangers, success in war or raids, the acceptance of sacrifices and offerings, human as well as animal and crop fertility are presented.156 Aylward Shorter writes: “Prayer is basically petition, but thanksgiving is a further expression of man’s conscious dependence upon supernatural powers. Finally, self-accusation and penitential prayer are used to buttress the petition and reinforce the plea, acting as a form of persuasion.”157 The petition always comes last in the prayer of Africans. Prayer formulae and phrases tend to be stereotype, but there is considerable freedom for adaptation and application to the immediate situation and needs of those offering the prayer.158 This method has positively affected Christianity in Africa. There are three main forms of prayer in Africa: the litanic, the panegyric or praise poem, and the stylized ejaculation or short invocation. The litanic form of prayer is a call and response so popular in the speech and song of traditional Africa. Here the people follow the leader of the group and repeat after him. The Panegyric or praise form concerns usually the exploits and the attributes of God, spirits and humans. The stylized ejaculation is extremely common and usually

153 Shorter, African Christian Theology, 106. See also, Oborji, Towards a Christian Theology of African Religion, 14. 154 Cohen, The Educational Philosophy of Martin Buber, 119. 155 Ndiowerre, The African Church Today and Tomorrow, Vol. II, 85. 156 Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 55f. 157 Shorter, Prayer in the Religious Traditions of Africa, 3. 158 Shorter, African Christian Theology, 106f.

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accompanies religious rituals.159 In Panegyric, celebration and praise are the main sentiments, and there is a great deal of description and even exaggeration in this form of prayer. Africans generally bare their hearts in prayers. Through prayers, they express their innermost feelings: good and bad, worries, weaknesses, protests and lamentations.160 When they pray, the ancestors are bidden to join in the welfare of the living. As such it is not simply prayer of the tongue, but an effective prayer for which an answer is guaranteed.161

4.4.1 Prayers in Igbo Traditional Religion Prayers in Igbo traditional religion appear to be anthropocentric; God exists to carry out human desires and purposes.162 Prayer for the Igbo involves intense expression of the traditional spirituality, an expression of inner feelings and thought of the human heart, aspiration to the demands of the creator: Chukwu or the various deities. It entails what human being believes and how it is related with other beings as well as one’s surroundings.163 The Igbo have three names which express the concept of prayer: Ekpere, Ayiyo and Igo Ofo.164 The first word Ekpere means pleading. It is an act of pleading with the Supreme Being for His mercy and favour. In prayers therefore, the petitioner pleads with God, the deity and the ancestors, using various appellations, including gesticulations to attract sympathy from the one being addressed.165 The second word Ayiyo means to beg. In prayer, one begs the Almighty God who is Supreme and whose power is capable of fulfilling human aims and objectives. In asking, one employ various ways and means to make sure that one is not disappointed or turned away empty handed. At the same time, the petitioner tries to quicken or accelerate action on the part of the donor and to attract sympathy.166 Luke Mbefo narrates: “Businessmen use prayers and religious songs as means of softening travelers before declaring their real motive, namely, selling their wares. In this practice God and invocation of God are means

159 Ibid. 160 Ndiokwerre, The African Church Today and Tomorrow, Vol. II, 65. 161 Shorter, African Christian Theology, 117. 162 Mbefo, The True African, 127. 163 Chigere, Foreign Missionary Background and Indigenous Evangelization in Igboland, 69. 164 Ikenga-Metuh, African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes, 142. 165 Ndiokwerre, The African Church Today and Tomorrow, Vol. II, 53. 166 Ibid., 54.

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to an ulterior end, namely the making of money.”167 In prayer, the people soften the mind of God in order to receive benefits from Him. The third one is Igo Ofo (praying). When one says: Agam agoro gi Ofo, (I will pray for you). Here the Igbo can talk about Igo Ofo Ogologo ndu, (Praying for long life), Igo Ofo oganihu: (praying for progress), Igo Ofo ije oma (praying for safe journey). The elders pray with Ofo, but it does not necessarily mean that the Ofo must be present in this type of prayer. Prayers are said for longevity, progress, fecundity and progress with the Ofo symbol. The symbol may not always be there, but the intentions are clear. In this manner, prayers for supplications for deliverance from evil, sudden death, accidents and witchcrafts are made.168 It is an act of pouring out the soul of the individual or community. In praying, people get closer to God and speak to Him directly.169 Prayer takes two forms: presentation and invitation. In the first instance, the worshipper presents oneself with the family or community to God and the spirits with such phrase as: Here we are, your children are before you, we come to you, we have come to your place. In the second form, the worshipper invites God or the spirits to come and be present, let the great ones gather, you Divinity, I call you in my invocation, our liberator, we have heard Him, He has come.170 Prayers are the pouring out of human desires to the Supreme Being in order to satisfy one’s spiritual and material needs. This pouring out of human desire is simply articulated to fit specific occasion. The prayer of the people is not written in a book, rather it is written in their hearts and they are said as the situations or occasions demand. In this prayer, the leader articulates what is necessary and says them. Sometimes the leader may present them in form of proverb or lyric. He presents these with full confidence that God understands our innermost thought, desires and wisdom. Every prayer said by the people is uttered to fit the occasion and the current frame of the mind of the one who utters it. This is what determines 167 168 169 170

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Mbefo, The True African, 127. Ndiokwerre, The African Church Today and Tomorrow, Vol. II, 56. Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 57. Shorter, African Christian Theology, 109. In prayers, the leader of the worshipping group may present himself, and his community, with such phrases as: ‘We are here in your compound’, ‘God, we have come’, ‘we have come to you here’. C.f., Shorter, Prayer in the Religious Traditions of Africa, 20. This shows that, the leader of the prayer does not present himself alone, but also those he is leading and also inviting the spirit to come and take control of the place and the people at prayer. One who cannot represent the group or the community well cannot be appointed to lead in the prayer of the community.

whether it is angry or joyful, hopeful or despairing. Despite the tone, the items mentioned in prayers have a personal dimension, a community orientation and a universal application.171 The prayer of the person in great difficulty is quite different from the prayer of the person who survives an accident. And the prayer that is said in the celebration of New Yam festival is different from the prayer that is said during the breaking of Kola Nut. Martin Buber conceives prayer as. “…the speech a man pours out before God. It must primarily express – whatever immediate purpose the supplicant may have had in mind – the worshippers’ earnest desire for a revelation of the divine presence and express that presence dialogically.”172 Every prayer then must express the intention of the person saying it and one’s longing to be spiritually, mentally, psychologically and socially healthy, otherwise it ceases to be a prayer. It is the expression of a desire, cast in the form of a request, to influence some forces or powers conceived as supernatural.173 It is when one has spiritual, psychological, social, physical, material desires that one considers presenting them to the Supernatural Being. Prayer is not only a presentation of problems, but also in praise to God Almighty who made heaven and earth and protects humanity. That is why we have prayer of praise. The people always praise and thank Chukwu who gives life, offers protection and sustains human living. They pray with confidence because they have the conviction that God will not disappoint them. They pray because they believe that God listens to them, accepts and answers their prayers. They pray because they believe that He is near to them, since He is everywhere simultaneously. When the people pray, they may kneel, sit down, prostrate themselves, remain standing or clap their hands and sing.174 In praying, the people repeat their petition ad infinitum and they are at their best during spontaneous prayer. During spontaneous prayer, they allow their emotion and sentiment to take control of them. They express this through arousal of self pity and tears. Such sentiments are often accompanied by prostrations, raising of hands in frustration, profound bowing of heads in deep expression of homage and of course resignation.175 The people pray according to their intentions and their mood. They kneel down or prostrate themselves in prayer

171 Magesa, African Religion, The Moral Tradition of Abundant Life, 196. See also, Mbiti, The Prayers of African Religion, 18. 172 Cohen, The Educational Philosophy of Martin Buber, 119. 173 Ibid., 154. 174 Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 56. 175 Ndiokwerre, The African Church Today and Tomorrow, Vol. II, 85.

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in order to express their humility and nothingness before God. They stand up and clap their hands in order to praise the name of their God and to offer Him a good and wonderful song. They sit down in order to hear advice or summon from the elders or what their Chukwu expects from them. The Chukwu being omnipresent depicts that He is always present to hear the prayers of the people at any time. When the elder of the family is set for his prayer, his son or wife will bring him a basin of water in front of his Ofo symbol. The man washes his hands, brings out his Ofo and lays it on the ground, breaks a Kola Nut, chews part of it and spit it on his Ofo. He now takes the Ofo up and prays to Chukwu, the spirits and his ancestors. In his prayer, he first invokes God, the deities and the ancestors, confesses his sins, presents his petitions and asks for blessing and curses. In confessing his sins, (he professes his innocence and asks pardon for wrongs he may have committed unknowingly); he asks for blessings for all his well wishers and curses for those who wish him evil.176 He calls ‘Obasi di nelu, (Chukwu), saying, watch over me and my children this day. Anyone setting forth on a journey may ask Chukwu to make the object of the journey successful and bring him/her back in safety.177 This shows that it is God that leads and protects. In prayer, human being acknowledges the mutual interdependence on the visible and the invisible world and entrusts more on the living ancestors and God.178 In prayer, one opens oneself to the spiritual entities, expresses one’s innocence and ask the gods or the ancestors if he/she has cheated anybody or done malicious things to defraud the neighbours’ in any way, or if he/she is guilty of any moral sin, that the ancestors should not allow him/her to see the light of the day. But if he/she is innocent, then the ancestors should reward him/her abundantly and repay the enemies who think evil of him/her with death. One brings curses or more harm on oneself if one does not open oneself completely to the mystical powers of prayers.One has to be honest to the spiritual being that is capable of knowing the hidden things in one’s heart. Without honesty, they (the gods) might not appreciate the extent of our suffering or take action. Not to express oneself completely in prayer is dangerous, and it breaches trust between the visible and the invisible world and the consequences are often disastrous.179 In our prayers, God is always addressed with precision and

176 177

Arinze, Sacrifice in Igbo Religion, 25. Meek, Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe, 25, Cf., Ikenga-Metuh, God and Man in African Religion, 124. 178 Magesa, African Religion, The Moral Theology of Abundant life, 196. 179 Ibid.

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courtesy, by formal titles and by rehearsal of His omnipotence, omniscience, majesty and attributes.

4.4.2 Kinds of Prayer: Private and Communal or Family Prayers We have private prayers and communal prayers. In private prayers, there are no rules guiding the individual on how to pray. It is in the nature of the people to pray as the occasion demands. During prayer, one makes oneself available and pours out one’s hearts the way one likes. In prayer, one associates with the family, neighbours, and kinsmen, and with the dead whose world of relationship was often conceived as a mirror of our own. The ancestors pray and share with the living in prayers.180 In prayers the acknowledgement of the providence, omniscience and omnipresence of God are vital. Prayer can most often be social.181 Communal prayer is a group prayer. It is most often accompanied with praise, songs and dancing. Family prayer is one of the communal prayers in Igbo traditional religion. Within the family, the prayer is normally done by the head of the family, but sometimes, a ritual elder or local priest may be asked to do so.182 The prayer is always accompanied by offering of Kola Nut, palm wine or other materials but no sacrifice is expected to be performed. Another communal prayer is the one that involves the whole of the community. Communal prayers are held when it is necessary. It is held when there are ceremonies or when the community thinks that their gods are not happy with them. Whenever communal prayer is held, all are involved and all participate actively. To absent oneself without any cogent reason, may raise suspicion that one is the agent of misfortune in the midst of the people. The punishment to such an act may be severe fine, banishment or to be ostracized. Communal prayer also helps to bring the members of the community in one intention and purpose. Some community prayers include choruses of litanies, which are spoken by the group in response to the direction of the leader. In this way everyone shares in the need expressed in that prayer.183 It helps to remove personal and communal anxieties, fears, frustrations, worries and cultivate human dependence

180 181 182 183

Shorter, African Christian Theology, 109. Shorter, African Culture and the Christian Church, 106. Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 55. Mbiti, African Philosophy and Religion, 63. See also, C.f., Mbiti Introduction to African Religion, 57.

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on God and increase spiritual outreach.184 Through communal prayer, the relationship between human being is strengthened and the confidence with God raised. In this prayer, people address, praise and appreciate God for His greatness, kindness and readiness to listen to them. The praise is often expressed in the descriptive names of God, such as the God full of pity, the saving spirit, the ancient of days, the ruler and giver of all things.185 This trait has inevitably been transferred to Christianity in Igboland and it has nourished the prayer lives of the people, and sometimes makes the prayer uncessarily lenthy. When the priest is leading in prayer, all is filled with awe just as the Israelites were, when God was communicating to Moses on Mount Sinai at the giving of the Law (Ex.19–24).

4.4.3 Types of Prayer There are different types of prayers and these are attuned to the situations of life. Alyward Shorter writes: “Life situations are the raw material of prayer, for example, childbirth, marriage, sickness, death, planting, famine, war and so forth. Prayer may also be centered on seasons or times of the day. All these are occasions of prayer. The dominant purpose of a prayer text may be one of the following: petition, intercession, thanksgiving, praise, confession, contrition, purification, blessing, cursing, lament, sorrow, forgiveness, vows, promises, divination, commemoration, hope or trust. The theme of a prayer text answers the question: What is this prayer about? It may be preoccupied with the occasion or the dominant purpose. The theme however may also be a new theological insight generated by the prayer itself: divine governance, mediation, reciprocity, anamnesis, judgment and so on.”186 Through prayers, the believer seeks to transcend this life. Mystical prayer is the prayer of self-forgetting, adoration and ecstatic praise. It is the prayer of silence of the heart and of profound contemplation.187 This type of prayer is rare in Igbo religion. We shall discuss types of prayers relevant to the tradition of the people. They are invocation and petition prayers. 4.4.3.1 Prayer of Invocation Invocative prayer is a prayer invoking the name of God in one way or the other. It can be spontaneous or regular formulae of addressing God. Practically, the Igbo 184 Mbiti Introduction to African Religion, 57. 185 Ibid., 62. 186 Shorter, African Culture an Overview, 78. 187 Ibid.

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use to invoke Chukwu in their prayers. In invocative prayer, the name of God is called upon, invoked, honoured and glorified. The prayer begins with the invocation of those to whom the prayer is addressed: the recipient of the prayer.188 John Mbiti describes it as: “Shortened and common versions of prayers. They are reported everywhere, and show a spontaneous response to God, asking Him to intervene for a particular purpose.”189 It is invocation on the name of the Lord to act. The prayers are addressed to the spiritual realities. These spiritual realities include God, who is Supreme over all, various types of spirits, personifications of natural phenomena and objects, some of which (like the sun) are regarded as manifestations of God.190 It takes a special form depending the mood of the person invoking the name of God. The Igbos’ begin their prayers with the invocation of the Supreme Being and their spiritual powers. They call on the name of Chukwu; express His majesty, splendor, essence, omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence. They call on the gods and the goddess of the land, and proclaim their attributes. They call on the ancestors and the spirits in the land, and laud their functions among the people. They do these with reverence and in a hierarchical formula. God usually comes first followed by other lesser gods or the deities, and the ancestral spirits. The usual formula is: Chineke nke eligwe na ala, (God of heaven and earth), your power is beyond human comprehension and your knowledge is beyond human understanding, we greet you. Our mother earth, we greet you for the abundance of food and drink you have provided for us. The Sun king of heaven, we greet you for the sunshine and the rain. Our great and honorable ancestors, we greet you for your protection and your care for your people. These names are mentioned in a hierarchical order. John Mbiti remarks that in prayer: “God is not always distinguished clearly from the other spiritual realities; in some prayers the address may simply be directed to them all collectively, or just to the world of spiritual realities regardless of who may pay attention to it ‘there’.”191 This may be applicable to the culture from where Mbiti was writing. In Igbo traditional religion, when all the spirits are invoked in the same prayer, God’s name is always mentioned first. In this prayer, the petitioner may never mention the name of God last. It is never allowed to

188 Ndiokwerre, The African Church Today and Tomorrow, Vol. II, 63. 189 Mbiti, African Religion and Philosophy, 65. 190 Mbiti, The Prayer of African Religion, 3. 191 Ibid.

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invoke Gods name in between the names of other spirits.192 This hierarchically structured prayer of the Igbos’ is applicable to Christianity where the name of God is first mentioned in prayer, then followed by the angels and the saints of God.193 Invocative prayer is followed by the prayer of petitions. It serves as a preparatory ground for the human need: the prayer of petition. Petition plays its part in the spoken prose, but poetry and song lend themselves more easily to the sentiment of praise and thanksgiving.194 4.4.3.2 Prayer of Petition The human need is one of the basic aspects of prayer. This is applied in the Old Testament of the Jewish tradition and in the New Testament. Islam has another form of prayer that has not much to do with petition. Next to the prayer of petition are prayers of praise, thanksgiving and lamentation.195 In the prayer of petition, God is used as the instrument to serve human needs. The people express their insufficiencies in prayers. They present their physical as well as spiritual needs, sometimes forgetting the essence of human effort. Prayer of petition is born of individual need. It is indirectly related to the anticipation of needs. The petitionary prayer is ‘primary prayer,’ when it is spontaneous and oral. It is ‘secondary prayer,’ when it is learned, or written, thus identifying with the original experience of the composer. Hence many spontaneous prayers faithfully reproduce formulas that are learned or which conform to tradition.196 The Igbo style of prayer is dominated by petitionary prayer. In the prayer of petition, the favour sought is seen as a response on the part of God and the spirit to an act of praise or hope made by the worshipper.197 The people ask for their practical needs that comply with their religious perception of a full life. To live a full life is to be spiritually and physically comfortable. They ask for protection from all afflictions, from sickness and death, from evil spirits

192 193

194 195 196 197

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Ndiokwerre, The African Church Today and Tomorrow, Vol. II, 64. In the Litany of the Saints, God’s name is first mentioned and praised as follows: God the Father of heaven, God the Son redeemer of the world, God the Holy Spirit, Holy Trinity One God. It is in hierarchical order. When said, each is followed with ‘have mercy on us’. Then comes Holy Mary and it is followed with ‘pray for us’ then Joseph, the Archangels, the Apostles and the Saints in their hierarchical structure. Shorter, African Christian Theology, 106. Untergassmair, Bittgebet, 510. Shorter, African Culture an Overview, 78. Shorter, African Christian Theology, 110.

and destinies etc. They also desire to be protected from evil spirits, witches and all ill-wishers as a corollary. They pray for longevity, abundance of food and drink, animals and above all offspring. They ask for protection on all the well wishers and damnation on all the evil wishers.198 They always express their gratitude to God, the gods or the deities before presenting their problems. Through prayer of petition, the worshippers humble themselves before God and address Him as Father.199 God is the Father in Igbo religion, just as He is the Father in Christianity. He is the Father who is ready and willing to listen to the needs of the people and offer solutions to their problems. In this prayer, petitions are made in the order of importance and urgency and may be repeated using various expressions. Prayer for life is the most important. When life has been granted, then follows the qualities of life, namely, long life: (ogologo ndu), good health, prosperous life, happy life and so on. Unmistakable is prayer for long life, prosperity200 and good health: (Ogologo ndu, Oganihu na Ahuike). They cherish these so much and they use them in their songs, feast and toast: Ogologo Ndu na Ahu Ike, (long life and good health). Good health is among the most cherished treasures which people all over the world value so much including Africans and the Igbo people of Nigeria.201 4.4.3.3 Prayer over Kola Nut in Igbo Traditional Religion Kola Nut is the most important nut in Igbo traditional religion (it will be treated extensively later). It is cherished by all and sundry. Whenever it is presented in any gathering, the proper thing is at the end, the oldest man prays over it on behalf of those present. Prayer over the Kola Nut in Igbo tradition has no formulae and phrases but they tend to be stereotype. In the prayer, considerable freedom for adaptation, application to the immediate situation and the needs of those who have gathered for one thing or the other should be considered. If the gathering is a thing of joy, the tone of the prayer expresses that and if the gathering is a thing of sorrow, the prayer also expresses that. The prayer could be long especially when it is said by the elders in the community gathering or in the family celebration, merry making or simple visit. At the end of the prayer all the people present will answer Iseee (Amen). In the prayer, the leader will acknowledge the goodness of the Lord, His might, benevolence, splendour etc. Sometimes, the prayer is in 198 Idowu, Olodumare, God in Yoruba Belief, 116. 199 Shorter, African Christian Theology, 109f. 200 Ndiokwerre, The African Church Today and Tomorrow, Vol. II, 65. 201 Ibid.

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the form of Vendatta. The honour of praying over the Kola Nut is reserved to the elders. Hence the Igbos’ say: when the elder clears his throat, the spirits and the ancestors listen. That is why before the elder of the community says the prayer over the Kola Nut, he first clears his throat as a sign to the ancestors and the spirits that he is about to present his requests and that of the community. Obiora Ike writes a typical prayer of Igbo man in the blessing of Kola Nut202, the prayer is: God the creator who lives on high and His eyes see the whole ground and no dirt soils Him. The God who lives in the water and is dry, who moves by the winds and the wind is never seen by the eyes and the air is everywhere. God we come with greetings and with pleadings. Obasi bi n’elu, (God that lives in above), it is Kola Nut we bring to you; it is all we can offer! A little baby can only hold its mother where its hands can reach. Kola Nut is small, yet, it is big. Like the sacrificial food, it is more important that it goes round, than that it fills the stomach. Our fathers’ father and all our ancestors saw all the fruits of the land, but they chose Kola Nut as a prime substance for hospitality and for offerings. Of all the food on earth, only Kola Nut is not cooked by water and fire, but by spoken word! The rich can afford it and the poor can afford it. It is the biggest offering men bring to you GREAT GOD. It is not that Kola Nut is the sweetest food on earth, or that it fills the stomach fastest; but it is only with it that we pray for life, good health and prosperity. Whoever brings Kola Nut brings life, health, prosperity, peace and children and what we shall feed them with. God, it is you, who bring Kola Nut and ordain its manner of breaking. We are little innocent children who washed their stomachs only, but your eyes see us. And you can judge, if I’ve ever touched the wife of relation or seen the nakedness of a sister: if I’ve stolen what belongs to any human being or oppressed a widow or cheated an orphan; or tendered false witness or spoken a calumny, or if I have killed any human being with knife, spear, arrow, rope, poison or witchcraft, may our land and mother earth eat me. But if I have not done these, and my fellowman will afflict me because of the anger of the heart or anger of the eye, then let whoever comes to kill me kill himself. Anyone who says, he must see me and my household with evil eyes, let his eyes perish in the seeing. Any person who says an innocent household may not sleep; make him roost with the chickens. If a man I can stand by does not stand by me, let what kills the traitors kill him. If a spirit I can vouch for does not vouch for me, let what kills the spirits kill him. If anybody 202 The prayer over the Kola Nut was so long that I preferred not to take it as it is written in the book. This prayer was said by Mazi E. Lawrence. C.f. Obiora Ike, Understanding Africa, 11f.

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will bring poison into this house, let his polluted hand enter his mouth. It is the mouth that speaks what earns the jaw a slap, a man’s head shakes the ants net and his trunk suffers it. May it be good to the young, succession is everybody’s prayer and may it be good for the old. The vulture prays that death will not eliminate the aged, so that they will continue to tell the young that vulture is a forbidden flesh. What is good, is what we want. I have not asked you to give that to me alone, for eating up everything alone is bad. If the kite perches, let the eagle perch, whichever denies the other the right to perch, may its wing brake. Give us children and give us the means to feed them. Let any of us or our children who goes out to work come back with plenty of money and come back safe. You have yam and you have knife, whosoever you give and in whatever measure he will eat. What is good is what we want and also what we ask for is: may it be good for the young and for the old….203 Iseeeee. At the end of the prayer, he will break the Kola Nut and it will be shared to all present. In some parts of Igboland, after the blessing of the Kola Nut by the elder, he will hand the Kola Nut to the youngest man there to go and break. This form of prayer can also take another form which may also be short.

4.5 Medicine Men/Women or Healers in Igbo Traditional Religion In Igbo traditional religion, medicine is practiced by both men and women, and they are found in every African society, community and village. The word Dibia literally means healer or doctor. There are three types of Dibias. There is Dibia Ogwu (herbal doctor), there is Dibia Afa (healer diviner), and there is Dibia Aja (healer who offers sacrifice).204 However, one person can specialize in two or three. Here we have to concentrate more on Dibia Ogwu and Dibia Afa for the work of Dibia Aja has been overtaken in the work of the priest. African healers deal with the spiritual and the material realities. These realities come to us in forms of sicknesses, accidents and misfortunes. There is a conception that sicknesses and misfortunes come from the gods or the spirits, or they can be sent by evil men and women. They are healed whenever the spirits or the gods are appeased. It is the work of the Dibias to know the course of the sickness before delving into the healing process. There are some sicknesses that need only the application or the drinking of the medicines that come from the shrubs or herbs, roots or the 203 Obiora Ike and Edozien, Understanding African, 14f. 204 C.f., Okpalaike, Ichu Aja in Igbo Traditional Religion, 134f.

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leaves of the trees. There are some sicknesses that need consultation with the gods and the goddesses of the land through divination before commencing the healing process. There are some sicknesses that need both the consultations and the drinking of the medicines prepared by the Dibia or the herbalist. Dibias carry out their works of healing the sick and mediating with the spirits especially when things go wrong. They are considered to be important for they come to the rescue of the individuals in matters of health and general welfare.205 Those who have the charisma or the gift to heal, are highly respected because the people attach great importance to health (ahu-ike) and every prayer of the people revolves around good health, long life and prosperity. In Igbo traditional religion, the phenomenological and socio-cultural environment need experts who have cosmic knowledge of therapeutic, preventive and protective medicine, mystical knowledge of supra-sensible realities, and cultic knowledge of mythological and cosmological belief of the people. These conditions give rise to the existence of categories of Dibia in Igboland.206 The herbalist, the diviner and healer through sacrifices work with one another and help each other to decipher the ultimate cause of any problem and its solution. The diviner sees the spiritual and the material factors involved in a given situation and the healer applies the remedies if they are within the scope of his/her medical practices. The diviner is the diagnostician, while the medicine man/woman is the physician, physiotherapist or spiritual healer.207 The act of the medicine man/ woman includes herbal medicine, as well as psychotherapeutical and spiritual healing techniques. Ogwu: medicine includes not only herbal mixtures but magical objects, incantations and rites which have power to change the human condition for the better or the worse.208

4.5.1 The Medicine Man/Woman (Herbalist) Dibia Ogwu The Dibia Ogwu (the herbalist) is a key figure in Igbo traditional religion. They are the mediator between God and the people. Their work is for the protection and strengthening of life. They are believed to get their power from Agwu, (the deity

205 206 207 208

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Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 150. Udoye, Resolving the Prevailing Conflict between Christianity and African (Igbo) Traditional Religion, 122. Ikenga-Metuh, African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes, 176. Ibid., 178.

of medicine),209 and discharge it to the people. They offer prayers as they treat the sick, indicating that God is the ultimate healer and one cannot heal without His approval. It is a common belief among them that they do not wield final power for healing the sick. They only use the powers, the skills, the knowledge and the medicines given to them by God for the good of the people. They cannot only use the power unless they have the potentiality from Chukwu, the gods and the ancestors of the land. Most often, they include: prayers, offerings and sacrifices, performance of other religious rituals as part of their medical practices. In their prayers, they confess their humility that they do not know how to pray and they confess that it is God that heals.210 As herbalists, they prepare medicine from the herbs for the treatment of sicknesses and ailments. Most often they mix some other material objects, especially parts of animals which can have miraculous effects on other objects and consequently can affect human condition. These powers are believed to be inherent in nature, so that anyone who knows the recipes can tap them211 and use them for the good of humanity. Some can use them to harm others. Majority of medicines come from the herbs: (Mgborogwu). They are used to heal individuals but when it comes to the case of the community; that is when sacrifices are in play. They can be called upon to provide protective medicine for any form of misfortune, just as they could be approached to prepare medicine to attract some fortunes. They drive away evil spirits, track down witches and prepare antidotes for sorcery. They make medicine to guarantee abundant harvest, to prevent all sorts of pestilence, to cure infertility and to prevent constant child-death. Every competent Dibia should be able to provide solutions to most areas of human need.212 They are not like the scientific doctors who specialize in one form of healing or the other. They claim to have solution to all illnesses except death. That is why some of them answer ogwo nnu oria (healer of many sicknesses). They keep on treating their patients until they become healed, but when the situation becomes worst, some will discharge their patients before they die, so that people will not die under their care. The Dibias prepare and administer medicines of all types. They cure bodily and mental ailments the doctors or psychiatrics will handle in the Western societies. They prepare protective charms and also supply medicines to attract good fortunes – good health, fertility, success in business or a love affair and so 209 210 211 212

Ibid., 33. Mbiti, The Prayers of African Religion, 38. Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 221. Ibid., 223.

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forth.213 Their functions in Igbo traditional life is seen against the background of the close interaction between the visible and the spiritual world. They also provide charms for such problems as, passing ones examinations, success in business, promotion in ones profession.214 They know the ways of the spirits. In the community, a person, who may be receiving treatment in the hospitals, could give money to the relatives to consult the Dibia to find out the spiritual cause of his/her condition.215 There was no scientific development for refining medicine in Africa and also in Igbo traditional religion. This lack of scientific development has generally given bad publicity by foreign writers who simply harp on their preconceived notions, which do not match the facts. Some European authors have used the word fetish for what we refer to as medicine and have referred to the Dibias as fetish priests or fetish doctors. However, some African medicines are not fetishes at all because they are extracted from the shrub and some plants.216 Medicine for Africans primarily conveys the idea of forces contained and can be extracted from the properties of some plants and herbs and applied to the variety of human problems.217 These medicines have their positive effect in healing human sicknesses and providing solution to their problems. We can therefore define medicine in African traditional religions as recipes of the herbal mixtures and some ritual formulae designed to generate some powers which are built into nature by God. The nature can be tapped and applied with the help of God and other spiritual beings to meet various human needs. Whenever it is rightfully applied, medicine can act for anyone who observes the proper ceremonies, rituals and the taboos carefully. The Dibias are specialists in the art of preparing, controlling and administering medicines.218 Their houses are assessable to all at all time.219 And people with various problems come to them. There are good and bad medicines. The good medicines are socially approved medicines used to cure diseases and sicknesses and also to ward off misfortunes. But the bad medicines are medicines applied to socially disapproved goals, usually used to bring some injury or misfortune to the people and they are also used to

213 214 215 216 217 218 219

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Ikenga-Metuh, African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes, 177. Ibid., 176. Ibid., 34. Mbiti, Concepts of God in Africa, 224. Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 221. Ibid., 222. Ibid., 223.

kill. The competent Dibias would have the knowledge of the bad medicines, yet as a public practitioner, they will deal only with good medicines to maintain a good public image and to retain a good proportion of their clients.220 They offer antidote to the bad medicines when they are administered to the people. Bad medicine is known as nshi (poison). The poison may take the form of concoctions or material objects buried in the ground, so that an enemy who crosses over them shall sicken and die. It is not uncommon, therefore, for any one who becomes a Dibia to be sworn by the elders of the community that he/she will refrain from the practice of illegitimate magic, lest the magic should recoil on his/her own head.221 The Dibias make effort to protect their professional etiquette by preserving human life and not to destroy it through nshi (poison). The good Dibias are well loved by the people because of the nature of their job: curing and saving the lives of the people. Majorities of them are honest, kind, friendly and helpful.222 In most cases all payments are made after a successful cure. Some who cannot pay the required amount can lease their land or give their daughters in exchange for the payment. When they are not successful in curing the sick or when their medical treatment proves abortive, they attributed this to the works of the spirits. That is why the Igbo say: Ihe Dibia na agwo bu nriria, anaghi agwo onwu agwo, (the Dibias can only cure sickness, death cannot be cured). They are widely respected and wield considerable social and political influence. They are certainly among the wealthiest as well as the most respected in Igbo society.223 They make their money through their profession. Their clientele include the cream of the society, students, business men/women and military officers.224 These people come to them with all source of problems with the hope that they are capable of giving solution to them or to obtain protective medicine and so on.225 When the Dibias go contrary to the thinking and the wishes of the people, some find it difficult to question their authenticity, rather they will accept them and try to pacify with their ancestors and the spirits of the land. Invocations are necessary in their work because of the belief that the medical or magical herbal mixtures are ineffective without the right invocation. It is the ritual

220 221 222 223 224 225

Ibid., 222. Meek, Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe, 84. Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 154. Ikenga-Metuh, African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes, 177. Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 223. Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 153.

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invocations which give the dynamism to the mixture and trigger it into action.226 Minor complaints like stomach upset, headaches, cuts or skin ulcers are normally treated with herbs and other medicines generally known to each community without invocation. But persistent and serious complaints require the knowledge and the skill of the Dibias. They have to find out the religious cause of the illness or complaint, so as to deal with it appropriately. Sometimes the causes are said to be magic, sorcery, witchcraft, broken taboos or the work of the spirits. They prescribe the cure which includes herbs, religious rituals and the observation of certain prohibitive directions. They take preventive measures to assure the sufferer that the trouble will not come again. These involve religious steps and observances. Therefore, they serve as religious leaders who perform religious rituals in carrying out their work.227 There is always a religious dimension to every human condition and that is why they refer their patient to the diviner or an oracle to obtain a more authoritative diagnosis.228 They carry out their work diligently and conscientiously.

