MINISTERIUM - Journal of Contextual Theology Published by Blessed Iwene Tansi Major Seminary, , ,

VOLUME 1 MAIDEN EDITION JUNE, 2014 EDITORIAL BOARD Editor Peter O. Okafor Blessed Iwene Tansi Major Seminary, Onitsha, Nigeria

Deputy Editor Vitalis Anaehobi Blessed Iwene Tansi Major Seminary, Onitsha, Nigeria

Members Elochukwu E. Uzukwu, C.S.Sp. Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, USA

Gregory Nwachukwu Blessed Iwene Tansi Major Seminary, Onitsha, Nigeria

Christopher I. Ejizu University of , Nigeria

Paulinus Odozor, C.S.Sp. University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA

Uchenna A. Blessed Iwene Tansi Major Seminary, Onitsha, Nigeria

Francis Oborji Pontifical Urban University, Rome

Editorial Assistants Cletus O. Ekwosi & Fidelis Izuakor Blessed Iwene Tansi Major Seminary, Onitsha, Nigeria

Editorial Consultant Peter Damian Akpunonu Villa Mount Carmel, Onitsha, Nigeria EDITORIAL 

Peter O. Okafor

History is at last made. Blessed Iwene Tansi Major Seminary, Onitsha offers the academic world and the reading public the maiden edition of her theological journal titled Ministerium - Journal of Contextual Theology. The brand of theology that she offers is known as contextual theology which is a theology based on the understanding that the context where theology is happening is determinative. This theological perspective thrives on the assumption that a genuine theology is articulated with reference to or dependent on the events, the thought forms, or the culture of its particular place and time. In embarking on this onerous theological project, we believe that there are three main sources of such a theology, namely, scripture, tradition and concrete human experience in a particular culture and society. By focusing on contextualization of theology, this journal offers not only to but to the entire world a forum for a theology that is relevant and up to date according to different contexts. In the first article, The Challenge of Contextual Theology, Peter O. Okafor argues that theology without context is not really a theology. He indicates that even though contextualization has assumed a more prominent place in contemporary theology, it is not to be taken as a new concept for it has always been there in the heart of all genuine theologizing, starting from the biblical times till our day. Considering contextualization as another way of referring to the servant role of theology, he argues that theology today should be rooted in context by modelling the incarnation in its methodology. In this way, contemporary theology would be relevant and thus, able to meet the real needs of both its ecclesial and cultural context. In the second article titled, From War to Dance: Beyond the Metaphor of ‘Holy Ghost Fire,’ Lawrence Nwankwo, argues that as a result of the influence of Pentecostalism, the Holy Spirit has come to be predominantly invoked as fire which is deployed to destroy one’s enemies and so open up the flow of one’s blessings. In consonant with a time honoured dictum, Lex orandi, lex credendi, les Vivendi, Nwankwo holds that how one prays and worships reflects what one believes in and determines how one lives. According to him, an examination of the belief system and the way of life supported by the vision of warfare behind the invocation of ‘Holy Ghost Fire’ shows the need for a shift of emphasis and new framework or root metaphor. In a deft theological master stroke, Nwankwo proposes ‘dance’ as this new metaphor for reflecting on divine action. In this light, he presents the Holy Spirit rather as the thread that weaves and interweaves peoples with one another and with God. In the third article, Development as African Theology Today, Vitalis Anaehobi argues that the history of theology is the history of human problems and man’s effort to solve them relying on what God has revealed about himself and about his creation which has man as its crown. He contends that if man should cease to pay attention to history, he will equally cease to be in true relation with God. To illustrate this, he examines the activities of the missionaries who evangelized the Eastern part of Nigeria. He also studies the teaching of the Fathers of Vatican II. This helped him to discover that they were attentive to the signs of the time in the life of the people to whom the gospel was addressed. Noting that development is the sign of the time for Africa today, Anaehobi argues that no genuine African theologian should avoid focusing on it. Consequently, he proposes development as African theology today. Inculturation of the Christian faith in African cultures and traditions involves the creative integration of authentic cultural values by the Gospel in such a way that faith becomes culture, so that the Church may have deeper roots among the people. In this direction, Christopher Ejizu, in the fourth article, Better Late than Never: The Dialogue of Ofo, Igbo Indigenous Ritual Symbol and the Roman Catholic Faith, calls for a creative dialogue between Ofo, the Igbo indigenous ritual symbol and the Catholic faith. He argues that this dialogue which is long overdue was given a big boost by the favourable position of Vatican II with regard to dialogue with non-Christian Religions and the subsequent favourable disposition towards non-Christian religions which has prevailed in the Universal Church since Vatican II. In the fifth article, Religious Syncretism in Our Rural Church Communities: Problems and Challenges, Paschal-Paul Okeke gives a fascinating account that touches the practice of Christian faith in the context of culture. A recurring thematic in the entire work concerns the many frictions and tensions in the lives of many professed Christians, which result from the tendency to hold on simultaneously to those elements of traditional worldview that are incompatible with Gospel imperatives. The author argues that syncretism has both negative and positive implications. According to Okeke, to come to grips with the negative syncretism and the deep crisis of faith among the Christians today, there is need for authentic inculturation of Christianity as well as the application of the transforming power of dialogue, listening and integral education. For him, the war against syncretism requires a renewed theological and pastoral commitment by both the clergy and the laity, so as to elicit sustainable peaceful growth in the faith. In the last article, The Holy Spirit and the Youth in Africa, the author – Ferdinand Nwaigbo focuses on the ecclesial witnessing of the youth in the Church and human society, a witnessing sustained by the Holy Spirit. Noteworthy is the author’s ability of reading the signs of the time. Consequently, he argues that “today as many young people are distancing themselves from Christ and their Catholic roots, there is a need for youth catechesis in developing a mature and adult faith in an ecclesial community and bearing witness to Jesus, called Christ.” He also makes an important case for adequate training of youth chaplains in higher theological education so as to equip them with sound knowledge and techniques of imparting the Christian doctrines to the youth. Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 1-14

THE CHALLENGE OF CONTEXTUAL THEOLOGY  Peter O. Okafor Blessed IweneTansi Major Seminary, Onitsha, Nigeria. [email protected]

Introduction Theology is commonly defined as “faith seeking understanding” (fides quaerens intellectum). Since what we mean is Christian theology, we can also define it as Christian faith trying to understand the things of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. As Jesus is the Word made flesh, he is God in context, sharing our condition in the human culturally conditioned world. He was a male, a first century Jew, and shared the culture of his own people. In this mystery of the incarnation, he made use of all that is familiar to us, in order to communicate his divine life and grace. This is the way for theology to follow if it is to remain relevant in today’s world. Theology must be contextual. It must speak to man where he is. It must address human questions and concerns in the light of the faith. In this way, theology is no longer simply a study of God but a study of what God says and does in a context. This is because we Christians believe in God who is present and active in each local context – in the face of neighbour and stranger, in the depths of human culture and experience, or in the life we seek to build together. That is why theology ought to be contextual. It is not just a matter of academic analysis, it rather emerges from a life of prayer and practice – in a community that meets God in Word and Sacrament, that listens to the wisdom of Tradition, and that seeks to discern and respond to his presence and action in the world. It is therefore the contention of this article that the challenge of contextual theology is the challenge of relevance. Every genuine theological reflection must show its relevance by engaging consciously the context of its theologizing.

1. Definition of Contextual Theology In his book, Models of Contextual Theology (1992), the American Catholic theologian, Stephen B. Bevans gives a classic definition of contextual theology as:

a way of doing theology in which one takes into account the spirit and message of the gospel; the tradition of the Church; 1 Okafor: The Challenge of Contextual Theology

the culture in which one is theologizing; and social change within that culture, whether brought about by western technological process or the grass-roots struggle for equality, justice and liberation.

Bevans here goes beyond classical or traditional theology by positing three main sources for contextual theology, namely, Scripture, tradition and socio-cultural context in which one is theologizing. For him, contextual theology is a way of theologizing on the Christian faith not only on the basis of Scripture and tradition - the two main theological sources of reflection of classical/traditional theology, but also on the basis of concrete culturally conditioned human experience or the socio-cultural and historical context. Thus, as an interpretation of Christian faith which arises in the consciousness of its context, contextual theology occurs in connection and in dialogue with human experience, phenomena and traditions of our age and the surrounding world. According to Bevans, what makes contextual theology precisely contextual is the recognition of the validity of another locus theologicus or theological source, namely, present human experience. Lurdino A. Yuzon has rightly noted that contextual theology differs from traditional/classical theology in two ways. In the first place, it recognizes the critical importance of human experience as a source for reflection on Christian faith and moral. Second, due to its rootedness in concrete human experience in a particular culture and society, it speaks primarily to that context. As such, it does not pretend to be unchanging, above culture and universally applicable in a normative way to all other particular contexts at all times and places. Since it is a theology that arises out of a particular context, contextual theology is something that is relevant in relation to a certain place and time. It can therefore be definite, at best, but not definitive. In view of the contextual nature of all genuine theologizing, Robert J. Schreiter, contends that it is more apt to speak not of universal, permanent and unchanging theologies, but of “local theologies.”

2. Theological Method We have seen that contextual theology is an interpretation of Christian faith, which emerges in the consciousness of its context. It differs from the traditional/classical theology which was considered as changeless in content

2 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 1-14 and is above culture and historically conditioned expression. Because contextual theologians do not consider theology simply as a study of God, but as a study of what God says and does in a context, contextual theology actualizes a theological method which considers culture, history and contemporary thought forms along with Scripture and tradition, as valid sources for theological expression. Thus, Albert Nolan could even go to the extent of saying that theology is rather a study of the context per se. In a similar vein, Sigurd Bergmann holds rightly that the interpretation of God today or the hermeneutic of Christian faith “occurs in connection and in dialogue with people, phenomena and traditions in our age and the surrounding world”. By so doing, contextual theology strives not only to gather the experiences that emerge in specific situations or contexts but also strives to actively change the context, and making theology part of the process of cultural renewal. Bergmann opines that contextual theology is an umbrella term indicating a group of attempts, which in different circumstances use and develop the above theological method. He makes a list of common traits which characterize these attempts some of which are as follows:  The significance of the subject’s specific experiences, in particular experiences of suffering and deliverance.  The criticism of the theology of eternity and the confusion between local and universal claims to validity.  The striving for social and emancipating relevance  The renewal of theological ways of expression in close collaboration with local forms of culture. Furthermore, it is the heightened awareness of human culture or experience as a theological source by contextual theology which is responsible for this basic shift in theological method between it and traditional theology which is based only on Scripture and tradition substantially speaking. Contextual theologians agree that “culture and historical context plays a part in the construction of the reality in which we live and so our context influences our understanding of God and the expression of our faith.” Consequently, “both poles – human experience and the Christian tradition – are to be read together dialectically.” Thus, Jurgen Moltmann opines that “interpretation of the Christian faith needs to be partly authentic, that is identical with the specific traits of Christian tradition, and partly relevant, meaning that it would be applicable in a liberating way to different situations in society.” Behind the quest of contextual theologians in their theological method is the issue of relevance of the enterprise of theology. Contextualization of theology or the

3 Okafor: The Challenge of Contextual Theology restatement of the faith in a relevant way in ever new situations or contexts enables theologians to address current issues and needs of the Church in a particular culture. By continually contextualizing our theology and thus, understanding and reconfessing the faith in a relevant way enables the Church to lead her members into a full and vivid grasp of the faith. Michael Goheen could therefore state: “Theology that does not speak to the issues and needs of the present will not enable the Church to take hold of and own the faith.” This points to the need for “servant theology.”

3. Servant Theology The great Dutch evangelical theologian, Hendrikus Berkhof, comments that theology is “meant to equip the saints for service.” Contextualization is but another way of referring to this “servant role of theology.” David Wells in this light calls on contemporary theology to be truly rooted in context by modelling the incarnation in its methodology: “The Son of God assumed the form of a servant to seek and save the lost and theology must do likewise, incarnating itself in the cultural forms of its time without ever losing its identity as Christian theology.” By so doing, theology is able to serve both its ecclesial and cultural context. In other words, Christ’s willingness to accommodate the needs of our situation even to the extent of becoming incarnate in the form of a man, stands as the model for a humble theology that exists primarily to meet the real needs of the context.

4. Incarnation Theology Contextual theologians have relied heavily on the insight drawn from the mystery of incarnation in order to elaborate their theological synthesis. We shall consider such two syntheses by the analysis of the contribution of two of the principal exponents of contextual theology.

4.1. Stephen B. Bevans Bevans treats the incarnational nature of Christianity under the internal factors that point to contextualization as a theological imperative. He sees God’s love as the motive behind His desire to communicate His life-giving relationship to human beings. But if He was to do this, the modus operandi will be such that human beings could fully grasp the meaning and import of this divine economy. He became flesh not in any general way, but in a particular way. In other words, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, a Jew, son

4 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 1-14 of Mary, a male, God became a human being. God incarnated Himself in a human person with particular physical features and with particular personality traits. Bevans therefore sees incarnation as a process of becoming particular, and in and through the particular, the divinity could become visible and in some way become graspable and intelligible. On the basis of this sound theology, he concludes: “Christianity, if it is to be faithful to its deepest roots and most basic insight, must continue God’s incarnation in Jesus by becoming contextual.” Rene Padilla expresses a similar view as follows:

The incarnation makes clear God’s approach to the revelation of himself and of his purposes: God does not shout his message from the heavens; God becomes present as a man among men. The climax of God’s revelation is Emmanuel. And Emmanuel is Jesus, a first-century Jew! The incarnation unmistakably demonstrates God’s intention to make himself known from within the human situation. Because of the very nature of the Gospel, we know this Gospel only as a message contextualized in culture.