4.5.2 Training for Medicine Man: Dibia There is no official or formal institution in Igboland for the training of the people who want to be enrolled into this prestigious office of the Dibias. The training is done by a more experienced Dibia, under whom a trainee must work as apprentice for several years until one can put forward claims for recognition. The training depends on the communities. In the training, they are meant to: “…have a great knowledge of the properties of herbs, roots, bark and leaves. All informants lay great stress on the strange results obtainable by a mingling of these ingredients, though probably their principal efficacy is derived from faith and belief in them.”229 One has to learn how to deal with the spiritual problems, when and how to offer sacrifices and gifts to the gods, the spirits and the ancestors. One may become a Dibia through possession by the spirit or through inheriting it from one’s father, uncle or relation. Charles, K. Meek narrates how the spirit can possess one and the rituals to perform for the actualization of one’s Dibiaship.230 226 Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 221. 227 Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 152. 228 Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 222. 229 Talbot, The People of Southern Nigeria 158. 230 A Dibia is always a leech, and some Dibias are also possessed of second-sight. A seer whether male or female is subject to possession. Possession takes hold of a person spontaneously, and the subject first shows signs of irritability and then passing over into a state of complete dissociation. But the condition may be induced

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After the training, comes the initiation. The initiation ceremonies include the setting up of a shrine for one’s personal Agwu.231 In Igboland, it is only those who are called by the deity of Agwu that automatically become Dibias. One does not venture into this office if one is not called and confirmed. When one is called, he or she will sets up a shrine for Agwu deity and attaches oneself to an experienced Dibia as an apprentice.232 The training and the succession sometimes go from the father to the son just as it is in the case of priesthood. In this way, children inherit the profession from their parents. The call or inclination may come suddenly or gradually. It comes suddenly through dream or constant visits from a spirit, especially of the living dead: the ancestors. It may come to a person at any age.233 One who is authentically called through possession234 finds it difficult to run away from it. by artificial stimulants, such as drumming or the drinking of; certain concoctions, or by an exciting environment. Possessed persons throw themselves about without suffering injury, or cut themselves without appearing to feel any sensation of pain. Sometimes the male ones may climb palms without a rope, and may remain above until their relatives offer sacrifice to Amadi-Oha (the god of lightning). The female ones may be lost for days in the ‘bush’, and on their return speak with the spirit. In due course they calm down and become normal, and if anyone had become possessed for the first time her relatives establish for her the cult known as Agwu-Nsi, the god of divination. The symbols of this cult are (a) ogirisi, and abosse trees; (b) carved wooden images (male and female) which are portable, and (c) On Eke day, the woman comes before the symbols at sunrise, washes her hands, chews Kola Nuts and alligator pepper, spits the fragments over the symbols, rubs white or yellow clay round her eyes, beats a tortoise-shell and sings the praises of Agwu-Nsi. In this way she becomes a recognized Dibia. C.f., Meek, Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe, 85. 231 Ikenga-Metuh, African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes, 176. Meek confirms this when he writes: “A man may become a Dibia in the same way. But a man may become a Dibia because his father or mother was one, or by serving a course of apprenticeship to a Dibia.” C.f., Meek, Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe, 86. 232 Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 224. 233 Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 150. 234 Possessed person acts in a special way. If the spirit of possession takes hold of a man, he is escorted to the market by other Dibia, dancing as he goes along. On arrival to the market place, he seizes articles for sale—an indication that he has lost his self-control. He is then put into a hole in the ground resembling a grave. Thorns are placed on the floor and are covered over with plantain leaves. The novice’s eyes are bandaged with a black cloth, and he is laid on the bed of thorns and covered with plantain leaves. The senior Dibia present kills a cock, removes the bandage from the novice’s eyes, and pours some of the cock’s blood into his eyes. The body of the cock is secreted in some spot close by, and the novice is told to find it. It is said that

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The skill of making medicine in Igboland is valued as part of the family patrimony, a closely guarded secret, which a father can bequeath to his son, or an uncle to a nephew. This is what is known as African medical mentality. Through the guarding of the medical secrets, Africa has lost much in the medical field. Some good Dibias who knew so many secrets as regards medicines have died suddenly without bequeathing the knowledge to the next generation. In this case the knowledge died with them. This has continued to set Africans medically backward. In every case, any prospective Dibia whether hereditary or called by the spirit; must undergo an intensive and sometimes long period of training. During this period, one acquires knowledge in matters pertaining to the quality and the use of different kinds of herbs, roots, animals, insects and mineral substances. One also learns through observation and assisting one’s masters (just as it is in priesthood), how to handle people with different kinds of diseases, human problems and how to apply the words of incantations Through observation, the apprentice perfects oneself and masters how to mix different kinds of medicines, different invocations, rituals and sacrifices that go with them and how to handle different spiritual and human agencies. One may be allowed to practice, only after one’s character and professional competence had been certified by the master and when one has been publicly initiated into the local guide of Dibias.235 The success of one’s profession depends on the efficiency and the progress one made in curing people with various illnesses and diseases. The ones’ who succeeded their fathers, hide under their canopy until they perfect. They are expected to have the knowledge of the names or nature of herbs, trees, roots, seeds, bones, birds or animal droppings (excreta) and many other things which are used for preparing medicines. They know also how to diagnose diseases and problems of any sort, how to handle the patients, how and what to prescribe as the cure and in general; how to perform their duty as Dibias. All these may be called science of medicine.236 They are important in treating various illnesses: physical, psychological and spiritual.

235 236

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he can declare at once where the cock is, or else follows the footsteps of the Dibia who had secreted the cock until he finds it. As soon as he finds the cock, guns are fired and all rejoice; for the novice has proved that he is worthy to be regarded as a genuine Dibia. C.f., Meek, Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe, 86. Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 224. Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 152. C.f., Talbot, The People of Southern Nigeria, Vol. II, 159.

4.5.3 Diviner (Dibia Afa) in Igbo Traditional Religion Divination is not a mechanical exercise or technique, but an intensive form of communication, in which there are patients and doctors or, more precisely, ‘therapists’. Alertness and empathy are characteristics of diviners.237 It “…is a means of acquiring normally inaccessible information utilizes a non-formal mode of cognition which is synthesized by the diviner and client with everyday knowledge in order to allow the client to make plans of action.”238 In Igbo traditional religion, not everybody knows how it functions, but those schooled in its art are known as Dibia afa: one who discerns and finds out hidden facts about a given situation.239 The diviner is called: Onye na agba afa (one who casts divination). He is regarded as Dibia Afa, healer by divination. He/she is not a priest, but the priest and Dibias cannot function well without his/her role.240 He/she is the one who interprets the mind of the spirits and says what the spirits want and how they should be pacified. ‘To divine’ is igba afa meaning ‘to join the afa’ or divination implements together in such patterns that the will or the intention of the otherwise unknowable can be read and understood. The diviner, therefore, is onye n’agbaafa, (person who divines) or more commonly, ogbaafa (he divines).241 The diviner is not the head of any public cult, but he/she divines under the influence of Agwu: divination spirit.242 This spirit is the patron of the healers. The diviners work sometimes as Dibias. They apply and control the magical method to tell the past, the present and the future. They are the spiritual leaders of the people. They stand between the living and the ancestral spirits, just as the priests stand between the Christian God and the Christian people.243 They are moral analysts, the charismatic leaders, and also priests. They have their languages and sometimes they get in touch with the spirits directly or through the help of the medium they 237

238 239 240 241 242 243

Sundermeier, The Individual and Community in African Traditional Religions, 203. Diviners encourage people to speak, as psychotherapists do. Because such questioning usually takes place in groups and not in secret, there are group dynamic processes at work. The diviner will seldom give an answer which is not attuned to the people’s feelings, especially as their conscience has been aroused, perhaps by illness, making them sensitive to the possible causes of the tensions which exist. Peek, African Divination Systems, 194. See also, Shelton, The Igbo Igala Borderline, 203. Anozie, The Igbo Culture and Formation of Conscience, 394. Ikenga-Metuh, African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes, 174. Shelton, The Igbo Igala Borderline, 201. Ikenga-Metuh, African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes, 174. Kirwen, The Missionary and the Diviner, 99.

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work with.244 In various places, their office is linked with that of the herbalists. Their field of activity is extended, even if their office is not basically changed. Diagnosis and the discovery of healing medicine are only different aspects of their healing procedure.245 They provide the point of contact between the world of the ancestors and the world of the living. Their senses operate in super sensitive fashion that their divination deals with non-normal source of knowledge. They recognize the correct information and decipher the right answer.246 The material world is undoubtedly accessible to everyone, yet there are people who have special access to the other world, either through birth and position or through vocation. To the first-named group belong the heads of the families at any particular time, that is, the eldest son of the most recently deceased father. He is most closely related to his father, knows him best, and has the position of honour which is appropriate to the dealings with the family affairs. The diviners belong to the class of those called to deal with the ancestors. No-one is born to be a diviner, even if there is a long family tradition of this calling.247 For one to be a diviner, one has to experience the spirit of the ancestors in a unique way. It is the spirit that reveals to the diviner the hidden events of the people. The authority of the diviners is traumatic because they stand as the salvific mediators between the living and the dead. Since they are present to both realities, they are able to make known the desires, requests, and the demands of the ancestral spirits.248 Aylward Shorter sees divination as: “Simply a magical rite intended to reveal hidden knowledge or to foretell events. The technique may be based on chance or it may be more or less under the diviners’ control.”249 Divination is associated with ancient religions that have many things to do with the spirits and the unique way of finding the truth. In the ancient times, divination was usually considered to be carried out by the aid of jujus or juju priest to the harmony and sympathy existing between all parts of the universe: the visible and the invisible world. It gives most times an unbiased answer to human doubts and questionings, places the onus of certain unpleasant but wholesome truths on the shoulders of the spirits, and to fix in the same quarter the opprobrium of carrying out unpopular

244 245 246 247 248 249

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Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 156. Sundermeier, The Individual and Community in African Traditional Religions, 204. Anozie, The Igbo Culture and Formation of Conscience, 399. Sundermeier, The Individual and Community in African Traditional Religions, 198. Kirwen, The Missionary and the Diviner, Introduction Xxiii. Shorter, African Christian Theology, 135.

but salutary measures. It is good psychology and policy, because in nine cases out of ten, the soothsayer’s wand will bend to the trend of the public opinion.250 The wand is used to discover the wishes of the gods and the ancestors and to unveil the future.251 The diviners are always on the side of the truth. They do not liaise with the people in order to subvert the truth. The true identity of the diviner is determined by the ancestors who are fully aware of the tensions that exist in the community and expose them during the enquiry.252 The essence of divination is to find the truth. Truth is essential for the maintenance of peace and order. Without the truth, it will be difficult to live together. Problems exist because people tell lies. There is no way one can find the truth except by some forms of evidence collection which most often may be distorted depending on the honesty of the narrator.253 Divination culturally understood is a search for the truth which is necessary for cordial or harmonious living. Without established system of reaching the truth in the simple day to day dealings with one another, or more sophisticated search for the truth as in the court of justice, there will continue to be the punishment of innocent and the victimization of the just.254 In Igbo tradition, when the fact of the case is not clear, the people had recourse to the oracle or divination.255 They probe for answers or confront people with possible solutions. Depending on their tradition and technique, they will have recourse to meditation aids, and will rely more on questions or the two.256 The diviners explain the supernatural face of events, and make misfortune intelligible and acceptable.257 Their oracle is not necessarily infallible, it may be contradictory, or there may be reasons to reject the verdict of an oracle or being skeptical about it. When there is doubt as regards the verdict of the oracle or diviner, appeal is possible from less powerful oracles to more powerful ones.258 In some cases disputing parties would have recourse to one of Igboland’s regional network of oracles such as Agbala of Awka or Ibini Ukpabe at Arochukwu.259 The reputation and the influence of the diviners and oracles depend on the result 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259

Meek, Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe, 87. Talbot, The People of Southern Nigeria, 185. Sundermeier, The Individual and Community, 202. Anozie, The Igbo Culture and Formation of Conscience, 394. Ibid., 397. Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 156. Sundermeier, The Individual and Community, 203. Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 24. Shorter, African Christian Theology, 135. Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 24.

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of their just judgements. The people have great awe, confidence and recourse when they see that the oracle is capable of killing the offender or those who swear falsely. Most answers given by the oracles are incapable of being tested. If oracle declares that it is dangerous for one to go out, or to travel on a certain day, it is certain that the one will not put the oracle to the test. The people find it difficult to ask which ancestor is troubling them or which of the enemy is practicing witchcraft against them. It is impossible to test the oracles verdict. The client goes to the diviner with certain options or suspicions in mind. Some diviners seem to have power to telepathy, because they appear to be able to tell the client facts about oneself and the purpose of one’s visit at the very start of the interview. This is a means of creating confidence.260 In all this, the diviners see themselves only as a medium: an instrument of the ancestors. They disclose where a spell has been cast, and indicate the way to fight against the power of the sorcerer. The ancestors work through them because, the ancestors who forsee the future are concerned to stand beside their descendants in the struggle against the evil, which takes on a visible form in the person of the sorcerer. This is why they are respected in Igbo society.261

260 261

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Shorter, African Christian Theology, 136. Sundermeier, The Individual and Community in African Traditional Religion, 203.

Chapter 5: The Ethical, Social and Cultural Values in Africa 5. Introduction There are many ethical as well as social and cultural values in Africa. They have great influence in the lives of the people and have helped to fashion their lives in various ways and forms. They have contributed immensely to their religions and traditions. Oftentimes most people tend to limit ethical, social and cultural values of the Africans to their eating habits, dresses, drum beating and dancing, quaint art work, poverty, living with animals, ritual killings and cannibalism. These are some of the traits and prejudices found in the culture of the people. They are only parts and not the general and some of these have been transformed or overtaken with time. The ethical and the social structures of the Africans are more than these. They are deeper and essential realities in the cultures of the people. The ethical, social and cultural values have worth, dignity and cherished among the people. We have different types of values: “One can talk of social values, religious values, moral values, political values, cultural values, traditional values, philosophical values and scientific values.”1 We have also economic as well as human values. These values help to make the people unique and authentic as regards their identity and culture. Africans have rich values and they make effort to nurse and nurture them and to hand them over to the generations yet unborn through various means that suit their age. The handing over can be in forms of oral tradition, written tradition or symbolic tradition. Presently the influence of modernity is a big threat to their existence because people seem to regard them as outdated form of life. Any person who stands out to live them out and to impart them to the younger generation will be termed primitive or one who has been overtaken by time. One of the commonest values of the Africans is the joy people attached to life and their ability to laugh. They are happy people and they laugh to their satisfaction irrespective of the poverty and the situations of life surrounding them. Obiora Ike writes: “There is first and foremost, the common value that imbues the African soul in all its cultures, and that is the joy of life. It has often been observed to be true that the ability of Africans to laugh, to celebrate and share with others the joy of life 1

Anozie, The Igbo Culture and the Formation of Conscience, 198.

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through hospitality and openness is unrivaled anywhere in the world.”2 They are happy people and that is how God created them. The commonest value in African tradition is the preservation of life and the means to create happiness or make the life enjoyable and livelier. This is a habitual life pattern consciously or unconsciously handed over from the ancestors. African values are those habitual, basic frames of the mind of the Africans which influence their attitude towards life and which motivate them to be real and to live authentic life. We are not going to dwell on all the values enumerated above, but we are going to dwell on some aspects of them that are relevant and the ones that concern our topic of discussion. These values are: communal living among the people, respect for elders and the importance of titled men in the community. Drums, songs or music are inevitable in the life of the people. Proverbs, hospitality, Kola Nut and its significance in Igboland, respect for life and the attitude to the dead will be discussed.

5.1 Community in African Traditional Religion The word community refers to the social structure of the people living together for a common goal, share common interest and basic foundations of life. Community is quite different from society. As regards community and society, Martin Buber writes: “The association of interest I would call society, the association of life, community. If people feel that they are more likely to see their interest carried out, and if they combine interest they share, then they have formed an association of interest. If people then are willing to live together and if their will is not a mere agreement that has emerged from the mind and remains in the mind, but a will that grows in the real soil of life, then community can happen as a destiny and calling among men.”3 Community is more deeply rooted than society and it is more selfless, committed and involving. The community protects the interest of the individuals in the group and at the same time seeks for the common good. The people work in the community to maintain the central unity and all who belong to the community have equal rights and privileges. Community is also seen as the maximum number of the people who can reside in face to face relationship.4 This face to face relationship is the responsibility

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Obiora Ike and Edozie, Understanding Africa, 27. Biemann, The Martin Buber Reader: Essential Writings, 253. Hesselgrave, Planting Churches Cross-Culturally, 287.

expected from each member or what one contributes to the other. In the community, all participations are geared towards the realization of the common goal. When the individual participates and acts together with others, he/she retains in this acting the personalistic value of one’s actions and at the same time, shares in the realization and the results of the communalistic action of the group. Owing to this sharing for the good of all, human being acts together with others, retains everything that results from the communal acting and simultaneously brings about in this very manner – the personalistic value of one’s action.5 Community is the inner constitution of a common life that knows and embraces the parsimonious account, the opposing account and the suddenly evading care. It is commoness of the need from a commonness of the spirit; commonness of trouble and it is from this commonness of salvation that community can happen.6 The real essence of a community is undoubtedly the facts that it has a centre and its origin is to be understood by the fact that its members have a common relationship to the centre superior to all other relations.7 Through the community, one helps the other to actualize oneself. Through it, people with different ideologies and mentalities live together, work, share their lives, their strengths and weaknesses together and bear the consequences of their actions and inactions. They share together when the outcome of their actions and inactions are positive as well as negative. This is called ‘collective responsibility’ which is often associated with the bond of sentiment directed toward the common good.8 All actions in the community are geared towards the salvation of the entire members. Community is essentially bound up with humanity because it affords a greater consciousness of what we share as human beings. It is outgoing, accommodative and active. It gives all the potentialities and the opportunities to fulfill ones aims and objectives. It becomes dehumanizing when it adopts an attitude of collective selfishness and introspection.9 Every community tends to promote the essence of human rights. “The essence of human rights is not just to promote the selfish individual rights of persons, but to see that every member of the human society lives a life worthy of human dignity. The primacy given to the community is to ensure that each member of the community sees his well-being in the welfare

5 Wojtyla, The Acting Person, 269. 6 Biemann, The Martin Buber Reader: Essential Writings, 244. 7 Ibid. 8 May and Hoffman, Collective Responsibility, 62. 9 Shorter, African Culture and the Christian Church, 197.

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of the community.”10 This is the communal life found in Africa. It is far from selfishness, egoistic and totalism. In African community, all the members are at home with each other, and they have some benefits and sense of belongings which one who is outside the community does not have. The community protects all, but the individual obligations and responsibilities have to be actualized. The Africans refer community as a traditional set up, where people trace a common origin in which the sacred plays prominent role.11 Human being ought not to be alone but a being with others. He/she is born into the world where others have been. They are still there and will continue to be there.12 He/she is meant to live in peace and in unity with others. African way of living is communal oriented: they live, cherish and accommodate each other. That is what the Germans call ‘Gemeinschaftsleben’ (living together). The visitors are also cherished, accommodated and treated with honour, dignity and respect in their midst. They share their social life as well as their religious lives with each other through encouraging and supporting of one another. The word community does not mean a strongly circumscribed and organize social fabric, but it is where deeply emotional, healthy and inner composite of togetherness of expression come into play.13 The African communal living is not objective totalism that is contrary to individualism. It is quite different from individualism that places the individual needs over others. Totalism and individualism are two contrary poles in the human society. “Each of the two systems or trends – whether individualism or objective totalism – tend in different ways to limit participation either directly or indirectly as the feature of the essence of the person and which corresponds to his existing together with others living in a community.”14 Karol Wojtyla writes: “Individualism sees in the individual the supreme and fundamental good, to which all interests of the community or the society have to be subordinated, while objective totalism relies on the opposite principle and unconditionally subordinates the individual to the community or the society.”15 The real human community found among the Africans negates these poles and resides between them.

10 Umeh, The Theology of Solidarity, 29. 11 Anozie, The Igbo Culture and Formation of Conscience, 202. 12 Nnoruka, Solidarity: A Principle of Sociality, 87. 13 Vorgrimler, Neues Theologisches Wörterbuch, 217. 14 Wojtyla, The Acting Person, 273. 15 Ibid.

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The community in Africa is not the community that overshadows the individual and uses one as an object for the actualization or the realization of its own good which proposes the use of coercion. It is not the community that neglects the good of the individual person while pursuing communal interest. It is the community that protects, nurses and encourages the lives of the individuals within the group. It is a community that helps the individuals to actualize its potentialities for the common good. The realization of the common good is through voluntary responsible life. It is the community that authenticates the individual and pushes one towards the realization of its potentialities and personality through responsibility. It is the community that assigns certain responsibilities to every individual for the common good. This community does not limit the participation of the individuals to attain its common good, rather it encourages it. Any community of acting, or any human cooperation, should be conducted so as to allow the person remaining within its orbit to realize oneself through participation.16 This community is natural. The individuals are allowed to participate actively but their participation is not through coercion. This is a natural community that is not founded and cannot be instituted. When historical destiny puts a human bond in a common nature and life space, there is space for the development of genuine commune, and no city god is necessary in the centre if the inhabitants know themselves to be united for the sake of and through the unnamable.17 The community found itself to be and cannot go contrary to its aims and objectives. The “Community cannot be made, but when people engage each other, experience each other and respond to this experience with their lives, when people have a living middle (Lebendige Mitte) at their center, their community can arise among themselves. If they do not intend for a community to arise, if they are not under the delusion that they only have to reach for a human hand to their right and to their left for the global circle to be closed, but rather if they feel or know that something is in their midst, whether they cannot name it, or if they feel or know that they can serve this ‘middle’ and do what it demands by virtue of their being or coming together, then community will happen. Good intentions cannot make community happen, but create only a communal illusion.”18 Communal illusion is devoid of freedom of responsibility and participation. It is not natural and cannot be because the components of the people involved are not naturally instituted. The people may cherish and tolerate each other but they always lack the internal freedom of association and trust. 16 17 18

Ibid., 271. Biemann, The Martin Buber Reader: Essential Writings, 244. Ibid., 253f.

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Community can be regarded as the gathering of the people with the same origin, objectives and aims. For Martin Buber, “Community is grown relatedness (Verbundenheit) welded together by common possession (predominantly soil), common work, common customs, common belief; society means regulated segregation, held together externally by force, contract, convention or public opinion.”19 One cannot talk about community where there is no relatedness, common possession, common customs and common religious and traditional beliefs. It opposes the view that individuals are fundamentally isolated from each other and in permanent conflict. It maintains that individuals are basically dependent on each other and that only the realization of this mutuality can bring about right relationships between human beings.20 Through community, the individuals participate responsibly toward the attainment of the communal good. It robs the individuals their excesses and use them to nurture and build up what protect the common good. When we talk of the community, sometimes we refer it to the social structure of the area where we live, communicate and interact with one another. But the sense of having the same root and coming from the same area or the same soil make Africans to regard themselves as brothers and sisters wherever they find themselves.21 This helps to nurture the communal spirit among them. With this, they see one another as neighbours. The neighbour for them is the one who is always ready to render help to the other when necessary. “The notion of neighbour has, however, a deeper application than closeness (as opposed to alienation) in interhuman relations, as it is thus more fundamental than the notion of membership in a community. Membership in any community presupposes the fact that men are neighbours.”22 In this way Africans see what happens to the other as something that touches each of them. One is always out to help the other to be happy and one cannot live, act, socialize or relate to one’s gods without the neighbours and be happy. The neighbour is as important as oneself. One celebrates with the neighbours and mourns with them. One rejoices when good things come across the 19 20 21

22

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Ibid., 247. Shorter, African Culture and the Christian Church, 198. When the Africans call themselves brothers and sister, they do not necessarily mean that the person is from the same parents. People who come from the same town or from the same country call themselves brothers and sisters in a foreign land. They did not know themselves before, but for the fact that they are from the same country or they are from the same continent, they give each other sense of belonging as brothers and sisters. Wojtyla, The Acting Person, 293.

neighbours and weeps when bad things happen to them. One gives a helping hand at the birth of a child of ones’ neighbours and at their burials too. In the traditional African community, the individual does not and cannot exist alone except corporately, one needs others to actualize one’s aims and objectives. One needs others to be and to authenticate one’s real essence and existence. One owes one’s existence to other people, including those of the past generations and the contemporaries. One cannot truly be without others. These others are not only the living but also the unborn and the dead. The community of the people extends in time beyond the bounds of the present era, backward to the ancestors and forward to the future generations. They contribute their quota in the lives of the living member of the community. As the living members have their roles to play, so are the unborn and the dead members called the ‘living dead’. The individual is simply part of the whole. The community therefore re- makes or re-creates the individuals, for they depend on the corporate group.23 One cannot be real without the other. Individuals exist authentically only in so far as they are members of a group. The community is the conglomeration of the individuals who live, and make collective efforts to realize their dreams. For the Africans, though a tree cannot make a forest, but a tree can start a forest. Though an individual cannot be a community, but it is the individual that starts a community. The individuals are important. So the true communal existence cannot happen without the association of communal cells (Gemeinschaftszellen). The existence of community emerges not from the individuals but from the communities.24 This community has its bedrock as the individuals whose life patterns are geared toward the realization of the communal aims and objectives. In African, the community life energizes the weak and breaths on them existential livelihood. It is a source of strength to those who have lost confidence to face the realities of lives. It offers support and aid to those who have lost vision and mission in their lives. It gives social as well as spiritual support to those who could no longer find social or spiritual consolation. Through communal living, the individuals value and cherish one another. They live with one another in peace, trust and harmony. One cannot live outside the communal way of life: being ostracized and be at peace. When one is ostracized, one looks like a person who is alone in the crowd. Outside the community, life becomes meaningless,

23 24

Mbiti, African Religion and Philosophy, 108. Biemann, The Martin Buber Reader: Essential Writings, 253.

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tasteless and worthless. Outside the community one lives in perpetual fear of the unknown: death. One who dies outside this community will not be received by the ancestors. So when one is ostracized by the living, invariably one is also ostracized by the dead, unless one is reconciled before death. When one lives in the community, he/she is not expected to be totally subsumed into it so as to lose one’s personal identity. The community is important but the individual is central and one is neither lost nor subsumed by it. Thus for the Igbo community is everything.25 Though the individual submits one’s identity to the community by making use of ‘we’ and ‘our’, one’s personality brings one social prestige and honour in that same community. One’s social and ethical life hangs on the community and it give one the meaning to one’s personal existence. The unborn, the living and the ancestors live in communion within the community. They cordially interact with each other. None constitutes a threat to the other. They have their different roles to play at different point in time. The unborn stands out as the life force to perpetuate humanity. The dead are in the world of the spirit mystically binding, protecting the living and guarding the traditions of the land. They enquire concerning the affairs of the human family, warn against danger, rebuke the living for not carrying out particular instructions, or ask for food (usually meat) and drink.26 The livings participate fully and actively for the good of all. Therefore, there is a harmonious life between the living and the dead. Hence: “African community therefore is the whole community of the living and the dead. In many situations, the dead earn their good repute and their religious offering of their posterity by leading a good life. In fact the reciprocal relationship that is held to exist between the living and the dead in so many African societies take on many other forms than these.”27 Pope John Paul II encourages: “It is my ardent hope and prayer that Africa will always preserve this priceless cultural heritage and never succumb to the temptation to individualism, which is so alien to its best traditions.”28

5.1.1 Community in Igbo Cultural Tradition Communality is at the centre of the social as well as the cultural traditions of the Igbo. Membership into the community in Igboland is not by free choice of the

25 26 27 28

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Okoro, The Communal Dimension of Igbo World-view, 82. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy, 107. Shorter, African Christian Theology, 124. John Paul II, Ecclesia in Africa, 43.

individual person concerned. The birth of an individual person into the community, with the common ancestors and religious belief gives one the right to belong to the community. But it is evident that: “Physical birth is not enough: the child must go through rites of incorporation so that it becomes fully integrated into the entire society. These rites continue throughout the physical life of the person, during which the individual passes from one stage of corporate existence to another. The final stage is reached when he dies and even then he is ritually incorporated into the wider family of both the dead and the living.”29 These rites performed on behalf of the individual from birth make one to be open to participate fully with others as part of the community. As infant, it is the duty of ones parents to perform the necessary rites; as an adult, one has to perform the rites of initiation into the members of one’s age group and that of the social group like title taking. At death the people have to perform the rite of initiation to enable the ancestors to welcome one in the spirit world. Without these initiations, one cannot participate fully either in the community of the living or in the community of the dead. One is formally or informally formed and educated in this community. Everything happens in the community and life outside the community is meaningless. The people value communal life because they see themselves as having the same root and this makes them to identify with one another and to work toward the common goal. The community promotes the common good. The common good (Latin; bonum commune and German; Gemeinwohl) is what the communal individual members benefit. “Community orientation is to promote the common good; to protect the individual against dives and to aid the individual person to pursue personal happiness bearing in mind that personal development and happiness equally require working towards the happiness and fulfillment of others.”30 Through the common goods, human life is well assured and protected and they enhance the social lives of the people. The value of the community in Igbo cultural tradition goes beyond mere coming together of a group of the people for the enhancement of their social well being. It has also some religious undertone.31 Their life is explicitly and implicitly rooted in the social organization or religious structure.32 Human being cannot be independent of oneself without the membership in the community where all trace their origin. Religious rites are performed for the individual from conception to death 29 30 31 32

Mbiti, African Religion and Philosophy, 108. Umeh, The Theology of Solidarity, 29. Anozie, The Igbo Culture and Formation of Conscience, 201. Okoro, The Communal Dimension of Igbo World-view, 70.

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and the community protects and directs one through the ‘Omenala’ (traditions, laws and customs), which one learns consciously or unconsciously from the parents, peer group and in association with the elders without difficulty. It is also within this community that one attains maturity.33 The learning of the customs and the traditions of the land is done through contacts with the people of various cadres. These people include: the old and the young, the titled and the untitled men and women of substance and those without substance. These people have great influence in imparting the tradition to the individual. In Igboland, the community is so much valued that the individual becomes only a product of it. For the individual life to be meaningful; it must be realized in the community. It is in the community that the individual becomes meaningful towards oneself and other people.34 No individual in Igboland stands alone in all the life experiences that confront one as a person.35 One identifies with others, lives not only for oneself and the family, but for the community where one belongs. No matter how powerful an individual may be, one cannot be greater than the community. Hence the Igbo will say: otu onye anaghi akari oha (an individual cannot be greater than the community). One is always loyal to the participation of the group. In the community, every individual has to participate effectively for the realization of the common goal. This life of participation is a function of mutual and life sharing; the sharing of all the joys that it has to offer and equally the sorrows.36 In sharing with others, the individual does not lose one’s personality and identity, rather one actualizes them. In Igbo cultural traditions, survival and successes are questionable and indeed extremely difficult if not impossible without interdependence and participation. The interdependence is the recognition of mutual importance of each individual Igbo within the community; hence one succeeds with others in the community.37 To achieve success one needs solidarity, co-operation and inter-dependence. They bring success and trust among the people. Community is the expression and the manifestation of an original naturally homogenous relation bearing the will that represents the totality of mankind.38

33 34 35 36 37 38

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Obiora Ike and Edozie, Understanding Africa, 150. Ojoajogwu, Social and Cultural Identity of an African Society, 111. Okoro, The Communal Dimension of Igbo World-view, 83, C.f., Biemann, The Martin Buber Reader, 201. Ukeh, Spirit – Between Man and God, 178. Okoro, The Communal Dimension of Igbo World-view, 82. Biemann, The Martin Buber Reader: Essential Writings, 247.

In the community, life is not an individualistic, but collective venture. Traditionally, the Igbo people regard the destiny of the individual and that of the community as interlinked.39 They depend on Umunna.40 One learns from the community of umunna until death and the community will give the necessary thing for the up-bringing of the individual. Umunna literally means, children of the same father, or of one common grandfather or ancestor thereby calling each Nwanna (the son of the father). In this sense, all the members of Igbo community, no matter where they live or whichever part they come from regard themselves as belonging to the same lineage and having a common ancestor. This is the ground for the solidarity that is found among the people, which explains the fraternal social interaction, inter-dependence and mutual support as it could be found in Igbo traditional society.41 In the community one is in union with his Umunna: kindred and town. This means being personally, socially, materially and spiritually blessed. The joys and the sorrows are communally shared and loneliness is non-existent.42 The Igbo cherish the culture of excellence, but when the individual achieves it, he/she owes it to the community. One is proudly received in the community when one attains the greater height either in the political, religious or social spheres of life. In such situation, one becomes the pride of the community. The community gives the individual a part one plays; it is the community that gives the individual so much desired force and the encouragement which spurs one to the greater heights.43 In the older days, when one attains greater height either in wrestling or dancing, one represents the community in the contest with other neighbouring communities. In the context, one carries along the pride of the community.

39 Obiora Ike and Edozie, Understanding Africa, 24. 40 The Umunna is the Igbo family group. The word umunna comes from the two Igbo words: umu and nna. Umu means children, while nna means father. It literally means children of the same father. The meaning transcends its literary understanding. It refers to the children of the same grandfather. The term umunna suggests two notions in Igbo traditional and cultural settings. The first is the extended family known as micro-umunna social unit. The second is the group of extended families at the macro-umunna level known as kindred. These larger social units with members or household belong to a set of remote blood brothers and sisters. They claim common ancestry to a common ancestor. C.f., Okoro, The Communal Dimension of Igbo World-view, 77f. 41 Ibid., 70f. 42 Obiora Ike and Edozie, Understanding Africa, 204. 43 Anozie, The Igbo Culture and Formation of Conscience, 203.

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The Igbo will say, my progress is not mine alone, but our progress. It is collective efforts that yield purposeful results. In the community one chooses what others choose. By this action one participates with others. This enables one to make the choices with others and undertake the way of acting together with others.44 Participation signifies on the one hand, that ability of acting ‘together with others’ which allows the realization of all that results from the communal acting and simultaneously enables the one who is acting to realize oneself in others.45 This choice is meaningful to the entire community. “The meaning of the individual’s presence in the community comes to its highest point when the individuals realize not only that their life and death are particularly theirs, but also that they must live their life and die their death in the community.”46 One cannot run away from the community, one belongs to it, works with others for the actualization of the communal goal. The community is the bedrock of the individuals, despite the Igbos set ideals for the individuals in it.47 The people try to excel in different fields of human live both in the social, ethical and religious ways. These ideals help the individuals to collectively pursue greatness in all ramifications of life. The individual becomes conscious of one’s own being, duties, privileges and responsibilities towards oneself and towards others. When one suffers, one suffers with the corporate group; when one rejoices, one rejoices not alone but with the kinsmen, neighbours and relatives whether dead or living. When one gets married, one is not alone; neither does the wife ‘belong’ to him alone. The children also belong to the corporate body of kinsmen. Whatever happens to the individual happens to the whole group, and whatever happens to the whole group happens to the individual. The individual can only say: ‘I am, because we are; and since we are, therefore I am’.48 One cannot actualize one’s authentic existence by living alone. It must be actualized in solidarity or in participation with others. That is why the people answer as their title name: Umunna bu Ike (relations are strength). But this does not exonerate individual responsibility when one goes wrong.49 They cannot do 44 45 46 47 48 49

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Wojtyla, The Acting Person 280. Ibid., 271. Abanuka, A New Essay on African Philosophy, 48. Mbefo, The True African, 30. Mbiti, African Religion and Philosophy, 108. In Things Fall Apart by Achebe, when Okonkwo accidentally killed a boy at the burial of Ezeudu, who took three titles in his life, he faced the consequence of the traditional law of the land, because it was a crime against the earth goddess to kill a clansman. Though it was accidental; during the funeral celebration of an old man,

for you what you should do for yourself. This is the community that counts on the responsibility and the irresponsibility of the individual persons. The actions which one performs in the social and religious involvements and as a member of different social groups or communities are essentially the actions of a person. Their social or communal nature is rooted in the nature of the person. So to grasp the personal nature of the human action is to be considered that they may be performed together with others.50 This is when they are positive but not when they are negative. Though one bears the responsibility of one’s actions and inactions, one is always in solidarity with others, unless when one goes wrong and is punished by the traditions and the customs of the land. In this aspect, the people may sympathize with the person, but they cannot identify with that person in order not to incur the wrath of the gods, the goddesses, or the deities of the land. As the member of the community, solidarity with one another is not in the negative sense.