4.2. Sigurd Bergmann Of all the reasons for contextualization which emanate from an interpretation of Christianity’s own tradition, the strongest as Bergmann sees it, lies in the mystery of incarnation. According to him, what is most distinctive of Christianity among other religions lies squarely on the belief that God has become human, that the Creator has become flesh and blood among men and women. Revelation has thus, historically occurred at a certain time, in a certain place and in a certain culture. God has in Jesus the man, become part of a certain socio-cultural context. “The universal God, Creator, has become particular: he is a male Jew, ideologically diffuse, wandering freely around in Palestine”. Bergmann therefore draws out the implication of this mystery for the dynamics of the Christian faith:

If Christian faith wants to preserve the continuity of its historical origins it needs somehow to preserve this particularity. After the revelation of God in Jesus the man, we cannot interpret Christian faith as a faith in a common, supernatural God. The distinctive features of the Christian image of God remain belief in a God, which meets us in a specific earthly and historical context with all the restrictions this signifies. This earthly historical belief 5 Okafor: The Challenge of Contextual Theology

cannot be reduced to metaphysics, a science of the supernatural.

In view of the fact of the incarnational nature of Christianity, Bergmann holds that contextual theologians are noted for striving to interpret what he calls ‘the ongoing incarnation’. In other words, the incarnation of the Christian faith in different cultures and historical situations prolongs or continues the process which was begun by God in Jesus Christ. As incarnation theology, contextual theology which is a servant theology fulfils its being and preserves the historical continuity of Christianity by constantly asking how God meets us in specific contexts.

5. Contextualization in the History of Theology Is the enterprise of contextualization merely a theological movement associated with the contemporary times or is the traditional way of doing theology also contextual? Bevans responds to this question in a nuanced way. According to him: “While we can say that the doing of theology by taking culture and social change in culture into account is a departure from the traditional or classical way of doing theology, a study of the history of theology will reveal that every authentic theology has been very much rooted in a particular context in some implicit or real way.” But contemporary contextual theologians take culture into account in a conscious and explicit way in their theologizing. They assume that local and particular situations are the locus of truth, and therefore take them into account explicitly as a source of their theological enterprise. This is the understanding of what contextual theology stands for in our contemporary period of history. But on the other hand, as we have seen, contextualization is a prerequisite of all genuine theological thought, and as such very traditional. Even though explicit contextual theologizing is a mark of contemporary contextual theologies, all genuine theological traditions prior to the contemporary times were marked implicitly by elements of contextuality as we shall now see.

5.1 Contextualization in the Scriptures Contemporary Scripture scholarship has shown that the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures are a repository of a plurality of theologies. “The Bible literally means ‘books’ (biblia), and the Bible is a library, a collection of books and consequently of theologies.” In the Hebrew Scriptures alone one can name 6 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 1-14 many different theologies: Yahwist, Elohist, Priestly, Deuteronomic and Wisdom theologies. These theologies of the Hebrew biblical tradition “reflect different times, different concerns, and even different cultures as Israel moved from an agrarian society to a monarchy, from an independent state to a vassal of Assyria, Greece, and Rome.” The same story of plurality of theologies can also be told of Christian scriptures. Due to the different local contexts in which they were written, each New Testament writing addresses the concerns of quite different communities, and thus, engendering different theologies. For instance, the theology of Paul is different from that of James, that of Matthew different from John’s. Also, the deutero-Pauline pastoral epistles differ from the genuine letters of Paul in terms of the different concerns by which they are marked. The great American scripture scholar, Raymond E. Brown, in his work, The Churches the Apostles left Behind, studies seven very different churches in the New Testament period after the death of the apostles. The result is a plurality of ecclesiologies as these churches had quite diverse emphases in their community life, as detectable from the biblical writings addressed to them. The plurality of theologies in the New Testament is a pointer to the work of contextualization of the gospel message undertaken by the different sacred writers under diverse circumstances and historical epochs. A good example of contextualization in the Christian Scriptures is evident in the gospel of John. It is a case of an attempt to relate to the culture in a challengingly relevant way. In his gospel, John employs the language, and thought forms of the Hellenistic world pervaded by Gnosticism. Using Gnostic categories, he addresses Gnostic questions and concerns in such a way that he makes his gospel relevant to Gnostics of all ages. However, despite his accommodation of the Hellenistic thought forms and language which makes his gospel relevant to his Gnostic contemporaries, the absolute contradiction between the word of God and human culture was equally stated in very clear terms. This he achieved by challenging the idolatry at the heart of Gnostic thought. In this light, John opens his gospel by using the Gnostic term, logos: “In the beginning was the Logos.” In the Gnostic parlance, the logos was the impersonal and invisible law of rationality that permeated the universe giving it order. For John, this logos is the man Jesus Christ, whom he identified as God (Jn 1:1). Thus, John sets off by “identifying with the classical longing for the source of order expressed in the term logos, but subverts, challenges, and contradicts the idolatrous understanding that had developed in the classical

7 Okafor: The Challenge of Contextual Theology world.” As such, his theology is both relevant and faithful. By using familiar categories that express existential struggles in the Hellenistic world, John is relevant to his contemporaries. But because he also challenges with the gospel the idolatrous worldview that shapes those categories calling for repentance, John is faithful to the demands of divine revelation which he mediates.

5.2. Contextualization in Patristic Theology Furthermore, there were elements of contextuality in the doctrinal thinking of the Church Fathers. As great theologians, they tried to make sense out of the faith in terms of the dominant and all-pervasive Hellenistic culture of their times. In this light, Clement of Alexandria integrated the insights of the Stoics while Origen made use of Plato. On the other hand, the theology of Augustine was shaped by the insights of Plato’s philosophy and neo-Platonists of his time. A good example of contextualization in the early Church can be seen against the background of the Trinitarian and Christological controversies of the early centuries of Church history. The ensuring formulation of the Trinitarian faith was the fruit of a missionary encounter between the gospel and pagan classical culture. The Church was entrusted with the mandate to announce the message that in Jesus, the man from Nazareth, God had entered our history to reveal and accomplish the salvation of the world which would be completed at the end of times. But this message of life needed to be communicated to people in the classical world whose thought forms and worldview were very different from that of the Old Testament. The dichotomies of the intelligible and sensible world were fundamental to the classical worldview. This way of understanding the world demanded a whole range of intermediate beings to bridge the gap between pure being which was unknowable and unapproachable (intelligible world), and the ordinary world of things and events (sensible world). If God is conceived as pure being, then it was a natural thing to place Jesus somewhere in this intermediate range – something less than God. This was what the priest Arius did with his Christological heresy. In his bid to protect the divine transcendence, he reasoned that the Word (Logos), while pre-existent in regard to the world, is a created intermediary, a kind of demi-god, neither fully God nor fully human. He allowed the gospel to be swallowed by the Hellenistic worldview of his time. The challenge of the Church then was how to protect the gospel from being accommodated and absorbed into this pagan Hellenistic worldview. 8 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 1-14

Another challenge was how the Church can offer the gospel to her contemporaries as a way beyond the crippling dichotomies of the Hellenistic thought-world. It was in this context that theologians of the first three centuries, especially Athanasius, developed the gospel into a comprehensive and explicit doctrine of the Trinity. The language with which this Trinitarian faith was articulated or expressed was the language of time and place. Thus, a most significant moment in theology was when, at Nicea, a Greek philosophical term - homoousios (consubstantial) – was used to express the scriptural idea of the identity of the Logos or incarnate Word in relation to the Godhead. What is the import of this achievement for contextual theology? Says Goheen:

The theological articulation of the Trinity was simply making explicit what was revealed in the gospel in the context of a missionary encounter with classical culture. This is contextual theology in the sense that the church formulated its doctrine in interaction with the currents of the contemporary culture, and also in the sense that the language and thought forms of the time were employed to make known and protect the gospel. There lies the true significance of Nicea, and later of Chalcedon, namely, “the underlying challenge they pose to us to have our own contemporary culturally based Christological formulations.”

5.3. Contextualization in Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas classical theological tradition developed in the context of the new intellectual climate and culture of 13th century which was occasioned by the emergence of universities. This new cultural context was also marked by the newly discovered works of Aristotle which Aquinas used as vehicle for a new synthesis of Christian doctrine. Though, Aquinas’ theology was contextual, and later became a paragon of orthodoxy, it tended to view theology as an unchangeable and metaphysical project whose conclusions have universal validity, are timeless and above any historical conditioning or culture. This is a so-called theologia perennis or the theology of eternity. The central issue in the criticism directed against this classical theological tradition is the relevance of theological practice.

5.4. Contextualization in the Modern Period

9 Okafor: The Challenge of Contextual Theology

Martin Luther proved himself as a great theologian by, among other things, successfully articulating the whole new consciousness of the individual as it emerged in the West at the dawn of modernity. He sought to discover a personal relationship with God, an important move which was in conformity with the spirit of the time. It was no wonder then that his call for the reformation of the Church was heard by so many people. Since his Protestant theology captured the modern emphasis on the place of the individual in the creation of his destiny, it can be said without fear of contradiction that this theology was nothing if not contextual. On the other hand, the theology of Catholic Counter-Reformation was developed in the context of opposition to the Protestant challenge spearheaded by Luther. In this sense, this particular Catholic Church theology was contextual. Furthermore, we can also cite many other examples from the modern period to show how theology was contextual. A good example was the 19th century monumental attempt by Friedrich Schleiermacher to root theology in experience in response to the romanticism of his age. It was also a positive attempt at contextualization by the effort made by the Catholic school of Tubingen to align Catholic theology with post-Kantian philosophy particularly that of Schelling. It is also noteworthy to underline two of the attempts to contextualize theology in the 20th century: One is that of Paul Tillich who was convinced that theology needs to be done as a correlation of human “existential questions and theological answers in mutual interdependence”. The other is Karl Barth’s highly contextual theology of the Word of God. In view of the forgoing historical excursus, it will be pertinent to conclude with Bevans as follows: “What becomes clear, in any case, is that even a cursory glance at the history of theology reveals that there has never been a genuine theology that was articulated in an ivory tower with no reference to or dependence on the events, the thought forms, or the culture of its particular place and time.”

5.5. Contemporary Contextual Theologies Colonialism began to take the centre stage as from the seventeenth century onwards. This historical event was accompanied by a fervour for overseas mission. It was in the work of some Christian missionaries that contextual theology was first made explicit. As these missionaries tried to bring the gospel to cultures which were remarkably very different from their own, they saw the necessity of adapting the message to the context of the people they were preaching to. This was the antecedent of contemporary contextual theology. 10 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 1-14

However, the rise of contextual theology as a professional discipline began to gather momentum as from the 1970s. This was earlier given a big boost by the Second Vatican Council which, in its Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes (1965), opted for the contextual method in its theological reflections. Thus, in 1973 two theologians from Asia, Shoki Coe and Aharon Sapsezian, pleaded for a contextualization of theology. Their demand was that the educational programme of the ecumenical movement should be situated in context. In other words, they insisted that theological education should be brought into “the field” to a greater extent. As Bergmann puts it: “Theology should be a living meeting between a universal Gospel and the specific reality where people are.” 1970s and 1980s recorded an immense number of systematic attempts to give human experiences in particular situations a central function in theology especially as it pertains to the experiences of suffering and structural injustice. This explicit and engaged awareness of the contextual nature of theology led to the emergence of the new types of theology – contextual theologies. This new type of theology (or contemporary contextual theologies) includes, liberation theology, black theology, Minjung theology, feminist theology and African Christian theology. The theology of liberation has its origin in Latin America where it was a Christian movement at the grass root level. It developed as a reflection on how the Gospel or Christian faith can be relevant to a people’s struggle against an unjust dependence upon colonial powers. In black theology, theologians in Africa and the USA reflected on the significance of faith in God for the experience of being black and marginalized. The Minjung theology in Korea reflected on the suffering people’s pain and brought it into theological focus. Feminist theology holds the conviction that the voice of and experience of women have been marginalized in Church history, and this reality gives women the justification for revisiting the biblical texts and the doctrines and practices taken from it, from a woman’s perspective. On the other hand, African Christian theology focuses on the interpretation of Christian faith in the context of African experience and culture. In spite of a few dissenting voices, African theologians generally assume that there are two basic types of African Christian theology, namely, inculturation and liberation. Inculturation theology which is a form of contextualization seeks to creatively incarnate the Gospel in African cultures thereby making this message relevant to the African situation. Inculturation involves two elements: Assumption of authentic African cultural values as Christian values and evangelization of African cultures. “Liberation theology,

11 Okafor: The Challenge of Contextual Theology in contrast, is a form of contextualization which places the Gospel in our contemporary African setting. Instead of focusing on the traditional African culture, liberation theology is passionately concerned with rectifying the glaring injustices in our society.” It complains that inculturation theology neglects the pressing social issues in our society.

Conclusion: The Challenge of Relevance From what we have seen so far, we can clearly state that the challenge of contextual theology is the challenge of relevance of the theological enterprise. It is a clarion call to theologians to take seriously the questions, issues, problems and concerns that arise from the context of their theologizing in order to make their theology a service to God’s presence and activity among humans in each local context. Time has passed when the model of doing theology is that which considers theology as a universally applicable and unchanging activity. Today, we should talk about a theology that makes sense at a certain time and place. This is not to deny the trans-cultural relevance of theology. But the conclusions of any theology apply primarily to the context from which that theology arises, since as David Tracy rightly observed, the theologian’s task is to bring about a “correlation” between tradition and situation (or context). Theology that is relevant thus, has to make human experience or culture and cultural change an important source of its reflection in addition to the Word of God as revealed in the sacred Scripture and transmitted in a living way through the sacred tradition. This raises to the foreground issues of criteria of orthodoxy. Should we consider culture or human experience on equal footing with Scripture and tradition as sources of the theological enterprise? My submission is that the Gospel as expressed in scripture and transmitted by the living tradition of the Church must be considered as the primary source of theology since it is the objective Word of God. On the other hand, culture or human experience since it contains God’s present revelation in context or the seeds of Word of God, can be considered as an important but secondary source of theology in comparison to the Gospel itself. This is the way to avoid a real danger which is inherent in contextualization, namely, that of mixing Christianity and culture to the point of compromising and betraying the truths of Christianity. The Gospel must be given primacy in relation to the present context. One of today’s problems in contextual theology is that many models prioritize context over the Gospel. Surprisingly, this is the case in most of the models surveyed by Stephen Bevans in his Models of Contextual Theology. In view of such danger, 12 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 1-14

Roman Catholic documents such as Evangelii Nuntiandi, while encouraging “theological expression which takes account of differing cultural, social and even racial milieu,” does not also fail to caution that the content of faith “must be neither impaired nor mutilated.”

13 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 15-28

FROM WAR TO DANCE: BEYOND THE METAPHOR OF ‘HOLY GHOST FIRE!’  Lawrence N. Nwankwo Diocesan Catholic Secretariat, , Nigeria. [email protected]

Introduction It is a recognized principle that the way we pray and worship reflects what we believe in and determines how we live. This is expressed in Latin as ‘lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi.’ This write-up seeks to highlight the truth of this principle as it manifests itself in the shift of invocation to the Holy Spirit. I will show that a partial shift has taken place from the traditional form of invocation to another form propagated in nascent popular Christianity. The shift is partial because the traditional form still exists alongside the new one. Traditionally, Holy Spirit is invoked and implored to enkindle in the faithful the fire of His love and to renew the face of the earth. In nascent popular Christianity however, the Holy Spirit is mobilized as fire to burn up the enemy. In prayer gatherings, as the leader, often in a loud voice, intones “Holy Ghost!” the participants respond, “Fire!” These verbal gestures are choreographed to simulate the pulling of a trigger to release the Holy Ghost like bullet or canon ball to devastate the enemy. This new form of prayer has implication for both belief and life. The Holy Spirit is no longer seen primarily, as the inner-Trinitarian bond of love between the Father and the Son and as introducing and enabling the believer to participate in the inner-Trinitarian love dance but as the warrior God. Similarly, life is seen as warfare not just with the evil spirits but also with other human beings who are often demonized as cohorts of the devil. One of the consequences is the exacerbation of conflict in our communities. Thus paradoxically, an element in the Christian faith is fueling violence and conflict in our communities. There is therefore, a need to look again at this element in order to find resources to move beyond it. This is what I intend to do in this write-up. As first step, I will show that conflict is at the basis of this vision of the Holy Spirit and His activities. As a second step, I will show that notwithstanding the elaborate images that have developed and are sustained through the use of cinematography of the Holy Spirit as Fire, it remains a metaphor. Third, I will draw attention to the mode of Jesus’ victory over evil on the cross. In a fourth move, I will present the cross of Jesus as

15 Nwankwo: From War to Dance evidence of divine action as situated creativity. This opens up to the vision of dance.

“Holy Ghost Fire!” – The Holy Spirit as Warrior God The metaphor, ‘Holy Ghost Fire!’is a relatively new entrant in the religious vocabulary and imagination of Nigerians. It was introduced less than two decades ago and has become very prominent, if not dominant, in the emerging popular religious consciousness, transcending denominational differences. It is propagated in music and graphically depicted visually with modern cinematographic techniques. At the heart of this vision is a warfare theodicy and an understanding of the effects of the salvation by Jesus Christ in terms of restoration of the status-quo ante in the Garden of Eden. In other words, people are supposed to enjoy fullness of life, health, wealth, fertility, longevity, etc. as evidence of the restored abundance through Jesus Christ. The absence of these ‘blessings’ in life is attributed to the interference of evil spirits and forces. It is against these forces that the power and fire of the Holy Ghost are mobilized to break, burn and open up these obstacles, set people free from their bondage, and allow the free-flow of divine blessings. This clash between the negative forces and the fire of the Holy Ghost is depicted graphically with lightning and thunder striking down ghoulish looking beings. All these elements can be discerned in the popular song Qkx Mxq Nsq (‘Holy Ghost Fire!’), in the album Egbeigwe by BonaChristus Umeogu, Ph.D. The lyrics of Qkx Mxq Nsq are in two voices. Igbo and English are also combined. I will transcribe and translate some of the stanzas. The transcription is on the left column and the translation on the right.

Qkx Mxq Nsq gbaba (3 times) Holy Ghost Fire, consume! (3 x) Iheqbxna na-emegide ndx m Everything that stands against my life

Ihe ekere eke n[[le Every charm Ihe agwqrq agwq n[[le Every evil manipulation Qkx Mxq Nsq gbaba iheqbxna Holy Ghost Fire consume everything na-emegide ndx m that stands against my life

Onye na-achq nwa Let the barren Chee aka kuru nwa g[ (2 times) Spread your hands and take your baby, G[ nwaagbqghqb[a (2x) Chee aka nara oke g[ You young girl, spread your hands and G[ onyenne, g[ onyenna receive your blessings, Xmxaka n[[le, oke xnx erugo xnx aka You mother, you father, and all the Bido taa gaba, o nwegh[ ihe pxrx ime- children your portion has reached you. 16 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 15-28

gide xnx, From today onwards, nothing stands { bx onyemmeri na-aha Jesus against you, You are a winner in Jesus’ name.

The second voice highlights the framework of war within which the metaphor of Holy Ghost Fire is embedded. He sings:

Qkx a atqgo agbx n[[le e kere na ndx g[ This fire has loosened the bonds in Eji m qkx a emeghe akpanwa n[[le your life Nd[ n[[le ekere eke, nd[ ekechiri ha By this fire I open up all the wombs n’aka, ndi e kechiri ha n’ukwu, that had been tied, those bound in the Eji m qkx Mxq Nsq atqagbx n[[le ahx hand or in the feet O Chukwu ji qkx aza ekpere I liberate them with Holy Ghost Fire O God that answereth by Fire

Any[ na-ebuli qkx nke Mxq Nsq We lift Holy Ghost Fire to destroy N'qgwx n[[le agwqrq agwq n’ezinaulo all charms in the various families d[ icheiche all covenants with the dead Qgbxgbandx qbxla nke si n’aka ndi all covenants with members of the nwxrx anwx water spirit cult Qgbugbandx nke si n’aka nd[ otu mmiri Holy Ghost Fire consume them Qkx Mxq Nsq gbaba ha.

Holy Ghost Fire as Metaphor The visual depiction of the Holy Spirit as warrior God with cinematographic techniques can make one forget that these visual images are constructions. There is a tendency to identify the Holy Spirit with the images that have been made of Him. Yet, these images are based on a metaphor. Metaphors share some commonalities with similes. Similes speak of one thing in terms of another. For example, Okeke is like fire. This evokes the meaning that just as fire is vibrant, energy and effervescent, so also is Okeke. What has happened is that some qualities of fire have been highlighted and applied to Okeke in order to describe aspects of him. Yet, in this process, the difference between Okeke and fire is maintained but a relationship is established through the comparative word ‘like.’ Metaphors are like similes but also different from them insofar as metaphors do not retain such words as ‘like’ which indicate that there is a comparison. In both metaphors and similes, there is a mapping of qualities and ideas from one conceptual domain to another. In the example above, the mapping is from the domain of fire, an inanimate object to the human domain. But at a 17 Nwankwo: From War to Dance deeper level, metaphors have been shown to pertain to the order of thought. Metaphors apply when one thing is thought of and spoken of in terms of another. For example, one thinks of and speaks about the leg of the table. This statement is a metaphor. It implies the transfer of elements from the concept of the human being to a table. Just as the human leg supports the human beings, so also does the ‘leg’ of a table. In the light of the above description of a metaphor as the mapping of meaning from one conceptual domain to another, it becomes obvious that religious language is largely metaphorical. Human language developed through the interaction of human beings with their environment. Human language is the only tool available to human beings for speaking about God. God talk, that is, any discourse about God is the outcome of mapping from the human conceptual domain to the divine domain. We can only speak of God in human categories and images. It is therefore important to realize that it is idolatrous to do a strict identification of God with the categories used to describe Him. Such strict identification does not obtain for example when we say that ‘Okeke is fire.’ This does not mean that Okeke burns people who come close to him, but that he is energetic like fire. Yet, when people say ‘Holy Ghost Fire’ they tend to visualize the Holy Spirit as a ball of fire striking at the enemy. This leads us to ask why this imagery is taken literally? Without claiming to be exhaustive, I have been able to find two interrelated reasons why the Holy Spirit is seen literally as a weapon of war. The first is the warfare theodicy and the second is the influence of a pre-millennial interpretation of history. The net result of these two elements is the reinforcement of a cosmological vision of spiritual conflict and war. This vision is what sustains the perception of the Holy Spirit as warrior God.

The Warfare Theodicy and the Pre-Millennial Interpretation of History The warfare theodicy sets out to justify God in the face of evil in the world. In classical theodicy, the question is: ‘if God is all powerful and all good, then from where comes evil.’ In order to uphold divine omnipotence and goodness, evil is seen as incidental to creation, the outcome of the expression of creaturely freedom. In contrast, warfare theodicy, propagated mainly by Reformed Christian theologians, attenuates divine omnipotence and sovereignty. According to Gregory A. Boyd, “it seems we must either believe that God does not prevent certain events because he chooses not to or because he is unable to. The warfare worldview denies that God always chooses not to intervene, for this would require the belief that there is a specific divine purpose behind everything. Hence, the warfare worldview must accept that at least sometimes God is unable to prevent” 18 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 15-28 some events. God is engaged in a cosmic war with rebellious spirits. According to Scripture, the head of this rebellion is a powerful fallen angel named Satan. Under him are a myriad of other spiritual beings and humans who refuse to submit to God’s rule. Scripture refers to this collective rebellion as a kingdom (Mt 12:26; Col 1:13; Rev. 11:15). Boyd concludes that “it is clear that God shall someday vanquish this rebel kingdom, but it is equally clear that in the meantime, He genuinely wars against it.” Against this background of cosmic battle, attributes of a warrior are mapped on to the Holy Spirit. In short, the Holy Spirit becomes the spiritual ‘canon’ deployed by ‘prayer warriors’ against the enemies of God. A reinforcement of the vision of cosmic battle comes from a pre-millennial interpretation of history. This is an interpretation of history that is based on Rev. 20:1-10. This obscure text in the book of Revelation speaks of the millennial, that is, a thousand year reign of Christ during which the Devil will be bound, thrown into the pit and sealed over. After the thousand years, the Devil will be released from prison and he will attempt to wage war on the saints. But he will end up being hurled into the lake of fire and sulphur. This pericope has been used as canon for the periodization of history into pre-millennium, the millennium and post-millennium. The pre- and post-millennial periods are characterized by intense activities of the Devil. For those who interpret the visions in the Book of Revelation as predictive prophecy in line with the book’s claim that it is about “what must soon take place” (Rev. 1:1), this is end-time, that is, the period before the second coming of Christ on a white horse, judging and making war on the beast, on kings of the earth subduing all to establish the millennial Golden Age. Pentecostalism fosters this end-time interpretation of history and the associated expectation of a heightened activity of the Devil before its period of captivity. In the light of the above dominance of the vision of warfare, all the negative experiences that people go through are seen as caused by evil spirits. Human agency is down-played. There is a conscious effort to construct a “theology [which] enables us to look beyond the instrument of oppression, which is human in most cases, and focus our attention and resistance on the source of the oppression, the devil himself.” The consequence is a transformation of the traditional Igbo cosmology in which, although deities and spiritual forces are implicated in the negative experiences human beings go through, human agency is still preserved and promoted as the source of the restoration of the precarious cosmic balance.

From Lex Orandi to Lex Vivendi As has been seen, there is a theology behind the invocation and deployment of the Holy Spirit as fire to burn up spiritual enemies. This theology 19 Nwankwo: From War to Dance has enormous implications for everyday life. First of all, it abstracts from human agency and externalizes the cause of negative experiences. For example, a bus driver who crashes his vehicle once every short while would attribute this to the interference of evil forces without in any way taking into consideration the recklessness of his driving, his short sight, his slow reflexes, his inability to concentrate for a long time, etc. He simply abstracts from these factors connected with human agency and externalizes the cause of his problem on the spirit world. The second step is to look for the human instrument of the evil forces. This leads to a process of demonization. An uncle or someone from within the kindred and in the village is constructed as the instrument of the evil forces. The third step is to seek to break out of the bondage through the assistance of those reputed to be ‘powerful’ men or women of God. These prescribe prayers and rituals that often cost the participants a lot of money. At such prayer sessions, some people may be fingered as evil people, those responsible for all the deaths and the stalling of the progress of all the young men in the kindred. Such people are often the elderly who are ostracized as witches and wizards. This introduces a dynamics of conflicts in which all possibilities of resolution are disabled because there is no middle ground between good and evil spirits. The only option is a ‘fight to finish.’ The externalization of causes described above also leads to obfuscation of reality. It abstracts from all socio-structural analyses of the negative experiences of people. When the inability to secure a job is blamed on the manipulation at the spiritual realm by an envious member of the kindred, this immediately re-directs attention away from questions about the job-generating capacity of the economy, the quality of political leadership and the quality of the educational systems, and focuses them on putative evil spirits. The warfare vision also supports a form of spiritual life in which intimacy, trust and surrender to God are at the periphery. In a sense, the human self, his or her economy of desires and the fulfillment of his or her needs are at the centre of the imagination. Divine power is mobilized to foster, preserve or reclaim these needs often termed blessings. Above all, the warfare vision makes the world a dangerous place. It makes people become almost paranoid as any and every unexpected movement in the night, for example, of a cockroach on hard surface, makes them ‘cast’ and ‘bind’ the devil with shouts of “Holy Ghost Fire!”