5.1.2 The Spirit of Solidarity in Igbo Cultural Tradition (Igwe bu Ike) Solidarity is a homogenous relationship that exists between members of a group. In this relationship each is concerned about the whereabout of the other. “African cultures have an acute sense of solidarity and community life. In Africa, it is unthinkable to celebrate a feast without the participation of the whole village.”51 Unity brings strength, and people unite together to achieve power. African dictum says: a solitary being is weak (separation is weakness), but a being in communion with others is strong (unity is strength), it gets its strength by communication of its power to others and by receiving its power from others, thus becoming in solidarity with them in a certain kind of totality.52 The attitude of solidarity is, so to speak the natural consequence of the fact that human beings live and act together. It is the attitude of the community in which the common good is properly conditioned and initiates participation and participation in turn serves the common good, fosters it

50 51 52

he had to bear the responsibility. He flew the land and returned after seven years. The people set his house ablaze, demolished his wall, killed his animals and destroyed his barn. They only executed the justice of the earth goddess. They had no hatred in their hearts against Okonkwo. In this episode, his greatest friend Obierika was among them. They were only cleansing the land polluted by Okonkwo by the accidental killing of clansman. 86f. Wojtyla, The Acting Person, 263. John Paul II, Ecclesia in Africa, 43. Nyamiti, African Tradition and the Christian God, 53f.

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and furthers its realization.53 This is called communal spirit. Communal spirit is the spirit of sacrifice of the people in the community. One cannot talk of communal spirit in solitary rather in solidarity. Solidarity is a bond which welds together human beings that belong to the same whole or race; it is a mutual dependence upon one another.54 It is the spirit of identification for the realization of the common good. The understanding of the human person as subsistence being in relationship enhances solidarity and the sense of solidarity towards others and among all. This relationship with others is not limited only to the living.55 In solidarity, all participate effectively for the realization and accomplishment of the common good through collective efforts. In solidarity, all is integrated towards the pursuance of the communal goal. Humanity is created to live in solidarity with another, to participate with another and to co-operate with another. Human person makes a composite whole with others; identifies with others through solidarity and in relationship with the community.56 It is regarded as a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good, the good of all and of each individual, because: “We are all really responsible for all.”57 That is what solidarity means. It is not merely the feeling of compassion towards the poor, the weak and those who are victimized. “It is co-responsibility resulting from the consciousness of interdependence. It shines out in the determination to commit oneself to the good of all and each individual.”58 Through solidarity human beings help each other to share in the goodness and the benefits in the world. There are two types of solidarity: physiological and social solidarity. Physiologically, human beings need each other to form a unified cell and a formidable whole. This formidable whole gives one the strength to stand against the unified enemies or unjust aggressors. One submits one’s will and autonomy in order to add strength to one’s force. Sociologically, human beings are unified between the members of the same family. They depend on one another and those that preceded them. It is through sociological solidarity that the people inherit the possession of others, profit from their labours, discoveries, struggles and sufferings. In solidarity with others, they suffer from their vices, mistakes and ignorance. In solidarity with

53 54 55 56 57 58

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Wojtyla, The Acting Person, 284. Ehrhardt, Solidarity, 677. Umeh, The Theology of Solidarity, 27. Ibid., 26. Ehusani, An Afro-Christian Vision, 223. Okwelogu, The Origin of Igbos and their Culture Accepted by the Church, 14.

our ancestors, we owe the language we speak, our customs and religious ideas and also scientific heritage.59 Through solidarity, one participates with others and at the same time gives others protection thereby protecting oneself through the protection of others. Through solidarity, one builds a formidable stronghold towards the actualization of one’s security. The concept of human person as a being in relationship with others or in solidarity with others entails that usefulness for self can be authentically achieved through the useful identification with the community.60 One helps others in solidarity and at the same time helps oneself. “Solidarity makes itself known in good things and in bad but with different consequences: solidarity in good things is required if one is to become a person, whereas solidarity in bad things is harmful. But not only solidarity in bad things kills the whole community: a lack of solidarity has the same effect.”61 Solidarity practiced in Igbo cultural traditional setting is positive solidarity that looks towards the attainment of common good and the realization of the human person. It yields positive results and kicks against solidarity in bad things which is not only harmful and injurious but also detrimental to the actualization of communal common goal. In solidarity, community interests and responsibilities are always in forefront. The attitude of solidarity is, so to speak, the natural consequence of the fact that human beings live, act together and seek for the good of one another. It is the attitude, in which the common good properly conditions and initiates participation, and participation in turn properly serves the common good and fosters it. In solidarity, one is ready to realize one’s share in the community. In accepting the attitude of solidarity, one does what one is supposed to do not only because of one’s membership in the group, but for the ‘benefit of the whole’ in view of the ‘common good.’62 Through solidarity, one abandons the selfish interest for the interest of the community. In the spirit of solidarity, the individual quest is swallowed up in the group. In solidarity, the people collectively share their lots in common. When a father is jailed, his whole family shares the disgrace and the loss of his provision. There is no hurting of one member of the family without hurting them all. The interest of one is related to the other, the success and satisfaction of one

59 60 61 62

Ehrhardt, Solidarity, 677. Umeh, The Theology of Solidarity, 28. Bujo, Foundation of an African Ethics, 88. See also, Ojoajogwu, Social and Cultural Identity of an African Society, 133. Wojtyla, The Acting Person, 284f.

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radiates or becomes a benefit to others.63 The failure of a single individual becomes the failure of the group, because that failure will bring negative publicity to the image of others.64 When a member of a family or village commits serious offences like stealing, cheating, or incest, it is sometimes generalized for the whole members of the family or the community. Such offences bring shame not only to the individual involved but even to the family and ones community. People will identify the given family as ndi-oshi (thieves), simply because a member of that family may have been caught stealing. Hence the Igbo say: otu aka ruta mmanu, ya zuo oha onu (when a finger is smeared with palm-oil, the other fingers get smeared as well).65 Through communal responsibility, individuals feel proud or ashamed of the achievements or failures of their families, ancestors, countries and races.66 The Igbo find strength in solidarity with one another that is why they say: Igwe bu ike or Ummunna bu ike (the group is the strength or the community is strength). This philosophy of life is in line with the maxim: united we stand, divided we fall. Emmanuel Umeh writes thus: “Igwe bu ike (together and unified we are strong)”.67 This adage for him means the potentialities and the abilities of the individual person can be more effective and realized in the community. When the individual person wilfully neglects one’s duties, one is seen as to be irresponsible and one who has no merit within the communal frame work. “Solidarity prevents trespass upon other people’s obligations and duties, and seizing things belonging to others. In the sense, solidarity is in harmony with the principle of participation, which forms the objective and the material point of view indicates the presence of parts in the communal structure of human acting and being. The attitude of solidarity means respect for all parts that are the share of every member of the community. To take over a part of the duties and obligations that are not mine 63 64

65 66 67

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May and Hoffman, Collective Responsibility, 62. The idea of the original sin and more particularly that of original guilt restore the solidarity of humanity with its first parents. As the result of the fall, humanity has become single and guilty. The sin is transmitted from one generation to another as a fatal heritage. The work of Jesus is considered from the point of view of solidarity. The idea of expiation rests completely in that of the solidarity between the guilty and the innocent which makes it possible with substitution of the later for the former. Hence it is in solidarity with our first parents that we are considered fallen from the grace of God and considered risen in solidarity with Christ grace. Mbefo, Coping With Nigeria’s Two-Fold Heritage, 56. May and Hoffman, Collective Responsibility, 63. Umeh, The Theology of Solidarity, 28.

is intrinsically contrary to participation and the essence of the community.”68 Here everybody minds his/her business without interference from others. Solidarity gives accommodation to all the members of the community who take part in the realization of the common goal. It gives the individual the opportunity of taking part in the community for its progress. Progress cannot be achieved through lack of participation, but through cooperation and team work. The neglect of any member of the community is against the spirit of participation, cooperation and team work. Cooperation is a sign of strength and not weakness.69 The feeling of community does not reign where desired change of institution is wrested in common, but it reigns where the fight that is fought takes place from the position of a community struggling for its own reality as a community.70 Human being works together for the realization of positive change. Participation, cooperation and team work bring strength, success and development. Without them one remains in the position where one finds it difficult to make a reasonable meaning to one’s communal life. In commenting on community spirit, Victor Uchendu writes: “Community spirit is very much among the Igbo. Almost from the first, the individual is aware of his dependence on his kin, group and community. He realizes the necessity of making his contribution to the group to which he owes so much; he seldom, if ever becomes really detached from the group wherever he may live.”71 Where the individuals have been detached from the communities of their homeland, they very often manage to find and create a new primary community in their urban areas or where they live. This is the surrogate for the extended family or the community of village neighbours. It may be the church community or more often a circle of colleagues, work mates or neighbours belonging to the same ethnic group.72 Wherever the people are, they try to form a community for the protection of all their members and to give each other sense of accommodation. Hence: “Individuals normally pull their liabilities when they share the common cooperative purpose and each recognizes in the others complimentary abilities of a useful and necessary kind.”73 Through communal spirit, those

68 Wojtyla, The Acting Person, 285. 69 Mbefo, Two fold heritage, 86. 70 Biemann, The Martin Buber Reader: Essential Writings, 201. 71 Uchendu, The Igbo of the Southeast Nigeria, 32. 72 Shorter, African Christian Theology, 122f. 73 May and Hoffman, Collective Responsibility, 62.

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who belong to the African traditional community are guaranteed protection from violent acts of neighbours.74 The communal spirit helps the people to identify with one another in their various problems, hardship and needs. They render selfless help and services for the good of their neighbours. Community spirit means the ability for the individual to make sacrifices for the good of others whenever the need arises. Anozie Onyema writes: “In the African community, the communal spirit is very much felt where any person’s problem is the problem of all and where all identifies with you in your success. The individual exists in a larger group. He identifies himself with the group who also bears responsibility for the individual. The community spirit rules out individual selfishness.”75 It brings about the spirit of acting and sharing together. Acting together with others helps the individuals in the community to arrive at the common end. Thus working together with others expresses participation76 for the realization of the common goal. In the community, the individuals are bound up with the same mind and spirit. They work together, interact and share experiences with one another and socialize with one another to impart others positively. The community spirit empowers and energizes one another toward the attainment of the height of goodness. This spirit is very loud and clear in the Igbo community practice where the entire village or town come out together on specific market days for communal work for the good of the entire community. These works undertaken by the community include: path clearing, road repair and market cleaning.77 Those who cannot work may bring food and drinks as a form of identification and support to those working. They pull their resources together to take care of the sick members and those who need financial help. They may use the common purse to send the indigent members to school. Sometimes they contribute to build social and basic necessitates of life like electricity, water project, hospitals, schools, churches, markets and many other facilities and hand them to the church or the government. They consider the conditions of the less privileged, the elders, the sick and those in need of various circumstances of life and try to help them. They try to make the individuals comfortable because it is only when the individual is comfortable and at peace that the community will be at peace. They combine to tackle communal problems, for to face the realities of life is very difficult for the 74 75 76 77

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Ehusani, An Afro-Christian Vision, “Ozovehe” 222. Anozie, The Igbo Culture and Formation of Conscience, 202. Wojtyla, The Acting Person, 270. Anozie, The Igbo Culture and Formation of Conscience, 211.

individual without the effort of the community. Emmanuel Umeh writes: “Identifying with the community and the concept of human person as a subsistence being in relationship does not deny the individualization of each human person. The individual possesses a clear concept of himself as a distinct person of volition. But the fact remains indisputable that the communities are always stronger than individuals. Identifying with the community is a sort of social security.”78 People contribute differently and in unique ways for solidifying and enhancing communal spirit. For the good and the growth of the community, a person without money or property can willingly offer one’s time to labour for the community without any charge, because it is expected of every one to co-operate with whatever resources one has. Those who have money or property, contribute for the growth of the community. In such a situation, whoever fails to accomplish the communal responsibility earns no good name and at his/her death, the children will be exposed to difficulties which they can only overcome by atoning for the offence of the parents.79 It is necessary for all to participate. The participative contributions of the individuals come in various ways. Each has a different role to play for the structural development of communal ideal. The Communal ideal is the maintenance of harmonious relationship according to the predetermined structures and roles. Each individual is given his/her due within the framework of a highly structured society. The people live communal life, but that does not mean that they are egalitarian. The structure of the community was divinely given and the maintenance of expected social relationships was a religious duty.80

5.1.3 Sanctions in the Igbo Community Sanctions are necessary for the upkeep of the laws and the customs of the land. Community without sanctions exposes its traditional customs to ridicule and the rights and the privilege of the members to be trampled upon. To maintain the traditional and cultural values, there must be sanctions to be meted out to the offenders of the customs and the norms. These sanctions vary according to the degree of the offences committed. There are many ways one can suffer for one’s offences. One is meant to pay a fine when one does not carry out the necessary assignments or when one does not participate well as a member of the community. One is sanctioned when one goes against the ethical and moral precept 78 79 80

Umeh, The Theology of Solidarity, 28. Ojoajogwu, Social and Cultural Identity of an African Society, 132. Shorter, African Christian Theology, 123.

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of the community. One is also sanctioned when one commits murder especially the killing of a kinsman. If one does not meet up with the given sanctions, the use of force may be applied, but in a community spirit. There is no police or task force to chastise the offender, but most times, young men from the village may be mandated by the elders to use force either to seize some of the person’s properties whereby one will come and redeem them and pay extra fine. In a situation when the person cannot meet up with the fine for the offence, the community may wait until the time when the offender will be in need of them. This is the time they will give the conditions through which they will come to identify and participate in one’s time of need.81 It can be during the time of burial or funeral; during the time of traditional marriage or when the person wants to take a title. It can also be during the gathering of umunna for celebration. This is the time the individual needs the community. The Igbo are always conscious and afraid of the laws and the customs of the land. They will always say: it is not good for one to go against the laws and the customs of the land irrespective of the smallness of the fine. Their notion is; good things should be done so as not to attract the wrath of the law or the gods. It is the wish and the intention of the people to belong and be in union with ones community. They are ready to pay any fine especially when they sabotage the community interest they should protect. The individual will do everything possible to pay the fine or to fulfill the given sanctions, than to stay alone outside the company of umunna. The sanction becomes a way to control the behaviours and the excesses of the individuals within the community. A society controls the behaviour of her members in four different ways: 1, It enunciates and inculcates acceptable values. 2, The society endeavours to restrict members from flouting those values. 3, The society punishes those who break acceptable norms and values. 4, It congratulates and rewards those who affirm salient norms and values. The totality of these processes constitute social control which is the means the society preserves itself from social and moral chaos and from extinction.82 Sanctions do not take into account the status or the position of the persons; kings, princes and chiefs are accountable to the common norms. The essence of this is to keep the harmony as provided by the nature for effective co-existence of the members of the community, which is made up of the dead ancestors, the living and the unborn.83 The laws the community makes are for the good of 81 Anozie, The Igbo Culture and Formation of Conscience, 216. 82 Kalu, Religion and Social Control in Igboland, 112. 83 Ojoajogwu, Social and Cultural Identity of an African Society, 119.

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the individual members. Any member of the community that goes against the laid down rules puts oneself as someone who is against the community and faces the sanctions of the offence committed. The law is no respecter of persons. The sanctions serve as a deterrent, because a continued treatment of cases with levity can result to a larger gap between humanity, nature and the spirit world. The offender may be asked to appear before the community with the immediate relations. As the case may be, sacrifices may be required for the cleansing of the land that is believed to have been polluted and to restore the broken harmony with nature and the gods.84 This sanction is given as regards incest or sometimes adultery. Sanctions are meant to regulate the actions of the individuals or the group of persons in the society. It is a corrective measure for those who have gone contrary to the stipulated norms and the customs of the people. By implementing the sanctions, there should always be justice. Whoever goes contrary to the cultural traditions of the land faces the wrath of the law, otherwise the wrath of the gods and the ancestors of the land will descend on the people. The greatest sanction that can be given to a person is to be ostracized and be expelled from the community where one had a share of existence, communal living and destiny. Such sanction dislocates one from the normal social as well as religious life. When a person is excommunicated from the community, the people will distance themselves from the person and curtail how they relate with the person if he/her still lives in the community. Through the community one draws life and energy, and acquires wisdom and understanding. With this community; the social, the psychological and the emotional sicknesses of the people are healed. In the older days, there were often some offences that were punishable with ostracization and the person was meant to pack out from the community. One may also be ostracized for many years and still lives in the community without associating with the people. Any person who associates with the person faces the law of the community or may be obliged to pay a stipulated fine. The community sanctions are not written in the books, testaments or stones, rather they are built on the oral traditions of the people. Sometimes the sanctions are often dictated by the gods of the land, especially when it pertains to the common interest. In this way, it is the diviner that pronounces the sanctions after consulting the oracles of the land. The oracle proposes what the community should do in order to clear the abomination from the land. When the sanction is for the community, it concerns all the members, but when the sanction is for the individual member, one takes it alone. In the misconduct of the individual against the laws 84

Ibid., 118.

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and the customs of the land, the individual sanction is, to appease the gods and the spirits of the land. Therefore the individual sanctions are more easily perceivable than the community sanctions.85 Incest is an abomination and whoever that commits it would receive severe sanctions, and then the cleansing sacrifice by the Nri priests whose priestly function it is to offer such sacrifices.86

5.2 Traditional Family System in Africa In Africa, the family is the foundation on which the social edifice is built.87 It is the smallest unit of organization and the basic unit of human formation, socialization and a kind of school of deeper humanity. In the family, generations come together and help one another to grow wiser and harmonize personal rights with other requirements of social life.88 It provides the natural fulfillment or satisfaction of the basic necessities of life. It structures the social, psychological and moral lives of the human beings. It is the bedrock of human community in all its ramifications. “African concept of the family also includes the unborn members who are still in the loins of the living. They are the buds of hope and expectation, and each family makes sure that its own existence is not extinguished. The family provides for its continuation, and prepares for the coming of those not yet born. For that reason, African parents are anxious to see that their children find husbands and wives, otherwise failure to do so means in effect the death of the unborn and a diminishing of the family as a whole.”89 The community does everything possible to protect the unborn baby for they belong to the members of the family. That is why abortion is strange and an abomination in Africa tradition. The sense of African family is generally known world-wide. It is strictly structured under kinship lines comprising of the family, the kindred, the village-group, town and the clan.90 It helps and sustains each other. George Ehusani comments: “The feeling that a person matters to the extent that others care about his or her welfare, carries every individual through the vicissitudes of life, makes life worth

85 86 87 88 89 90

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Ibid., 118. Ilogu, Christian Ethics in African Background, 127. See also, Ojoajogwu, Social and Cultural Identity of an African Society, 119. John Paul II, Ecclesia in Africa, 80. Gaudium et Spes, 52. Mbiti, African Religion and Philosophy, 107. Okoro The Communal Dimension of Igbo World-view, 70.

living, and renders the contemplation of suicide remote.”91 Though there is high level of poverty and corruption in Africa, but the rate of suicide is quite low. Caring for others is a way of life that offers great privilege to the weak and also protection to all. The family is the basic unit of African society and it embraces both the nuclear and the extended families which make up the lineage.92 The clan or lineage comprises of many towns that have affiliation with one another. The town is made up of many villages that share common ancestral lineage and the traditional ways of living. The village comprises of many families that share many things in common.

5.2.1 Family System in Igbo Cultural Tradition (Ezi na Ulo) The word family in Igbo language is two Igbo compound words known as: Ezi na ulo, meaning outside and inside.93 This means that family comprises those inside and those outside the immediate family. This immediate family comprises of the nuclear or the polygamous families. In the nuclear family, there is, the father, the mother and the children. In the case of the polygamous family, the man, the wives and all the children form the family. The father whether married with a wife or many wives is the head of the family. He has authority over his family. He detects what happens in his immediate family. His authority is limited only to his household. The children bear his name. He takes care of them and fends for their well-being through their mothers. As man with many wives, he has to erect houses for the wives within the same compound where they live as a household. When the child is born, it is a rule that the child belongs fully to the family. The child goes through the rites of initiation so as to help to integrate him/her fully into the

91 92 93

Ehusani, An Afro-Christian Vision, Ozovehe, 222. Ebelebe, Africa and the New Face of Mission, 17. The term used in Igbo language to describe family: is Ezinaulo. Ezinaulo is a compound noun formulated through the combination of two words namely ezi and ulo. Ezi means ‘outside’ while ulo refers literally to ‘house’, ‘household’ or figuratively ‘within’ or ‘interior’ of a household. Na is only a conjunction joining the two words together. The former points outward while the later points inward. The words refer to all that binds members of the household together; make them intimate, unique and different from others. Thus family in Igbo traditional society is connected to the clan which is the extended family and yet remains independent and autonomous from other families that make up the clan. This connectedness makes them to share joys and sorrows together. Okoro, The Communal Dimension of Igbo World-view, 72.

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family or the community where one is born.94 “These rites continue throughout the physical life of the person, during which the individual passes from one stage of corporate existence to another. The final stage is reached when he dies and even then he is ritually incorporated into the wider family of both the dead and the living.”95 In a situation where the man or the father of the house dies, the respective wives with their children form a family, but they will continue to answer the name of their husband or father. The father is the central figure in the family, but the wife or the wives become the life wire of the family. She/they cook, give birth to children and make the household grow.96 She/they are the man’s intimate confidant/s in all matters concerning the family. They combine their effort to bring their children up in strict discipline, obedience and submission to Igbo family customs. In reciprocating to these lovely and good gestures from the parents, the children not only remain obedient to them but also loving and caring when the need arises,97 more so in their old age. The children born in this nuclear family and by the same mother are known as umunne.98 One, who has any blood lateral relative, regards one as Nwannem (the child of my mother). This shows that they have blood ties and compelling intimacy. The blood ties are seen as vital links of life. Nwanne m, means my ‘sibling’ and the German ‘Geschwister’. The Igbo use it extensively in such a way that it surpasses any figurative suggestions.99 The force of the family in Igbo tradition is felt stronger than that of the community. It is smaller, more organized, unified and intimate. Hence, the smaller the group of the people, the stronger is the bond of solidarity among them. The family 94 95 96 97 98

99

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Mbiti, African Religion and Philosophy 107. Ibid., 108. Kirwen, The Missionary and the Diviner, 63. Okoro, The Communal Dimension of Igbo World-view, 73. Umunne, is a compound noun formulated from two words: Umu and nne. Umu means children and nne means mother. Literally speaking, it means children from the same mother. Umunna as the case may be is more extended and encompassing than umunne. Umunne plays a unique role in a peaceful resolution that unites umunna in the community. They settle cases within themselves. It is only when the case is beyond them that they refer it to umunna. They know and understand each other. It is only when there are hatreds and envies among the umunne that the entire community cannot live in peace and harmony. Ukeh, Spirit – Between Man and God, 179f. Thus in Igbo traditional and cultural setting, Nwanne m, stands for Brother, Sister, Uncle, Niece, Aunt, Cousin and Nephew. So when the Igbo speak of family, they mean more than the nuclear family. They even include the forefather and the ancestors too.

offers one more contact and attention to the individuals than the community. It is the foundation of peace, unity and progress in the community. The family is the basic cell of the larger clan or the village. It is a place for welcoming a new birth, performing of initiation rites, preparing for marriage and also burying and commemorating the dead.100 It is the first and the simplest harbinger of life. It also serves as an agent of life, in whose function it primarily is. Its value depends on the particular function which it serves.101 The family is the first school of thought to every human being. Human formation is first and foremost given to the individual in the family. The greatest influence one has both positive and negative mostly comes first from the individual family. “It is a small and important community. It is in the family that values and virtues of living in a community is learnt and habituated, hence the logic of calling the family ‘a school for human enrichment.’ The family is the powerhouse of any human society; when the individual families are strong, then the community itself will be equally strong. The values, virtues and cultural heritage of any living culture are effectively transmitted to the younger generations in the family.”102 The Igbo family system is open and embraces all other families of human race. It is not restricted or related to nuclear family alone. It remains open to other families and races of humankind; it expresses relatedness through hospitality and solidarity with others and also identification with one another in their various needs. The distinguishing mark of the family is the sharing of a communal life.103 John Mbiti describes family as: “Consisting of the children, parents and sometimes the grandparents. It is what one might call ‘the family at night’, for it is generally at night that the household is really itself. At night the parents are with their immediate children in the same house; they discuss private affairs of their household, and the parents educate the children in matters pertaining to domestic relationships.”104 The family understanding is not limited to the mother, the father and the children, the grandparents, grandchildren, nephews, uncles and nieces regard themselves as brothers and sisters.105 Igbo concept of family goes beyond the members of the immediate family. People from different families establish close relations that they forget their family differences and remain neighbours to

100 101 102 103 104 105

Okoro, The Communal Dimension of Igbo World-view, 72. Ukeh, Spirit – Between Man and God, 177f. Umeh, The Theology of Solidarity, 33. Saliba, Perspectives on New Religious Movements, 22. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy, 107. Umeh, The Theology of Solidarity, 33f.

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foster their common goal. As neighbours they regard themselves as family. This attitude forms the religious and psychological notion of every individual being. The family notion has a wider meaning, ranging from the nuclear family as the centre of the individual formation to another sense of the family which is not only moral but social: the extended family.106

5.2.2 The Extended Family System The extended family goes beyond the boundary of the nuclear family which is restricted only to the father, the mother and the children. It is the conglomeration of various families from one ancestor or forefather. “The extended family therefore is a patrilineal group comprising a man, his immediate brothers and their families who trace their common descent back even to the fourth generation. The members of the extended family can be scattered all over the village, but they get together for special events like the birth of a child. Solidarity urges the members of the extended family to seek the physical, as well as the moral and general wellbeing of all its members, who address themselves as umunne (children of the same mother)”.107 This shows that they still regard themselves as people from the same mother. Extended family means that two or more brothers (in the patrilocal societies) or sisters (in the matrilocal societies) establish families in one compound or close to one another. The households joint together are like one large family. In either case, the number of the family members may range from ten persons to even a hundred where several wives belonging to one husband may be involved.108 People from this extended family cannot marry one another because they consider themselves as people who have the same blood. The relationship between the community and the individual is most manifest in the relationship with the individual being to the members of the family and to the extended families. The extended family in Igboland depicts a spirit of togetherness and oneness that sees every one as brothers and sisters. This mentality and notion makes it difficult for one to close one’s eyes when other member is in need. It is for community enhancement, protection and regeneration of human life through value system that are full of ritual dos and don’ts.109 This protective relationship starts

106 107 108 109

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Anozie, The Igbo Culture and Formation of Conscience, 217. Ikegbusi, Christian Parents as Primary Catechists of the Child, 21. Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 106. Anyanwu, The Rite of Initiation in Christian Liturgy and in Igbo Traditional Religion, 35.

with the family and does not end there. It is extended to other members of different families who form one community or village and town. Characteristically Igbo ‘extended family’ is an institution in which ‘everybody is somebody’. It provides social security against sudden deaths, crop failures, natural disasters, and group feuds and incursions.110 Everybody is needed to participate significantly because all is important. It is the combination of the families and the extended families that form the village.

5.2.3 Village Setting in Igbo Cultural Tradition The village structural setting is well known to all Igbo society. It is one of the units that bind human families together. It is the most realistic human community that nurtures intimacy among the people. The village is composed of kinsmen and neighbours. In the village, neighbourliness and companionship are the predominant ideals of life. In the village, people work, celebrate, and take recreation as a single unit. Their social life with each other knows no bound. They share their tools, weapons, utensils and other materials together. They hoe together on each other’s farms; they go on hunting together. Every celebration brings the same people together, putting their hands into the same dish, drinking beer and palm wine from the same gallon.111 They work with one another for the realization of the common good. They actually manifest their togetherness in various ways. They interact with one another no matter where they live. “Distance does not separate their unity. Those living in the urban areas share in constant common life and activities with those at home. This makes them remain one as a people coming from, and belonging to, their village community at home. Their home is not where they are living in the town. It is their village far away in the countryside. One day they will go back to that village, alive or dead. So they maintain serious regular contact and pay their dues in their villages.”112 The Igbo village is not socially amorphous. It is not ordered democratically, with all enjoying the same rights and duties, yet it is democratic in that everyone shares in its life and events, depending on one’s position. Respecting people means respecting the order that is obtained where they live. People in the lower positions must accord due honour and respect to those of higher ranks: the elders and the title holders. The high-ranking member in the 110 111 112

Ehusani, An Afro-Christian Vision, Ozovehe, 222. Shorter, African Culture and the Christian Church, 204f. Iroegbu, Kpim of Metaphysic, 99.

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village must be aware of their duty to provide welfare for the less privileged.113 Their duties range from living good moral life and being the epitome of justice and peace. The formation of life in the village is democratically structured. “The head of each lineage participates in a village assembly where matters of religious, political and social interest of the people are discussed. The village community is open to all adult males. Decisions in the village assembly involve very rigorous processes. Since the entire village group is allowed to participate in the assembly, consensus is always reached through tedious discussions as everyone has the opportunity to a contribution. The process taken to reach a decision has an undisputable binding force.”114 It takes time for them to arrive at a decision or conclusion, because everybody will like to speak, sometimes repeating what others have already said. Most times, the people may speak more than required with proverbs, stories, folk and fable tales in order to buttress their points. Though the gathering may last longer than necessary and may end in quarrel, but they will see it as a success. As a member of the same village, everybody knows the neighbours, identifies with them in their successes and failures, joys and sorrows and in their celebrations and mournings. Hence with respect to the membership of the same community, the circle of everybody’s neighbour is either closer or distant. It is natural for one to be closer with ones family or compatriots than with the members of other families or other nations. In this way the closer relationship always tends to displace the more distant ones.115 That is why the Igbo people prefer to live closely with their relations and their families. The village member becomes one’s neighbour and provides one with necessary help irrespective of the family. Your neighbour helps you in your needs, identifies with you in your difficulties and consoles you when necessary. While speaking about neighbour, we stress only the most fundamental interrelations of all human beings in their humanness. The neighbour in the strict sense relates to a person regardless of one’s relations to one another or to the community at large. In the broad sense, a neighbour is the community of the people formed by their humanness to one another. Any community detached from this fundamental humanness must unavoidably lose its specifically human character.116

113 Sundermeier, The Individual and Community in African Traditional Religions, 180. 114 Anyanwu, The Rites of Initiation in Christian Liturgy and in Igbo Traditional Religion, 32. 115 Wojtyla, The Acting Person, 292. 116 Ibid., 293.

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The villagers see themselves as neighbours interacting and relating with one other. Because of their interrelatedness with one other, inter-marriage among people from the same village is forbidden. In Igboland, the feeling that the people of the same village are born of the same parents, help to reduce certain crimes such as incest and adultery. They claim descent from the same greatgreat grandfather. It also makes the young people to grow in an atmosphere of seeing one another as relations. The village system in its structure acts as a check to control certain forms of immoralities. People of the same village live in the consciousness that certain ways of life are totally ruled out. This is earlier learnt as an infant and internalized without much effort.117

5.3 Moral and Social Values in Igbo Cultural Tradition There are some moral and social values that distinguish the Igbo in a special way; some of these are respect for the elders, title taking, the use of proverbs, sense of hospitality, the use of Kola Nut, dancing and drums, and the respect for life and the dead.

5.3.1 Respect for Elders in Igbo Cultural Tradition In African traditions, people respect not only their parents but also their elders, be they from the same family or from other families. This respect for the elders passes on to the respect for the authorities.118 The elders are highly respected, appreciated and given honour both in the social and religious gatherings. They do not only symbolize the epitome of knowledge and wisdom, but they are considered to be nearer to the ancestors who live in the spirit world. With this position, they have spiritual powers to bless or curse the younger generations, especially when they are respected or disrespected. Old age is sacred and people with grey hair are respected. Their words and advice are held in high esteem and to disregard them brings punishments from the gods and the ancestors of the land. It is an offence to treat them with disrespect and such disrespectful attitude may merit one severe punishment from the community. Young people who respect their elders are seen as good and respectful people.119 They are rewarded with blessings from the gods, the goddesses and the ancestors of the land.

117 118 119

Anozie, The Igbo Culture and Formation of Conscience, 215. Ibid., 275. Ibid., 276.

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The elders are respected for many reasons; they are believed to be the teachers and the directors of the young. They are also the harbingers of the customs and the traditions of the land. Because of the respect and the honour given to them in the community, they live honourable, sincere and respectful life. They avoid anything that will bring them to ridicule. Among the Akans, it is said: ‘The words of one’s elders are greater than amulets’; it means that they give more protection than amulet does. In the same way the Igbo say: ‘He who listens to an elder is like the one who consults an oracle’. The oracles are believed to give the infallible truth, thus, the elders are believed to say the truth and their words and instructions are heeded for the promotion of good behaviours among the youths.120 They are epitome of truth, hence a proverb says: when the elder swallows the truth; it chocks him to death. Old age is a blessing that is highly priced and cherished. Old men are respected and entrusted with many responsibilities in the traditions of the people. The Igbo associate grey hair not only with age but also as a sign of wisdom. It normally comes with age, which also depicts the possession of great collections of lifeexperiences. Since experience is the best teacher, they have acquired a lot of experiences that, they can decipher between wisdom and ignorance.121 They can also decipher between reality and illusion or fantasy. They talk with experience and when their words are followed, the mistakes of the past will not repeat itself in the present or the future. The experiences they have gathered in life: both positive and negative help in the building of the community of humanity. The Igbo exhibit high respect for them, for it is their wish and their longing to belong to the group in the future. Hence they will say: Onye fee Okenye, Okenye eruo ya aka (when one respects the elder, he will live to his old age). The elders “…are the transmitters of past experiences, the existential links of the past and the present and the nuclear bearers of tidings to the unborn, the ancestors and the spirit-Gods of the nether world.”122 They are regarded as the recorder or the encyclopaedia of the past. In various communities in Igboland, the principal governing authority is the body of the council of the elders. Their council serves not only the moral and social lives of the people, they serve them politically. The Eze: the paramount ruler of the communty cannot take decision without their consent and they serve as his advisers. They include: the heads of families, rich influential men, members of the

120 121 122

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Onwubiko, African Thought, Religion and Culture, Vol. I, 28. Ukeh, Spirit – Between Man and God, 52. Obiefuna, Titles and Conflict of Identity in the Igbo Christian, 62.

Ozo123 society, and priests of important public cults.124 In the present, some title holders from other organizations have been included among the elders of the community. These individuals are found within the frame work of highly structured Igbo community. They stand out in the midst of the people to show that they are special. They play different functions for the good of the community. They respect one another and work for the enhancement of peace, unity and the progress of the community. They maintain harmonious relationship in the community. The elders work as judges and decision molders of the community. Their work is to make sure that the people live in peace and harmony, and in union and communion with one another. They help, both in the family and in the village setting, to actualize peaceful atmosphere. They settle cases that range from individuals, families, villages and towns. Through these functions, they secure the sacredness and the rights of the individual persons, the families, extended families and the entire community. In the gatherings of the people, the speech of the elders cannot be easily swept under the carpet. They are required to speak at last and while speaking, they summarize all that have been said and give their suggestions which sometimes turn out to be the conclusion of the gathering. Their summary sometimes becomes the popular opinion. The people will say: Ihe okenya noduru ala wee hu, nwata kwuru oto, ogaghi ahu ya (what the elder sees from his sitting position, cannot be seen even when the child stands up). They see reality and give their advice so that the people will negate fantasy. They analyze what they see and not to follow it with the vigour of the youths. Sometimes the youths speak of war, but the elders speak of peace. When the Eze gives more listening ear to the youths, then war will erupt, but when the advice of the elders are heeded, the people live in peace. They are the pullers and the pushers of the community. The elders are respected by the people, but not all elders are accorded the same respect. As respected elders in the village, they have to distinguish themselves among others. They do this, through title taking: for those who attain a reasonable financial or economic position and live a life of moral probity. People can take these titles through achievement in one thing or the other. Title taking in Igbo tradition is not meant for paupers; rather it is for the cream of the society. They are called Ndi Obodo jiri biri (the core of the society members).

123 124

Ozo as a title in Igbo tradition will be explained when Nze and Ozo as titles in Igboland will be treated. Meek, Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe, 206.

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5.3.2 Title Taking in Igbo Tradition The system of title-taking is one of the most characteristic features of Igbo society. It creates the notion of inequality among the people. This inequality is based on financial, social and religious status. There are various titles in Igboland. Elizabeth Isichei writes: “The title system serves as a substitute for social security; the man who acquired a title paid to do so, and shared in the payment of later entrants. A title was a guarantee of character, as well as of success. The entrants went through protracted and arduous rituals, and his later life was surrounded with religious restrictions, which became onerous as he rose in the title structure. They are scrupulously kept.”125 There are political, social and religious title holders. Some are recognized in the community, the village or the church. Some have no significance outside where it is conferred. Some titles are hereditary and others are not. Some are confined to certain families and others are open to all except slaves, outcastes (Osu) and their offsprings. In some localities the institution of title-taking is still an essential feature of the social life, amounting almost to a system of caste. In others, it is fast losing its former prestige; while in others it is already dead, having failed to maintain itself in the face of new standards of value.126 Some of them have lost their moral virtues and significance to the influence of materialism and wealth. To be a titled man in Igboland is prestigious, a thing of joy and honour. It is a way of expressing that one has achieved economic, social and moral integrity among his people. It is a source of pride when one is a titled man. “Pride is one of the outstanding traits of the Ibos; indeed, in some cases, there are obvious signs of a superiority complex. This is expressed by men in their striving for titular rank, and their arrogance when they have attained to it. This arrogance is not of an offensive type as a rule; rather it is of a naive simplicity, taken seriously by the natives; a source of amusement to the foreigner.”127 It can be a source of amusement to the foreigners, but the indigenes value it and glory in it. Titleship is a thing of honour and prestige. Not all have the privilege to be titled elders in the community and they enjoy both social and traditional honours. One does not merit this titleship through old age or only through financial capability, but also through moral probity. It is an encouragement to those who have lived good moral lives among the people. In Igboland: “…title taking is not only a mark of social prestige for the individual, but also a means of morality control and

125 126 127

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Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 22. Meek, Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe, 165. Basden, Niger Ibo, 130.

promotion of human industry among the Igbo. The titled people have some privileges attached to them.”128 One is referred as Nze or Ozo after taking the title or the name of the title he has taken. One does not take the title alone; he must take it with his wife. In case he is married with many wives, he is expected to use his first wife to take the title. It is only the first wife that is addressed with the title name. The wives of these titled men are addressed as Lolo. George Basden writes: “The wives are affected also, because they advance in social status automatically with their husbands”.129 One cannot advance alone in the social, political and religious life in Igboland. When one receives this title, he becomes one of the opinion molders of the community. He associates with other members and they hold meetings with the Eze of the community for the good of the town. Igbo society is acephalous: it has no chief or king. It is ruled by the council of titled elders and by religious leaders, such as the chief priest.130 It is often said: ‘Igbo enwe Eze’ (Igbo have no king). This does not mean that they do not have traditional rulers that rule their towns and villages, but they do not have the paramount king that rule over the whole of Igboland. Every Eze or king as the case may be in Igboland has dominion over his own domain. He does not pay allegiance to any superior king. His influence and sovereignty reigns only within his own town or domain. Luke Mbefo writes: “The British in the colonial period found to their discomfiture that this race of humans was difficult to manage. Having conquered a town or village did not imply the defeat of the people. They were expected to fight every village head and to take every town before they could claim victory. It is said Igbo ama eze, (Igbo do not recognize any king). Each is a king of his household such that the defeat of a kingdom or chieftain did not imply the surrender of other individuals. They had no central seat of authority. For this reason, the Igbo have been associated with arrogance and independence.”131 Again it has to do with the democratic nature of the Igbo communities. They find it difficult to respect the opinion of one person. In the community, everybody has a right to meaningful life or existence, but the people are distinguished by their titles in various ways and forms. One will expect you to call his title name first before mentioning his name as a mark of respect and to inform you that he is not an ordinary man. Title-taking among the Igbo is seen as “…a part of society’s coming of age, an indigenous form of anthropology that assigned to an individual a special worth in 128 129 130 131

Anyanwu, The Rites of Initiation in Christian Liturgy, 33f. Basden, Niger Ibo, 130. Fisher, West African Religious Traditions, 48. Mbefo, The True African, 27.

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the evaluation of his society. It was based on merit, a merit that reflected moral achievement rather than accumulated opulence of dubious prominence.”132 One, who does not attain an enviable old age, can take the title as a sense of his excellence in the community development. It is not all that have the privilege to be titled men in Igboland. “The controlling factors are: birthright and money, particularly the latter, for titles must be paid for; they are not free gifts bestowed as honours for service rendered to the community. Occasionally, there has been a tendency to foster the principle that no man should hold office in the body politic unless he is of the rank of ‘Ozo’. This policy is very largely, if not entirely, due to the attitude of the native adherents of the system who clamour for a titled man to represent their interests in the local clan courts and in transactions with the Government.”133 Sometimes people brag with their titles and ridicule others as well. They will ask: which title have you taken among your people? It is a mark of honour in Igboland to be identified as a titled man.134 They serve as judges at trials and guard the traditions of the clan. They earned the respect of the village because they have worked hard to earn their respect and dignity.135 The people always like to live above the requirements of the normal individual citizens, that is why they are hungry for titles. So they are not contented in being ordinary citizens. The greatest titles in Igboland are: Nze na Ozo. The holders of these titles receive their Ofo after their conferment. The Nze na Ozo titles are the citadels of truth and justice among the people.136 They are respected and honoured. The Ozo title is not conveyed on the individual either as a favour or in gratitude for the service rendered to the community. It is a clearly sacred institution with religious significance. It is meant for men and when one takes this title, his wife automatically becomes Lolo. “Qualification to become an Ozo include good birth (not from the lineage of Osu), good wife, good children (especially males) and wealth (cash and agricultural produce) believed to have been acquired through honest means.”137 132 133 134

135 136 137

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Ibid., 146. Basden, Niger Igbos, 130. The Igbo will always like to be identified with their title names. Examples of these titles are: Chief, Nze, Ozo, Ichie, Igwe. They always cherish adding these prefix before calling their names. These title names can also be Ochiagha for one who is a leader of war or a warrior, Omereoha for one who is generous, Ekwueme for one who fulfils his promises, Omemgbeoji, for one who gives when he has. These title names can be inherited from the father to the son. Ndiokwerre, Search for Greener Pasture, 216. Mbefo, The True African, 123. Obiefuna , Titles and Conflict Identity in the Igbo Christian, 65.

The initiation is elaborate so as to thoroughly school the candidates of the duties and the privileges of an Ozo as a custodian of Igbo customs and traditions with regard to the observances in respect of Ala, the Earth goddess, the philosophical foundation of Igbo morality. A novice in Igbo tradition cannot be an Ozo.138 Nze na Ozo are highly recognized titles in Igboland. There are many other titles taken by the people for self esteem, social recognition and as an achievement on one thing or the other. They are not recognized in all parts of Igboland. Nowadays indiscriminate conferment of titles have become a development that bastardized the institution of titleship. They are conferred to the people who have acquired enormous wealth through any means. These people use their money to buy the titles. This development brought about by modernity has put a great question mark on the dignity and the integrity of titled men and women in Igboland. The conferments of these titles are simple. The required person who is financially balanced has to pay the required fees for the titles. It is obtained by paying stipulated dues to those who already hold the title. On the day of the conferment, the candidates make their pledge before the traditional ruler of the community and receive their insignia from the leader of the group. In Igboland the insignia of titled men vary. They are: the thread or ivory anklets, the eagle feather, the red cap, the horse plume or fan carried in the hand. The titled man is recognized everywhere, because it’s characteristic nature is always the same.139 The holder is privileged to carry a full-sized tusk and a goat-skin bag, to use a chief’s carved stool, and to carry a skin, usually a goat’s, upon which to sit. He has further the benefit of being buried, within the precincts of his house, and to have a cow sacrificed at his funeral.140 This time around they wear red cap, staff, bracelet and anklet with a hand fan.

138 139

140

Ibid., 66. Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 2. In the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, the District Commissioner treated the leaders of Umuofia community with respect, but as soon as he left, the court messenger shaved off all the hair of the men with razor and jest them with the question: who is the Chief among you? We see that every pauper wears the anklet of title in Umuofia. Does it cost as much as ten cowries? 138. Basden, Niger Ibos, 137. The one who is given a title receives an insignia of a new status like staff of office, ankle wear, eagle feather, red cap, hand leather fan, ofo stick or other related materials relevant to the title. Title taking involves normally much feasting and addition to the moral and ritual requirements. There are many title groups in Igboland. See also. Anyanwu, The Rites of Initiation in Christian Liturgy, 33. There is great ceremony at the death of the person who took as many titles as possible in the community.

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After the conferment of the title, the candidates are required to feast the people or the groups who have come for the occasion. Among the Isu-Ochi the title of ‘Nno’ is granted to a man who, having had an exceptionally good yam harvest, provides a feast to all kinsmen and holders of the title. This feast entails the killing of one cow and nine goats, and the candidate is also required to present the members of the order with brass rods. The title is conferred with Ofo. On that day, all the holders of the title assemble outside the candidate’s compound, and pile their Ofo on the ground. The senior member present cuts a section from a branch of an Ofo tree and lay it on the pile of Ofo. He chews a piece of Kola Nut and spits the fragments over the Ofo, saying: ‘Ofo, take Kola Nut and eat.’ He takes a chicken (provided by the candidate) and speaks as follows: ‘Ofo, give ear. This man is taking the title of ‘Emume141’, and we are about to confer on him the Ofo of the title. May you, Ofo, secure to him length of life that he may enjoy the advantages of the title for many years to come.’ Having said this he cuts the chicken’s throat and allows the blood to trickle over the Ofo, including the new Ofo of the candidate. Some of the chicken’s feathers are stuck in the congealed blood. The new Ofo is then handed to the candidate, who is required to give a further gift of eighteen lumps of salt to the title-holders.142 This is one of the incidents of the conferment of title in Igboland. Title contains in itself enhancement of social status and role expectations. A titled person could be divested of his title if found unredeemably wanting in the role performance. He is stripped of his entitlement when he commits what is abomination in the land. When such happens, he loses his face in the society. Social pride and the respect that goes with it become punctured. The shame associated with it affects not only the titleholder but equally, his patrimony, good wife and children.143 This makes the titled men and women in the town to strive to do what is right and just before the people and in the community. Because they are respected and honourable men of integrity, they are expected to live aboveboard. They cannot condescend in many aspects of lives. The people will say: Onye chiri Nze ya ezere ihe dara na aja (One who is conferred Nze title should avoid what falls on the ground). This proverb means that a titled man should not condescend after taken his titleship. They cannot be described as people of dubious character, criminals or thieves. They are not expected to embezzle public funds or encourage such an act. They cannot compromise an exemplary life of honesty 141 142 143

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Emume (feast) is a generic name for title. Meek, Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe, 170. Obiefuna, Titles and Conflict Identity in the Igbo Christian, 64.

and decency in dealings with others. They cannot be debtors nor be associated with any fraudulent business practices in the community. They cannot be liars on their testimony on any event or when they are presiding as judge to a case. They cannot deliberately tell lies in order to deceive or hide the truth. Their testimony or witness to the truth is presumed to be correct. Peace, truth, fair play and harmony are believed to be ritually symbolized and enacted in the conferment of the traditional titles in Igboland.144 They are the epitome of justice and peace in the community. With the honour attached to it, people tend to cling to title taking. Titled men are regarded as men of great wisdom, intelligence and understanding representing their families, villages, towns and communities in various gatherings. A man without a title is regarded as an ordinary man. People with numerous titles are regarded as great men, at their death, they are accorded befitting burial and they are not buried like fowls.145 Each title taken ritually confers a new status on the individual and announces a new position of the person who takes it. A man may proceed to take any of the senior titles at any time, provided he has the moral probity, wealth and his kindred has the right to take the particular title sought. One cannot take any title that is beyond his father’s title in the commmunity. Titled men exhibit their intelligence through the use of proverbs.

5.4 Proverbs as a Social Means of Transmission of Knowledge in Africa African traditional tenets and beliefs were not documented in any written form. This has led to the casting away of many cherished traditions. The absence of documentation has enhanced the importance of oral traditions as a means of preserving and transmitting cherished traditional religious beliefs and social practices 144

145

Ndiokwerre, Search for Greener Pasture, 199. Before 1970s, the Ozo and the Nze title holders were responsible for judicial functions of a given community. They were highly regarded and respected. They were not expected to steal, to tell lies, to commit adultery, to bear false witness, to fight or to kill. They were not expected to eat in the market or open places. They were given preferential treatment and were specially greeted with their Ozo title names C.f., Okwelogu, The Origin of Igbos and their Culture Accepted by the Church, 80. In the book “Things Fall Apart” the father of Okonkwo; Onoka, died without a title, 6. He never inherited not even a title from him. But Ezeudu was regarded as a man of great achievement in his life for he took three titles out of the four titles in the town. He was buried with music, dancing and sacred ceremony, 86.

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among the people.146 Proverbs are one of the African values that survived this extinction. They are contained in religious beliefs, ideas, morals and warnings. They contain and point to the spiritual, theological and philosophical insight of the people. They speak about God, the world, humanity, human relationships, social, religion, nature of things and so on. Because it is very short to remember, many people know a lot of them and are skilful in using them at the right moment and for the right purpose. They are easily passed on from one person to another through several generations.147 They are always short but full of philosophical and theological meanings. The elders are seen as the principal agents or transmitters of the proverbs. African proverbs are illusive, which help to give them their mysterious character. They are cynical, fatalistic, negative or pessimistic, yet many African proverbs are optimistic, uplifting and inspiring. Pessimistic and optimistic proverbs can teach the same thing from different points of view.148 They are always deep in reflection and one without deep thought cannot fathom their meanings. They are easy to be remembered and applied in speeches. It is in proverbs that we find the remains of the oldest forms of African religion and philosophical wisdom.149 They are one of the most reliable forms of oral tradition and as such, are vehicles of authentic beliefs of the peoples living in pre-literate societies that are not extinguished with time. One can find in the proverbs the ancient wisdom, beliefs and accumulated experiences of the past generations.150 They are concise statements made with the accumulated wisdom of the ancestors and the elders and they stand at the centre of authoritative power of the word.151 The word proverb comes from the Latin proverbium, signifying a word uttered in public. The synonym adagium, means adage in English. The public approval gives proverb a profound influence even when it conveys a false morality.152 Proverb is always the harbinger of the wits and the wisdom of the people. It is the authentic translation of the knowledge of the people and their ways of life. It serves as both the store house and the medium of transmission of accumulated wisdom from one generation to another.153 It is not every statement that can be 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153

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C.f., Okpalaike, Ichu Aja in Igbo Traditional Religion, 139f. Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 24. Healey and Sybertz, Toward an African Narrative Theology, 40. Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 73. Ikenga-Metuh, African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes, 23. Fisher, West African Religious Traditions, 47. Kelso, Proverb, 1. Definition, 412. Ehusani, An Afro-Christian Vision, 153.

regarded as proverb. Proverbial statements are capable of personal interpretation. Most times their interpretations may vary because it cannot be interpreted literarily. Sometimes it has literal as well as personal and symbolic interpretations. There is always a quality to measure what a proverb is. The necessary four qualities that constitute proverbs are: 1. Brevity: conciseness, proverbs are not long statements that try to explain things; rather they are short and brief and they go straight to the point. Their meanings are fathomed after reflection. 2. Sense, every proverb has to portray a meaning. Meaningless statements cannot be regarded as proverbs. Though proverbial statements are direct but their meanings are not direct. Sometimes some proverbs may convey different meanings and one can use one proverb to summarize a whole discussion or use it to explain different things all together. Some proverbs may have more than two meanings. 3. Piquancy or salt, proverbs serve as flavour in statements, discussions and gatherings. In Igboland, when an elder speaks without proverbs, he is regarded as one who is not grounded in the culture of the people. That is why they use proverbs to break their statements in the public speeches. 4. Popularity. It is not always true that every proverb has to be popular. Africans have the ingenuity of creating proverbs in the process of making their speeches and that is why one cannot be said to be the custodian of all proverbs. Its popularity means that it is liable to interpretation for critical minds. Any proverb that cannot be interpreted by the reflective mind has lost its meaning as proverb. Proverbs have been saved from the wreckage of ruin on account of their shortness and correctness. They present a serious thought and expression, dealing with trivialities that can never gain the force or prestige of sayings. By piquancy or salt, the proverbs express a pungent criticism of life with a flavour of cynicism about it. On this quality depends the power of proverbs: to do more than to amuse the hearers. Their wits are like the barbs of an arrow that make the maximum stick in the memory.154

5.4.1 Proverbs in Africa and other Cultures Proverbs are present in almost all the religions and the cultures of the world. They have been applied by many religious founders and have been used in teaching their doctrines and communicating their messages. They apply certain proverbs for special purposes. All the sayings of the canonical books of proverbs among the Jews and the Christians, those of the Vedic writings among the Hindus and those that are embedded in the Qur’an among the Moslems have wielded a tremendous 154

Kelso, Proverb, 1. Definition, 412.

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authority on account of inspirational claims.155 The Rabbis in the Old Testament are good examples of religious leaders who made use of the proverbs to impart the religious belief to the people. The ability of Jesus Christ in the New Testament to make use of proverbs cannot be hidden. He is a master of parables and proverbs. The use of proverbs is also applicable in African religious, cultural and social lives of the people. African proverbs are short pithy sayings loaded with metaphors and allegories which lend themselves to easy memorization. Oftentimes, they appear sarcastic and ridiculous to the uninitiated. They are the artistic expressions of the people’s observations and reflections in condensed form on human life, relationship, destiny and human society. They contain the expressions of reflections on God, on the universe and so forth.156 The use of proverbs is cultivated as an art and is cherished as an index of good oratory and acquaintance with traditional knowledge and ancestral wisdom. For the Zulu, ‘without proverbs, the language would be but a skeleton, a body without a soul.’ This means that proverbs serve as a cloth that is used to cover the intentions of the people without offending the hearers. It also means; words become more acceptable and less offensive when proverbs are added, because they are thought provoking and sometimes they help to add reason to human beings. The Ovimbe says: ‘a speech garnished with proverbs, parables and wisdom sayings is pleasant to hear.’ This means: the ability to make use of proverbs in speech makes one a good orator among the people. For the Yoruba, ‘proverbs are horses for chasing missing words’.157 It means: with proverbs what is concealed is brought to the limelight. Interpretations of proverbs are always deep and they unmask the hidden things of life. Through proverbs, words flow well to the ears of the hearers; they are only for the initiates. The Igbo claim that a child who knows how to use proverbs has justified the dowries paid on the mother’s head. It also means: the ability of understanding the proverbs shows that one is well grounded in the cultures of the people or that one has a good home bringing. The use of proverbs is a mark of a wise person. The Igbo say, if you talk to a wise person in proverbs he/she understands, but the fool flings into the bush.158 This means: the wise person thinks when proverbs are used, but the fool follows the sound of the words of the proverbs and is easily led astray. Proverbs reveal the astuteness of the traditional African who is able to 155 Ibid. 156 Ehusani, An Afro-Christian Vision, 153. 157 Ibid., 155. 158 Ikenga-Metuh, African Religions in Western Conceptual Scheme, 23.

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operate on two or three levels of discourse simultaneously. For example, ‘there are two ears, but they do not hear two words’. This has three levels of meaning. The first level of discourse here is the obvious one – that though there are two ears, they hear only one word each time. The second level of discourse teaches that in the assembly, when one person stands up to talk, others should keep quiet. The third is, truth cannot contradict the other.159 Though it is one proverb, but it has literary interpretation as well as social and moral interpretations.

5.4.2 Proverbs in Igbo Cultural Tradition In Igbo cultural tradition, the word ‘Proverb’ is referred to as ‘Ilu’. Ilu is a brief literary text in which cultural life’s experiences are mirrored in short sayings. The Igbo say “Ilu bu mmanu ndi Igbo ji eri okwu” (proverbs are the oil with which the Igbo eat words).160 Isidore Okpewho defines proverb as: “…a piece of folk wisdom expressed with terseness and charm. The terseness implies a certain economy in the choice of words and a sharpness of focus, while charm conveys the touch of literary or poetic beauty in the expression.”161 The use of proverbs depict a substantial level of intellectual composition born out of experience and understanding of human beings in the social as well as religious life. Every proverb has a deep meaning as regards the events of life it presents. The Igbo have a very rich language that is nourished and flavoured with proverbs, songs, tales, visual Art, and folk tales that are expressed in form of pantomimes that only insiders can grasp and the outsiders are left without understanding. Most proverbs are deeply rooted in unraveled theological and existential meaningfulness that express deep yearning, religious and existential world-view of the Igbo.162 They say: one who is incapable of using proverbs does not represent his/her people well in an assembly. The proverbs tell bitter truth about human lives, unsavoury events and situations which have been transferred to humour and summarize them into philosophy of life. It is when one understands the proverbs that one can use them to decorate the words. In Igboland, the people do not joke with proverbs. They use them to show that what they say is not just a mere talk or a foolish talk. The elders are at home with the proverbs and they use them when talking or addressing the people.

159 160 161 162

Ehusani, 153f. Achebe, Things Fall Apart, 5. Okpewuo, Myth in Africa, 226. Okuma, Towards and African Theology, 77.

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A wise person in Igbo traditional society should not only have the knowledge of the riddles of life, but could demonstrate this knowledge through a skilful use of proverbs whenever the need arises. Edward Orji succinctly puts it: “As salt enhances the flavour of food, so do proverbs add flesh to the bare statement of fact.”163 The Igbo proverbs recognize the ephemerality and the giveness of power and the people exploit them to the maximum. The people have a rich store of proverbs in which are enshrined ancient wisdom, beliefs and accumulated experiences of the past generations. They are full of senses which have come into common and recognized use.164 For one to understand the meaning of the proverbs, one must go beyond literary meaning. The Igbo proverbs are not a priori principles formulated like Kantian categories to grasp and order reality. Rather they arise aposteriori from the observed behaviour of human and non-human.165 Proverbs are important source for understanding Igbo traditional vision of reality. While oral tradition takes different forms, Igbo proverbs represent specifically the achievement of the wise. Hence the Igbo affirm: the wise grasps the proverbs while the fool is further fooled by it.166 The proverbs cannot be put out of context by the good speaker in Igboland. One does not need to go to formal education in order to understand the proverbs of the people. One can learn them intuitively and by associating with the elders. One feels ashamed when one does not know the interpretation of the meaning of the proverbs used. The Igbo will say: Onye atuora ilu kowari ya, ego ejiri luo nne ya lara n’isi (when the interpretation of the proverb is explained to the hearer, it means that the bride price paid on the mother is useless). Proverbs are one of the rich values found in Igbo tradition. They are one of the indirect ways of communicating with the people, giving advice and suggesting an opinion. They express ideas, wisdoms and the feelings of the people.167 They are one of the most important elements in African ‘orature’. They serve as both the store house and the medium of transmission of accumulated wisdom of the people.168 In Igbo traditional culture, the drum speaks in proverbs, dances are non-verbal proverbs, and libations are proverbial. Proverbs then mean not only the short, oft-quoted expressions of wit and wisdom, but also illustrative anecdotes. So the proverbs in their

163 Ibid., 1v 164 Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 32. 165 Mbefo, Coping with the Two-Fold Heritage, 117. 166 Ibid. 167 Mbiti, African Religion and Philosophy, 67. 168 Ehusani, An Afro-Christian Vision, 153.

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concise form overflow into other areas of speech and one with good knowledge of the proverbs is respected.169 It is good to mention that short stories can interpret the morality and the social lives of the people, but that does not make them to be proverbs. They can be regarded as parables or folktales. Proverbs play important role in the speech of the Igbo so much that in important discussions, it is nearly obligatory to use proverbs to strengthen a speech argumentatively and spice it aesthetically.170 They lace every expression, indicating the rhetorical ability of the speakers. In such a context, they are not necessarily the final word, but they add force to the address.171 When an elder in a speech says: God does not put what the frog will eat on top of the tree. He means that God sustains all in a unique way. When God fights there is no raising of dust. An enemy may sound the drum of someone’s downfall, but God will not let it sound. This means, what God wills, will surely happen and human efforts cannot surpass the effort of God. A land sold by the deity cannot be humanly ransomed. This means, that destiny cannot be reversed. With proverbs children learn good behaviours, and sometimes proverbs teach parents how to bring up their children to fit into the society. Some would be useful in a more permissive society, for example, “If your child is dancing clumsily, tell him: ‘You are dancing clumsily’; do not tell him, ‘Darling, do as you please.’”172 This means that the children should be corrected when they go wrong and not to be encouraged in their wrong deeds.

5.5 The Spirit of Hospitality among the Africans (Igbo) Hospitality is a very important cultural and social value in African society. It is a way of life that is intimately bound up with personal relationships and community.173 It is a social obligation and responsibility which carries no penalty when one fails to carry it out. It carries no penalty because it is a thing of the heart that lies in one’s conscience. Many people have abused this social obligation because; some guests have turned out to be thieves or enemies at night. Its abuse does not condemn its practices among the people. People are now careful to know who they

169 170 171 172 173

Fisher, West African Religious Traditions, 47. Ibid., 231. Fisher, West African Religious Traditions, 48. Ibid., 49. Healey and Sybertz, Toward an African Narrative Theology, 170.

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receive and when to receive someone in their various houses. Africans are hospitable and they have a tremendous spirit of welcoming and entertaining visitors. In hospitality, you have the host and the guest. The host will do everything possible to make the guest happy and comfortable. The host will share one’s food and drink, converse and joke with the visitor. This is a gesture of respect and friendship. The guest is welcome with extended hands of embrace even when one comes uninvited or unexpectedly. One is welcome with open hands, arms and heart. In welcoming visitors, the doors of the house as well as the doors of the hearts are opened. And when the visitor will be going, the host will escort him/her outside and bid him/her farewell before coming back. Escorting a visitor out of the house is always necessary. The corresponding words of hospitality in Latin are hospitium and hospitalitas. The word hospitium in Latin with its concrete hospes, means ‘host’ or ‘guest’. It was used for both private and public hospitality. Cicero made use of the Latin word hospis with the German Gast, and hospitality: Gastfreundschaft. He did this to the mildness of the early Romans who called their enemies nothing worse than strangers. The stranger can be seen as the bearer of the good or the bad news. One should be careful in order not to treat the messenger with disrespect for one may have come with good news from the gods. In this line of thought, hospitality is seen as the element of reciprocity: a mutual giving and receiving is very fundamental.174 It manifests itself in a friendly exchange of gifts: whereby one receives the stranger well in order to receive good or favourable news from the gods. This is highly attested in the reception Abraham gave to the three unknown strangers at the Oak or Mamre (Gen.18:1–32). The Israelites are hospitable, not only because of their belief that God could visit them in the person of a stranger who brings blessings along, but mainly out of gratitude for the experience of hospitality their forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob enjoyed in their journey of faith. Their hospitality is in gratitude for their experience of hospitality while they were in Egypt, during their Exodus and as well as their wanderings in the desert.175

174 Olikenyi, African Hospitality, 84. 175 Koenig, New Testament Hospitality, 16. If you have resident aliens in your country, you will not molest them. You should treat them as though they were native born and love them as yourself for you yourselves were once aliens in Egypt c.f., (Lev. 19:33–34, Ex. 22:20, Deut. 10:19). Some good treatments were given to those who received the Prophet Elisha when he was ministering for the Lord (2kg.4:1–7, 8–37).

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Hospitality is found in many cultures and tribes of the world.176 Igbo people are hospitable because hospitality is a sign of good will among human beings. They treat human beings with respect and dignity. Their welcoming spirit made them to welcome the Europeans when they first came to Igboland as wanderers, businessmen, slave-masters and missionaries. Hospitality is a self sacrificing act and an amicable encounter between two parties: the host and the guest. The guest can be a stranger: one who is not formally known or one who is already known. In this encounter, the guest is treated with respect. The host protects the guest and offers him/her necessary things especially food and shelter. A visitor is treated well, because the people have the conception that a visitor comes with the spirit of the ancestor. Even when the visitor comes in the night, he/she is welcome. If it is at night and the host discovers that there is not enough food, it is quite natural and common that he/she goes to another friend for help, because it is not good for a visitor to go to bed hungry. Friends and neighbours help and they are also helped when they are in need.177 This treatment offered to the guest is not a right, but a privilege from the host. In Igbo tradition, the attitude of the host is always influenced by the nature of the guest and the principle of reciprocity on which hospitality is based.178 When the guest is of a higher calibre, the people give him/ her optimum respect. One who receives hospitality from someone finds it difficult to treat visitors violently or without respect. The Igbo regard hospitality as a sacred institution, through which care, acceptance and love are extended to the needy. Among them, hospitality is not limited 176

177 178

For the Arabs, the word hospitality is connected with a crowd of persons sharing a meal. Partaking of food with the guests makes them temporary members of the family and so confers certain rights and duties. Partaking of the food therefore proves that the intentions of the guest are not hostile. It also lays on the host the duty of protecting the quest as though he were a member of the family. The host endures anything that comes from the stranger. The definition of hospitality in the Qur’an means feeding the hungry and the orphan who is also a kinsman or poor man who is in need. For the Buddhists, it is regarded as a virtue and the privilege to provide to the wandering unorthodox teachers with the few necessary things of their wondering life – lodging, food and clothing. The Chinese are regarded as a hospitable people. They love to chat and enjoy social intercourse. One of the statements of Confucius is: how pleasant it is to have friends who come from a distance. He admonished ‘Be not forgetful of the strangers and the travelers’. (C.f., Eliade, Encyclopedia, Vol. IV, 797ff). Among the Christians, hospitality is well pronounced. Hospitality is one of the qualities prescribed by St Paul for the elders of the church, (1Tim, 3:2). Healey and Sybertz, Toward an African Narrative Theology, 185. Olikenyi, African Hospitality, 103.

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to those who are closely related in the real sense of the word, it is open for all.179 They are regarded as the most traveling tribe in Nigeria, so they have experienced hospitality in one way or the other. They travel and enjoy acceptance among other people of the world. They find it natural to show hospitality to others, especially visitors and strangers. They cannot afford to maltreat a stranger because they too may have relations who are strangers in other people’s land. They are non tribalists or racists.180 They travel like the Jews and have the conception that, as they receive strangers, so will their gods and goddesses bless them and their children in the land of their sojourn. They respect those who travel, for they will always say: Onye ije ka onye isi awo ihe mara (A traveler is wiser than a white grey haired person). Hence they associate knowledge with experience. The ones who travel have many life experiences than those who have not traveled. Traveling is part of their hobbies. In their travel, they see realities from different points of view. They see things, not like those who do not travel, but from another point of view. Those who travel have many advantages over those who do not travel. It is only when one travels, and has contact with different kinds of people that one’s vision and perception of life will change. Those who travel realize the plurality of cultures. We have two types of hospitality: conditional and unconditional hospitality. Conditional hospitality is when the host intentionally invites the guest and prepares for the person. Unconditional hospitality is when the stranger comes to the house unannounced or accidentally. This is where real hospitality comes in. Hospitality consists in the act of receiving and accommodating someone. It is conditional when the gratitude is expected, but unconditional if no reciprocity is anticipated. “When conditional, the mastery of the host is asserted, in that it is he who invites, whose house, city and nation control the relation to the guest. When hospitality is unconditional no invitation is issued. The coming of the other is a pure surprise, simply arrived and is welcomed with no thought giving to the possible consequences.”181 Unconditional hospitality is sometimes dangerous because the stranger may even be a security risk to the host. In such a situation, people are very careful with the strangers. In the case of conditional hospitality, one invites another to one’s home thereby implicitly expressing proprietary rights while at the same time the one invited exerts an unconditional ethical demand. The one who has come as unconditional visitor has to be willing to offer oneself as a hostage.182 179 Ndiokwerre, Search for Greener Pastures, 74. 180 Ibid., 75. 181 Wyschogrod, Hospitality, Authochthony and Welcome, 59. 182 Ibid.