Beyond the Vision of War: Retrieving the Cross of Jesus As seen above, the warfare vision is reinforced by the warfare theodicy and the pre-millennial interpretation of history. I have critiqued and shown the inadequacy of the warfare theodicy. As regards the second, suffice it to note that there are other approaches to the reading of the Book of Revelation apart from that of predictive prophecy. One of such other approaches is that of Elizabeth 20 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 15-28

Schüssler-Fiorenza who highlights the cross of Jesus as model of divine engagement and defeat of the devil. Schüssler-Fiorenza argues that the “the generative centre of Rev. is not the course of history but the experience of the Christian community in the christologically qualified end time.” The Christian community is the focal point of the final conflict between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan in the intervening time between the exaltation of Christ and his return in glory. Paradoxically however, “the true victory of God becomes manifest in the death of the faithful witnesses, which is only an apparent victory of Satan (11:7; 13:7), since precisely through their death, they have overcome the reign of Satan.” Carrying the reflection further, Schüssler-Fiorenza remarks that “just as the victory of the Lamb in death was the prerequisite for his heavenly reign, so also the victory of the Christians in death is the prerequisite for the coming of God’s rule on earth (6:9-11), which can become a reality only after the annihilation of the powers hostile to God in judgment.” The Christian community is persecuted because it is “‘the sign’ that the reign of the satanic powers on earth has been broken through the death of Christ, who through his blood created a new kingdom, a new basileia for God.” It is by imitating Christ in being the grains of wheat that fall to the ground and die in order to produce fruit (Jn 12:24) that the Christian hopes to contribute to the spread of God’s kingdom of truth, love, justice and peace. Thus, in spite of the visionary rhetoric of the Book of Revelation, the style of Christian engagement in the ‘conflict’ undermines the very concept of conflict. More precisely, it shows the inapplicability of the militaristic vision that is behind the presentation of the Holy Spirit as warrior God. Put simply, when the struggle between the forces of good and evil is seen as centered in the church, then the cross of Jesus on which victory against the devil was obtained, rises in stature. It shows that the devil is defeated not through brute ‘force’ but through self-sacrifice in obedience to the Father. This subverts the militaristic vision of warfare. Spiritual warfare properly understood, is no more a matter of deploying the Holy Spirit as a spiritual missile. It is rather seen as a struggle to overcome the human tendency to autonomy, the desire to do one’s own will in order to submit to the will of the Father. This is what I have characterized as entering into the dance of God.

From Intervention to Interaction: Model of Divine Action Before exploring and appropriating the metaphor of dance, it is important to draw attention to an understanding of divine action that the incarnation of Jesus projects. This is important because the war metaphor privileges an interventionist model of divine action. War technology has consistently moved in the direction of 21 Nwankwo: From War to Dance minimizing contact between the combatants. This can be verified in the gradual shift from the use of clubs and sticks as weapons to the use of unmanned drone. While clubs and even swords brought combatants face to face with each other, the gun and other missile projection platforms increased the distance. The state of the art is the drone which is unmanned. Spiritual warfare is conceived against the background of images shaped by hi-tech. Lightening and claps of thunder are the preferred visual images used to model the operation of ‘Holy Ghost Fire.’ God is mobilized to intervene from outside. Yet, the incarnation shows us that God defeated the devil by stepping into the human arena. God’s engagement and defeat of the devil were through human beings who surrender to God’s will. At the Annunciation, the free consent of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Lk. 1:26-38) was obtained, and on the cross, Jesus, the God-man remained faithful till the end to the will of His Father. The devil’s defeat was not therefore by spectacular display of fire-power in the context of a military engagement rather it came about by the resolute commitment to doing the will of the Father. The fact that God took flesh and effected human salvation in and through the God-man gives us insight in regard to the mode of divine action. Let us remember that when we speak of divine action we use models of human action to throw light on the mystery of God’s relationship with the world. Two models of human action have been identified: the subjective and the performative theories of action, and the latter embraces the key aspects of the former but with a different emphasis. Common to the various articulations of the subjective theory of action is a view of action as issuing forth or being steered from a central command post – the human mind, consciousness, will, intentionality. Consciousness is made sovereign since it is presented as having an unrestricted power to direct the course of action. However, human action, in reality, is more complex than simply the realization of an intention or the achievement of preconceived goal. There are other intervening factors which the subjective theory abstracts from. The performative theory of action seeks to bring in these elements without giving up on meaning, value, volition and consciousness. The result is a view of action, in the words of Hans Joas as “situated creativity.” The performative theory of action emphasizes three elements that are glossed over in the subjective theory. These are emphases on embodiedness, on sociality and on the situation. As embodied beings, the fact that the body is not just an instrument over which human beings have absolute control has to be factored into an account of action. Being embodied immediately leads to recognition of social embeddedness, that is, the embeddedness of human beings in socio-cultural, economic and political situations. This embeddedness constitutes the situation within which actions are posited. The situation is not simply the context in which one performs an action. It is constitutive of actions because the 22 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 15-28 situation determines the resources and means available. Moreover, goals are set only in the light of the means that are available. Means not only specify goals, but also expand or restrict the scope for possible goal-setting. Thus, action is not simply the mobilization of resources or energies for the achievement of preconceived goals or ends as the subjective theory insists. It is the outcome of an interaction between an embedded subject and the situation in which the agent finds himself or herself. Action implies an interaction or quasi-dialogue between the situation and the agent’s “disposition towards a goal.” That is why action is seen as situated creativity. It is more profitable to reflect on divine action in the light of performative theory although one has to abstract from some elements of the performative theory, such as embodiedness. One of the advantages of modeling divine action in line with the performative theory is that it avoids some problems that arise from the use of the subjective theory. It allows one to affirm divine agency in the world while preserving human freedom and the regularity of nature while attenuating the problem of evil in the world. Apart from these advantages of the performative model, divine kenosis which shines through in the incarnation gives one a warrant to work with it. It also agrees with an understanding of divine omnipotence. According to Gregory of Nyssa, the fact that “the omnipotence of the divine nature should have had strength to descend to the humiliation of humanity furnishes a clearer proof of that omnipotence than even the greatness and supernatural character of the miracles.” Similarly, in the 19th century, Kierkegaard wrote:

The highest thing that can be done for a being, which is far beyond anything that a human being could do, is to make it free. In order to be able to do that, it is necessary to have nothing less than omnipotence. This might appear strange, because omnipotence is supposed to make things dependent. But when one tries to form an exact understanding of omnipotence, one sees that it includes just this property of recovering itself in the manifestation of this omnipotence, so that the creature can, for this very reason, be independent by means of omnipotence. This is why one human being can never make another completely free. The one who has the power is bound precisely by it, and will always have a false relation towards the other whom he wants to make free. Only omnipotence can recover itself in giving itself, and this relation constitutes precisely the independence of the receiver.

23 Nwankwo: From War to Dance

Both St. Gregory of Nyssa and Kierkegaard speak of omnipotence in the context of kenosis. St. Gregory alludes to descent into humanity and Kierkegaard talks of omnipotence giving itself. In sum, human freedom and divine involvement in history are preserved within the kenotic framework and it makes sense to speak of divine action in terms of ‘situated creativity’ and interaction rather than simply intervention as the war metaphor projects.

Dance as Metaphor of Divine-Human Inter-Action To speak of divine action as ‘situated creativity’ already clears the ground for the metaphor of dance. There are two factors that I have to briefly address before exploring it more fully. These are the seeming novelty of the metaphor and its suitability since dance ordinarily points to entertainment and celebration while it is something very serious that is being addressed. Dance has a long history of use in theological reflection and liturgical praxis. In the second century Apocryphal Acts of John, dance was proposed for the understanding of the Eucharist. Instead of the account of the last Supper as in the Synoptic gospels or the washing of feet in the Gospel of St. John, Jesus is said to have gathered his disciples before his passion to sing and dance to the Father. One line in this apocryphal writing insists, according to Reinhold Hammerstein, that the person who does not dance does not know the mystery that has happened in Jesus’ passion and resurrection. In another study, Ernst Benz shows the link in the history of Christianity between dance and the Eucharist. Similarly, Hugo Rahner presents the cosmic significance of dance as presented in the works of Lucian of Samosata (c. 125 – 180 AD) as underlying the early acceptance of dance into the liturgy. The recognition of the cosmic significance of dance lies behind its use in the liturgy. More recently, Catherine LaCugna has used dance to reflect on the Trinity. According to her, many analogies have been used to translate the Greek word, perichoresis but none of these “convey the dynamic and creative energy, the eternal and perpetual movement, the mutual and reciprocal permeation of each person with and in and through and by the other persons. … This is why the image of ‘the divine dance’ has been used to translate perichoresis. Even if the philological warrant for this is scant, the metaphor of dance is effective.” In other words, dance has featured in theological reflection even if it is not as well established as war which has been popularized by the warfare theodicy of the Reformed theological tradition and the pre-millennial interpretation of history by the Pentecostals. The question of the appropriateness of dance as a metaphor has been partially answered. Dance has been in used even in the reflection on the Trinity. 24 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 15-28

Suffice it to highlight aspects of dance that are salient as constructing the framework for the reflection on the relationship of God and the world. We shall focus on drum dancing, because according to Onuora Ossie Enekwe, the drum is the most important instrument in . Further, Enekwe argues that although dance is also for entertainment, it is not a commodity produced for consumption by the people but an event that calls for participation – onye amaghi agba o kwewe n’isi (those who do not know the dance steps are supposed to follow the rhythm with their nods). This participatory nature of Igbo drum dancing is also facilitated by the wide room for improvisation. Both the dancers and the players contribute in fixing the rhythm and tempo at each time. A high degree of co-creativity or what may be called situated creativity obtains between the drummer and the dancer. The cosmic dimension of dance is brought out by Chukwulozie Anyanwu who writes that

Dance is the expression of the cosmic rhythm of the life-force…. To live is to dance, or living is dancing; and the beauty of life consists of dancing it…. (The) primordial or ultimate one, in African thought is the life-force, Life-Creator, God-Dancer or God-artist. The dancer (the subject) is not isolated from the life-force but is borne on its wave. The other interpenetrates and transforms the subject in such a way that the subject, the dancer, is absorbed and thus lives a common life with it or him. In this situation, the dancer is no longer an artist but the product of art…. His hands and feet, head and spirit, his muscles and breathing reflect the cosmic rhythm that permeates the universe. So, he becomes a work of art, the product of the life-force and an ‘aesthetic triumph. At the background of Anyanwu’s reflection is a view of dance as an event of power. In this regard, Keith M. Trivasse paraphrased Susanne K. Langer who argued that dance communicates power “though this power is ‘not actual, physically exerted power, but appearances of influence and agency created by virtual gesture.” Dance projects a field of energy or force and those who come into that field experience a pull. Thus, although dancers seem to move themselves to the rhythm, in a more profound sense, it is the dance that elicits a response and sways the dancers so much so that those who do not know the dance steps join by nodding their heads to the rhythm. The field of energy radiated by dance is due to its ability to create and re-create space-time and consciousness. Dance is mind-nurturing and transformative. It stirs, ‘intoxicates’ and fosters ecstatic

25 Nwankwo: From War to Dance experiences. In this regard, one recalls the power of ‘egwu ogene” in the Igbo context to drive people to near frenzy by transforming their consciousness. It has been noted that dance features prominently in all traditional healing rituals. René Devisch interprets these healing rites in terms of weaving the threads of life. This shows that the restoration of relationship and harmony is central to these healing practices. The rituals weave a person back into the tapestry of life, personal, familial, communal as well as cosmic. Drum-dancing plays a central role in these rituals not simply because their complex rhythms serve as symbol of the process of weaving and interweaving of differences into a dynamic unity, but also because drum-dancing effects that what it symbolizes. It is the sacral-mystical dimension of the drum and of dance, their cosmic and ritual significance, the power of their symbolism for the weaving and interweaving of the tapestry of life, their power to transform space-time and consciousness and show situated creativity that recommend dance as metaphor for reflecting on God’s relationship with creation. In the light of the above, dance provides a framework characterized by dynamic weaving and interweaving through a force-field which draws and inserts people into its orbit of influence. With reference to God’s relationship with the world, dance highlights the element of divine interaction with the world and governance of the world in a way analogous to situated creativity. Just as the dancers and the players improvise the rhythm as they go along so do human beings with God and among themselves. When human beings are open to God, there is harmony but the devil is ever struggling to supplant God and stop the dance and the interweaving. Resistance to the disruptive action of the devil consists in seeking to embody the dance of God more fully by surrendering to His rhythm.

Holy Spirit and Interweaving: Concluding Reflection We started this reflection by observing that how we pray expresses what we believe in and determines how we live. Concretely, we explored the consequences in terms of belief and action of the invocation of the Holy Spirit as consuming fire. The inadequacy of this vision in terms of its promotion of conflict and enmity as well as the weakness of some of its theological assumptions necessitated the projection of another metaphor – dance – which highlights, among other things, situated creativity through weaving and interweaving the tapestry of life. The Holy Spirit can be seen in analogy to the thread weaving and interweaving people with each other and with God and in this way energizing space-time and transforming consciousness towards surrender to God and communion.