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The person does not make much demands, for one knows that it is not one’s right to be received conditionally. One accepts whatever that is given for one relies on the mercy of the host. Ikechukwu Olikenyi writes: “Hospitality is concerned with the welcoming of strangers (guests) which involves the whole process of shared friendly relationship – a partnership, so to say between hosts and guests – whether or not they already know one another which takes place in an effable atmosphere.”183 The visitors are well received because the people say: “Onye biara abia jiri uka bia – the visitor comes with a purpose/new ideas or talk.”184 They will always tend to know why a visitor comes or the message the person brings. Strangers are well treated by the people. They are always given presence or gifts as a token of love. When a visitor comes, the person has to receive something no matter how little the gift may be. The first thing to present to the visitor is the Kola Nut. No matter how poor a family in Igboland is, it will not be too poor to offer ones visitor Kola Nuts and food. “Any visitor who arrives when a family or a person is at meal is invited to come and share in the meal. Whether the food is enough or not, it is expected of the host to invite his visitor to partake of the meal, at least to take a very little part of what remains, as a sign of hospitality or friendship.”185 A typical Igbo is happy when the visitor meets them on the table. The visitor will be informed: Inwere ukwu oma (you have good luck). That is an automatic invitation to join in the eating. Joseph Healey writes: “When the food has been cooked and the table is set, the host or hostess will invite the guest by saying, ‘Welcome. We are ready to eat’ rather than ‘the food is ready.’ This shows the person centered emphasis and joyful spirit in eating together. Meals are a happy social event.”186 These are the greatest things that symbolize the Igbo spirit of sharing. Kola Nut tells more about Igbo hospitality.

5.5.1 Kola Nut (Oji) in Igbo Cultural Tradition Kola Nut is a dominant rite pictogram in the cultures of many African dynamic societies.187 The Igbo culture is replete with symbols and rituals that evoke deep 183 184 185 186 187

Olikenyi, African Hospitality, 83f. Ukeh, Spirit – Between Man and God, 51. This is almost the conception of the Jews who through receiving the strangers they did not know have received messenger of God and messages from God. Ndiokwerre, The African Church Today and Tomorrow, Vol. II, 86. Healey and Sybertz, Toward an African Narrative Theology, 169. Okwelogu, The Origin of Igbos and their Culture Accepted by the Church, 66.

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religious meaning that is in comparison to Christian sacrament. An example is the Kola Nut which is one of the most sacred and sacramentally significant rituals in Igbo culture.188 In Igboland, nothing is said at any event, no matter how serious the occasion may seem, without the presentation of Kola Nut and its ritual. It is the first thing to be presented on the occasions of birth, initiation, festivals, marriage, oath taking, peace talk and political rally. It inaugurates political and social meetings. It is used in sanctifying the ground for ordination of priests and in the invocation of the gods. Kola Nut is the most important fruit in Igboland. It has the status of sacredness and reverence. Traditionally, it is regarded as a sacred fruit which serves a variety of purpose in the life of the people. It symbolizes hospitality and good will in welcoming visitors. It is used to settle disputes, make peace among individuals or communities and celebrations of various forms. It serves as a sacred link between the living and the ancestors. It is at the heart of Igbo traditions, cultures and spirituality.189 Its presentation is one of the traditions that make Igbo people unique. In Igbo language, the word Kola Nut means Oji.190 There are two types of Kola Nut or Oji in Igboland. We have Oji Igbo and Oji Hausa, (Igbo Kola Nut and Hausa Kola Nut). Oji Hausa is also called Gworo. It is called Oji Hausa, though it is cultivated more in Yorubaland but the Hausas eat it more. The other is called Oji Igbo, because of its symbolic nature. It is more celebrated and accorded greater importance than the other. Though Oji Hausa grows in Igboland, but it has not much social or religious significance like Oji Igbo. In referring to Oji Igbo, Gregory Olikenyi writes: “It is less prolific and commercially less important than the less disease-resistant cola nudita, which the Igbo called gworo – a Hausa word for Kola Nut.”191 I do not agree with him that it is commercially less important. Igbo

188 189 190

191

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Uchem, Women and the Igbo Kolanut: Theological Matters Arising, 20. Achononu, Women and the Kolanut Saga in Igbo Culture, 1. Oji, some will interpret these words alphabetically: O-J-I, Omenala Jikoro Igbo: (the tradition that unites all the Igbo people together). There is no part of Igboland Oji is not celebrated. The presentation of Oji is the first thing any person who comes to Igboland will learn. It is symbolic, not to give it to the visitor is not out of poverty but out of bad will, unless it is not there. When it is not there, the person will excuse himself by saying ‘I have no Kola Nut please. If it is at night, he will say: Abali atala Oji (the night has eaten the Kola Nut). This is to excuse himself that there is no Kola Nut and all present will authomatically understand him. Among the bigger tribes of Nigeria, they have one thing or the other to do with Oji. It is a known fact that the Yoruba cultivate Kola Nut, the Hausa eat Kola Nut and the Igbo celebrate it. Olikenyi, African Hospitality, 119.

Kola Nut is more valued, costly and more lucrative because it is used more in the social as well as religious gatherings and other festive activities. The people attach much importance to it. Kola Nut expresses communications and unifies Igbo ideas of friendship, acceptance and approval, achievements, productivity, wealth, joys and sorrows. It expresses also unity and diversity, hierarchy, authority, royalty, purity, wholeness of the human being, fullness of life and the perpetual presence of the spirit among the people.192 Kola Nut is used to meet up with the social, religious and ritual rites and obligations of the people with regard to their Chukwu, spirits, the ancestors and to their fellow human beings. It is used in every feast or gathering of the people. In using it to welcome visitors, it shows that the host bears no malice against the guest. The presentation of Kola Nuts to the visitor is symbolic. It does not only express or signify peace, but it is also a sign of welcome.193 In the community gatherings or in any celebration of the people, Kola Nut comes first. It is the first in the hierarchy of the food and the drinks presented. It is the most essential and the greatest proof of acceptance and affection, for any food offered without Kola Nut is not valued.194 Whenever there is no Kola Nut, the host has to excuse oneself and present another thing, like bitter kola or garden egg in place of Kola Nut. In the recent time, one can present biscuit as a symbol of Kola Nut. Sometimes the people may insist that they want the real Kola Nut to be presented especially when the gathering was scheduled long ago. When Kola Nut is presented, it is always said: ‘Oji does not hear foreign language’. After receiving it, they have to make sure that it goes round to those who are in the gathering through their families, villages, towns or clans. It goes in a hierarchical order. It will be an insult if one does not know the process through which Oji has to go round. Women are not presented with Oji. The person who comes from any town that is neglected or not mentioned will invariably pick offence and his action will be justified by those present. Oji will travel through the towns of the people who have gathered. In this journey of Oji, any person who receives it on behalf of his town will affirm that he has seen it and he will call upon any other person from the same town and inform him that Oji has come. In this way, the Igbo will say: Oji enweghi ukwu, onweghi aka ma ogachuru ihe nwere ukwu n’ije (Kola Nut has not legs and no hands, but it travels more than what has legs). After this process, the last person will hand it over to the host. The host will 192 193 194

Ekwunife, Consecration in Igbo Traditional Religion, 109f. Ojoajogwu, Social and Cultural Identity of an African Society, 137. Ndiokwerre, Search for Greener Pastures, 74.

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call upon the oldest man in the gathering or the titled elder to say the prayer over Oji. Even if the ordained minister is there, he has to be mandated by the elder to pray over the Kola Nut.195 In this gathering, Oji is blessed,196 shared and eaten by those present. In his prayer, the elder will say: “Onye wetara Oji wetara ndu” (he who brings Kola Nut brings life). At the end, he will always conclude the prayer with “O Chineke anyi na rio gi omumu nwoke, omumu nwanyi, ahu ike ogologo ndu na oganihu” (Oh God we ask you for the gift of sons and daughters, good health, long life and prosperity), and all will answer Iseee. With this blessing, he presents Oji as something precious and significant.197 After the blessing, he may break only one himself as the custom demands and gives the rest to the youngest in the gathering to break. After the breaking of Oji, the host takes one first before others. Oji is shared to those present. It is a rule that all who gathered together have to participate in the eating of Oji. “In sharing the Kola Nut, hospitality, friendship, mutual exchange and oneness are shown in line with the philosophy: if we can eat together, then we can dialogue together.”198 The presentation of Oji implies establishment of love and trust that is why, it is believed that whoever partakes in the sharing and the eating of Oji with another has become one’s friend and has entered into an oath of preservation of life with him. In this sense, Oji becomes a communion food, a feast of love, trust and togetherness. Not to participate in the eating of Oji means 195

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On December 27th 2010, the Bishop of Minna: Martin Uzoukwu visited his cousin at Okija. They presented Kola Nut to the bishop and his associates together with some other priests. The Bishop asked the most senior man present to lay hand on the Kola Nut. Thereafter the Bishop gave his Episcopal blessing before he left. After this incident, one Ogwugwu worshipper Mr Anene who monitored the occasion came for baptism three months later. He thought that the Bishop would not eat the Kola Nut with them, but when he saw how the Bishop observed the culture of the respect for the Kola Nut breaking, he became converted. Okwelogu, The Origin of Igbos and their Culture Accepted by the Church, 68f. It is the right of the oldest man or the Eze: the traditional ruler or the titled men in the gathering to pray over the Kola Nut. It is a tradition that the eldest is nearer to the ancestors than the younger ones. In the prayer over the Kola Nut, he calls on the Chukwu, the gods and the goddesses of the land to take their portion. He will praise the dead ancestors and bless the living. After the prayers, he will break one of the Kola Nut, then hands the rest to the youngest in the gathering to share to those present. This shows that it is the duty of the younger ones to serve those present. Asomugha, Women and the Kola Nut in Igbo Culture, 9. Obiora Ike and Edozie, Understanding Africa, 23.

that the person has no good intention toward those who have gathered. When Ezeani the priest of Ala visited Okonkwo for beating his wife in the week of peace, Okonkwo offered him Oji, he replied, “take away your Kola, I shall not eat in the house of a man who had no respect for our gods and the ancestors.”199 The prayer over Oji is said in a ritualistic way or form. When the prayer is said, Oji is shown to the spirits or the deities and the ancestors as participation in communion with the living member of the family. They are invited to come and take Oji. These show, in the first place the communion and the bond of love which exist between the living and the dead members of the family. Though they are no more with the living, they still play their unique role in what is happening in the existential life. They are always near, remembered and not forgotten. Secondly, they provided the gifts of Oji by their role in the agricultural lives of the people. Then as a sign of appreciation; they should be invited to share if they wish.200 The offering or the presentation of Oji, its rituals, prayers and sharing with one another has become a landmark of Igbo religiosity and social life practices. It is also a rule that one Oji is given to the representatives of each community or the visitor/stranger, informing him: when you go back show this to your people as a sign that you were welcomed when you came to us. This token which he takes home is a symbol of the good and warm reception given to him. Oji Hausa has different colors: yellow or brown. It has only two lobes. But Oji Igbo is symbolically structured, ranging from its structure to its colour and taste and the number of the lobes or cotyledon. A genuine Oji Igbo must consist of at least three lobes. Three is a symbol of Ikenga: bravery and nobility. It personifies individual achievements and predicts good omen for the Igbo.201 When the lobe of the Oji is Four, it symbolizes the four market days and signifies completeness, acceptance and approval. Five is a symbol of productivity and wealth necessary for Igbo community at its minimal or maximal levels (family, village, and clan). Six spells bad omen which the Igbo often encounter. Sometimes when the lobes are six, they are not eaten rather they request for another Oji. Seven and eight lobes are very rare but highly valued since they symbolize life in its fullness.202 The tiny central lobe that holds the cotyledons intact is a special part for the spirit. It symbolizes the unity and external interaction that exist between the visible and the invisible world. This central lobe is often thrown away for the ancestors or the 199 Achebe, Things Fall Apart, 21. 200 Ndiokwerre, The African Church Today and Tomorrow, Vol. II, 86. 201 Ekwunife, Consecration in Igbo Traditional Religion 109. 202 Ibid.

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spirits of the land. A cotyledon can be male or female depending on the formation. This expresses the Igbo experience of human duality.203 Oji is eaten with alligator pepper which functions to moderate the sour taste. It is not eaten to satisfy hunger, because it does not fill the stomach, but actually eating for its social significance among the people. When eaten or chewed, the taste of Oji is usually sour. The sour taste symbolizes the experience of two polarities of life, namely; joys and sorrows. As a stimulant, Oji expresses the stimulating power in the life of the Igbo that keep their interaction with the invisible world alive.204 One can only enjoy it well when they are eaten together. Oji is sour, and the alligator pepper with which it is usually taken, is a hot-tasting nut, a sharp tasting ingredient and in fact never a sweet tasting delicacy. The taken of these is not for fun. It signifies that to maintain a good relationship with someone requires some bit of sufferings and bitter experiences. To maintain an unbroken bond of love and friendship with the living and the dead, there is need to suffer some discomfort on behalf of others.205 One who is not ready to suffer such discomfort should not embrace the other. The relationship between human beings is not always a sweet affair, it is sour, but it is only the person who is ready to accept the sourness of the friendship can enjoy it. And uto madu abuo bu otu onye ji ya (the friendship of two people is held by one person): the person who is ready to endure. It is not easy to be hospitable. Hospitality is always sour and bitter. It brings discomfort and it is only the person who is capable to tolerate and endure that can accommodate another person. One can divide Oji with the finger or the knife. In the eating of Oji, people do not count on the quantity; rather its significance or quality is considered. There are so many prohibitions associated with Oji and women in Igboland. A woman may not climb the tree; she may not pluck the fruit from the tree and may not participate either in the presentation, blessing or the breaking of it. It is the work of women to present it and retire to the kitchen.206 This shows the attitude of Igbo culture towards women. Though women are regarded and cherished but they have no place in the presentation and the breaking of Oji in the gathering of men. They receive their portion of Oji from their husbands. Even in the gathering of women, they cannot break it when there is any male around.

203 Olikenyi, African Hospitality, 120. 204 Ibid. 205 Ndiokwerre, The African Church Today and Tomorrow, Vol. II, 86. 206 Achononu, Women and the Kolanut Saga in Igbo Culture, 2.

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5.5.2 Songs, Drums and Dancing as the Instruments of Social Interaction The social and the religious lives of the people are kept in contact with songs, drums and dancing. They are not means of decoration in the midst of the people; rather, they are means of association and interaction among them. With these, the people worship Chukwu and relate with their gods, goddesses, ancestors and the spirits. With them the people entertain themselves in their social gatherings. The people are blessed with them and they use them whenever they choose. The drums always accompany the song and the people always follow the rhythm and the beating of the music to dance whenever the drums are beaten. Robert Fisher writes: “All over sub-Saharan Africa, singing, drumming, stamping, and clapping in diverse styles and rhythms, coupled with other instruments beside the drum, such as the xylophone and the bamboo flute, come under one heading: dance.”207 For Fisher they come under one heading: dance, because they produce music for the people to dance. They relate to each other. It is not a rule that they have to come together, but sometimes they have to come together because they are related. Songs, chants and drums are part of African way of life. Africans are always happy and they express their happiness in their songs, chants and music. These constitute a rich and valuable heritage in the cultural life of the people. Bolaji Idowu writes: “Africans are always good in singing and it is always accompanied with the swing of the body: dancing, they cannot do without these. They are always singing; and in their singing and poetry, they express themselves: all the joys and sorrows of their hearts, and their hopes and fears about the future, find outlet. Singing is always vehicle conveying certain sentiments or truth. When they are connected with rituals, they convey the faith of the worshippers from the heart – faith in Deity, belief in and about the divinities, assurance and hopes about the present and with regard to the hereafter. In each people’s song, there is a wealth of material for the scholar who will patiently sift and collate.”208 For John Mbiti: “A lot of African music and songs deals with religious ideas and practices for religious rituals and festivals are always accompanied by music, singing and sometimes dancing. Music gives outlet to the emotional expression of the religious life and it is a powerful means of communication in African traditional life. Many musical instruments used by African people are: drums, flute, rattle whistle

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Fisher, West African Religious Traditions, 17. Idowu, African Traditional Religion: A Definition, 85.

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and others.”209 These help the people to express their emotion in worshipping God and to strengthen one another in day to day life activities. African music, song and dancing have influenced the world in a special way. The evolution of the popular music and dance in South and North America is based on African musical and religious feeling.210 Music encompasses all aspects of African life. “It is an integral aspect of African conversation, work, business, festival, ritual and ceremony. It is used to spur farming people to action; it is used in folktales that are told to children under the night’s moonlight; it is used during wrestling with compositions that spur or disarm wrestlers… people sing every time and everywhere to express joy or sorrow, to celebrate or to mourn. Songs are a medium for expressing the emotions of love and hate. They are used in worship, for praise and for petition, for thanksgiving or for lamentation.”211 The average Africans do not only sing, rather they sing and dance especially the cultural dance that is known in their areas. While singing and dancing, the leader of the group through the inspirational song will extol the wisdom of the age and unveil some of the hidden truths of the people. This has made the people not only to enjoy the song and the dance, but also to pay attention to the song so as to known what happened in the past and what is happening secretly in the present and to tap from the wisdom of the singer. African music and song are the things of the mind and the heart. They reach deep into the innermost parts of the people. Many things come to the surface under musical inspiration which may not be ordinarily revealed.212 The people do not sing in vain or meaningless things, rather they use their song to convey message and some of the words of their song are highly philosophical in presenting the daily lives of the people. They sing and dance when a baby is born, named and at puberty rites. They dance in rejoicing at marriages and in mourning at funerals. They dance at festivals especially when the yams are harvested, to thank the spiritual powers for the food and the life given to them. To get a job done, they sing while they work; calling and shouting to one another. Through this way, they create solidarity, harmony and success.

209 210 211 212

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Mbiti, An Introduction to African Religion, 24. Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 3. Ehusani, An Afro-Christian Vision, “Ozovehe” 160. Mbiti, African Religion and Philosophy, 67.

5.5.3 Songs and Music in Igbo Traditional and Cultural Setting Songs and music, mimes and the theatre, proverbs and fables are the vehicles of wisdom and souls of the people; they are precious source of material and of inspiration for the modern media.213 In Igboland, the composers of songs and music are found in every field, they make it natural. In some cases they do not claim rights over the music, and it becomes a community property. Their music is accompanied by musical instruments and as the melody beats up, the voices and the musical instruments go up too.214 They control the drums, the musical instruments and the tempo of the music to suit each occasion. They like to express themselves in their celebrations with songs, music and dancing. They express their sorrows with song and music; this can be attested in the second burial of the people in Igboland. With song and music, the people nourish both the soul and the body and enhance their social and religious lives. Without song, human being will bury oneself in misery and unhappiness. Without song, happiness will elude the people. They sing to express their belief, they sing to philosophize, they sing for personal aggrandizement. They sing for social entertainment, they sing to mourn the dead, they sing in their celebrations of life and they sing and dance in the festivals of the people especially the New Yam festival.215 The tone of the music in Igbo culture 213 John Paul II, Ecclesia in Africa, 123. 214 Milingo, The World in Between, 74. 215 In Igboland, during the big traditional festivities like New Yam festival and initiation of new title-holders, the highlight of the ceremony is the Sacred Dance, which is performed by the elders, led by the traditional chiefs. C. f, Ndiokwerre, The African Church Today and Tomorrow, Vol. II, 182. One of the pronounced Yam festivals in Igboland is Ikeji of Arondizuogu. People gather and celebrate it in a unique way. In the celebration, Pericoma Okoye who is regarded as a living legend has dominated it with his traditional music for many years. He releases new music every year and his songs are rich in meaning, philosophical in thinking and traditionally founded. It is highly reflective on human life, human dignity and human destiny. It follows the rhythm of the beaten of the local musical instruments. Through this, he has drawn thousands of admirers to the popular Ikeji festival of Arondizuogu. His songs have shown his ingenuity and ability of philosophizing in many aspects of human life and have given meaning and essence to many virtues possessed by Igbo community. He presented these through his traditional wisdom songs. There he eulogizes great men of the past, express many virtues they had and narrate many things cherished by an authentic Igbo man. The festival draws many people from various parts of the world. They come to witness the occasion that is celebrated yearly by the people of Arondizuogu. It is the greatest and the most pronounced Yam festival in Igboland. So many people from this community prefer going home in this period than in Christmas period.

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expresses what type of the music that is being presented. Hence: Songs are a medium for expressing the emotion of love and hate, for worship: praise, petition and for thanksgiving.216 They are reflective with deep meanings as regards the existential lives of the people. Important information about past event of the people is often preserved in songs and the cultural lives of the people.217 In Igboland, musical instruments speak intelligibly to the group members more especially the dancers. Their instruments dictate the mode and the movements of the dancers. Drums are used as the means of communication and the Igbo understand the language of the drums. There are drums which are used for entertainments and those that announce the death of a titled man. There are drums requesting the presence of the community at the village square. There are some that announce war. Drums are also used during burials to eulogize the dead and enumerate one’s achievement in life. Here the children are called upon to dance according to the beatings of the drums. There are also drums that are beaten when a new baby is born. The ability to interpret the sound of these drums is the art that is learnt with many years of people’s contact with one another and many years of hearing it. The drums or the musical instruments do not beat invain. When they are beating, people do not dance any how. They follow the beating and the rhythm. The instruments convey their messages and the dancers will always listen in order to dance according to the rhythm. The childen in Igboland learn to dance as they learn how to walk and talk. When the children see the adults and the youths dancing according to their divisions, they run around and can join the circle without shyness or hesitation.218 Dance is an expression of emotion, which gives a deep sense of pleasure to the dancers and the spectators. In the traditional context, formal dances are performed by trained and practiced specialists. The spectators create the performing arena by surrounding the performers to participate in an event which they experience as the restatement of their beliefs and customs. Here the dancers may continue to perform for hours without tiring or boring the spectators or audience who are free to leave and join back as they wish. They dance different styles at the same time. In some instances the spectators may join in a song or clap out the rhythm of a dance, but there is a distinct differentiation between the performers and the audience and only a recognized expert may join the dance.219 The spectators are always sensitive when to join in the music in order not to go contrary to the rhythm. 216 217 218 219

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Ehusani, An Afro-Christian Vision, Ozovehe, 160. Ojoajogwu, Social and Cultural Identity of an African Society, 159. Fisher, West African Religious Traditions, 16. Gyekye, An Essay on African Theological Thought, 161.

5.6 The Notion of Life in African Cultural Traditions African religions are quite inseparable from life. Religion and life are one. Peter Sarpong describes the integration of African religion and life in this way: “To the Africans, religion is like the skin that you carry along with you wherever you are, not like the cloth you wear now and discard the next moment.”220 A deep religious sense permeates African life. Life is immanent power or activity which originates from within and remains within the living being. The power may be said to animate or set life in motion. It is the highest form of power and the most perfect activity. The African would say that God is pure unlimited activity not so much because He lacks ‘potentiality’ or ‘passivity’, but rather because He is life and the ultimate Source of life. In Him, power and life are identical.221 Life is a gift from God. There is no sense of irrevocability and uniqueness that determines the ideas about life and how to organise it. Instead, the concepts of continuity and unity bring relief. The life of the individual does not possess an infinite value without undergoing the process of change through death. Not everyone ascribe a distinctive meaning to life. People know that they are part of a stream of life that has always flowed through their family. The individual is nothing but the recipient of life, and has the duty to pass it on. What is important is not only the individual, but the collective - the family, the clan, and the whole people.222 The life of the Igbo can be relevant only in the community. Life is the beauty of creation and it is life that holds all things in being. Life gives meaning to all that exists and human life gives meaning to the existence of God. African theologians centre all African themes on the idea of life which is the dominating idea in African conception. They conceived the universe as an ensemble of beings participating in the same source of life. They identify the source of life as God and by identifying this source; human being participates and shares in the life of God. This participation is realized by means of intermediaries existing between the ‘Universe Source’ and the Cosmos, namely the visible and the sensible universe centred on humanity. Human being participates in life, and characterizes by the milieu in which he/she participates. He/she participates in life through the means of intermediaries. Life comes from the creator: the Supreme Being and the intermediaries are the ancestors and other spiritual being that help to secure human life. The milieu where human being participates in life is in the human 220 221 222

Healey, A Fifth Gospel, 141. Nyamiti, African Tradition and the Christian God, 53. Sundameier, The Individual and Community in African Traditional Religions, 15.

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community: familial and social.223 Life is the highest gift from God and Africans have great respect for it. Life is fundamental in African tradition and it is highly cherished and treasured. Every laws and rules are given to protect and preserve life. A society is said to be unjust when it does not regard or protect human life. Justice is said to be good or bad depending on how it treats human being as regards the preservation of life. The essence of human worship to the Supreme Being is for the good of life and the essence of living in a community is for the good and the preservation of life. “Life is usually given priority. The high priority life occupies can be seen in the respect accorded it. No one is supposed to kill the other; it is an abomination to do so. Equally one should not take one’s life. Life is not only sacred, it is a central value.”224 One has no right either to take away another person’s life or to take one’s own life. It is the highest form of power, solidarity, totality and participation with God. Without life, human being cannot talk about community or to be in union, communion or communication with another. Without life human being cannot talk about solidarity with another. The essence of solidarity is for the protection of life. Life is important in all ramification of existence and should be first protected. Any society that has no regard for life cannot be genuine.

5.6.1 The Notion of Life in Igbo Tradition The Igbo word for life is Ndu. Life occupies the central position in everything the Igbo do. It is the combination of the body and the spirit (ahu na mmuo). No one can exist alone without the other. The body without the spirit is dead (Ozu) and the spirit without the body is a ghost (Mmuo). The body and the spirit make human being alive and its separation means death. The spirit of human being gives meaning to the body and the body gives meaning to the spirit. Life distinguishes between the animate and inanimate. Human life gives meaning to the universe and a relational affair in the worldly existence. The human history is the story of human relationship with each other, the universe, the ancestors and the spirits/ deities in general and ultimately to Chukwu who is the beginning and the end of all relations.225 Life therefore is the most prized thing in Igbo culture. People consider life first and that is why they believe that ‘Ndubuisi’ (life is first). It is only when one has life that one can talk of wealth. It is when one has 223 224 225

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Nyamiti, The Scope of African Theology, 13. Anozie, The Igbo Culture and the Formation of Conscience, 307. Ukeh, Spirit – Between Man and God, 173.

life that one will talk of progress and religion. Life is the greatest thing that cannot be bought with money. The people will always say: Ndukaku, (life is greater than wealth). It is only when one is alive that one can receive the help of the ancestors. The people find it difficult to be tired of living. They do everything possible to be alive. They regard life as a gift given to be shared. Not to share life through procreation is a sign that one is somehow clamping down on the life forces or the community vitality. When one does not procreate before death, especially men, the people will say: Ama ya echiela (he has no future or the door of his home has closed), for there will be no one to remember that person after death.226 The Igbo do not live on here and now, they look towards the future because the future cannot be separated from the present. Human life is a movement towards a fulfillment and it is not devoid of transcendental knowledge that is the puzzle of the universe. It is the greatest gift to humanity and death is the worst. The people have a positive attitude to life that is why they rejoice whenever a new child is born as the extension of the ancestral lineage. Thou shall not kill (Ex.20:13). This rule is enshrined in many cultures of the world. The life belongs to God “Chinwendu” (God is the owner of life). Since life belongs to Him, He is the only one who has the right to take away human life. The Igbo have great respect for life and they frown at any movement that kicks against it. The individual who threatens the life of others through witches or wizard may face banishment or death penalty. There are many ways through which human life can be threatened in Igbo cultural tradition. One can be killed accidently, through poisoning and through witches or wizards. People sometimes live in suspicion of witchcraft or sorcery as the forces that are against their lives. This fear restricts the individuals in their associations, visits, movements, drinking and eating habits. When suspicion arises over threat to any person’s life either through witchcraft, sorcery or poison, the community will institute a mass oathtaking by drinking a medicine man’s concoction in the open market place. It is believed that witches, sorcerers and those who poison others will die or confess after drinking the pottage. Such ritual re-united the community and forewarned prospective mischief makers.227 The diviner can also ascertain this through the help of the oracle. When one is guilty of poisoning or killing others, he/she may be ostracized or banished from the town for many years or be seriously fined. Since they believe that life is a precious gift from God, one should make efforts to guard it. Some protect their lives through charms from the native doctors. Hence 226 227

Kirwen, The Missionary and the Diviner, 115. Kalu, Religion and Social Control in Igboland, 120.

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they will always say: nkwucha abughi ujo (preparedness is not fear). And God helps those who help themselves. Life has vertical as well as horizontal dimensions and relations. The vertical aspect of human life is: one is a being that looks toward God. Human spirit comes from above and one believes that it has to be united with the Supreme Being through the ancestors who have limitless existence. It is when one is in relationship with the Supreme Being that one’s life, existence and well-being are sustained. There is also the horizontal relation and dimension of human being: human being is in horizontal relationship with one another. One cannot live alone. One needs others to live in the society and to relate with them in the social as well as in the religious gatherings. “This is a relationship of mutual dependence between man and his environment, between man and other things of nature.”228 Human life is in communication and communion with one another. Communion is not limited to the relationship with the created order: the universe, community, spirits and the ancestors but also to God. Humanity is bound to God by ties of creation and by His divine providence over the world.229 When the communication and the communion with one another is over, one transcends into another form of life where one will meet with the ancestors. The only gate through which we meet the ancestors is death. It is the termination of life or the transformation into a new mode of spiritual being greeted with grief and despair.230 One is destined to die and cannot live like the stone. So death is a necessary end to all human beings, but the Igbo believe that it is the end of human and the beginning of life that has no end. When one is dead, one will be buried to return back to the creator and to live forever with the ancestors. Hence Man is destined to reach the goal sooner or later.231

5.7 Death in African (Igbo) Tradition Death (Onwu), remains an incomprehensible mystery that keeps on worrying the Igbo. It is thought to be unnatural event that tries to disorganize the harmony in the world created by the good and merciful God. When death occurs, the people blame the spirits, witches and wizards and beckon on the ancestors for help. One of the reasons the Igbo appease the ancestors is because of the fear of death. It is

228 Ukeh, Spirit – Between Man and God, 175. 229 Ikenga-Metuh, African Religion in Western Conceptual Scheme, 114. 230 Iloanusi, Myths of the Creation of Man and the Origin of Death in Africa, 14. 231 Amini, Reconstruction of the Culture Islam, 27.

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one of the reasons for the sacrifices performed to them. They take death as the deprivation of goodness; that is why they say: Onwudinjo (death is bad). They know that life belongs to God and nobody has the right to kill oneself or another, still death is a terror or a thing that mare their achievements. It is seen as the end of all ambition.232 It is because of the uncertainty of death that the people will say Onwueyiagba (death does not give appointment) or Onwuharaonye (death gives no preferential). It is because of the bad experience with death that they will answer Onwubiko (death I implore you). This name is answered by those who have received the heavy blows of death. Those who have been affected negatively by death have answered many names that show how they were treated by death or how mysterious death is. It is described as being deaf. It does not listen, and when it strikes, it shatters the hopes and the aspirations of the deceased and puts up a great thought to the living who will be wondering the essence of life. It is in the face of death that the riddle of human existence grows most acute. By death, not only is human being tormented by pain and deterioration of the body, but also by a dread of perpetual extinction. In spite of this extinction, the people still see death as a passage to another form of life. The people see life as a journey and the deceased as the one making journey into another world: the spirit world. So when somebody dies, the first ritual is to slay a fowl. This is meant to make the road for the great journey easier. Death is the continuation of life in the spiritual existence of the ancestors. It is the wish of the people to be accepted in the family of their ancestral relatives, it cannot be a punishment, or a non-natural event in the life circle of individual person.233 It is not the end of life, but the means whereby the present earthly existence is changed for another. For the Yoruba, whatever that is done in the present life, must be done with due regard to this great future. What we see in the material world becomes a copy of what is in the world of the spirit. In Yorubaland, it is common occurrences to hear the old people saying: ‘I am going home’ or ‘I am ready to go home’, meaning: they are prepared to die and enter into ‘After Life’. When an aged person is heard talking abstractly to oneself, it is generally believed that the person is talking to one’s associates or relatives who have gone before. If asked, the person will sometimes confirm that.234 Human being looks toward the future for the fulfillment of ones life. In this way, life becomes a continuous process and it does not end in death. On the other hand, it goes on from stage to stage. 232 233 234

Mbefo, The True African, 37. Iloanusi, Myths of the Creation of Man and the Origin of Death in Africa, 220. Idowu, Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief, 204.

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The Igbo people convincingly believe that at death one is united with the ancestors, so it is ones dream to be like or united with them. Luke Mbefo narrates: “When the missionaries preached hell-fire at the beginning of their enterprise, as the lot of those who never received baptism, many traditional Igbo religionists preferred to go down to hell with their ancestors than to be separated from them on account of baptism.”235 The people long inseparability with their ancestors. What they see as a punishment is their inability to see their ancestors or not to be united with them after this mundane life. They believe that the communality that existed in the material world will continue to exist in the spiritual world. The prospect of reunion with the relatives raises a great hope and enthusiasm in the heart of the dying person. As a result of this, there is hope that life goes on after the phenomenon known as death. With this conviction, great care is taken in burying the dead.236 The people believe that good burial secures one a place in the spiritual world of the ancestors. Those who lived bad lives will be punished and their spirits will wander forever without any rest. They shall not be remembered or offered sacrifices by posterity. Such malignant spirits torment the people. Elizabeth Isichei writes: “The unhappy spirits who die bad deaths, and lack correct burial rites, cannot return to the world of the living, or enter that of the dead. They wonder homelessly and dispossessed, expressing their grief by causing harm among the living.”237 This is the lot of those who lived unmeritoriously. Human being accepts death by preparing oneself for the continuous life in the spiritual world with the ancestors. Before a man dies, he will make sure that he has somebody as a son to take after his name. They fear dying without descendant.238 They value descendant, but preferable male descendant who will continue to procreate after them, bear their names, perpetuate their lineage and live in their compound (isi obi). That is why they married many wives. Marriage without an offspring as well as to die without a child is not good omen and look as a curse. Procreation therefore ensures one’s personal immortality. It is religious and ontological duty to marry and procreate in order to leave behind those who would sustain one in personal immortality.239 When a man has a son, he will be ready and happy to go and join his ancestors in the spirit world. The greatest hope of an Igbo

235 236 237 238 239

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Mbefo, The True African, 40. Amu, Religion and Religious Experience, 182. Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 26. Amu, Religion and Religious Experience, 181. Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 114.

man while he is still alive is that his son will mourn him and give him a befitting burial. He replaces his father after death.