26 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 29-46 DEVELOPMENT AS AFRICAN THEOLOGY TODAY  Vitalis Anaehobi Blessed IweneTansi Major Seminary, Onitsha, Nigeria [email protected]

Introduction The missionary mandate of Matthew 28,19: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all the teaching I gave you, lo I am with you till the end of time” is understood by the Church to have three dimensions namely: proclamation of the Word, celebration of sacraments and witnessing. This third aspect touches the various aspects of life in human community. One of such aspects is integral development. Looking at the economic, political, social, environmental and human development in our country Nigeria today one cannot but notice that most people seem to have no direction and are just following the wind. Even many of the so called elites find it hard to distinguish between common good, good of all and personal good. History shows that the Western development was built on Christian principles and foundations which emerged mostly as a result of the Church’s engagement in the championing of development in all its aspects. In our time, the Church’s engagement for a better life for humanity has not waned. The Second Vatican Council provided a big opportunity for the Church to articulate very well her development principles which should be the foundation for development in our time. Going through the pages of the Vatican II document on the Church in our Time, Gaudium et Spes, one cannot but ask one question: what role should the Catholic theology in Nigeria play today for the promotion of integral human development? To answer this question, we will delve briefly into the history of missionary activities in southern Nigeria. From the history, we will pick up the essential elements of the missionary work of the epoch that are related to development. We shall then replace those elements in the context of the Church’s teaching on development in the light of Gaudium et Spes. To conclude, we will X-ray the condition of things in Nigeria today and the Church’s engagement so far before proposing what we think the Church in the person of her theologians should do to make our development more Christian and more human.

29 Anaehobi: Development as African Theology Today

Missionaries as Theologians of Development After the 15th century’s failed attempts by the Portuguese missionaries to implant Christianity in Nigeria through the Delta Regions, successful attempts were made in the 19th century. One of such attempts was the arrival of young French Spiritan missionaries at Onitsha on 5th December, 1885. Before being allowed to see the King of Onitsha this group of four young missionaries: two priests Fr. Joseph Lutz and Fr. Jean Horne with two brothers Hermas Huck and Jean Gotto were made to sign a treaty with the colonial representatives the Royal Niger Company, a treaty of non-commercial or trade interference with the natives. The British colonial masters wanted to make sure that the missionaries would not become their rivals and in this way tamper with the colonial economic and political interest in the region. This group is made up of priest specially trained for the pastoral work and brothers specially trained for technical work for advancing human development. Even though one of them, Brother Jean Gotto died of malaria few days after their arrival, the others continued with the mission which was not only proclamation of the Word, but also social developmental work. In the words of a professor of history these young missionaries under the leadership of Fr. Joseph Lutz “introduced the use of schools (for boys and for girls), charitable work (dispensaries, hospitals, orphanage and asylum), trade and industrial institutions (for carpentry, masonry, tailoring, shoe-making etc.), farming and gardening as means of attracting and retaining converts to the Catholic religion.” Fr. Lutz worked tirelessly for ten years, laying the foundation of the Church in Southern Nigeria and on 17th December, 1895 took a final bow, leaving behind him a young Church with a solid foundation. The successor of Lutz, Fr. Leon Lejeune who worked from 1900 to 1905, continued with the foundation period of the mission. He pushed the missionary initiative for human development further. He founded high schools and introduced a new architectural method by building the mission residence with burnt bricks and even building upstairs. In introducing the use of burnt bricks, he was also introducing for the natives a new way of building houses, for burnt bricks would henceforth begin to replace the mud bricks that the natives were using for their own constructions prior to his coming. He believed that if missionaries are well housed, a lot of money spent on sending them overseas for medical treatment could be directed to other areas of importance in the mission work. He abandoned the expensive practice of buying slaves and running a Christian village and concentrated more on hospitals, orphanages, boarding schools and overseas campaign for funds. In doing this, he obliged the Christians to become

30 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 29-46 contributors to Church projects and not just passive receivers. For him, everybody be he young or old, sick or healthy should contribute to the building of the church. This initiative was the seed-sowing which has today materialized into a very active and generous participation of our people towards church projects and church personnel. Commenting on this brief but active five years period of mission under Fr. Lejeune, a historian writes:

Within the period of five years he was Prefect Apostolic, he reorganized and brought initiatives that would eventually put the Niger mission squarely on the missionary map. He had ambitious pastoral programmes and revolutionary ideas on how to capitalize on the school apostolate to the advantage of all concerned. He set the parameters with which his successors Shanahan and Heery operated.

After Lejeune, the direction of the mission entered the hands of Fr. Joseph Shanahan, a young Irish Spiritan. He took up the task of expanding the mission territory to the Igbo hinterland and through his courage and charismatic leadership spread the faith to all the corners of the then Eastern Nigeria which includes the Delta regions of what is known today as the South-south region of Nigeria. Under his leadership, it was said that the mission expanded tremendously in both scope and activities. His success in making the achievements was as a result of his personality, vision and method of carrying out missionary work. He was bold and fearless, mixed freely with people, reasoned with them and understood them. Through intensive personal pastoral visitations of almost all the communities under his charge he was able to come in direct contact with the people and their needs. After the Prussian war, the Germans having lost the war were obliged to relinquish all the countries allotted to them to colonise in Africa. The same decision touched the German missionaries in Africa. Consequently, some part of Cameroun under the charge of German missionaries passed to the charge of Bishop Shanahan. Shanahan therefore decided to visit these communities. It was a thousand mile trekking. After that visit, Shanahan’s health never returned to normal. Shanahan was succeeded by Bishop Charles Heerey. During his period 1931-1967 known by historians as the period of consolidation, Heerey concentrated in the consolidation of the school apostolate and especially in the establishment of secondary schools and the resuscitation of the medical apostolate. It was at his time that Catholicism was given more administrative carvings in the lower Niger Catholic mission. Creation of local clergy and

31 Anaehobi: Development as African Theology Today congregations were also vigorously pursued having as result the emergence of indigenous priests and religious.

Essential Elements of the Missionary Period In Relation To Development Having gone through the period of foundation, expansion and consolidation of the missionary period in Southern Nigeria, I wish to underline the basic developmental initiatives of the period. Under Fr. Lutz, the following were initiated: buying of slaves, Christian village, school for children, dispensaries, orphanages, asylum, trade and industrial institutions, technical workshops, farming and gardening.Under Fr. Leon Lejeune and Shanahan these activities were intensified while Heerey for his part consolidated what others had done while introducing the administrative structures. We can group these into four: human formation (school and Christian village), engagement for justice, peace and human right (asylum, buying of slaves), professional formation for promotion of life with dignity (trade, building technology and industrial institutions), charity (orphanage) and investment on human capital (medical apostolate). These four categories of activities fall into the categories of what is known today as integral human development, that is, the promotion of man in every aspect of his existence. Let us now study each of these in the light of the Second Vatican Council and her teaching.

Human Formation Even though the missionary period (1885-1965) started before the Council, that is to say that the council did not so much influence the decisions of the missionary to engage themselves in the development of their mission territories, it is pertinent to note that they carried out their work in the spirit of the council. They in fact anticipated the Council. While affronting courageously the situation of the people to whom they were sent to evangelize, the missionaries very quickly understood that “the black African is so much attached to the ancestral and traditional world, a world that is not so much exploited and not so much understood but a world that conditions all his decisions.” Understanding this is very vital for development because a man cannot begin to transform his world if he does not understand it. For the African, the world is a mystery to be worshipped and not a reality to be transformed. At that time, “the black African has grossomodo a passive attitude of someone who suffers nature, who participates in nature but does not dominate it, does not master nature and does not subdue it.” The result is the mystification of nature. He sees the forces of nature as something to be pacified or to be endured patiently or even worshipped. 32 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 29-46 The missionaries understood that only education in faith and in secular realities could solve this problem. That was why education of children was a priority for their mission. While educating children, it was also important to liberate the adults from the mentality of wonderment before the forces of nature. For this reason, Fr. Lutz introduced the Christian villages where all the converts to Christianity lived, separate from others. The idea of separating the Christians from others however, may not today be seen as an ideal since Christians are supposed to be lambs among wolves and to be the light in darkness. Besides, running the Christian village was very expensive and weighed on the funds for other missionary projects. However, at the period it proved an efficient means of education in faith necessary for inculcating a mentality of domination over nature and the ancestral misbeliefs. The Council Fathers confirmed the option for education which was a priority for the early missionaries. They insisted on the necessity of education for development, especially through a proper understanding of nature and its values. “It is one of the properties of the human person that he can achieve true and full humanity only by means of culture that is, through the cultivation of the goods and values of nature.” This cultivation of goods and values can only come through education, especially through formal education. Culture is understood here to mean “all those things which go to the refining and developing of man’s diverse mental and physical endowment. He strives to subdue the earth by his knowledge and labour; he humanizes social life both in the family and in the whole civic community through the improvement of customs and institutions.” Given this importance, the Fathers insist that ignorance is a “curse” which all, especially Christians should strive to deliver the human race from. For them, there must be provision of sufficient basic education for all “lest any be prevented by illiteracy and lack of initiative from contributing in an authentically human way to the common good.” It was this refining of mentality and behaviour and the mental empowerment that the missionaries aimed at through schools and the Christian villages. It is only through the realization of true and full humanity that a society could be said to have developed. It will not be an exaggeration to say that the imbibing of Christian mentality and the spirit of understanding rather than mystifying natural phenomena came more through school than through preaching. It was with school that children were introduced into the realities of the world through geography enabling them to understand that the universe has its own law and that all is not directed by the blind forces of nature and the spirits.

Engagement for Justice, Peace and Human Right

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Even though the trans-Atlantic slave trade was officially abolished in 1841 in England that is, before the arrival of missionaries in Southern Nigeria, the missionaries still observed that in practice slave trade was still in place. Knowing full well that the perpetrators of this evil were the powerful people in the society with their European brothers, the missionary resorted to buying back the slaves and setting them free. It was an expensive enterprise as this gulped huge sum that would have been invested in other missionary projects. However, it was their way of saying no to an insult against human dignity. They also noticed that the people have some practices that go against human right and dignity like human sacrifice, killing of twins and a caste system whereby some people were dedicated to gods and by this very fact, regarded as inferior human beings who should live apart from others and not have any social relationship with the free-born. The missionaries in their desire to promote human right and dignity had to provide asylum to such people and even create orphanage for twins recovered from the evil forest where they were usually dropped to die. Again in many occasions, the missionary had to voice out their non-acceptance of some unjust treatments meted out to the Africans by their white colonial brothers. Often, they were engaged in direct opposition and conflict or they brought to their support those afflicted by the colonial masters. It was their way of promoting justice, peace and human dignity. The defence of human right and dignity as well as the promotion of justice and peace occupied a lot of pages in the teaching of the Second Vatican Council. The first chapter of Gaudium et Spes was devoted to the dignity of the human person. The Fathers maintained that man is created in the image and likeness of God. Even when he fell into sin, God did not abandon him, but sent his only Son to redeem him, showing by this the immense dignity of this creature that is man. The Fathers maintained that man is superior to every other created thing, “for by his power to know himself in depths of his being he rises above the whole universe of mere objects.” He has a spiritual and immortal soul, intelligence and conscience. By all these, man merits to be treated with respect and honour. Above all man is created to be a free being, being responsible for his action. “Man’s dignity therefore requires him to act out of conscious and free choice, as moved and drawn in a personal way from within, and not by blind impulses in him or by mere external constraint.” A close reading of the Council’s teaching helps to appreciate the action of the missionaries in their clear light. They knew that slavery is a total contradiction of God’s will that his children should be free moral agents. They knew that killing of twins and human sacrifices are against the fundamental right to life which God has given to all his children. They recognized that the cast system which reduces

34 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 29-46 some people to social outcast goes against the right of every man to be treated with respect. By their position against such social evils, the missionaries laid a solid foundation for social justice and peace without which any development will remain an illusion to be pursued but never attained.

Professional Formation for Promotion of Life with Dignity Before the coming of the missionaries, our people were already practising some professional and commercial activities. However, the advent of the missionaries opened the doors for new ways of doing things. Life in the Christian village was not devoid of activities and these activities were not concerned only with spiritual exercises. The converts were taught new ways of working like carpentry, shoe-making, tailoring, masonry etc. Our people had a way of building with mud, thatches and ropes. The mission building had to be constructed, especially from the time of Fr. Lejeune with burnt bricks, zinc and nails. This provided opportunity for our people to be trained in the modern way of building as masons and carpenters. The converts were given clothes to attract them to the faith and with that came the practice of dressing like the white which was different from our traditional dressing with weaved clothes. This created the need to have tailors and the missionary rose up to the challenge by training tailors from among our people. In so doing, they put in place a new profession. Foot wears were not so common among our people. However, with the missionaries it started being common especially with the catechists and teachers. Such necessitated the training for shoemakers. In doing this, the missionaries were in fact creating economic outlets for bettering the life of our people. The Council document will confirm this initiative in the third chapter of the second part of Gaudium et Spes titled “economic and social life.” The Council Fathers insisted that the economic and social lives are areas where the dignity and entire vocation of the human person have to be respected and fostered. Man is seen as the source, the focus and the end of economic and social life. The Fathers were of the view that faith in Christ should push Christians to work for a better world. “Anyone who in obedience to Christ seeks first the kingdom of God will derive from it a stronger and purer love for helping all his brethren and for accomplishing the task of justice under the inspiration of charity.” Such activities are seen by the Council as a way of contributing “to the prosperity of mankind and to world peace.” There could be no better way of explaining the inspiration of the missionaries in training their convert on professional and economic activities. The missionaries were acting under the influence of their faith because they were

35 Anaehobi: Development as African Theology Today really seeking first the kingdom of God and they knew that that kingdom begins here on earth.

It is a mistake to think that, because we have no lasting city, but seek the city which is to come, we are entitled to shirk our earthly responsibilities, this is to forget that by our faith we are bound all the more to fulfil these responsibilities…let there, then, be no such pernicious opposition between professional and social activities in one hand and religious life in another.

Charity and Investment on Human Capital The missionaries also invested much on human capital. By this, I mean the facilities and structures that help to keep man on top of his abilities, making him fully alive. Such include the maternities, orphanages and hospitals. These structures were totally inexistent before the advent of Christianity in our region. However, the missionaries could not fold their arms and watch babies recovered from evil forest die. The twins that were picked from the evil forest could not be returned to their mothers and adoption was not yet a practice then. For this reason, orphanages were created. There was also a high rate of infant mortality and even maternal post natal mortality. This too made the missionaries to create maternities. The creation of hospitals came also as a necessity for curing sick people. Fr. Lutz had a formation in medicine and was particularly instrumental in the establishment of these structures. Bishop Heerey would bring the initiative to its height with the great Charles Borromeo Hospital Onitsha, the Holy Rosary Hospital both in Onitsha and Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital Ihiala. The orphanages could not continue because our people understood with the teachings of the missionaries that twins were not actually evil omen but rather signs of God’s love. One could see that the missionaries were not just acting a script. They were confronting life as they met it in their mission territory. Their attitude would be acknowledged years later by the Council Fathers who praised the attitudes of the missionaries of the Church who down through the ages have laboured to make life easy through the development of their mission territories, bringing better life for their people. For them, the mission that Christ bequeathed to his Church was not in political, economic or social order. It was rather a religious one. Yet, “the Church is able, indeed it is obliged, if times and circumstances require it, to initiate action for benefit of all men, especially those in need, like works of mercy and similar undertakings.” The healthcare of the people in the mission territory is part of activities described above as “similar undertakings”. In this way, the 36 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 29-46 Council recognized the correctness of the missionary initiatives for the improvement and security of human capital through the provision of health services. Theology, understood as creative interpretation of the Word of God and the teaching of the Church in the light of human experience, is fully manifest in the work of the missionaries. Theology for me is not just a reflection about God and man. No, it is rather human experience explained in the light of God and His Word. The engagement of the early missionaries in four vital areas of development is a veritable theology that should form the basis of our evaluation of Catholic theology in Nigeria of today. A brief look at the situation in Nigeria today will help us see if the Church has remained faithful to the initiatives of the founding fathers of our faith.

Nigerian Situation Today The Second Vatican Council ended in December, 1965. Before the Nigerian Church could have time to digest the teachings of the Council, the country was launched into a civil war which started in July, 1967 and lasted till January, 1970. The end of the war witnessed the repatriation of all the expatriate missionaries in the Southern part of the country. The Nigerian government accused them of having made the war to last longer than expected through the support they procured for the Biafrans. It was expected that without their presence and the propaganda work they carried out in their own countries, the war would have ended within a short time. This left the Church in Southern Nigeria very weak without enough pastoral agents. It was at this time that catechists were empowered to direct churches with the few available priests. After the war, the immediate need of the Church was not the application of the council’s teachings, but rather the reconstruction of the war ravaged Southern Nigeria. The unprepared departure of the missionaries made it impossible for them to handover to the very few indigenous priests who took over from them. One of the results was that most of the council’s teachings were not really received as they should. Today, the country has recovered from some of the aftermaths of the war, but authentic human development is a dream yet to be realized. This is in part because of the rapid and tumultuous transformations taking place on a global level and which affects humanity as a whole. There are series of new situations in the world. “Ours is a new age of history with critical and swift upheavals spreading gradually to all corners of the earth…we are entitled then to speak of a real social and cultural transformation whose repercussions are felt too on the religious level.” Nigeria is richer today and yet a huge portion of the people is plagued by

37 Anaehobi: Development as African Theology Today hunger and extreme need, while countless numbers are totally illiterate. Social injustice has become the order of the day in spite of the clamouring for human right in every quarter. 1% of the population live on the 70% of the nation’s wealth. Freedom is desired and pursued by all and yet there emerges new forms of slavery. People seek solidarity and yet a lot of oppositions along ethnic cleavages dominate the mentality of Nigerians. The diverse discoveries of science and technology like the telephone and the internet have modified enormously our people’s culture at all levels. The traditional perception of family, understanding of family ties, sex, marriage, wealth, honesty and other traditional values have been put to question by the phenomena of urbanization, capitalism and intellectual libertinism. The emergence of new religious movements that focus on miracle, prophecies and prosperity has greatly modified the way of understanding failure and success in economic and social endeavours. Corruption and the corresponding impunity in the country give the impression that it pays to be a criminal, it pays to enrich oneself rather than contribute in developing the country.“There is lastly a painstaking search for a better material world, without a parallel spiritual advancement.” As one can easily see, the situation at the time of the early missionaries was quite different from that of today. It would not be an overstatement to say that in spite of our rich human and natural resources, we are retrogressing. Bearing in mind all that the missionaries were able to realize in their time one cannot but ask this pertinent question: what should be the contribution of the Church through her theologians for the development of Nigeria today?

The Task for African Theologians Today Like the missionary Church, the Church in Nigeria has in general done a lot for the improvement of the people’s life. Education, health services, fights for social justice, charity and above all adequate involvement in moral formation of consciences of the masses are the areas where the Church has excelled. I do not want to dwell on these areas but rather to explore new avenues where the Church can still be useful especially through the theologians. Theology according to great medieval theologians and teachers, as a science of faith, is first of all a participation in God’s own knowledge of himself. Many tend to think that theology is merely discourse and not action. Pope Francis writes:

It is not just our discourse about God, but first and foremost the acceptance and the pursuit of a deeper understanding of

38 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 29-46 the word which God speaks to us, the word which God speaks about himself, for he is an eternal dialogue of communion, and he allows us to enter into this dialogue. Theology thus demands the … striving to investigate, with the discipline proper to reason, the inexhaustible riches of this mystery.

If theology is not just our discourse about God but concerns the pursuit of the word which God speaks to us about himself, we have to accept that through the incarnation, God has revealed himself as human. For this reason, theology, be it systematic or practical is first of all about God and human life here on earth and then hereafter in heaven, purgatory or hell as the Scripture has revealed. This means that any theology worthy of its name must take seriously what human beings go through otherwise it becomes a theology for angels; in which case, it becomes irrelevant for human beings. African theologians should therefore, meet the African people where they are. They should concentrate their effort in making the African man stand on his two feet and face the challenges of his time. According to Pope Francis, “theology must be at the service of the faith of Christians that it must work humbly to protect and deepen the faith of everyone, especially ordinary believers.” Our theology accordingly must begin with the people and their problem, especially in the areas where the ordinary believer has problem otherwise his faith runs a risk of dying. Today, the greatest problem facing the ordinary African believer is development, development understood as a movement from a less human way of life to a more human way of life, a movement that is integral, that is, taking into consideration the improvement of every aspect of human existence in a systematic and coordinated manner without favouring an aspect to the detriment of the others. These aspects include human development which has to do with the promotion of authentic societal values through education, religion and good governance and provision of common good, economic development, social development, political development and environmental protection. It is in these five areas that African theologians should prove their mark if they are to be useful to the society. This does not in any way mean that classical theological orientations should be neglected since they form the theoretical basis for every theological reflection. Priests, religious and catechists form a greater percentage of African practical and systematic theologians. The general expectation from the people is that they are normally spiritual gurus. However, spirituality as we could see from the missionary activities is not just a sacristy or sanctuary affair. “Spirituality to be relevant today must be translated into a personal stance towards people and

39 Anaehobi: Development as African Theology Today society at large. Holiness has a social dimension with a commitment that involves justice.” Theologians must today revaluate the way they understand piety of the pastors and religious. Excellence in virtue of purity, humility, celebration of sacrament and prayer should become visible in the engagement for the transformation of the society. “Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us a constitutive dimension of the teaching of the gospel, or in other words, of the Church’s mission for the salvation of human race and its liberation from every oppressive situations.” We will like to consider four areas which seem to be the most important: engagement for social justice, preferential option for the poor, parish empowerment projects and protection of the environment.

Engagement for Social Justice According to an African theologian, “The great dangers to the faith in African will not come from dogmatic beliefs, but rather from the imperative of action. Will the African Christian be counted among the most active and effective agent in the promotion of the African society? Will he be able to respond to the cry of the African man?” Injustice and unjust structures abound in the African society today. One cannot but ask what should be the contribution of theologians towards the eradication of these social evils? African theologians should not only reflect and preach against injustice. They should engage in fights against injustice by first of all making themselves free from unjust social acts. For example, they should give humble service to the people, respecting each person as a subject of human dignity which God has bestowed on all human being independently of their social status. They should promote good salaries and better working conditions for mission workers. They are not obliged to employ people if they cannot pay them well but if they employ, they should be well paid. They should see that those working for them do not work like slaves but should have adequate time for rest, holidays and leisure. Charity does not end at home. It is for this reason the Catholic theologians should not only rid themselves of injustice but should also encourage others through their reflections, preaching and their personal engagement. Martin Luther King Jnr was a powerful pastor, but if he only preached against injustice without going out to engage the consciences of the oppressors he would not have obtained the right of equal treatment for the American blacks of all times. It is a question of faith with good work. Such an engagement calls for detachment from wanton quest for material things that is gradually eating up the preachers of the word and making their voices to be drowned by their selfish desires. As Pope Paul VI puts

40 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 29-46 it, preaching is not enough for our contemporaries listen more to witnesses than to preachers and if they listen to preacher it is because these are witnesses.

Fundamental Option for the Poor The second area is that of fundamental option for the poor. This expression “option for the poor” came into being when the Latin American Churches tried to live out the social implications of the teachings of Second Vatican Council. In a simple terms, this means “not just living poorly but an empowering of the ‘poor’ through searching with them for the meaning of Christian faith in our world.” It means solidarity rather than charity, a concrete sharing in the sorrows, pains, joys, hopes and fears of those who are marginalized. “It is the commitment by individual Christian and the Christian community at every level to engage actively in a struggle to overcome the social injustice which mars our world.” Such solidarity involves a commitment to working and living within structures and agencies that promote the interest of the less favoured sector of the society. What do we mean by the less favoured sector of the society? By this is meant in the first place, those who are materially poor. Secondly, it means the groups that are politically marginalized or oppressed. Thirdly, it includes people discriminated against, no matter the basis of such discrimination. Fourthly, it involves the people that have been culturally silenced or oppressed. Finally, it has to do with those who have been religiously disinherited or deprived. How does the Church through the person of her theologians promote development in these marginalized sectors? The first thing to do is the commitment of pastors not to become allies of any unjust public authority, regime or individual, but rather to campaign actively against such powers. They should back up with the authority of the Church the effort made to challenge unjust and sinful structures in the society and should refuse Greek gifts coming from those who oppress the poor. They should in parishes undertake the empowerment of the poor through professional trainings and enlightenment programme and public awareness lectures. They should also make the Church more just in such a way that the poor can see in the Church a partner in their struggle for better life and enhanced human dignity. The poor should in this way be allowed to participate in decision-making in the Church. The papacy of Pope Francis is a special light for all theologians on the best way of theologizing today. Pope Francis does not only give good reflection on poverty. He gets involved in the life of the poor. His whole life in itself is a theology of poverty. His simplicity of life, his visits to the poor and his solidarity with immigrants speak volumes for the elaboration of theology of the poor. The

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Pope goes to meet the people where they are. African theologians should meet Africans where they are today and that is no other place than development.

Empowerment Theology How does it feel to see healthy young and sometimes educated people playing card at the productive hours of the day? We certainly feel that such people are lazy and will someday become criminals if they are not yet. But do we ask the question: why are these people playing instead of working? The generous master of the vineyard in the gospel once asked such a question and the response he got was: we are not working because nobody employed us. If many youths are idle today, is it not because nobody has employed them? Work is a human right. Every individual has a fundamental right to work, for in the beginning God ordered man to work. But if there is no work, how is one to be blamed for being idle? It is at this point that the African theologian should begin his work on the theology of work. During the Pope’s visit to Brazil in July, 2013 for the World Youths Day, many journalists commented on the success of the new evangelical Churches in Brazil, a success that has as consequence the reduction of the number of Catholics in the country. One of the reasons adduced by Catholics for leaving their faith and joining the evangelical Churches was the disappointment they felt in following a Church that was always talking about the poor but doing nothing to change their situation. Apparently, the new evangelical Churches were also talking about the poor but they not only talked, they also act so that the poor find a better life. Borrowing a leaf from the evangelical Churches in Brazil who like the apostles tried to empower the Christians, the African theologian should think out ways of empowering the youths who are the future of the Church. It might not be right to wish away this task by saying that it belongs to the state to empower her citizens. As a matter of fact, the important structures that form the pride of most developed countries of Europe today were initially put in place by the Church. We have to know that development is first and foremost about people and their well-being and not just question of bricks and mortar. If we do not realize this, theologians especially parish pastors will continue to build structures to pump up their personal ego as builders to the detriment of their role as the feeders of the flock of Christ. At the wall separating Jerusalem from Bethlehem, I read a bold inscription: “It is better to build bridges than to build walls. Tear down this wall.” Instead of investing on projects that are only occasionally useful, parish pastors should focus on projects that can create job and yield money for the parishes. It is better to build a small scale industry that can yield money to the parish and give

42 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 29-46 job to five youths than to build a magnificent parish gate. Fr. Ejike Mbaka, Mgr. Obiora Ike, Fr. Emmanuel Edeh and the leaders of some female religious congregations in Nigeria are among the good examples of empowerment theologians. It will be right to think that these theologians have the means of empowering the youth but it is not all about means, it is also and especially all about understanding the role of theology in Africa today. Parishes and institutions should through their theologians have the courage which comes from their faith in Jesus Christ, not only to give food to the poor but also to find ways of helping the poor to get their own food. From the book of Genesis, we draw a passage from the creation account to put forward the idea that man, created in the image and likeness of God is also a co-creator. If we recognize theologically that man is a co-creator, we have to practically realize this idea by giving man the possibility of being really a co-creator. African theologian should ask the pertinent question: how am I helping each man to be a co-creator? One may ask what the precise role of the theologian should be in the field of empowerment. Should the theologian be the one to get money and empower people? The theologian’s first role is that of providing options that are theologically sound. These options could be well defined orientations for actions; it could also be structures if one has the necessary means of setting up structures. My position is that theologians should make their reflections to be practical and action oriented.