5.7.1 Mythology of Death in Igboland There are so many myths about death in Nigeria. Among the Nupe of Nigeria, God first created the tortoise; man and then the stone. To the tortoise and man He gave the gift of life, but not to the stone. At this time, there was nothing like death. So tortoise and the man lived and became very old and then turned out to be young again. They were not contented with this state of affair, it was boring to them. They went to God and asked Him for a child. God told them that they will have children but, they have to die when they start bearing children. He asked them whether they still want children, they answered yes. Thus it happened. They begot children, and when the children were born the father died.240 This is the sacrifice man has to make in order to perpetuate his existence. The man sacrificed himself to death in order to have children. In Igbo mythology, a delegation from the people to God failed to lobby for immortality. God gave human beings the option to choose between mortality and immortality. They sent two messengers to God to argue for mortality or immortality and whoever that arrives first before God has the authentic message from the people. Because human beings do not want to die, they sent a dog (because it runs faster) to argue for immortality, and the frog (because it is slower) to argue for mortality. On the way to the abode of God, the dog was hungry and decided to eat in order to continue the journey, hoping that the frog is slow and cannot overtake him. The frog went slowly and continuously and reached the abode of God first and delivered the message that humanity decided on mortality. The dog arrived later with the message but God said: ‘the decision is already taken and cannot be reversed’. Till today, “The frog has ever been hated by the Igbo because it succeeded in arguing for death against humans before God’s court. Since God decree is irrevocable, people have to live in such a way as to find meaning in the time allotted them even though they know they will certainly die.”241 These are some of the myths that try to explain the presence of death in the world. Mythology is one of the aspects of religion that explain the things that are beyond human comprehension.

240 241

Baaren, Death, 258. Mbefo, The True African, 37.

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5.7.2 Death and Burial in Igboland Burial is one of the social celebrations among the people. The greatness of the funeral celebration in Igboland is judged by the number of the people in attendance. Many people live virtually their lives preparing for the last day, the day of their burial. At the funeral of an old person, the number of the children who survived him/her is usually the most important consideration in the judgement of his/her success in life. One who is survived by a multitude of children has lived an ideal life; God has blessed him/her. This success is celebrated in songs and dances.242 The importance of funeral lies not only in this fundamental relationship with the ancestors, however, but in the funerals bearing on relations among the living. The very event of the burial and the funeral provide occasions for family reunion, therapeutic expression of anger and grief, mutual consolation, healing of strained relationships, courtship, socio-political succession, transmission and creation of knowledge, historical commentary and performances of verbal and gestural art, music and dance.243 It is an occasions that attract many people from various cultures: religions, social, cultural groups, dancers and important dignitaries. It is also a time for social celebration and feasting. The people believe that as life is celebrated, death should also be celebrated in order to be in union with the living ancestors. “Burying anybody who has somebody in Igboland is a costly exercise. If there is not enough resource to foot the cost, the burial is delayed until such cost could be executed.”244 The person may be buried immediately because the body cannot be preserved much longer, till the money for the funeral is at hand. The funeral is postponed until the time when the necessary things required are present or the money to foot the bill is available. This is the so called second burial. The funeral postponement should not last longer than necessary so that the spirit of the dead will not hunt or disturb the living for not performing the necessary things required for its acceptance into the ancestral world. The idea of the second burial is conceived because nobody who is somebody may want to be buried like a dog without fanfare. The people do not joke with burial and funeral, for they believed that the dead is accompanied by music and dance, and transported to their ancestors with canon shots and alarums to the netherworld. Through the noise of merry-making, the predecessors are alerted of the coming. It is for them to receive him into the assembly of the ancestors.

242 243 244

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Ehusani, An Afro-Christian Vision “OZOVEHE” 187. Blakely and Blakely, Ancestors, ‘Witchcraft’ & Foregrounding the Poetics, 407. Mbefo, The True African, 39.

Where this ceremony is not held, the dead goes half-way and would have to come back in visions and ghosts to disturb the living until such a time as they complete the send-off ceremony. Myriads of hunted homes and encounters with the dead fill the annals of oral tradition. People give instruction about their burial while they are still alive. Some rejoice and yearn to join their friends in the spirit world.245 Hence death does not diminish life; rather the dead participates in the life force of the ancestors. And the ancestors are important, so to join them is a privileged position. That is why dying people receive tremendous love and support from the living.246

5.7.3 The Death of a Youth The Igbo have the belief that the death of a youth is not always a natural phenomenon. They seriously frown at such, because they believe that such a person has not lived the prime of his/her life. Such death is seen as the triumph of evil. It is something that cannot come from God. He wills life to His creatures, and premature death is an affront on this goodness of God.247 The death of a youth must be caused by somebody. It is a bad omen for the parents to bury their child. There is a belief that when a son dies before his father, it is regarded as a curse, and if he is the first son, he loses his right to his brother who is alive. Hence the Igbo say: Onwuru n’ihu nna ya (he died before his father). In time of war, the fathers bury their sons, but in time of peace the sons bury their fathers. That is the dream of every parent. The parents will like to die before their Children in order to receive a grand and befitting burial from them. The death of a youth is believed to have come from the evil spirits or evil people. To find out the cause, a diviner is consulted. Elias Ajamma, narrates: “In those days, the death of a young person could be attributed to some unnatural causes – witches, wizards, enemies or angry deities. Normally such a death would evoke recourse to oracle or a diviner, who would certainly point a finger to somebody.”248 But when the diviner confirms that the death is not from human being or evil spirits, the bereaved will accept the loss as coming from God.249 There is a distinction between untimely death and death at old age. The first is the manifestation of evil at work; the later is attributed to nature or God. Everybody

245 246 247 248 249

Ibid., 39f. Eze, Jesus Christ the Ancestor, 78. Ehusani, An Afro-Christian Vision “OZOVEHE” 185. Ajamma, The Age Grade System, 116. Amu, Religion and Religious Experience, 181.

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dies and the elderhood ritual seems to prepare a person to meet the ancestors through death – an inevitable event. Consequently in the death of an old person, there seems to be the anxiety about the presence of the evil that is felt than at untimely death. It is easier to accept the death of an old person250 than that of the younger person. The death of a young person is regarded as someone who died prematurely. People will say that it is a bad omen and the deceased will be buried silently without any celebration. People will not be discussing the death openly. They will not directly say he/she died, but rather they will say, Aru mere, osisi kporu nku ka ana atu anya ka oda kwu, ma nke di ndu esi na ukwu buru daa (A sacrilege has occurred, a withered tree expected to fall is standing, while the budding one pulled from its root and fell).251 The people are good in proverbs and speeches and they are easily understood when used.

5.7.4 The Death of an Old Person Death is meant for all, but the death of an old person is more understandable and acceptable to be the will of God than the death of a youth. Death for the Yoruba is meant for the aged. Therefore when a young person dies, they consider it to be a tragedy and enter into mourning. On the other hand, the death of an aged person is an occasion for rejoicing because the person has been recalled home and the children live to bury him/her.252 It is an occasion for the children of the deceased to prove to all that their parent was not a failure. No matter where the death occurs, they will make effort to take the corpse home for the burial. The Igbo will say: Ozu dike anaghi ato n’mba (the body of the brave cannot be buried in a strange land). The people will always like to be buried in their families. “Burial in the land of the forefathers assures that the dead is resting with the good ancestors, a true sign of eternal happiness. It is believed that the spirit of the one buried outside Igboland will linger around and harass the living. Without proper burial there may be no rest for the dead. Lack of rest is one of the signs of eternal damnation.”253 Everybody will like to experience eternal bliss that is why the old are always sincere, truthful and just. They always prepare themselves for they know that sooner or later they are meant to join their ancestors. The Igbo have the concept that the death of the old who has reached the ripe of his/her age is a cause for celebration. When an older prominent person in a

250 251 252 253

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Kirwen, The Missionary and the Diviner, 125. Ajamma, The Age Grade System, 117. Idowu, Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief, 202. Ndiokwerre, Search for Greener Pastures, 62.

community dies, people will say: Oke Osisi Dara, (a big tree has fallen). If a titled woman dies, it will be said, Enyi Dara (an elephant has fallen). It was not a complement to say that a big man died,254 but it is a way to express that something great happened and the burial will gulp a lot of money from the family of the deceased. The burial will attract people from all over the country. The children are expected to be there with their friends. The in-laws will come with their people and friends and they have to present either a cow or a goat or wrapper. They do not attend the burial of their father/mother- in-law empty handed and they must attend with their kinsmen.

5.7.5 Igbo Ways of Lying in State In Igboland it is the culture of the people to lay the deceased in state for the people to go and see, and to pay the last homage to the corpse before burying it. The corpse is first washed and dressed in its best and traditionally interred in fine cloth. After the washing, it is laid in state. Since death is a public affair involving the whole community, displaying the corpse is almost a general rule. It is stretched out on a mat or a funeral bed, or in a coffin, placed in the house: palour, in an open air or in the middle of the village for people to go round it, address it and give it the last accolade. The washing and the shaving of the corpse is strictly a family affair to which the outsider is not invited to witness. Then the finger nails are clipped and the body is dressed in the best of robes and trinkets in a manner befitting one’s sex, age and status when one was alive.255 When an Okorobia (youth) dies, there are two ways of dressing and presenting the corpse for funeral ceremony. One is to dress the corpse in normal traditional dress befitting the age. The corpse will then be kept on a well prepared bed placed at the centre of the sitting room. Another is to keep it in a seat prepared very well. The youth will be dressed with the whole body and face spotted with chalk paste. The body will then be kept on a chair in a sitting position. It is a sort of lying in a state. This state of sitting was used to depict, Dike, Dimkpa, Odogwu (brave man). It was also used in a case of a strong youth who died suddenly in his prime.256 But this second method is not much known by the people. A corpse can be dressed in normal traditional dress befitting the age and any traditional title one might have taken. If he is a titled person, the insignia of the 254 255 256

Ajamma, The Age Grade System, 117. Eze, Jesus Christ the Ancestor, 7f. Ibid., 118.

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title will be placed beside the bed or on the ground.257 The corpse will be painted with nzu (chalk) and staff given to it. The staff means that one was a highly placed man. People will go and see the corpse starting from the immediate family down to the last person that comes for the burial. The age members will come in group and with their regalia. When the members of the age group come, they will stoop down, put their hands on cheeks and start to weep in unison, intermittently nodding their head in anguish. They weep together and their weeping is like a song. This group weeping does not entail actual flowing of tears down their cheeks, for men are not supposed to shed tears no matter the circumstance. But the intimate ones and those who are specially attached to the deceased among them will shed emotional tears.258 The presence of this group is to identify with their member (deceased) and in solidarity with the family.

5.7.6 The Carrying of the Corpse to the Grave and its Burying When all might have seen the corpse and cried, the elders of the people will perform a specific ritual before closing the coffin. Then, the corpse is carried with respect by the members of the age group, if they are still strong or by the extended family members or by the strong men of the village. It is carried with dignity and honour down to the grave. The grave is always dug in the compound of the deceased. In Igboland, people are not buried in the burial ground.259 They are buried in their various houses or homes, as a mark of identifying with the family where the deceased comes from. In the graveyard, as the body is being lowered, closed relations of the deceased also wail, exclaim and direct their talk towards the corpse addressing the dead persons lingering spirit.260 Some will even try to jump into the grave with the corpse, but are restrained by others nearby. When all is in place the

257 258 259 260

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Ajamma, The Age Grade System, 118. Ibid., 119f. The issue of burial ground was introduced by the European missionaries during the evangelization era, but it is gradually coming to an end. Such can be obtained in Yoruba and Hausaland but not in Igboland. In Things Fall Apart, when Ezeudu was buried, he was addressed as follows: “If you had been poor in your last life, I would have asked you to be rich when you come again. But you were rich. If you had been a coward, I would have asked you to bring courage. But you were a fearless warrior. If you had died young, I would have asked you to get life. But you lived long. So I would ask you to come again the way you came before. If your death was the death of nature, go in peace. But if a man caused it, do not allow him a moment’s rest. After saying this he danced a few moments and went away” 86.

young men will start filling the grave with the earth.261 These young men are from the deceased family and if she is a woman, the young men should be from where the woman comes from. They do this as a community without any charge. When the grave is being filled, there will be weeping among those who have come, there will also be canon shots known as Mkponala. For a titled person, twenty one gun shorts is given so as to intimate the ancestors that this great person is coming and they should come out and happily welcome him/her.

5.7.7 Funeral Activities after the Burial In Igboland, the burial and the funeral of a titled person last for one or two weeks depending on how many titles, and the association the deceased belonged. It is only after the corpse is buried that the people will start merry-making. Immediately after the burial and the feeling of the grave with the earth, the mourning mood of the people changes automatically into festive mood. Funeral programme featuring a lot of eating, drinking and dancing from the first day are organized till the end of the funeral. The titled men/women in the town and those who have come from far and wide will be given a special place to be attended to. They are given a special place to eat because it is a disgraceful and spiteful act to give them food and drink in the public especially when people have gathered for celebration. The groups, societies, and associations “…are given their designated drinks, food and shelter sitting space, set apart in ways similar to those in the already established categories of ‘elders from surrounding villages’ the deceased patriliniage members and their relatives, the deceased matriliniage members and their relatives, the lineages sons-in-law, daughters-in-law, fathers-in-law, mothers-in-law, brothers-in-laws and the invited musicians and dancers.”262 This shows that burying the dead is not only a family matter but a community affair, and that is what encourages communal living. It is the wish of all Igbo elders to be given a befitting burial attended by all and sundry so that the ancestors will welcome them in the spirit world. When people have settled down, the music that accompanied various groups will start performing and various groups will bring in what they have for condolence. It is at this time that the age group will start to say the things they did together while the deceased was alive. Many of the speakers will shower encomium on the deceased. So many victories in wrestling and acts of bravery in age activities will be credited to him/her, because it is a tradition that one does not say bad things 261 Blakely and Blakely, Ancestors ‘Witchcraft’ & Foregrounding the Poetic, 409. 262 Ibid.

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against the dead.263 Those who participate in the mourning will sympathize with the bereaved family by singing dirges in praise of the deceased and philosophize on life and death generally.264 There is what is called Igba Okwukwu (song in the funeral), each village that comes for the burial will be represented. Here groups are formed from various villages, and they will put into song various atrocities other villages did or are doing and also glorify their good virtues. These were not pre-planned song, but a spontaneous act. The ingenuity of the people is displayed here. Their ability to sit down immediately and put these things into song is marvelous. The leader will be singing and the people will be responding. They will sing and dance around the village. Others in retaliation will compose their own songs or in response to what is said of them.265 The performance of these funeral rites establishes the bond of relationship between the living and the dead. The dead will join the ancestors, while the living will inherit the virtues and the strength of their departed ones. This ritual has the efficacy of uniting not only the dead with the living, but also the living with one another.266 The burial in Igboland today has taken another shape because of Christianity.

5.7.8 Those that were not given Burial Rites It is the duty of the living to bury the dead but in Igbo tradition, not all the dead have the right to be buried in accordance with the traditions of the people. There were some who were denied befitting burial due to various reasons. These were people who committed suicide, newly born twins, children who died before they have their teeth, women who died while giving birth, and people who died of deadly diseases: like leprosy, or swelling of the stomach and mysterious sicknesses. These people were not given any burial; rather they were thrown into the evil forest (ajo ohia). Their death was regarded as abnormal. The so called abnormal death among the 263 264 265

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Ajamma, The Age Grade System, 120. Opoku, West African Traditional Religion, 136. A typical example is, there was a death that was rumoured about a young man. He travelled and somebody came and reported that he died of accident on the way. The people decided to bring him back and bury him immidately. They dug the grave and waited only to see that the person was not dead. In this Igba okwukwu, one village was saying: ‘We did not dig the grave and filled it again, but a village did it’, they will mention the name of the village and all will reply shame. In retaliation, the village will reply through their group song: ‘We did not bury a young man alive but a village did it’, they will mention the name of the village and all will shout shame. Eze, Jesus Christ the Ancestor, 82.

Igbo generalizes the threat of the numinous, so that the society expels the dead from its midst by throwing it into the evil forest. In Igboland, death and banishment were not considered enough for some crimes including: homicide, kidnapping, poisoning and stealing, the offender were denied ground for burial and thrown into the evil forest. This was one of the greatest social humiliations and condemnation a native of Igboland could ever suffer. Such a deceased will find no rest among the ancestors.267 By throwing the person into the evil forest, the community of the individual purifies itself since no funeral was organized on behalf of the dead and the dead was never expected to enter the world of the living or to be incorporated into the society of the living dead.268 This was done so that the spirit of the dead will not come back to the living or reincarnate back into the family or appear in the community again. These were obtainable before the advent of Christianity in Igboland. To have given people who committed any of these abomination a befitting burial means that the community supported them against the gods and wanted them to be reincarnated. They conceived incurable diseases as punishment from the gods. The people who suffered such sicknesses must have received punishment from the gods and to bury them in the family or in the community means that the sicknesses will return back to the people when the deceased reincarnate back. They regarded twins as contra-natura. It is natural for a person to be born at a time and not two. Whatever that is against the nature is not the wish of the gods and should be purged out from the community in order not to attract the angers of the gods. Those who committed suicide were thrown into the evil forest. Life is regarded as sacred and it belongs to God, so nobody has the right to destroy it.269 It is then an abomination to kill or to take away one’s life. They value life and live it to the fullest. That is why the Igbo proverb says: Mkpokirikpo ndu ka ezigbo onwu mma, (a useless life is better than a good death). The practices of killing twins and throwing people into the evil forest are no longer obtainable in the present day Igbo community because of Christianity. Some of the evil forests we had were given to the Christians and that is where so many great churches are built today.270

267 Obiora-Ike, and Edozie, Understanding Africa, Enugu, Nigeria, 53. 268 Amu, Religion and Religious Experience, 81. 269 Mbefo, The True African, 37. 270 Achebe, Things Fall Apart, 105. It is written that every clan had its evil forest. It is where those who died of deadly diseases like leprosy and small pox were buried. It was also a dumping ground for the potent fetishes of great medicine men when they died. It is alive with sinister forces and powers of darkness. It was this type of forests that were given to the missionaries for the building of churches in missionary days.

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Chapter 6: E  valuation: A Critical Appraisal in the Light of Christian Faith 6. Introduction The Igbo are religious people and their religiosity involves all aspects of their lives. They are religiously determined and it embraces and integrates their total life and institutions1. Their belief has great influence on them. They lived and still live religiously. “To live religiously, is not merely to live in the presence of certain symbols, but to be involved with them and through them in a quite special way – a way that may lead quite beyond the symbol, that demand the totality of the person’s response and may affect ones relations not only to them but to everything else.”2 Their life is religiously covered and their spirituality is not demarcated from their day to day living. They love their religion and their social life so preciously that they become their second nature. Religion for them is inclusive and not only historic and spiritual, rather the analysis of the contemporary social phenomenon of human being.3 Their religion was rooted in Igboland before the coming of the missionaries. The missionaries’ brought Christian theology, but this is not the universal theology according to the mind of Christ but the theology of the middle age. The theology did not speak on behalf of the situation of the poor and the oppressed which was evident in Africa. It did not denounce slavery and was an accomplice in the international system of the exploitation and colonialism, neo-colonialism and imperialism. It is certain that majority of churches in Africa still live this theology till date.4 It does not completely address the situations and the life pattern of the Africans; rather it was imposed on them to the detriment of their religions. The missionaries condemned several morals, social and religious value systems that held the people together. This has made the people to be slaves to European traditions and cultures. John Odey writes: “The condemnation of African values or negation of all that is good and loveable were lumped together as the ideological

1 2 3 4

Kasenene, Religious Ethics in Africa, 18. Smith, Faith and Belief, 5. Küng, Existiert Gott?, 319. Torres, Opening Address, Theology as Ideology, 4.

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weapon intended to keep the black man in check bodily, psychologically and spiritually while Africa was being looted.”5 This is not what religion should be. It is the worship of the Supreme Being by the community of believers. The divine truth is imparted by God through religion. In African traditional religions, God imparts the divine truth for the purpose of worshiping Him. This is the way God interacted with the people of old and also with Africans in their religions. The God who speaks to His people in the scripture is the same God who speaks to His people in African traditional religions.6 The coming of the Gospel of Christ to Africa should be a blessing to the people and not otherwise. Christianity ought to incarnate itself into the traditions and the cultures of the people and not to enslave and dominate them. Christianity should be offered to the world, never imposed on anyone.7 It should enflesh itself into the cultures of the people and not to be imposed to them. It should take into consideration the life pattern of the people, and not to be refashioned by the life pattern of the missionaries. Christian theology ought to be dynamic and changing with the circumstances of the people’s way of life. It is temporal, while the Gospel is eternal. Our understanding of the Gospel of the divine revelation should change constantly; that is what theology is all about.8 African traditional religions are religions found in Africa to address the cultures and the ways of the life of the people. The religions are good for the people, but there were some extremities that ought to be curtailed to suit the contemporary society. Christianity as a religion that comes to refine the concept of religion and approach to God in Igboland can be well practiced when a perfect integration is made with the religion of the people, so that Christianity will not be foreign to the people. This proves Peter Sarpong right when he writes: “If Christianity’s claim to be universal is to be believed, then it is not Africa that must be Christianized, but Christianity that must be Africanized.”9 This shows that Africa, in order to embrace Christianity, must not lose itself and be subsumed to another foreign religion that has no culture of the Africans at heart. Christianity whose mission it is to bring salvation to all mankind has to lead religions in Africa to Christ. The purpose of Christianity is to fulfil, and not to destroy, to make free

5 6 7 8 9

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Odey, Africa, The Agony of a Continent, 35. Healey and Sybertz, Toward an African Narrative Theology, 66. Luzbetak, The Church and Cultures New Perspectives in Missiological Anthropology, 47. Tutu, The Theology of Liberation in Africa, 165. Sarpong, in Healey Joseph, A Fifth Gospel: The Experience of Black Christian Values, XI.

and not to enslave.10 The mission of Christ is to free all from the bondage of sin and lead all to God. Christianity destroyed a lot of the values of the people in order to institute Christian doctrines. With this approach, the sense of sacred, respect for life and human dignity began to lose the intensity of their customary norms among the people. In this way, the great event of the sacred calendar of the annual festival was discarded and no longer scrupulously observed. The bond of family ties in their extended structures has been loosened. As a result of this, the sense of family has been radically affected and the spirit of responsibility, the sense of hospitality and the love for one another is no more. Then the modern form of individualistic capitalism of the white man has taken over.11 That is why Adrian Hastings remarks: “We (Christians) have thought it too often to destroy, where as in this affirmation of natural religion, we should find rather, the fingers pointing to the fullness of communion of all men in Christ. God is the God of our ancestors, of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob: the long lists of names we utter solemnly in the canon of the mass are those of our ancestors in faith. An outward ritual of respect for ancestors, whether ecclesiastically canonized or not is both a human thing and a Christian thing and it is one of the great offer which we perhaps have hardly seen how to make use of.”12 God is the God of our ancestors: both Biblical and traditional. Our African ancestors in faith have no place in the Biblical ancestors of the old, because they did not come from the culture where the Bible was written. They were righteous in their own way because they acted in good faith and conscience and they professed the one true God as revealed to them in their religions. They are our black ancestors and we are their descendants. We cannot deny them and cannot deny their traditions or colour. We cannot change our culture or colour because we want to be Christian. Hence Emmanuel Milingo writes: “To convince me that I can only be a full Christian when I shall be well brought up in European civilization and culture is to force me to change my nature. If God made a mistake by creating me an African it is not yet evident.”13 The work of Christianity is not to reshape African culture and tradition, but to help African religions to see God in their religious beliefs, to worship God in spirit and in truth and not to discard what it does not understand. It is their work to plant Christian faith in the culture

10 11 12 13

Idowu, Towards and Indigenous Church, 7. Ekwuru, The Pangs of an African Culture Travail, 28. Hastings, Church and Mission in modern Africa, 67. Milingo, The World in Between, 74.

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of the people “…because faith that does not become culture is not fully accepted not entirely thought out, not faithfully lived.”14 Religion is a concept that helps human being to express the belief in the Supreme Being who is the source of human life. It existed in Africa before the coming of the missionaries. The missionaries did not teach Africans or the Igbo about God, rather they showed them a different way whereby God can be worshipped in spirit and in truth (Jn.4:23–24). We have different types of religions and different approaches to God. Religions are or can be equal and valid paths to the Supreme Being. They are unitary: they have single unitary Supreme Being behind the different plural religious phenomena. They are pluriform pluralists, meaning that they are different parts to different plural divine realities. They are ethical pluralists, meaning that they have different ethical forms. They should not be judged according to the conceptual pictures of the divine reality they profess.15 They should be understood as an intimate relationship with the Supreme Being from people with different religious mentalities. Mission should therefore be understood in terms of interaction and dialogue in order to understand other religions and not to impose one religion against the other. This shows that there are different approaches of religions, but all lead to the worship of one Supreme God. Christianity’s challenge to Igbo life in terms of the traditional and intellectual relevance has become a challenge to Christianity to demonstrate its spiritual credentials for what they are and to show how efficacious the spiritual credential are to provide a unified world of meanings to meet the needs of the people.16 This challenge is not a matter of taking the traditional customs of African culture and making the best one fit into Christianity. It is not a matter of African cultural values being mediated through Western culture and thought patterns. Rather it is to start from the reality of African context and see how the Gospel message can become a leaven to it.17 For the church in Africa to survive, it must be raised to the level of a reality that ought to be and a deed that ought to be. It must address itself, learn itself and regain control of itself in the face of the adversities and challenges surrounding it. It has to inculturate the people’s idea and notion of God and brings it to the practical belief of today’s Christian understanding. 14 15 16 17

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John Paul II, Ecclesia in Africa, 78. Gavin, Christianity and World Religions, 6f. Bediako, Christianity in Africa: The Renewal of a Non-Western Religion, 81. Healey and Sybertz, Toward an African Narrative Theology, 19.

The aspects of the lives of the people to be inculturated are the doctrinal tenets and liturgical worships. They can be summarized as follows: The strong beliefs in the Supreme Being, the super-sensible world, and life after death, the need for prayers, sacrifices and obedience to the deities etc, are the bridge through which the Church’s doctrines of Christ; Heaven, the Blessed Trinity, grace, the Mass and the sacramentals can be understood by the people. These will yield good results and bring richer spiritual fulfillment to the people. It is not possible to quantify the influence which this will bring on the general Christians, but it is undoubtedly an important factor.18 The people are religious and their knowledge of God as the Supreme Being did not start with the advent of the Western missionaries. The missionaries did not show the Africans the way to worship one God who created heaven and earth. The discovery of one God is innate in the religions found in Africa. There is no way the concept of God in African languages has ever described God in plural form, rather it is described in singular to prove the monotheistic conception of God. The religions speak and worship only one God who is eternal, transcendent and immanent, but human being tries to bring closer His ontological existence by creating the deities as the mediator between humanity and God. Religion is associated with humanity and African history did not start with the coming of the European missionaries. Some Europeans did not believe that Africans have any genuine religion; they termed African religions as paganism, heathenism, fetish or idolatry.19 They have unilateral conception of what they thought religion or tradition should be. Traditions, cultures, religions and social life existed in Africa before the contact with the European traders and the missionaries. These lives of the people were enshrouded in myths, mysteries and superstitious beliefs. It was the era of superstition over human rationality. Every religion went though this process before attaining the greater height of religious refinement in the modern era. The ideas of the myths, mysticism, rites and rituals found in the religions of the Africans are not out of place because they are the constitutive elements of religions. This is the first stage which all religions must pass through in order to attain the greater height of its refinement. Myths and mysteries give religion its meaning as a discipline that deals with humanity and the Supreme Being, and with the natural and the Supernatural.

18 19

Ozoigbo, Roman Catholicism in Southern Nigeria, 1885–1931, 376. Ibid., 26f.

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6.1 The Impacts of Christianity in Africa Especially Igboland There are both positive as well as negative impacts of Christianity in Africa. The coming of Christianity to Africa, especially Igboland has its influences too. Its positive influences are innumerable and highly appreciated among the people. In a summary form, it has helped to bring meaning into the lives of the people. It helps to bring education to the greater number of the people through the building of schools. It forestalls sanity to some of the extreme religious attitudes to mankind. It brings to the halt the killing of twins, human sacrifices and obnoxious practices of the people. It installs the worship of one God in spirit and in truth. It has also separated human daily activities from the dominance of traditional religion. Though it has its positive impacts, it has negative impacts too. When the missionaries came to Africa: “With their Eurocentric posture of superiority, they sought to study those ‘primitive’, ‘pagan’, ‘heathen’, ‘savage’ or barbaric tribes of Africa.”20 Because they do not understand the signs and the symbols of the people, they tend to treat everything pre-Christian as either harmful or at the best valueless and to consider the Africans who were once traditional religionists as a sort of tabularasa.21 It becomes evidently difficult for them to trust things they found in Africa. Their arrogance and the monopoly of truth, beauty and moral judgement make them to despise native customs and traditions and to seek to infuse into these societies their own values.22 This is one of the major ways of trying to wipe away the cultures of the people and replace them with the European culture, tradition as well as religion. It is quite unfortunate that Western Christianity often failed to distinguish itself sufficiently from the Western culture and the racist Western imperialism.23 This is one of the beginnings of its negative influence in Africa. Negatively, it destroys the traditionally deep religious lives of the people and also turned the moral values of the people in the wrong direction that worshipping of God becomes a mere formality to the people. It reduces religion to the status of social entity whereby the believer is identified as a church goer and not through one’s way of life. Some

20 21 22 23

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Ehusani, An Afro-Christian Vision, 77. See also, Twesigye, The African Origin of Human, Monotheism and Civilization, 16f. Hastings, Church and Mission in Modern Africa, 60. See also, McBride, Religion and Racism, 217f. Boesak, Coming in Out of the Wilderness, 82. Twesigye, The African Origin of Humanity, Monotheism and Civilization, 28f.

believers use the religion to cover their iniquities. They poison their fellow human beings through witchcraft and sorcery and find it difficult to swear with the local deities in pretence that they are Christians. They prefer to swear with the Bible and with the Blessed Sacrament than to swear with the gods and the deities of the land or to avail themselves ready for the traditional means of finding the truth. They have the conception that the Bible and the Blessed Sacrament do not kill, but the deities kill and the traditional ways of finding the truth more authentic than the Christian way. This is a degradation of Christianity. It means that Christianity is being turned into a social religion. Christian religion becomes an instrument of destruction to the moral and religious virtues of the people. Ikenga Ozigboh writes: “Christians unthinkingly helped to destroy the beliefs and practices that appealed to the forces outside man. The people were alienated from their ancestral religious mooring and were forced to despise wholesale their traditional religion. The expatriate missionaries sought to pull down all traditional institutions in order to replace them with those that were Christians and Western.”24 These were done under the guise that traditional things were devilish. The tendency to criticize and condemn everything they saw was due to ignorance, because they cannot understand the values of those symbols and they make caricature of them. They failed to see or realize some enormous positive values in African traditional religions because they come from a culture and tradition that is quite different. Having the conception that everything black is bad; they come to conclude that nothing good can come from Africa. Though there are bad practices among the peope, but there are some good concepts or beliefs that ought to be transported in order to make the Gospel of Christ real and authentic among the people. These are: the belief in one God, reverence to the ancestors, the concept of prayer, community and solidarity, the family system, respect for elders, the spirit of hospitality, Igbo cultural songs, drums and dancing, recognition of authentic title holders, the notion of life and the respect for the dead. These can help to deepen the message of Christ and its understanding among the people can lead to the solidification of their faith. The church should be more open in her interactions with other religions through dialogue because religious worship is finite and relative. This relativity is bound in our religious beliefs, liturgical language, scriptural translations, theological knowledge, and the doctrinal formulation.25 The aknowledgebility of other good 24 25

Ozoigbo, Roman Catholicism in Southern Nigeria 1885–1931, 32. Twesigye, The Problem of the Antiquated Patriarchal Theological Language and the Controversy of the New Inclusive Language, 145.

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values in other culture can help the Christian religion to grow in Africa without loosing the essence Christ gave her.

6.2 Christianity in Africa According to the Mind of Christ Africans have the right to the true faith instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ. They have the right to become Christians in their own way as Africans while remaining totally Africans.26 They have to come to Christ with the traditions, cultures and the social ways of life found in Africa and not with European cultures and traditions. These should be transformed and not to be replaced with what is found in Europe, thereby subjecting Christianity in Africa under European cultures and traditions. It is true that Christ did not initiate liturgical rites and gestures before his death and ascension into heaven. “The history of the development of the Catholic liturgy is full of how rites and gestures and words etc were taken over from pagan worship and utilized for Christian worship.”27 This is the beginning of inculturation in the history of the church. This inculturation should continue in Africa. The church in African should give consideration to the traditional, social and the cultural lives of the people in its ways of worship. They have the right to approach Christ culturally and worship God with what is found in Africa. The right of Africans to become Christians is not subject to the alienation of their traditions and cultures, but rather inculturation and adaptation is suggested. They have the right to experience Christ in their traditional and cultural understanding. They have to present themselves to Christ in their colours, traditions and cultures and have them refined according to the mind of Christ and not according to the minds of the European missionaries who evangelized them. Their rites and rituals should be put into consideration when necessary. “Christianity has been the religion of a culture – that is to say, it has had an organic relation with the social and moral structure of one particular society of peoples…. It has been the official creed of Western man, it has moulded his institutions, ruled his education and either created or influenced his moral values and his spiritual ideals.”28 But evangelization is not the spreading of a superior culture but the spreading of the

26 27 28

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Blomjous Joseph, The Christian Response, Africa’s Right, 74. Onwubiko, Christian Mission and Culture in Africa Vol. II, Theory and Practice of Inculturation, 76. Dawson, The Movement of World Revolution, 69.