Environmental Theology In this write-up, we take environment to mean the earth and all that draw their existence from it - the air, the atmosphere and the aquatic universe. After creation, God entrusted the earth to man saying to him: “increase and multiply, dominate the earth.” Theologians have interpreted this text to mean that man has to sustain his life from the good of the earth and also has to take care of the earth. Recent happenings have revealed that man could by his disordered exploitation of the earth bring disaster on the whole of creation. The melting of the ice, the rising of the seas level, flooding and drought resulting in famine, the enlargement of the opening in the ozone layer, desert encroachment, deforestation, disappearance of many species of animals and plants, erosions and landslide all demonstrate the risk that man is running if he continues to refuse to protect the earth. The danger is so real that the world political class has put in place many initiatives to bring order in man’s relationship with nature. Today, we have World Earth Summit which brings together all the countries in the world. The religious organisations are not indifferent to the treat. The Second Vatican Council and the recent encyclicals of popes dwelt much on the problem and call the attention of Christians to the

43 Anaehobi: Development as African Theology Today implication of not respecting the environment for the world and for our faith in God the creator. All these culminated in the emergence of the expression “sustainable development”, which is the development which satisfies the needs of the present generation without jeopardizing that of the future. In Nigeria, environmental problems are not lacking but the great problem is that many people are not yet aware of the risk that is awaiting us if we do not ameliorate our environmental conditions. People continue to cut trees without planting new ones, houses are built in the cities without proper drainage arrangements, there is indiscriminate disposal of refuse with the result that the environment is dirty. In the villages, bush burning is a regular occurrence and animals are indiscriminately massacred on daily basis. In the face of all these challenges, what should be the role of African theologian? Long before the advent of Christianity and the western civilization in Africa, Africans already knew the importance of protecting the environment based on their religious awareness. To protect rivers and streams, they reserve a day in which nobody is allowed to go to fetch water from them. To protect the forest, they consecrate them to deities and in this way prevent people from cutting down tree. To protect certain animals that could not easily escape death because of their slow movement they declare them properties of deities. The advent of modernity has wiped away all these classifying them as superstitious. The theologian today has the role of reinventing the sense of the sacred for the environment. In doing this, they do not have to go back to the superstitious beliefs of our ancestors since today sources abound to prove that indiscriminate exploitation of the earth and its products will eventually lead to great environmental disaster for all. Theologians should be able to lead people to understand that unfriendly attitude to one’s environment could be responsible for certain sicknesses. Cleanliness is next to godliness. This has to be made very clear to the people. Our faith in God obliges us to make the world a better place for what shall it profit a man if he gains heaven while doing nothing to save the earth. Our salvation was accomplished here on earth and not in heaven. The earth is as dear to God as heaven. Liturgical celebrations and pastoral actions should be designed to help Christians know that the protection of the environment is an obligation that their faith in God the creator imposes on them. The disastrous flood that ravaged the country in 2012 is a sign of what neglecting to take care of the environment could bring on us. Many sicknesses that we witness today come because of our refusal to take care of the environment. The erosion that is currently chasing away many communities in the eastern part of Nigeria speaks volume about what the refusal to care for the environment can do. Theology today cannot be indifferent to this problem.

44 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 29-46

Conclusion The history of theology is the history of human problems and man’s effort to solve these problems relying on what God has revealed about himself and about his creation which has man as its crown. The dogmatic quarrels and ecumenical councils are all human effort to respond to problems that man faces as man in his relationship with God. It is in human history that God continues to reveal his plan for the world. If man should stop to pay attention to history, man will stop being in true relation with God. Theologians will certainly lose their relevance if they remain prisoners to what God said in the past and what the Church understood in the past without trying to discover what He is saying to the Church today. For this reason, theology has remained a science that is open to other disciplines, trying to enrich itself from the discoveries of other sciences. The complexity of the modern world raises a lot of new questions which constitute new challenges to theologians. It is in response to these challenges that the Latin American Churches came up with the theology of liberation. Africans spoke of theology of inculturation. Today, reading and interpreting the signs of the time, we cannot but speak of theology of development. Development is the sign of the time for Africa today and no meaningful African theologian should avoid focusing on development. It is for this reason that I have no fear in proposing development as African theology today.

45 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 47-60 BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: THE DIALOGUE OF OFO, IGBO INDIGENOUS RITUAL SYMBOL AND THE ROMAN CATHOLIC FAITH 

Christopher I. Ejizu University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria [email protected]

Introduction There has been a sustained interest in Ofo from the days of European adventures in the West Coast of Africa, through the stage of expatriate Christian missionary enterprise, the period of amateur expatriate writers, trained and sponsored ethnographers, to the recent era of nationalist authors and Igbo indigenous scholars. The study of Ofo has continued to engage the attention of researchers in . As a direct consequence, a substantial volume of literature on different aspects of the symbol has been generated. Indeed, more than any other traditional ritual symbol our knowledge of Ofo from available literature covers most aspects of the vital indigenous artifact, including its provenance and rich structural forms, as well as its rich symbolism, significance and diverse functional range across the different sub-cultural zones of . That does not mean however, that Ofo has been exhaustively studied. A perceptive researcher could still unearth novel ideas from that mine of information about Igbo indigenous iconography, culture, society and history. Incidentally, there is little, if any, corresponding effort to explore seriously the possibility of moving from the stage of simple interface of Ofo and the Catholic faith that has gone on for so long to that of a creative and meaningful dialogue between the two. Or, is there something inherently evil in the indigenous symbol that makes it impossible for such a dialogue to take off. If we are prepared and eager to acquire, clear and open up lands and groves which for so long were dedicated and housed the most sacred shrines of indigenous Igbo arch-deities and spirit beings (alusi) and erect our marble altars for Eucharistic sacrifice, build our cathedrals, parish churches and other vital church institutions on them, dreaded forests of yester-years, Okwuala, Ajo Ohia, Akwu, there seems to be no logically defensible argument to continue to deny our members the use of twigs of the Ofo and branches of Ngwu sacred trees that may have grown in those forests. I dare state that the time for a meaningful and full blown dialogue between Ofo and the Roman Catholic faith is long overdue. And we, the fully trained, exposed and knowledgeable Igbo sons and daughters may no longer escape blame for individuals, particularly our Catholic members in parishes, who are compelled to 47 Ejizu: Better Late than Never suffer discrimination and/or other serious difficulties in their faith-life arising from issues related to Ofo on account of our negligence. I shall endeavour in this paper to explain the important role of symbolism in oral cultural background as well as the typology, provenance, symbolism and functions of Ofo among the traditional Igbo. Next, I shall discuss the favourable cultural atmosphere and disposition that have prevailed since the Second Vatican Council that should easily promote the envisioned creative dialogue. Finally, I shall sketch some broad outlines of the path along which I think the creative engagement should proceed.

Ritual Symbolism in Oral Cultural Background Human beings are by nature symbol-using and meaning-seeking animals. They are capable of using one thing to stand for or re-represent another. A symbol ordinarily is defined as a thing recognized as normally typifying, representing or recalling something of great practical importance, by possession of analogous qualities or by association in fact or thought. Within this broad frame, language is viewed as the most important form of the universal process of symbolization. Humans use words to stand for things. Whether written, spoken or couched in other oral forms, symbols are meaningful to the people who evolve and use them. They are the basis of human communication. The renowned anthropologist, Mary Douglas amplifies strongly that symbols are the only means of communication and that they are the only means of expressing value, the main instrument of thought, the only regulator of experience. Religion itself is a vast symbolic system, as it is basically a cluster of ideas, acts, relationships or linguistic formations woven into some sort of ordered whole. Symbols, in this wide context of man’s innate process, denote many things, take many forms and have many functions. They are as vital to language and religion, as they are to culture as a whole. They encompass objects, activities, gestures and spatial units in a ritual situation. As distinct from a mere sign, symbols thus: stand ambiguously for a multiplicity of meanings, evoke emotions and impel men to action. They usually occur in stylized patterns such as in rituals, ceremonial, gift exchange ... and various culture traits. Religious symbols are of particular interest as they are essentially hierophanies, that is, they manifest the sacred to people in one form or another. They reveal man’s experience of ultimate reality and seek to integrate the various levels of his awareness, the preconscious, the personal and the transcendental. Religious symbols mediate knowledge about the cosmos and man’s place in it. They are not simply communication media; they are held to be effectively charged, non-neutral in their emotional and intellectual value. Moreover, they can also be envisaged as possessing a spontaneous power, in themselves “projecting the mind towards the absolute.” 48 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 47-60 Ofo is clearly a dominant ritual symbol of the indigenous Igbo par excellence. The indigenous Igbo, it should be recalled, are a people of oral culture. They did not, prior to the large-scale exposure to Western civilization evolve a literary culture of their own as such. (The point holds in spite of the existence of the pictographic script form, called nsibidi that had been in existence among the Aro group before the Europeans came). Most Igbo depend rather on oral forms including vital symbol objects like Ofo na Ogu and important cultural institutions like Mmanwu for the preservation, and transmission of their cumulative experience, ideas, values, insights and wisdom from one generation to the next. Such oral forms are repositories and potent store-houses of meaning, crucial in any systematic attempt to understand or reconstruct the inherited wisdom of the people. The task of proper decoding and interpretation assumes critical importance in the effort to decipher the full semantic significance, and functional range of the ritual symbols on which people depend for their communication. Finally, it is pertinent to point out that “each society’s ritual symbols constitute a unique code and each society provides a unique key to that code”. Experts recognize different levels of meaning in the interpretation of ritual symbols; the operational, exegetical and positional.

Phenomenology of Ofo The Igbo term Ofo is the proper name of two related objects. It immediately designates a particular plant species which grows in the Igbo area. In a derived sense, it identifies the twig or branch let from the wood of that tree. Both the plant and its sticks are equally referred to as Ofo. The tree is a local feral plant. Its nearest classification would probably be the Ukpaka, oil bean. Although, the Ofo tree grows in all parts of Igboland, it is not as widespread in the region like such other plants as the Iroko, wild apple, and the oil bean. When fully grown, Ofo plant could tower to some sixty (60) feet high and bulk to some three (3) feet in diameter in its main trunk. Closely examined, a typical Ofo tree shows signs of nodes as though the timber has joints. Actual joining is in fact, revealed in the fallen twigs which snap at the joints. The rounded joints could be likened to the end of the long bones of the human skeleton. The Ofo produces a small black flower. Its seeds are white and encased in a capsule, which is black and rough. When cut the tree exudes a red juice. But the tree is not normally cut in Igboland (except for use as a ritual symbol), nor is any part of it put into any service other than the customary use of the fallen twigs as ritual sticks. Both the tree and its disengaged branches are sacred among all Igbo. In most parts of Igboland, especially in the north-west, north-east and southern parts, women (particularly those within the child-bearing age) are prohibited from 49 Ejizu: Better Late than Never touching either the tree or picking up the fallen branches. Dalziel (1937) is reported to have identified the Ofo tree botanically as Detarium Senegalense. This has been the name widely used for Ofo, the tree and its twigs by subsequent writers (C.K. Meek, M.M. Green, E.N. Njaka, F.A. Arinze, E. Ikenga-Metuh, and others). But it is most likely that the more correct botanical name for Ofo is Detarium Elastica, as it is known by the Nigerian Forestory Department. In the southern part of Igboland, the Ngwu tree is also used for carving Ofo staves. There exists a considerable variety of Ofo object types in different parts of Igboland. In individual traditional Igbo communities, it is the proper name by which specific Ofo symbols are known that provide their commonest discriminating factor. One could simply draw up a community’s list of names of Ofo ritual sticks kept by different grades of persons in that community, such as Ofo-Okolo, Ofo-Amanwulu, Ofo-Okpala, and Ofo-Umunna. There is also the taxonomy based on status including the personal Ofo type, the lineage Ofo, (Ofo-Umunna), the titular Ofo, (Ofo-Ozor), the professional Ofo and the institutional Ofo. Another form of taxonomy of Ofo object types based on structural form has also been drawn up by some experts. The list includes Ofo sticks encased completely in metal and non-encased ones. There are equally Ofo twig type and Ofo stave type. The former category could be further sub-divided into tied twig bundles and single twigs rung with varying sizes of metal strings and capped with horse tail or rung only a few rounds with metal but not capped. The tied Ofo bundle is known as Ofo Nmako.