Gospel message of Christ. Even when the missionary comes from such a culture, he/she is only a product of the culture and cannot pretend to be a bearer of that culture in its totality.29 The missionary is the bearer of Christ whom he/she represents before the people. He/she is the light that points toward Christ and not to the culture of one’s birth. The Gospel of Christ came from a particular culture and tradition: Jewish tradition. It has its doctrinal influence from the Jewish culture and tradition. In the parables and the teaching of Jesus Christ, he made use of what was found in the Jewish culture. His teachings were down to earth, and he made use of the things which the people knew already. The church as we know it today is not as it was from the beginning. It was deeply impregnated by the Romans. In Rome, many of its liturgical rites and rituals were influenced by the pagan practices. They transferred the pagan rites and worship to the Christian worship. This is inculturation in practice and not in theory. They should be extended to other parts of the world especially to Africa. Tradition and the culture are necessary in forming the doctrinal structure or tenet of any religion. The Gospel of Christ does not profess the abstract teaching of God who lives in the mind of the thinker, but the God who lives and meets His people in their endeavour and involves Himself in their life’s problems. He is the God who identifies with His people in their sufferings as well as in their happiness and in their defeats as well as in their victories. It does not preach the abstract God whose dealings with the people negate their multi-traditional or cultural ways of life. It preaches the God, who created the world and its diversities, approaches and communicates to the people differently by revealing the same truth about Himself in various ways and forms through which the people can understand and appreciate Him. He is therefore the God who created multiplicity of races, cultures, traditions and religions and want them to approach Him in a diversified form: diversity in unity. He is at the centre of religious diversities and the creator of plurality of cultures, traditions and religions. God is the same everywhere but He is presented in different ways and forms. Christ came and revealed Him in a unique way for us to know, experience and encounter. Revelation is not a magic, but it occurs in a particular time with concrete persons and communities. In the theological language, revelation is the experience of God communicating His very being to us. The experience of the revelation or self communication implies that God entered into a relationship 29

Onwubiko, Christian Mission and Culture in Africa Vol. II, Theory and Practice of Inculturation, 78.

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with our ancestors in faith.30 God’s self-communication and the establishment of covenant relationship take place in and through culture. Hence to understand the God who reveals and the self-communication offered, we must pay attention to the historical context or culture of the people. Cultures, both traditional and modern, remain the locus for God’s past, present and future revelation.31 This is the historical nature of God’s revelation through cultural tradition. The revelation of God was perfected in Jesus Christ who instituted Christian religion. The religion is not an abstract religion without culture or tradition, but a practical religion founded on Jewish tradition and culture. On the foundation of Christianity on Pentecost, people from various tribes, traditions and cultures were present (Acts 2:5–10). Their nationalities were not denied. They assembled together for the celebration of the Pentecost and it was in this assembly that the church of Christ was established because Pentecost is the birthday of Christianity. This shows that the church of Christ is not a monolithic society; rather it is the people of God made up of series of local churches that contribute to the richness of the universal church.32 The religion crossed boundaries of traditions, cultures, races and languages to reach Igboland; therefore it is not expected to be exactly as the Jews and the Romans practice it with their traditional ways of life. No. The religion has its own unique identity. The accidents of the religion can change but not its substance. Christianity in Africa ought to be African in a unique way but with the identity of Christ or Christian identity.

6.3 The Christian Identity Identity is defined as a sense of interior unity and continuity lasting in time and in various circumstances. It is immutable.33 It applies distinctness or distinctiveness from one reality to another.34 Christian identity applies to each and every Christian irrespective of the race, class, age, geographical location or denominational affiliation. It gives to each inalienable identity of sameness which cuts across and transcends all such identities as, Africanness, Asianness, Europeanness or Americanness. Transcending all boundaries, it also renders null and void all

30 31 32 33 34

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Orabator, Theology Brewed in an African Pot, 13f. Schineller, A Handbook on Inculturation, 46. Mushete, Unity of Faith and Pluralism in Theology, 52. Obiefuna, Titles and Conflicts of Identity in the Igbo Christian, 61. Magesa, African Religion in the Dialogue Debate, 22.

other identity traits in their discriminatory tendencies based on race, class and sex. It assumes and transforms them into the new identity of God’s children giving each a sameness of identity in Christ since all become ‘one person in Christ’.35 Identity permits a definite identification in the physiological sense. Identification is the differentiation that takes place in the whole. It comprises of human desires for recognition, the quest for visibility, the sense of being acknowledged and the deep desire for association.36 A person who has no identity does not exist37 and a religion without identity has no existence. Identity shows where one comes from and what or who one is. Christ is the same everywhere and every time. He did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it (Matt. 5:17–19). He did not come to abolish other cultures or traditions, but to fulfill them too. What is required from a Christian is the identity of Christ and to live good life for the sake of the kingdom. The real Christian identity is faith in Christ Jesus. St. Paul says: “Do you think that God is the God only for the Jews and not of Gentiles too? Most certainly of Gentiles too, since there is only one God; he will justify the circumcised by their faith and he will justify the uncircumcised through their faith” (Rm.3:29–30). Circumcision as the law of the Jew has failed to become a yardstick for the salvation of the non Jews. Paul is advocating that the Jewish ways of life and identity should not be imposed on the culture of other Christian believers. God justifies people according to their faith and belief. He puts no distinction since He purified the hearts of the believer by faith (Act.15:9). Faith in Jesus Christ is what is necessary. Therefore culture has failed to be a yardstick for universal religion and salvation. And on the other hand, it has affirmed the authenticity of good things found in other cultures. When religion crosses its traditional and cultural boundaries, it has to be prepared to lose some of its accidents so as to accept people with different traditional or cultural perspectives. Without this, the religion cannot be flexible and therefore cannot be universal. Religion that should be prepared to marry with the customs and the cultures of the people should not be stiff. The religion has to be firm with regard to its doctrines and flexible with regard to some of its principles or accidents that were shaped by the traditions and the cultures of its foundation. When religion is firm and flexible, it loses some of its accidents without losing its identity or doctrinal tenets. Every religion has its own identity and every culture has its own identity too. The identity of every religion is its central point and cannot be 35 36 37

Okure, Christian Identity and the Challenge of Authenticity, 175. Lenzin, Loyalty and Belonging: Reflection on Moslem Identity in Europe, 46. Orabator, Theology Brewed in an African Pot, 16.

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changed. The identity of Christian religion is the identity one has in the fellowship or union with Christ. One gets this identity through baptism. It is the identity one has in Judaism that makes one a Jew. The fundamental identity for the Orthodox Jew is circumcision. In the Islamic world, it is the identification one has with Mohammad in the profession of Allah and acknowledgement of Mohammad that makes one a Moslem. One does not receive religious identity from birth, but rather by identification with the tenets of the religion. “As one receives one’s natural identity from birth, not by acquisition so too does one receives his/her fundamental Christian identity from spiritual birth, at baptism through water and the Holy Spirit. Baptism makes one indeed God’s child, born of God in a birth that is as real as natural birth from one’s mother.”38 To have Christian identity does not imply a rejection of or treating with contempt those who do not openly share the same identity. This is what Emmanuel Umeh calls “Religious Motivated Terrorism.”39 Christian identity would lead Christians individually and collectively to hold in great respect people of other faith, even admiring them for their own commitment to their authentic identity in God centred faith traditions.40 For the authentic Christians, there can be only one Christ and one Gospel. Anyone who goes contrary, preaches another Christ (Gal.1:6–9). And there is only one Lord, one faith and one baptism, and one God and Father of all, through all and within all (Eph.4:5–6). Christianity that is not rooted in Christ or whose identity and scope are lacking in the basic Christian spirit of the Gospel hardly deserves the name Christianity.41 This means that all Christians have a unique identity in Christ. The union with Christ is brought about by baptism and that is why it is called the sacrament of initiation. By baptism we become incorporated into Christ as members of his body,42 enlighten by him and made fruitful in good works. It removes the guilt of sin and the depths of punishment which are obstacle to one’s entrance into heaven.43 Christ and his teachings are the centre of and the pivotal point of Christianity. It is Christ that unifies Christianity and not the cultures and the traditions. One cannot discard the culture of one’s birth and borrow the culture and the tradition where Christianity started; otherwise one lives on a borrowed

38 39 40 41 42 43

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Okure, Christian Identity and the Challenge of Authenticity, 174. Umeh, Injustice and War on Terrorism, 27f. Okure, Christian Identity and the Challenge of Authenticity, 197. Ibid., 180. Ibid., 174. Gratsch, Aquinas` Summa, An Introduction and Interpretation, 249.

robe. One can never be comfortable with the religion that is strange to ones tradition and culture because it can never be part and parcel of him/her.

6.4 Religious Crises in Igboland Christianity in Igboland has never known united Christianity but rather, divided Christianity. Christ intention or prayer of oneness to all his believers: “I pray not only for these but also for those who through their teaching will come to believe in me. May they all be one, just as, Father you are in me and I in you so that they all may be in us, so that the world, may believe it was you who sent me” (Jn.17:20–21) is yet to be realized. This prayer is far remote in Africa especially in Igboland because those who brought the Gospel message were already divided before bringing it to the people. “From this heritage, African Christians have never known anything but a divided Christianity. Not only did the policy of divide and rule wrack political havoc in the continent, but the implanting and inculcating of divided Christianity left lasting adverse marks on African Christian identity as part of its inheritance.”44 This division has infiltrated into the traditional, political and social lives of the people. The rivalry between the missionaries especially Catholics and Protestants seriously divided Igbo communities.45 There is lack of unity among Christians because the early missionaries who came with the divided Gospel of Christ institutionalized it through doctrinal tenets. Elizabeth Isichei writes: “To evangelical Protestants, the Catholics brought a religion tainted with idolatory. To the Catholics, the Protestant missions were simply converting pagans into heretics.”46 They taught the people to hate those from another denomination and within the given denomination to hate those from another nation. African Christians grew up ignorant of their mitochondrion identity in Christ and the truth that as Christians, their core identity was their love for one another, and their unity as brothers and sisters in Christ.47 It is facts that not only did the missionaries deliberately or out of pious ignorance, seek to impose Western culture upon Africans, but they also brought a divided Christianity. They brought a Christianity that has lost much of its credibility to materialism. They

44 Okure, Christian Identity and the Challenge of Authenticity, 182. 45 Isichei, A History of the Igbo People, 170. 46 Ibid. 47 Okure, Christian Identity and the Challenge of Authenticity, 182f.

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brought enlightenment Christianity which had consigned to near-independent compartments, the spiritual and the material, the sacred and the profane, science and religion.48 The Christianity they brought to Africa had lost the essence of Christianity instituted by Christ: love one another even the enemies. With this divided Christianity, Africa has turned out to be a battle ground for religious and political purposes. The religious climate in Africa is no less cataclysmic. Oliver Onwubiko affirms that they succeded in institutionalizing misformed and unformed Christians. For him, “These were Christians who were sacralized without being properly evangelized nor their means of their continued education in the faith assured.”49 Africa has not only been a dumping ground of all religious systems, sects and movements from East and West, but also has been their battle ground. As if the crisis of ethnicism among many African peoples are not enough, new religious affiliations has pitched brothers against each other in bitter rivalry and in countries where religious clashes have not taken the dimension of a full-scale war, there have been at least hundreds of lives lost in sporadic religious skirmishes. The result of all these is that human life is becoming increasingly cheaper by the day.50 This is the effect of the religion that ought to propagate peace, love and unity. African Christians, especially in Nigeria, nurture unfriendly or suspicious attitudes towards one another, because that is what they were taught from the beginning of their birth as Christians.51 Some were born into this situation. They became prejudiced against others and the version of their Christianity without knowing anything about it.52 This made it impossible to nurture the inter-personal encounter between members of Christian faith. The believers fight each other with the traditional religions. In this situation they forget the essence of religion: the lovely encounter between human being and the supernatural. Then we may ask whether religion (Christianity and Islam) have become a blessing or a curse to the people of Africa or Igboland? In Igboland confusion often arises because of the self-sufficiency and lack of love and respect for other members of the church. Some fanatics who called themselves ‘born again’ constantly kick against the doctrines and the teachings of other

48 49 50 51 52

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Ikenga-Metuh, “African World View as ‘Preparatio Evangelica’: An Appraisal” Vol. I, 3. Onwubiko, Building Unity Together in the Mission of the Church, 132. Ehusani, An Afro-Christian Vision, 21. Okure, Christian Identity and the Challenge of Authenticity, 185. Onwubiko, Building Unity Together in the Mission of the Church, 134.

churches.53 This is against the teaching or the mind of Christ. In spite of the divided Christianity brought by the missionaries, evangelization becomes a crusade and an execution of planned change programs in which the acceptance of faith is one of the forces of change. Social promotion and the creation of a new cultural environment become necessary as some missionaries believed for the practice of the Christian faith. Effort is geared to realizing the pre-determined goal without allowing any scope for the working of the Holy Spirit in the new and entirely different cultural life of those to be evangelized.54 But the main thing should have been, to establish love between the member of the church and with the traditional worshippers and not the establishment of churches and drawing battle field between one another. Religion is the field of lovely encounter between human being and the supernatural. This encounter has to be attuned with the traditional and cultural lives of the people. There is always something intrinsically good in every religion and when it is in its primitive or natural stage, there is bound to be excesses which need refinement and moderation. Some of the missionaries who came to Igboland to mission thought that everything found among the people is devilish and should be discarded. They failed to see the relativity of religion, culture and tradition. They failed to see the values embedded in the traditional and cultural lives of the people. They believed that in both religion and culture they had something better to offer: Traditional religion would have to be replaced by Christianity and traditional cultural institutions and customs would have to give way to the proven and scientifically responsible institutions and forms. With this mindset, Christianity as a mission or religion had no need for dialogue with representative of traditional religion and culture. Their attitude was ‘take it or leave it’.55 Their conception of God is typically un-African and has led a believer to say: “He is so high that He has no time for the petty problems of an African, who hardly knows the proper language to use as he speaks to Him, and who thinks He will never have a chance to hear his voice…. We leave Him in the church on Sunday and ask our ancestral gods to accompany us for the rest of the week….. They obliged us to keep silence for eight days. Does it take so long to speak to God?”56 This attitude to religion has led some people religiously stranded and confused because they no longer

53 54 55 56

Udoette, Towards a Theology of Charismata for Nigerian Church, 22. Onwubiko, Christian Mission and Culture in Africa Vol. II, Theory and Practice of Inculturation, 147. Verstraelen, Western Africa: Between Traditional and Modern, 77. Millingo, The World in Between, 77.

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know where to go. It can lead to the crises of religion and what may be called the rape of African tradition and religion. It leads also to syncretism57 among the people.

6.5 Syncretism in Igbo Neo-Christian Religion Syncretism is considered as the blending of religious elements from various religious traditions.58 It is an attempt to combine different or opposite doctrines or practices especially in reference to philosophical and religious systems. It is found in many religions of the world. Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) frown at it. In the history of these religions, syncretism has raised its head in one way or the other and they are always careful to avoid it. It is understood to be any fusion of various beliefs or practices.59 People are inclined to syncretism when there is confusion in understanding the message of their belief and applying it to other religious practices in order to concretise their day to day living. It is the misunderstanding of the message of the Gospel. There is an influx of syncretism in the Catholic Church in Igboland. Because there is no proper catechesis or incarnation of the Gospel as regards the faith and belief in the Catholic doctrine, many priests have gone back to the old notion of Igbo traditional priesthood. In Igbo traditional religion, the priest is conceived as the one who offers sacrifice (Onye Nchuaja), the one who heals as medicine man (Dibia Ogwu) and the one who looks into the mind of the future as a diviner (Dibia Afa) and narrates it to the people. Some priests want to combine all these, involving themselves both in the celebration of the Eucharist, in healing ministry: physical, psychological and spiritual healings (casting away evil spirit), sometimes subjecting many people to inhuman treatment in the name of healing and in foretelling the future of the people. They act as diviners (Ogba afa) in telling the people who is the cause of their problems and also the spirits disturbing them in their various families or who they should marry or not. These are as a result of improper catechesis and the neglect of the cherished values of the people. Because

57

58 59

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There are different types of Syncretism. We shall discuss religious syncretism which is the combination of two or more religious beliefs or traditional systems that are quite distinct from one another. In this situation, the essence of the religions becomes distorted. Vorgrimler, Neues Theologisches Wöterbuch, 610. Cross, “Syncretism”, 1314.

it is financially lucrative, they play on the ignorance of the people to achieve their aim. They forget that wealth is luring and at the same time deceiving.60 In Igboland, the uses of sacramentals have been abused. Because some of the values found in African religions have been condemned and brought back in a foreign form or in accordance with the European way of life, they have syncretised and used to replace the charms that were taken away from them. The church rejects the use of the local charms, but now the people have replaced them with medals, scapulars, rosaries and holy water.61 They do not serve the purpose as sacramentals anymore; rather they become instrument of weapon and protection for those who use them. They have assumed “…a magical dimension, when holy water, crucifix, sticker and religious emblems are ascribed magical powers against thieves and enemies. In this way they assume the role of charms.”62 It is a fact that some people have gone to the extent of burying some of these sacramentals on the ground as a way of protecting their family members or attracting customers. This is the spirit and the mentality of old Igbo traditional religion and a rape of the Gospel of Christ. The most ignominable aspect of these acts is, most of these are being perpetuated by the priests. They play on the ignorance of the people. With this socio-religious development, a new kind of idolatry worship has emerged.63 They constitute a great danger to the faith of the people and also to the Catholic orthodoxy. These were what priests do in old Igbo traditional religion. People see relevance to what they do because it is the traditional culture of the Igbo traditional priests to offer sacrifice, to heal and to divine when necessary. These aspects of priestly functions were neglected but they are being brought back in another form by some believers and priests because of improper inculturation or incarnation of the Gospel. Syncretism is, the message of the Gospel has been transmitted in its purity; it is felt without any compromise with paganism or the culture of the people. One can give these neophytes everything they need, trust them with all manners of responsibility except the responsibility for the Gospel and the preservation of its integrity and purity. They could not have been entrusted with the safeguarding of the authenticity of their own faith. The risk would have been too great.64 But when the faith or the belief is contextualized or inculturated, the

60 61 62 63 64

Ndiukwu, In His Riches Man Lacks Wisdom, 39. Ozigboh, Roman Catholicism in Southern Nigeria 1885–1931, 276. Udoye, Resolving the Prevailing Conflict between Christianity and African (Igbo) Traditional Religion through Inculturation, 251. Ibid., 252. Boulaga, Christianity Without Fetishes, 70.

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people will find meaning to what they belief in and have the will power to defend it. These things happen because the missionaries condemned everything they did not understand. Syncretism occurs where collections of objects, rites, or institutions are transmitted - where the future is rejected in the name of a settled acquisition, which one has no desire to modify or lose. It accumulates things, juxtaposes things, without transfiguring them in accordance with the exigencies and form, figure and locus. It is the formless, the amorphous forms of belief, that which is compatible with whatever one pleases, because it has no organizing structure of its own, no concern for internal consistency. It is an emulation of trifles and vacuities.65 It is when there is frustration, no understanding and direction that the people tend to syncretism. The way out of this religious adulteration is proper evangelization and inculturation.

6.6 Inculturation of the Gospel into the Lives of the People The theological foundation of inculturation is the conviction of faith that the word of God transcends the cultures in which it has found expression and has the capacity of being spread to other cultures. It also means incarnation. Through incarnation, “God indeed meets people where they are. And He goes in the form that they can relate with. When He goes to meet slum-dwellers, God does not dress up in the garb of the rich and the powerful monarch. He goes to the slums and shanty-towns as a wretched and oppressed person. The social contexts in which the people live constitute the locus of God’s self-communication, the place of divine encounter. Christianity is not a matter of a pie in the sky. It is the religion that has the incarnation at its very centre. For the simple believer, the incarnation means that the son of God became man, so that the children of men can live more fulfilled lives. It means that human beings are so important in the sight of God that He chose to become a human being in order to save them. The incarnation means that God now lives with His people. He is Immanuel. He is God with us. He wants to lift His people from the depth of humiliation, from the pit of shame, to the height of dignity, to the glory of God.”66 This is what the incarnation means. Every incarnation ought to be understandable to the people. God can only appear to the black people in their true colour and culture in order to redeem them. Jesus Christ took the form of 65 66

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Ibid., 71. Ehusani, A Prophetic Church, 47f.

humanity in order to redeem them. For Jesus Christ to manifest himself in African culture, he has to be incarnated and not be transported or imposed. The theology from above is imposition, but the theology from below is incarnation, and what Africa needs is theology from below. The theology from above is what exterminated Christianity in North Africa that produced many great Christian theologians like: Augustine of Hyppo, Cyprain of Carthage, Clement of Alexandria and many others. God cannot be worshipped properly outside the traditions and the cultural means of the people. Inculturation includes two dimensions: the intimate transformation of authentic cultural values through their integration in Christianity and the insertion of Christianity in various human cultures.67 The first stage of inculturation is translating the inspired scripture into another language. Translation has to follow by interpretation which has to do with interpreting the ways of feeling, thinking, living and self-expression which are proper to the local culture. The word of God becomes the seed which extracts from the local culture where it is planted. Inculturation in the lives of the people should be broad-minded.68 It is an on-going process which interacts itself with three cultures: the divine culture, the human culture and the church culture.69 These three cultures are brought together in a proper understanding. It denotes a cultural transformation of faith, which is at the same time a redemptive innovation of culture. It is through this understanding that faith and culture collaborate to overcome cultural crises. Then and only then, that the local church discovers its own identity as fully indigenous and authentically Christian.70 The remedy to syncretism as a means of evangelization cannot be found in conservative purism of the Christian faith. One should not revert fully to the scriptures, traditions or the writings of the constitutions; they are not the solution to sycreticism. It decomposes itself when it is approached in a proper way. Syncretism most surely appears when Christianity contents itself with commemorating, glossing and repeating the rites of the Gospel in a traditional manner. It will be avoided where the revelation is received not after the fashion of the content or deposit, but as a project, as mode of re-creation and renewal of the face of the earth and itself into the bargain. What is received by way of tradition can be received only by inserting it into new dynamics, by giving it a point of departure in that which already is, by refashioning conditions and planting it there. 67 68 69 70

John Paul II, Ecclesia in Africa, 59. Nwachukwu, Special Mission of African Theology, 62. Healey and Sybertz, Toward an African Narrative Theology, 28. Puthenkalam, Reflections on Christian Identity, 120.

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The simple transfer of belief and already constituted institutions in response to questions and tasks of another age and situation will be syncretistic every time.71 The people have great value to their traditions and cultures and they respect them more than the imported concepts or values. They find a way to bring them back when unjustly removed from them. Peter Schineller writes: “Inculturation makes us particularly aware of the incarnation. Jesus was a Jew, born into a specific culture, time and place. As he interacted with his culture, religion and secular, learning from it and criticizing it, so we must do the same…. The pattern of the incarnation is the pattern for inculturation.”72 Christ was incarnated into the sinful world and his journey of our redemption did not neglect the culture and the tradition of his people. We have to perfect what is in our culture and move with them to Christ. It calls for deep association with Jesus Christ who says: “I am the way, I am truth and life. No one can come to the Father except through me” (Jon.14:6). In inculturation, one must always turn to Christ, his life and his message. These cannot be inculturated. There is need for inculturating the Gospel of Christ into other cultures. Through inculturation one builds up local communities and churches that are alive and active. It creates a situation where local churches can feel free and be responsible for their own lives in all aspects. Inculturation cannot be thought of without the active involvement of the whole church in the situation of the masses: the marginalized.73 The church and the people who have the culture are the principal agents of inculturation. In this situation, the church has to shifts from its hierarchical centred to lay-centred, without denying the necessary but distinctive role of the official hierarchy of the church. Inculturation of Christianity is indispensable. “It is a process by which a particular church expresses its faith and life in and through the local culture. The result is a mutual enrichment on the one hand, the local culture receives a new dynamism; on the other hand, fresh new ways of understanding and living the Christian faith are opened up.”74 It has to be in correlation between the Gospel and the culture, between the kingdom proclaimed by Jesus and the sublime ethos of the local cultures. Christianity at the level of inculturation implies that the individual moves from the stage of the passive receiver of the message of faith to that of the dynamic acceptance of its obligations in the community. He becomes not 71 72 73 74

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Boulaga, Christianity Without Fetishes, 71. Schineller, A Handbook on Inculturation, 48. Madappatu, Evangelization in a Marginalizing World, 65. Puthenkalam, Reflections on Christian Identity, 121.

just a participant in the community of faith, but practically committed to it with the community and in the community that moves in communion with the universal pilgrim church. He does not just believe but lives the faith; then the culture ceases to be mere proclamation but real actualization of its message and the faith becomes alive in good work.75 In the process of inculturation the people should be free to experiment, create and even to make mistakes. The local church has to create freedom and trust and to facilitate the emergence of the creative forces of the people. Inculturation is a growth from below and not an imposition from above. The people are the agents of inculturation and in their struggle for existence and thirst for liberation, they may even adopt ways and means that are not appropriate or proper, that may create tension in the community, and are to be timely checked and controlled by the promoters.76 One is bound to make mistakes in the process. It takes longer time to arrive at a meeting point between the church and the culture. There is need for patience and tolerance from each other so as to achieve positive result at last. The last result is the enrichment of the culture through the Gospel of Christ and the enrichment of the Gospel message through the culture of the people. Hence Pope John Paul II writes: “By respecting, preserving and fostering the particular values and riches of your people’s cultural heritage, you would be in a position to lead them to a particular understanding of the mystery of Christ, which is also to be lived in the noble, concrete and daily experiences of African life. There is no question of adulterating the word of God, or of emptying the cross of its power (1Cor1:17), but rather of bringing Christ into the very centre of African life and of lifting up all African life to Christ. Thus not only is Christianity relevant to Africa, but Christ, in the member of his Body, is himself African.”77

6.6.1 Inculturation of Christianity among the Igbo “Inculturation is a movement towards full evangelizaiton. It seeks to dispose people to receive Jesus Christ in an integral manner. It touches them on the personal, cultural, economic and political levels so that they can live a holy life in total union with God the father through the action of the Holy Spirit.”78 It includes the whole life of the

75 76 77 78

Onwubiko, Christian Mission and Culture in Africa Vol. II, Theory and Practice of Inculturation, 165. Madappatu, Evangelization in a Marginalizing World, 65. John Paul II, Ecclesia in Africa, 127. Ibid., 62.

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church and the whole progress of evangelization. It includes theology, liturgy, the churche’s life and structure.79 Every culture needs transformation from the Gospel of Christ. This transformation helps them to understand and worship God in a unique way. The Igbo are more interested in practical spirituality and not in theoretical spirituality. When we talk about inculturation of Christianity into the lives of the Igbo people, it is not all aspects of Christianity that ought to be inculturated. One does not talk about inculturation of the Christian identity. Inculturation involves all aspects of Christian worship: the language, music, vestments, arts, spirituality, forms of religious life, style and forms of liturgy to reflect the local culture.80 This means that the cultural values of the people have to be integrated as one single system within the Christian community. Through inculturation, Jesus is communicated to the church in Igboland, through reading the signs of the time and responding to the crises of the age. The Christian faith was successful in Igboland because the faith or the belief of the people was already prepared to receive it. It becomes the continuation of what they had believed but in a different form. That which they had already believed should be encouraged and not be discarded. This is the principle of missionary accommodation which is the recognition of neutral and naturally good elements in non-Christian ways of life. It means that other cultures contain elements that are consistent with the Gospel. Accommodation insists that, the universal Church should allow local churches to incorporate such elements as part and parcel of the local Christian community’s behaviour. In fact, such neutral and naturally good elements may be employed as contact points with Christianity. They can form a useful and important bridge between Christianity and traditional religion.81 The central Christian theological themes like creation and incarnation ought to be adapted to the culture of the people. Sebastian Bakare argues: “When the missionaries who were of course products of their own time and their own culture came to Africa, they proclaimed a gospel enshrined and confined in the culture from which they came – which was not of course the culture in which the word was incarnated. They failed to see that incarnation speaks of God’s presence in every human culture. African Christians in turn need to draw on their own stories and idioms and proverbs in articulating a theology of incarnation that is born of their own world-view. This idea must then be brought to the ecumenical community, 79 Ibid. 80 Schineller, A Handbook on Inculturation, 24f. 81 Luzbetak, The Church and Cultures New Perspectives in Missiological Anthropology, 67. See also, Waldenfals, Akkomodation, 1. Schriftauslegung, 290f.

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not in order to suggest that it should be enshrined as a universal replacement for the understanding of the incarnation imposed by European theology, but as a gift to enrich the understanding of the whole community of the central Christian mystery of God’s becoming flesh and living among us.”82 This will bring originality to African spirituality and theology. But that does not nullify the fact of universal theology of the creation of the world and incarnation. The statement of Bakare will make more meaning to the people in explaining the presence of God among them. It also gives a deeper understanding of the incarnation: that Christ is incarnated in every culture and traditions, than in the abstract theology which the people will find difficult to understand. He calls it an imposition theology, meaning that whether the people understand it or not, they must accept it. The presence of Christ in every culture and tradition is supported by Karl Rahner in his comment on Lumen Gentium 16, where he propagated the theory of ‘anonymous Christian’ and ‘explicit Christian’. The ‘anonymous Christian’ in our sense of the term is the non-Christian, who lives in the state of Christ’s grace through faith, hope and love, yet who has no explicit knowledge of the fact that his/her life is orientated in grace-given salvation to Jesus Christ.83 Through the theory of ‘anonymous Christian’, Rahner justifies that God desires that all should be saved (1Tim. 2:4). Christ is innate in every culture. Through the incarnation, Christ wishes to be near to every people, every race and every culture. He wishes that he be manifested to the people through the resources available to them and through their ways of living. Thus while maintaining her distinct identity, unity and universality, the church manifests Christ in various ways and through various people.84 In the theory of the ‘anonymous Christian’ Karl Rahner senses that people may question about the authenticity of evangelization since all can attain salvation through respective culture and one’s own religion, he writes: “It would be quite foolish to think that this talk about ‘anonymous Christianity’ must lessen the importance of mission, preaching the word of God, baptizing, and so on. Anyone who wants to interpret our remarks about anonymous ‘Christianity’, in this way, has not merely fundamentally misunderstood them, but has not read our exposition of them with sufficient attention.”85 Using the broad sweeping approach of the systematic theology, he skillfully demonstrates how his theory is consistent 82 83 84 85

Bakare, The Drumbeat of Life, 4f. Rahner, Theological Investigations Vol. 14, 283. Nnoruka, Thy Kingdom Come, 205. Rahner, Theological Investigations Vol. 6, 396f.

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with the other main tenets of Christianity. The incarnation, the atonement, the uniqueness of the revelation of Christ, the human nature, the necessity of faith, the work of the Holy Spirit, the primacy of love and the mission of the Church are all neatly woven into his argument.86 So what Christianity does is basically that which makes salvation and revelation possible to all, because the revelation and the salvation of mankind are not only for a particular group of a historical period but for all people.87 All is destined to be saved by God who is the creator of all things.

6.7 The Belief in the Supreme Being, Deities and Ancestors God is not a stranger in Igboland. To deny His existence is a gross ignorance. But some people argue whether the knowledge of God in Africa can be said to be monotheistic, polytheistic or pantheistic. Those who think that it is monotheistic point to the one spread belief in a universal God, who is the creator and the provider. Those who think that it is polytheistic base their argument on the prominent role of the deities. While those who argue that they are best interpreted as a belief in one universal power, which manifests itself in different beings thus conclude that pantheism is the best label for African religions.88 The religion is monotheistic in form but polytheistic in outlook. It is definitely theistic. Igbo traditional religion is monotheistic. It has the Supreme Being at the head, then the deities and the ancestors are there as mediators between the Supreme Being and the people. These are agents of Chukwu. They are venerated and not worshipped. They play a dominant role in Igbo socio-political and cultural life. They occupy a central position in the activities of the Igbo because they are seen as vehicles that transport the peoples’ wishes to Chukwu. Chukwu is the recipient of all sacrifices offered in Igbo traditional religion. The universe is populated by numerous gods, goddesses, divinities, deities, spirit beings and ancestors. But these do not obscure the belief in one Supreme Being whose eternal will holds sway over the destiny of all creation.89 Humanity always wants to identify with God, not only to be united with Him but also to obtain great favours from Him and establish a personal relationship with Him. Joshua Golding

86 87 88 89

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Sau, Karl Rahner’s Concept of the ‘Anonymous Christian’, 38. Rahner, Grundkurs des Glaubens, 137. Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 103. Orabator, Theology Brewed in an African Pot, 21.

writes: “There are at least three different ways one might conceive of the good relationship with God: 1, Union with God, 2, obtaining some great good that is caused or explained by God, and 3, establishing an ‘interpersonal bond’ with God.”90 These three ways of conceiving God’s relationship cuts across the ontological views about God. The Igbo want to be in union with God that is why they find it difficult to disobey His precepts. They identify with God in a unique way in order to get whatever they want. They are pragmatic in their relationship with God. They present all their problems to God. They see God as One who should take care of their spiritual, psychological, moral and physical problems or ailments. They establish a bond of relationship with Him, seek His identity and partake in a meal that will establish this bond of relationship. They believe in Chukwu as the Supreme God whose power, essence and existence supersede others. They cannot leave Him behind because they know that nothing will protect them from God’s anger over the neglect.91 It will be ridiculous to think that the God of the Igbo is wood or stone.92 He is the creator of heaven and earth, He is the God Jesus Christ came to reveal. He is a Being who has caused, and continues to sustain the existence of all things in the universe. He has no external causal source.93 He created all things both visible and invisible, and they depend on Him. His ontological existence surpasses human intelligence that is why His history of creation is confined into myths. The myth is to reveal or to make intelligible the creation of the world and to bring into meaning that every created thing or being has its existence from God and at the end one goes back to the creator. The world becomes a part through which human being must pass in order to meet the creator. Chukwu is worshipped in a triangular formula. He has no priest, no altar and is not directly worshiped in Igbo traditional religions; rather He is approached through the intermediaries. These intermediaries mediate between God and human beings. They sacrifice to Chukwu through the lesser gods. “We make sacrifices to the little gods, but when they fail and there is no one to turn to we go to Chukwu…. We approach a great man through his servants…. Our fathers knew that Chukwu was the overlord and that is why many of them gave their children the name Chukwuka.”94 The existence of God is evident. He is the same

90 Golding, Rationality and Religious Theism, 55. 91 Achebe, Things Fall Apart, 103. 92 Ibid. 93 Golding, Rationality and Religious Theism, 37. 94 Achebe, Things Fall Apart, 127.

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God who is understood as Father in Christian religion. “Chukwu is a loving Father and need not to be feared by those who do his will.”95 Hence Emmanuel Milingo writes: “God is Father because He protects His children and is accessible to them.”96 If this conception and the notion of God can be incarnated into the faith of the people, they will understand the essence of Chukwu in a peculiar way.

6.7.1 Other Spiritual Deities There are many ‘deities’ of varying grades and powers who mediate between God and humanity. The oral tradition has it that God is everywhere and embracing all creation. His presence is mediated through the deities. He created the heaven and the earth; He is in heaven and handed the earth over to mankind. The land is to be respected, loved and looked after so that succeeding generations may benefit from it. The land comprise of both the rivers, tress and the fruits of the earth.97 God handed over the land to Ala deity. She is the greatest and the most influential deity in Igboland. She is the most significant and the most cherished among all Igbo deities. There are others like, Igwe who is in-charge of the sky, the Amadioha is in-charge of the rain and the thunder, the Anyanwu is in-charge of the Sun, etc. They have their responsibilities and assignments from God. These are pure spirits whose existences come from God. They are in-charge of the natural phenomena and they are the instruments of God’s anger and mercy. Then we have the ancestors.

6.7.2 The Ancestors as Intermediaries The ancestors are one of the medium of the triangular relationship with Chukwu. Ancestry is the principles which guide human aspirations and fullness of human development. It is the link between the imperishable and the perishable aspect of human existence, it operates as a penultimate principle or a principle close to ultimate reality itself.98 They were humans before being transcended into spiritual beings. On the level of mankind, they have shared the life of flesh and blood with humanity. They were involved in worldly human affairs. They have experienced sufferings, hardships, and even death. On the spiritual level, they are

95 96 97 98

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Ibid., 128. Milingo, The World in Between, 75. Bakare, The Drumbeat of Life, 5. Abanuka, A New Essay on African philosophy, 26.

sharing imperishability with the ultimate reality. The privilege of being with the ultimate reality offers them great opportunity to influence human existence either positively or negatively. It is a remarkable honour which they have achieved through their positive contributions in their communities and groups. The respect or reverence they receive depends on the level of their accomplishment.99 There is indissoluble relationship between them and humanity. They receive greater attention from the people because they believe that: “They were in the flesh, thus they were no strangers to the problems of time and change. They claim something with the individual and the ultimate reality. They share the imperishability of the ultimate reality at the same time they were closely connected with the individuals at the level of humankind.”100 They lived honourably, died good death and received proper burial and funeral rites. They are happy and contented in the spirit world.101 They are not worshipped, rather they are venerated.

6.7.3 Theological Interpretation of Ancestral Veneration African ancestral life symbolizes an eschatological goal for the human destiny that point to eternity and perfect fulfilment. The Christian teaching on the communion of the saints can be built on African belief in ancestral vitality and active participation, after the later has been purified.102 They are often associated with God in prayer. It is not that they are gods, but as the chief is approached through the intermediaries so prayers may go to God through the ancestors and other spirits. Geoffrey Parrinder points out: “Prayers made directly to the ancestors may be longer than prayers to God, for they know all the intimate family concerns and will pass on to God the most pressing needs. They may be thought to answer prayers themselves, but only if God is willing.”103 Their power and ability to answer prayer or offer help to mankind depend on God. They have no power outside God and cannot deliver without God. One is always more disposed in prayer to the ancestors than in praying to God. One is informal in praying to the ancestors but formal in praying to God. One comes to the presence of God with trembling and fear, but one is open, free and relaxed with the ancestors.

99 100 101 102 103

Ibid., 37. Ibid., 39. Ozigboh, Roman Catholicism in Southern Nigeria 1885–1931, 30. Banzikiza, The Pastoral Approach to African Traditional Values of Fecundity and Marriage, 87. Parrinder, Religion in Africa, 68.

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They can be considered as Martyrs and Saints in Christian perspective. The Saints and Martyrs are the Christian churches’ most famous ancestors and the living dead. The feast day of individual Saints are opportunities to recapture the memory of the church’s living spiritual ancestry. These graced moments are a time to remember and celebrate the charism of those who have gone before the present generation.104 As regards traditional ancestors, they claim the attention of individuals because they have passed through the vagaries of time and change in the community. In their human life, they were not spectators, but remarkable actors.105 They have kept the laws and the customs of the land. There are anonymous ancestors, just as we have the feast of All Saints in the Catholic Church. They did not make any distinct mark, but they lived good lives and were obedient to the customs, laws and the traditions of the community. They receive libation too.106 It is evident that the feast of All Saint is meant for those who are not canonized by the church, though they did not make any remarkable impact but they lived good lives. The Saints and the Martyrs are not the gods and the goddesses in the Church of God, rather they are those who distinguished themselves in a unique way, committed to Christ, lived the Gospel and kept the commandments of God and the church, some even died for the Gospel of Christ. It is an elevation to be honoured as a Saint or a Martyr. In African religions, there are souls of the deceased who do not attain eternal bliss. They remain unhappy and discontented and roam the world, tormenting and harassing people. They are those who have not made it to the ancestral home, they do not experience satisfaction and fulfillment. They are cast out or cut off from all relationship with God and with their kith and kin. They are said to be restless disgruntled and wandering evil spirits, causing mischiefs to their relations and neighbours because they are embittered for their exclusion from the ancestral home.107 They are the evil spirits. They come nearest to the Igbo conception of the Judeo-Christian devils.108 The ancestors are considered to be Christian ancestors and part of the communion of the Saints.109 They have reached their final destination in the spiritual world. They are happy in their new state of life for they lived fulfilled life. Fulfillment is not sought in the material comfort, but the fact that one has reached home

104 105 106 107 108 109

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Healey and Sybertz, Toward an African Narrative Theology, 216. Abanuka, A New Essay on African philosophy, 51. Ibid., 38. Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 266. Ozigboh, Roman Catholicism in Southern Nigeria, 1885–1931, 30. Healey and Sybertz, Toward an African Narrative Theology, 213.

and occupies one’s rightful place among one’s own people, in the ancestral land is a thing of joy. One finds joy and fulfillment in the spirit world, in close contact with God and continued relationship with one’s kith and kin in the world from where one receives tributes and veneration.110 The concept of heaven and hell was not first made known to the people by the European missionaries but the idea of living permanently in heaven destroys the idea of re-incarnation in Igbo traditional religion and renders the belief questionable. The ancestors are meant to re-incarnate but the Saints are meant to live happily and eternally with God in heaven. These may not be heaven or hell in Christian concept but it is a state of achievement and happiness and a state of unhappiness and frustration after one’s earthly life. They are states of reward and retribution.

6.8 Inculturation in the Areas of Liturgy Liturgical celebration is not a private function, but the celebration of the church. It is the focus through which the activity of the church is directed and moves the faithful towards God. It contains the instructions for the worship of the Supreme Being. Through the liturgy, God speaks to His people and Christ proclaims the Gospel through it. And through it, the people respond to God through song and prayer.111 Liturgical inculturation is necessary provided it does not change the essential elements, through it; the faithful will understand what they believe in and live the liturgical celebrations.112 Understanding the rites and the rituals of the liturgy is very essential in religion. Bolaji Idowu writes: “Liturgy is a people’s way of approaching God in worship; a means of expressing themselves in a congregational setting, before God and assuring themselves of communion with Him. It is a means by which human soul finds a link with the Living Spirit who is God.”113 Africa’s rich religious and cultural heritage is truly a place of God revelation today. God is communicating to African people through African culture and tradition in the contemporary social, economic and political events. This is actualized through liturgical creativity, community and relationship values. They have to appropriate their faith in Jesus Christ according to their own symbolism,

110 111 112 113

Ikenga-Metuh, Comparative Studies of African Traditional Religions, 266. Sacrosanctum Concillium, 33. John Paul II, Ecclesia in Africa, 64. Idowu, Towards an Indigenous Church, 26.

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ideas and values of their culture.114 This will positively enrich liturgical celebration in Igboland. There is need to inculturate the liturgy to suit the tradition and the culture of the people. It is the adapted presentation of the Good News in the language and in the symbols that will be intelligible to the people whom the Gospel message is being proclaimed. It transforms the life of the community of believers from within by which the Good News becomes the principle that animates their attitudes, worldview, value system and action. Inculturation geared towards liturgical celebration in Igbo community is necessary and it has started. The use of local musical instruments is now in place in order to enhance the Eucharistic celebration. In liturgical inculturation: the language, the music, the rites and rituals and the forms of the Eucharistic celebration have to be put into consideration. Sometimes we allow ourselves to be led by the people who do not know the belief and the sacredness of our traditions and culture. In discussing about liturgy, Emmanuel Milingo writes: “…we have been surprised that those who have specialized in African liturgical adaptation are the Westerners. They have come to teach Africans accepted gestures, movements and drums. What they approve, we Africans must approve. What they do not like, we must give up. They have gone so far as to incite the Africans themselves to condemn their own traditional values supposed to be included in the liturgy. The principle to guide them is there is nothing pure and sacred in all that is African; they pose before us as sacred and pure, having the spirit of discernment for genuine African values worthy to be included in the liturgy.”115 This is the attitude of imposition and not incarnation, or inculturation. African believers are becoming more Roman Catholics than the Romans. They are used as the instrument against the traditions and the cultures of their people. That is what the Igbos call Obechu onye nwe ozu (One who cries louder than the chief mourner). In the process of inculturation, there should be dialogue between the leaders of the traditional group and the church. The authority of the church has laid upon the people the modes of worship that become a burden to them instead of being a thing of joy to serve God. Some of the leaders of the church in Africa find it difficult to talk about inculturation because it will address some of the powers they exercised over or imposed on the laity. They see no more relevance in the culture because they want to be more Europe than the Europeans. Once the faith is strange to the people, they cannot comprehend it and the Gospel message becomes perpetually strange to them. 114 115

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Healey and Sybertz, Toward an African Narrative Theology, 33. Milingo, The World in Between, 73.

In the area of the language, the Catholic doctrine has more meaning to the people since it has been translated to the local language of the people. It is after the translation that the essence of Christianity was grasped by the people and they give meaning to the doctrinal teachings of the missionaries. The Catholic translation of the mass is Aja. The mass as ‘Aja’ (sacrifice) makes good sense to the convert except that the ritual conduct of the sacrifice was totally foreign to the traditional ritual in which they fully participate. The Priest (Uko Chukwu) is the messenger or the mediator between God and humanity practically coincide with the customary understanding of the priest. But the traditional priest is not only a mediator between the people and the deities but also a diviner or a doctor physician: Dibai ogwu. This traditionally healing power attributed to the priest that was passed off as witch-doctors or devilish should be separated from the work of the priest in the church, be encouraged because they heal with roots and not totally condemned. The church only permits the Western healing obtained in the medical service centres. These are foreign to the people. The church condems the local idols but imported statue of the Saints and the Angels sold in the markets are allowed to be used by the people.116 These changes of images neglect the culture of the people and give credence to European culture and life pattern. It is not only the language that ought to be translated, but also the mode of worship and also practical belief.

6.8.1 Inculturation towards Cultural, Social and Moral Values of the People The people take pride in their traditional, cultural and religious activities. They value their communities and families, cherish brotherly love and the spirit of hard work. They hold values of life in esteem, and have compassion and respect for visitors. They hold the family as a source of strength, a closely knit community with a powerful sense of solidarity. One is then identified with the family, extended family and the commninity. In the community, there is filial piety towards the old and the parents; they are respected and revered. They receive special dignity by virtue of their role, age, wisdom and experience.117 To give up the family tradition would be self annihilation since life spiritually and culturally are nourished in the family, community and clan. Everything happens in the community. 116 117

Ozoigbo, Roman Catholicism in Southern Nigeria, 1885–1931, 276. Schineller, A Handbook on Inculturation, 76.

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Community gives no room to personal interpretation of its customs, laws and traditions nor does it allow any significant initiative to the individual matters. As far as the community is concerned, the good and the loyal person is the one who does what the community wants and the disloyal person is the person who disobeys or does not go with the community by not maintaining its customs, laws and traditions.118 The people judge the individuals through their contribution and observance of community laws. Positive participation toward the repository of the customs and the laws of the people is demanded from the members of the community. Community is the cornerstone for the individual survival. It defines how the individual should function and those inside it act as one entity. It celebrates and mourns life together. There is always room for the other. The individualist philosophy of Renés Descartes, ‘Cogito Ergo Sum’ I Think Therefore I Am119 has no room in Igbo tradition. What we have is: “We are, therefore I am, and since I am, therefore we are.”120 One is relevant only in the community where one lives in communion with the people. The individualistic nature of human being is not encouraged in any way. Celebrations are not individual affair. It is unthinkable to celebrate a feast or mourn the dead without the participation of the community. Invitees are not restricted in any way or form. A person is first and foremost a member of a community and secondly an individual. The identity of one is received through the family and the clan. Africans are communitarian people. A person’s life is geared towards the well being of the community. Whatever happens to an individual happens to the community and what happens to the community happens to an individual. This is in relation to St. Paul’s analogy of the body (1Cor. 12: 12–26). A person discovers one’s full personality in group relationship. It touches the freedom and the responsibility of the individual. African family value is inclusive. Whether people are members of the immediate family or extended family or close friends or even visitors, everybody participates in the close family relationships and friendship.121 Though it is quite unfortunate that African ego on family has suffered distortion. The young have been liberated from the authority of their parents and their elders; they have lost their inspirational role and respect. This is a negative effect of the Western culture. African concept of community is in close parallel with the Biblical idea of a community bound together through a covenant which governs it and lays out the 118 119 120 121

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Abanuka, A New Essay on African Philosophy,106. Watson, Cogito Ergo Sum, 8. Nyerere, The African Consciousness, 12. Healey and Sybertz, Toward an African Narrative Theology 106f.

boundaries to be observed by its members. The New Testament Biblical community confesses that Jesus is the Lord, and that God is the God of justice, so that every member of the community is to practise justice towards every other member for the common welfare. The Biblical idea of community places a high value of inter-human relations, so as to maintain good relations with the community in order to live long.122 In the unity of the communal solidarity, any individual who isolates oneself is heeding to ruin. This tier is a powerful force that permeates communal life and does not destroy the individual freedom but enables one to have the fullness of life.123 Christian community has to be universal, missionary and spirit-filled, welcoming and loving. It should be a community where everybody feels at home. It is a universal family of God, a community of brothers and sisters of various tongues and cultures united by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.124 It should not only be restricted to the Africans or Igbo people of Nigeria rather it includes the universal church. To live in the community is to develop such a sustainable relationship and to share life with one another. Life is a gift given to humanity by God who is the ultimate link and human destiny. It is a human duty to share life in the community. Here the young and old, and the rich and poor act together for the benefit of one another and for the common good. The oneness of the community is not limited to its living members, but extended to the timeless living who shares in the community’s joys and sorrows125 through festivals and celebrations. At religious festivals, weddings and other social events, its members dance together because of an acute sense of solidarity expressed in extended family.126 It is wrong to characterize these festivals or coming together of the people as pagan acts. They could be Christianized127 just as Christmas was Christianized. One of the precious gifts God has given to Africans is the gift of happiness, singing and dancing. They dance in all sort of occasions to express their inner feelings whether of joy or of sorrow. While the dancing is spontaneous and voluntary, the drum beat provides the rhythms that hold the dancers together.128 The sound 122 Bakare, The Drumbeat of Life, 4. 123 Banzikiza, The Pastoral Approach to African Traditional Values of Fecundity and Marriage, 82. 124 Oboji, Towards a Christian Theology of African Religion, 130. See also, Lumen Gentium, 13. 125 Bakare, The Drumbeat of Life, 3. 126 The Church in Africa No. 43. 127 Nnoruka, Thy Kingdom Come, 223. 128 Bakare, The Drumbeat of Life, 1.

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and the rhythm of the drums express the mood of the people. The drums are the sounds of life; they are at the heartbeat of the community. They evoke emotions and touch the souls of those who hear their rhythm that the earliest missionaries forbade them in the church services, imposing instead the organ or piano ‘sober’ instruments whose appeal was meant to be cerebral rather than emotional.129 The emotions they evoke do not make them bad but the missionaries, who heard them, did not understand them and they gave them an ignorant interpretation thereby banning them from being played in the church. In Africa, the community coming together in response to the beating of the drums is an opportunity to give one another a sense of belonging and solidarity. It is a time to connect with one another to be part of that collective rhythm of life in which the young and the old, the rich and the poor, men and women are invited to contribute the gift God has given them. As they celebrate life, they receive new energy, new orientation and security.130 As they dance, they receive both spiritual and psychological healings because dancing is therapeutic. These can be the instruments to worship God in sincerity of religious purpose. They are also beaten at the death of the individual member of the community. Title taking is one of the identifiable cultural traits of the people to mark one’s personal achievements. It is for the enhancement of social status and role expectations. They are normally accorded to people who have made specific achievements in the community. A titled person can be divested of the title if found unredeemably wanting in role performance. When one is divested, one equally loses one’s face and the pride that goes with it is punctured.131 The Igbo attach a lot of importance and respect to social titles. The outstanding among them is Nze and Ozo titles. They are conferred to honest men who are loyal to the customs of the land and those who have made outstanding contribution to the maintenance of peace in the community. It is generally believed that they do not tell lies. The missionaries that evangelized Igboland initially categorized them as pagan acts and Christians are forbidden to take the titles.132 It is quite unfortunate that these are condemned as pagan acts. 129 130 131 132

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Ibid., 1. Ibid., 2. Obiefuna, Titles and Conflicts of Identity in the Igbo Christian, 59. Nnoruka, Thy Kingdom Come, 222. Udoye, “Resolving the Prevailing Conflicts between Christianity and African (Igbo) Traditional Religion through Inculturation” writes: As early as 1914, the Ozo issue was a pastoral problem and the conference rules that Christians who took the title must renounce and remove the insignia of the Ozo, 201.

In the effort to replace them, the church tries to find parallel titles as dynamic equivalents. Energies have been spent to resurrect for the people the medieval knighthoods that marked the age of chivalry and the crusades. These are the knights of St. Johns, St. Mulumba, Papal and Diocesan Knights and Ladies, instead of putting meaning to the already existing titles. Now many take both the traditional and the churche’s titles because of their hunger for titles. They are members of their church and at the same time members of lodges and secret societies. They also take on knighthoods and traditional chieftaincies.133 It is quite unfortunate that the Nze and Ozo institution as the defendant of Igbo tradition was condemned and termed pagan while Knighthood as the defendant of the principles of Christian faith and practice is introduced. Sometimes some of the people only pay for the title without having the moral requirements. This is one of importation of European culture to displace African culture. The people will value it more if the enegies and the efforts put in the revival of these Knighthoods are channelled to encourage the already existing institutions of Nze and Ozo as the defendant of faith.

6.8.2 Theological Interpretation of Kola Nut The greatest thing that point to the hospitality of the Igbo is the presentation of Kola Nut. Kola Nut is the greatest and the most important fruit in Igbo traditional religion. It signifies reception, approval, productivity, life, purity, authority, wealth, hierarchy and fullness of life. It has philosophical, social, traditional and theological interpretations. Acceptance of Kola Nut signifies acceptance of welcome. It is one of the Igbo traditions that have survived the onslaught of the Western culture. In the modern era, activities do not start without the presentation of Kola Nut. Wherever Kola Nut is presented, it goes with its rituals of being shown to the people around. This process is maintained unless the people are in the mourning mood. It always goes with prayer which is said by the eldest or titled man present. Kola Nut has its theological interpretations. It is used to invoke the spirit of the ancestors; it is used to appeal to heaven to guide the daily activities of the people. Traditionally, the blessing of Kola Nut by the head of the family first in the morning and partaking of it by all present constitute the family morning prayer. The blessing and the sharing of Kola Nut signify and effect communion of the living with one another and with the dead: the ancestors whose protection on the family is thereby sought. People in enmity with one another do not share Kola 133

Mbefo, The True African, 106.

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Nut together until they are reconciled.134 In this way, it has undertones similar to those of the Christian Eucharist. It is so rich in symbolism of inclusion, hospitality, communion, blessing and reconciliation135 that it is nearer in Igbo culture with Eucharist. The philosophy of Kola Nut as regards sharing is: since we can eat together, we can dialogue together. Eating together is a sign of unity, love and understanding. The Eucharist symbolizes, love, unity, sharing and communion. It is inclusive: in the sharing of Kola Nut, it is given to all who are present, but the Eucharist is meant only for the believers who are in the state of grace. It serves as a sacred link between the living and the dead ancestors who are constantly called upon to protect, guide and bless the living with the needed wisdom, good health, wealth, fertility and prosperity.136 The Eucharist also symbolizes the interaction between the heaven and the earth, and between God and human beings. Women have no place in the rites and the rituals of Kola Nut in Igboland. In the recent time women are calling for re-consideration of the culture in order to be included in the participation of the rituals involved in the presentation, blessing and the breaking of Kola Nut.

6.9 Conclusion Many religions of the world have their early beginnings with myths and mysticism. The myth is told to give the reason for the ontological existence of the world and to present omnipotent God as the creator of all that exists. It brings the existence of God into reality. It portrays also the wishes and the fears of human being in trying

134

135 136

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A priest told his experience when he wanted to reconcile the members of his communities who had quarrelled for many years. He made strenuous effort to bring the two parties together. After dialogue and deliberation, they came to the conclusion that they should bury the hatchet. They accepted the proposal of the priest. The priest celebrated the mass for them as a sign of reconciliation. They all participated actively and received Holy Communion. After that, the priest invited them to the village hall they prayed together and brought out Kola Nut which the priest blessed and broke to share the people. It was unfortunate that none of them took the Kola Nut nor ate it. This shows that though they have received the Holy Eucharist, but they have not forgiven each other. They shared in the Holy Eucharist but they did not share in the breaking of the Kola Nut. That was unfortunate. Uchem, Women and the Igbo Kolanut, 22. Acholonu, Women and the Kola Nut Saga in Igbo Culture, 1.

to understand the unknown by dissecting and remolding it to fit the ideological frame of reference. Myth is not only found in religion, but in all other disciplines. It conveys message in its own way. It becomes the creator of religious principles and points towards the essence of religion. It exists in three monotheistic religions we have discussed. In Nigeria, Christianity has more adherents in the South, while Islam has more adherents in the North. These religions have existed for years, but their relationship is nothing to write home about. Their mutual relationship has been historically one of antagonism and often of explicit confrontations in terms of killing, maiming, call for jihad and hatred. But the essence of religion is to bring love and salvation to humanity and not hatred and war. Religion brings salvation to its members. The salvation comes from the Supreme Being who the worshippers experience in one way or the other. The monotheistic religions we have discussed, point to the salvation of their faithful members. Judaism experiences God through their ancestors who worshiped Him in a concrete way. The religion had its culmination in Mount Sinai at the given of the law: Torah. Christianity experiences God in a unique way in the person of Jesus Christ of Nazareth whose incarnation began the historic nature of God’s identification and self-revelation to humanity. Islamic religion experiences God through the Prophet Mohammad. His vision for his followers which was later written down and called Qur’an becomes a way of life for the believers. African religions are also founded by the ancestors. The laws and the traditions are not written in papers or stone but in the hearts of the people and they were transmitted orally from one generation to the other. In Igboland, the religion and the ways of life of the people are greatly influenced by Christianity since the coming of the colonial masters. With the coming of the Westerner, Christianity becomes the dominant religion in Igboland. In Christianity, Christ is at the centre or the focal point of human salvation. He is present in every tradition and culture in a unique way and form. Christianity as a universal religion has it as an obligation to help Igbo traditional religion to find its authenticity and affiliation with Christ whose mission on earth was to unite all religions and lead them to God. It is the duty of the church to make the presence of Christ evident in other cultures of the world especially in Igboland. The activities of the religious events in Igboland relate themselves in a special way with God who created the world. For the church in Igboland to survive, it must be raised to the level of a reality and a deed that ought to be. It must address itself, learn itself and regain control of itself in the face of adversities and challenges surrounding it. It ought to be one, but at present, it is a house divided against itself. The situation is scandalous because the Europeans who brought

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the divided Christianity are making effort to unite themselves, but Christians in Igboland keep fostering the division. The issue of denominationalism in Nigeria is described by Bolaji Idowu as: “Devil’s trap, a means of confusion and a device to hold the church back from the attainment of self-hood and self-expression.”137 The inculturation of the Gospel into the culture and the faith of the people are necessary so that what happened to the church in North Africa that produced many great thinkers like Augustine of Hippo, Tertullian, Cyprain, Cyril, and Athanasius may not happen to the church in Igboland. Igboland is the hope of the church in Nigeria and in Africa. Christian religion offers human being the opportunity to encounter Christ in many ways. It offers humanity the opportunity to be another Christ in the traditions and the cultures where one is born. Christ is positively all things to all. “Where people press for socialist form of society, Jesus becomes the forerunner of socialism, since he criticised the rich and rejected mammon. For those who promote joy in life, Jesus becomes a Galilean artist who had the art of living, taunted by narrow-minded contemporaries as glutton and wine bibbers, a friend of publicans and sinners. Where an existential decision is urgently called, Jesus becomes a preacher of a call to decision who summon individuals from their forgetfulness of life. Where people advocate humanism which emancipates itself from the supervision of the church, Jesus becomes the one who challenges religious institutions.”138 African religions should find ways of integrating Christ who is the saviour of the world and the refiner of traditions. Our work as another Christ is to promote the society, increase the joys of the people and liberate those who are bound by the shackles of the strong in the society, church or the devil. The essence of this work is to give a constructive criticism of the activities of the church in Igboland. It is not to criticize the sufferings, the good works and the activities of the missionaries who endeavoured to bring the message of Christ through evangelization, but to commend their effort and state clearly some positive values which the universal church had been clamping down. They should be fostered and encouraged for the sake of the Gospel. The church should emphasis more on the care for others, warmth in human relationship, acceptance, dialogue and trust and encourages reconciliation and communion between one another.139 These elements are in Igboland, but they ought to be encouraged and strengthened. 137 138 139

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Idowu, Towards an Indigenous Church, 53f. Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide, 2. Magesa, Rethinking Mission, 53.

It is good to state that no culture is perfect and there is something good in every culture. Christianity is a peaceful religion, because its founder Jesus of Nazareth preached love and peace. But it is unfortunate that Christianity which could have been a major unifying force in Igboland, tapping from the traditional Igbo values of family systems, respect for life, hospitality and communal living has turned out to be the greatest divisive force. The Europeans missionaries brought divided Christianity to us, but we have to look back and correct some abnormalities in order to live in love and peace with one another. The religion was brought to us in order to Christianize Africa; it is our work now to wake from our dogmatic slumber and Africanize Christianity, so as to make Christianity a universal religion and not the religion of the Romans (as it was before called Roman Catholic Church). The church has to be influenced by the tradition and the culture of the people, just as the life and the preaching of Jesus Christ was influenced by his cultural environment. When I talk about the church in Igboland, I mean the church which affords the Igbo people the means of worshipping God as Igbo; that is, in a way, which is compatible with their own spiritual temperaments, of singing to the glory of God in their own way, of praying to God and hearing the holy word in idioms which are clearly intelligible to them. The church should be a corporate personality, personally discerning what is the will of God for itself and responsible for all requisite steps taking in fulfilling it. It should be the church which is the spiritual home, a home in which they breathe an atmosphere of spiritual freedom. It should be the church whose key-note of the life and the Lordship of Jesus Christ is present. It should be the church in which Christ is pre-eminent and also lives in the watchful consciousness as well as ‘presence’ of One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.140 It should be the church that has respect for elders and gives consideration to justice, truth, peace and communal love. We can only have such a church through incarnating the Gospel of Christ into the lives of the people. It is necessary because evangelization loses much of its force and effectiveness if it does not take into consideration the actual people to whom it is addressed, if it does not use their language, their signs and symbols, if it does not answer the questions they ask and if it does not have a concrete impact on their life.141 It has already started. In the church, the way the people celebrate their liturgy is an indication of the depth of their faith. Liturgy should be dynamic and manifest the values of the people. In our time, the church imposes not much 140 141

Idowu, Towards an Indigenous Church, 11. Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation on Evangelization in the Modern World, 63.

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rigidity in matters of liturgy; rather it is a little bit free to make variations and adaptations.142 The native priests and catechists have regularly in one form or the other endeavoured to adapt the Christian teaching to the requirements and the disposition of their hearers. It is also natural that Igbo converts have to a certain degree understand and live their Christian message in accordance to their natural make up.143 As regards liturgical music, a lot has been done. The way the church in Igboland expresses their worship, mainly in songs, dances, clapping and so forth in liturgical expressions do not make the Christianity to be another thing else. These are the expressions of faith and have nothing to do with the Christian identity or the doctrinal teachings of Christ. Edwin Udoye writes: “In the spirit of inculturation therefore, the Igbo church should maximally exploit the spirit of music, songs, dancing and prayers already in the life of the people. The rhythms that orderly flow in Igbo pattern of liturgical music indicate the harmony in the activity, emotion and their rationality in their entirety…. It helps to create and strengthen cooperate feeling and solidarity.”144 Pointer to what liturgical pattern entails should be seen in the spontaneous changes made in received music, the impromptu prayers made during worship, the unannounced singing that surges from the congregation during the preaching.145 These mean that the people are gradually at home with the liturgy. The celebration of the Eucharist in the vernacular language is a step forward. In most areas the liturgical music has been adopted to suit the peoples’ notion of music. Many Latin and English songs have been translated into Igbo language and the traditional instruments are being used.146 The Igbo pattern of music is always applied in the liturgical celebrations and the people are emotionally responsive to the rhythms and the beatings of the music. With the musical instruments, the people can worship and pray to God as the spirit touches them and not to be led by books or rituals. These express in a unique way that prayer comes from the heart and not from the book and the worship of God is a thing of the heart and not of the book. The people can now celebrate mass with their local instruments which make it lively and joyous because it conveys specifically what is at hand. It has helped

142 143 144 145 146

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Nnoruka, Thy Kingdom Come, 214. Nyamiti, Approach to the African Theology in the Emergent Gospel, 32f. Udoye, Resolving the Prevailing Conflict between Christianity and African (Igbo) Traditional Religion, 375. Dickson, The African Theological Task, 48. Nnoruka, Thy Kingdom Come, 215.

in enhancing participation and corporal concentration especially when the sacrament is being celebrated. With the musical instrument accompanying liturgical celebrations, the lives of the people are covered with happiness. When Africans dance, they express the joy of life in the community, social solidarity and building of relationships, thus proclaiming their oneness. These are commendable but more could still be done. The vestment for the celebration of the mass has no element of Africanness. The Roman collars of the priests, the Mitres and the crosiers of the bishops have no meaning and relevance in Igbo tradition. Again Christ died on a wooden cross but the people have greater value on golden and silver crucifixes. That is not the spirit of incarnation or inculturation. The wooden crucifix is no longer cherished among the people; they look for gold or silver ones. That is a dislocated mentality of some of our leaders. There are many good woods in Africa to carve the crucifix, but the people will term it idols because that is what they were taught and it is not brought by the white man. This is one of the problems created by the missionaries. Africa needs to regain her lost glory, personality and identity so as to be authentic and real. Many live double-faced religious lives. They believe traditionally and at the same time in Christ. They tend to uphold two faiths. They maintain the Christian faith when life is good and happy but uphold to individual faith when the fundamentals of life are at stake. They have no conviction and cannot be firm to Christ nor to the religion of their ancestors. This is the attitude of the person at the cross road. In fact many are at the cross road of faith. They present themselves as Christians because they take Christianity as a social religion, but practice their traditional religion secretly. Christianity is not just an over coat worn on the outside while the traditional values are worn inside. Christianity is not just the water that stays on the surface while the traditional values are the substance that remains at the bottom and in the depth. Many Christians go to the traditional doctors at night but during the day they visit the priests and the medical doctors. The healing should also be inculturated. The inculturation of the healing offers great hope for perfect integration of Christianity and traditional healing.147 The people need action and not words. Healing is central to the African world-view. It includes the restoration of the broken: physically, psychologically and spiritually. It means a return to wholeness. It includes inner healing and rebuilding broken relationships. The process incorporates wholistic ideas of God’s power, the spiritual world and the ancestors. In the world today there is hunger and thirst for healing for an experience of more emotional and feeling aspects of faith. People nowadays 147

Healey and Sybertz, Toward an African Narrative Theology 304.

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want healing, laying of hands and special prayer.148 Christ did not only preach the Gospel, he also healed the sick and commanded his disciple as follows: “These are the signs that will be associated with believers: in my name they will cast out devils… they will lay their hands on the sick who will recover” (Mk.15:17–18). Many people nowadays doubt the authenticity of the devil and find it difficult to teach the people about the healing power of the sacraments. Yes, African ways of healing the sick and cating out devils should be encouraged. The Western church can learn a great deal from Africans on how to relate with each other in a positive way. They can learn from the people’s sense of relationship, sharing, community, hospitality and joyous attitude towards one another. The people are deeply aware of the presence of others and it is un-African to pass someone without greeting the person. When the Africans are together, they can spend time for personal comfort in order to maintain their friendship. They have time for one another. Everything is done to maintain a good personal and communal relationship and harmony at all costs.149 The people bear witness to the birth of Christ and his resurrection with celebration and dancing. Christian life as a witness to the birth, resurrection and the redemption of Christ are moments of celebration with the people. In this occasion, they dance and celebrate in acknowledgment that there is only one God and declare acceptance of Jesus Christ as the mediator between God and humanity (1Tim.2:3–5) and the Holy Spirit as the love between the Father and the Son. They do these as a sign of identification with Christ and to express the authenticity of their belief.

148 149

374

Ibid., 298f. Ibid., 105.

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