Provenance Abundant ethnographic evidence still exists in support of the assertion that Ofo is a pan-Igbo ritual symbol. It is known throughout mainline Igbo territory and beyond; from Onitsha on the eastern bank of the Niger River to -Ezike on the –Igala borderline and from Aro-chukwu on the Cross River to Ikwerre of the Niger Delta, the Igbo-speaking groups of , including the Ukwuani, Anioma and Ndokwa groups. Ogu in traditional Igbo thought is basically the binary complement of Ofo. Although not inseparable, the two (Ofo and Ogu) are intricately connected in their respective concrete symbolic forms, conception and usage. Ogu is typically a ritual symbol object, realized in concrete symbolic form like Ofo. But it is usually carved from the plants, Abosi or Ogilisi (newbouldialaevis). Its notion typifies the characteristic traditional Igbo principle of complementarity (nothing stands alone). Ihekwuru, iheakwudebeya (Something stands always beside another). More often than not people improvise the Ogu symbol by availing of the tender leaves of palm frond (Omu) or the shoot of any readily available grass. In places like land where the concept of Ogu is well developed, the traditional elder, priest or diviner,

50 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 47-60 in his full ritual outfit/regalia usually holds the Ogu ritual object in the right hand and the Ofo in his left hand.

Symbolism of Ofo The process of symbolization is essentially about communication of meaning. Hence, the proper decoding of the cluster of meanings telescoped in individual symbol forms by the people is a primary concern in any meaningful effort to reconstruct the network of ritual symbolism of any particular group or culture. Furthermore, experts in oral culture have advanced various levels of interpretation; the exegetical, the operational and the positional levels (Sherry B. Ortner). They have equally highlighted the different poles at which the dense meaning-content of rituals and symbols could be located, namely the sensory and ideological poles. Specifically on Ofo, the symbol belongs to the category of symbols anthropologist recognizes as ‘dominant symbols’ (V.W.Turner), ‘core symbols’ (Schnider) and ‘key symbols’ (S. Ortner). Such symbols appear in many ritual contexts, and telescope an interconnected web of meanings into one ritual focus, which each ritual context extends. Such dominant symbols are considered pillar ritual phenomena in any culture and religious system and they serve to virtually reveal an entire religion and culture respectively. Ofo is outwardly simple, but in ritual, it is amazingly complex on account of its religious symbolism. Its recurrence in traditional Igbo ritual complex, the rich cluster of meanings which have been worked into it at various levels of experience, as well as its association with certain crucial ideas, beliefs and values in the life of the traditional Igbo, all clearly indicate that the simplicity of Ofo ritual stick is merely apparent. As to its origin, Ofo is clearly one plant in traditional Igbo ecology that features prominently in the cosmogony. The Nri myth of origin relates that a full-grown Ofo tree, the archetype, is located at the centre of Chukwu’s compound. Several twigs had fallen from the plant and were lying about Chukwu’s compound (Obi Chukwu) at the time and his wife, Nnamaku were about to set out on their epic journey to the earth. While walking round his compound with both, Chukwu gathered a few twigs and handed them to Eri. “These branchlets would help you navigate your way through the vast earth”, Chukwu instructed. Eri was also directed to use the Ofo to call Chukwu’s attention from the earth anytime the situation demanded. Eri later compensated the Awka blacksmith with the gift of one Ofo twig for successfully using his occupational tool, the bellow, to dry up the marshy earth-surface (Ala di degedege). With time, Eri came to the realisation that he received Chukwu’s attention promptly any time he addressed him training the Ofo ritual stick skywards, that is, towards Chukwu’s abode. Thus, runs the legitimating myth that 51 Ejizu: Better Late than Never serves as anchor and an explanation charter for the rich spectrum of meanings and wide functional range of Ofo ritual object. Ofo’s dense meaning-content touches virtually every level of the indigenous Igbo’s awareness; the preconscious, conscious and transcendental levels, as also the sensory and ideological poles. This should not come as a surprise given the fact of its being an integral part of the people’s original creation narrative. Ordinarily, an average Igbo person knows that Ofo symbol represents sacred authority and power, and the crucial values of justice and moral uprightness that are vital to mutual interrelationship, peaceful co-existence and harmonious living. The well informed Igbo sage, would go a step further in the task of decoding its symbolism, Ofo represents the male sex organ, blood, the family unit, and human life (ndu), as well as gerontocracy, patriliny, power, authority, justice at its sensory and ideological poles of meaning respectively. As a core religious object, the symbol is capable of telescoping this rich spectrum of meanings and integrating them in the transcendental centre of ultimate meaning. The real – that is the powerful, the meaningful, the living – is equivalent to the sacred, M. Eliade points out. The skilled anthropologist of traditional and modern Igbo culture, Herbert M. Cole (1982) amplifies;

The Ofo itself dramatizes the spiritual basis of even the most secular matters even today. For its power represents the authority of the high God, Chineke, channelled through lineage ancestors, ndichie, without whose support and concurrence man dare not act. Thus, the ultimate sanction for human activity - law-making, war, buying and selling, changing village sites, planting or harvesting, making and using “art” – comes not from living men but from supernatural beings.

Ogu is no less profound in its meaning-content. As a binary complement of Ofo, it primarily stands for the all-important ideal of moral uprightness and innocence which the traditional Igbo strongly believe should characterize every human life and interrelationship. The symbol clearly realizes in concrete form the fundamental Igbo principle that “nothing stands alone by itself”, Ihekwuru ihe akwudebeya (one thing stands and some other things stand by it). The Igbo elder knows that before the dynamic power of Ofo can swing into action, either to avenge a wrong that has been done to someone, or to inflict punishment, the Ogu must be properly avowed, the injured party must first have met all the requirements of Ogu (Iji Ogu) that is, publicly declaring one’s innocence. That is the ground for the regular interlink of the two concepts and symbols; Ofo na Ogu. The Ngwa people ordinarily say; Ofo na Ogu na-awieje (Ofo and Ogu go, or work together). 52 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 47-60

Ofo in Time Perspective The unsettling encounter of the Igbo and the Europeans especially from the 19th-century onwards, gradually unleashed the dynamic forces and tide of change that have, over time, crystallized in the dislocation, disorganization and transformation of the traditional culture and society. It would however, be quite false to assume that socio-cultural change in Igboland dates only from the advent of the white man. Change is a permanent feature of human life. But its rate varies in time and place. To live is to change, declares Aylward Shorter, and all societies and cultures are continually changing. Even social structures exhibit discord and tension. Specifically on the ritual symbols Ofo na Ogu some measure of change has all along been taking place. The impact of radical socio-cultural change has been quite dramatic and very much on a similar scale for the key Igbo symbols. But there was a clear ambivalence in the attitude of the external change agents; colonial government officials and Christian missionary agents. a. The Colonial Administration It ought to be emphasized that the dominant intellectual orientation and background to the resurgent European activities in most parts of sub-Saharan Africa, especially from the 19th-century onwards are as important as the economic, political and evangelical motivations. Coupled with the pernicious evil of trans-Atlantic slave trade, the general impression which the bizarre tales of most early European explorers and traders conjured about African peoples and cultures in general was that of primitive savagery, wretchedness and woe. Wild tales fuelled the imagination of proponents of various racial theories of cultural and religious origins in Europe and North America. The Igbo field provides a typical example where the prevalent attitude of many colonial agents reflected the dominant cultural and religious prejudice of the metropolitan European home base. British colonial officials in Igboland saw themselves as vanguards of commerce and colonialism and harbingers of “civilization”. Individual colonial agents were encouraged from the onset to combine their official duties with a study of the culture, social organization and general customs of their respective areas of work. In another development, the Indirect System of Government which the British colonial administration evolved was basically aimed at keeping the number of colonial officers to a minimum while utilizing any available structures of indigenous administration to rule the colonial subjects. The Ofo system which was intimately involved in the traditional Igbo power structure definitely caught the attention of the officials of government. Hence, the colonial administration in order to facilitate the implementation of the 53 Ejizu: Better Late than Never

Direct Taxation Policy billed to take off in 1928 organized a large-scale survey on the “Status of Offor Holders in the Appointment of Native courts”. This was between 1925 and 1928. The regional government decided at the end not to base the appointment of members of the reorganized Native Courts on Ofo holders, but the study had made available some valuable documentation on that vital ritual symbol. The overriding attitude of officials of the colonial administration towards traditional Igbo cultural features was more pragmatic and ambivalent. Officials of the administration supported Christian missionary agents in fighting those aspects of the traditional culture that were thought to be oppositionist to the new socio-political dispensation. Many cultural institutions of the traditional Igbo came under this unfavourable label including the Ibini Ukpabi, otherwise known as the Chukwu oracle (Long juju) of Arochukwu as well as certain classes of dreaded masquerades. Many of them were forcefully suppressed by the colonial government of the region. b. The Christian Missionaries Generally, it is a truism that in the thinking of most missionaries, the mission-field often passed as a battle-field against the forces of ‘paganism’. This is particularly true of the Igbo field. Both the C.M.S. and the Roman Catholic pioneers were all united in denigrating the whole of Igboland as ‘the citadel of Satan’. Father Lutz, the leader of the Holy Ghost Fathers’ Igbo Mission, had written to his nephew that “all those who go to Africa as missionaries must be thoroughly penetrated with the thought that the Dark Continent is a cursed land, almost entirely in the power of the devil”. Rev. John Christopher Taylor, the C.M.S. pioneer, a liberated slave of Igbo parentage had also written in appeal to the Church at Sierra Leone for more hands thus; “may many come willing to labour in pulling down the strongholds of Satan Kingdom, for the whole of the Ibo is his citadel.” Undoubtedly, the expatriate Christian missionary was a child of his age. But, it is equally true that the net result of their evangelical strategies and activities in Igboland succeeded in dislodging and supplanting the indigenous culture, including the religion, ritual symbols and institutions like the Ofo, Ogu and Mmanwu. Ofo and Ogu in particular, like other traditional ritual symbols were dubbed ‘objects of wood which had no power to harm’. Converts were encouraged to openly disregard them. Most expatriate missionaries of the 19th and first half of the 20th-centuries perceived their mission in Igboland in summary terms; to dismantle the traditional religion and to erect Christianity on its ruins. The author of the novel, The Only Son (1966), John Munonye, would seem to have vividly captured the prevailing

54 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 47-60 attitude in the words he put into the mouth of the Father Superior of one of the religious congregations working in Igboland:

... call it vote of the masses if you like, in pursuit of that objective, I’m afraid we’ve got to be impatient with the culture of the people. There just isn’t the time to sort out first and label their customs as acceptable and unacceptable. To be ruthless in our method and yet successful in our aim, we must ensure that all along we present to the people good tangible evidence of the advantages of Christianity.

Christian missionaries, especially the Roman Catholics, were the greatest domesticators of western culture and civilization in Igboland. They routed the traditional gods, successfully worked for what Rev. Taylor referred earlier to as “the tottering of the traditional gods” or, in the expression of E.A. Ayandele, “the collapse of the walls of Igbo Pagandom Jericho-wise”. There were a number of missed opportunities and outright failure in policies that could have benefitted the traditional language, religion and culture in the course of the relatively long encounter of the Igbo and expatriate Christian missionaries. There was for example, the historic acceptance of the Catholic faith by a prominent traditional ruler, Eze Idigo of Aguleri, Ogbu-Inyinya Onyekomeli Idigo and several members of his traditional cabinet in December, 1891. A number of important diocesan conferences were also organized by the authorities of the two major Christian groups in Igboland, the C.M.S. and the R.C.M. to discuss certain important aspects of the traditional culture. The Catholic Congress under Joseph Shanahan in 1915, (the first of its kind in Eastern Nigeria) was called to “iron out culture-specific crises in evangelisation in the region”. E. Uzukwu highlights the three major issues that were on the agenda; masquerading (ekpo, ekpe, muo and odo), pagan title-taking (ozo, ntinya, obong, and marriage according to the common tradition (irumgbede, popularly called fattening). The Congress, he further points out, has been criticized as a “monologue congress” that actually did not allow supporters of the cultural practices to speak but invited to listen to the missionaries. The decisions read as follows:

No Christian should be initiated into the Muo masquerades secret society nor participate in Muo public dances and processions. No Christian may take the Ozo and other titles since these tended to promote division between the slave and the free-born and keep alive oppression of the poor. No Christian should contract marriage in the traditional fashion.

55 Ejizu: Better Late than Never

Missionary analysts and historians agree that that congress was “a missed opportunity”. Uzukwu, quoting Pope John Paul II’s speech to Bishops in Nairobi in 1980, further observes that what transpired was the abandoning of the complex and difficult search for a creative or imaginative theological and ethical “understanding of the mystery of Christ ... of bringing Christ into the very centre of African life and of lifting up all African life to Christ”. One should equally note the failure of the post-expatriate missionary Church in Igboland. Its inability to exploit the insight, courage and creative genius of late Msgr. Martin Maduka was ostensibly a missed opportunity. The late Msgr. Martin Maduka had boldly championed the cause of mature and authentic encounter between the Christian faith and indigenous Igbo culture, genuine religious dialogue that could have led to proper inculturation of the received faith. For a long time, he remained a lone voice in the wilderness. He had bravely pursued that agenda consistently before and after the Second Vatican Council. Nnadi-Ebube, as he preferred to be addressed, possessed plenty of creative intelligence, strong and stable character. He tried to give his original imprint on several aspects of the received faith and structure of the Church. On many occasions, he had attended the annual patronal feast of the Onitsha Archdiocesan Junior Seminary, All Hallows’ Seminary Onitsha (November 1) with scores of well-crafted and decorated Mmanwu. His stated aim was to demonstrate clearly to all and sundry that there is nothing intrinsically evil or devilish about ItiMmanwu (masquerade-making) in Igboland. The secrecy surrounding ItiMmanwu (masquerade-making), does not imply anything mischievous (as the expatriate missionaries had erroneously thought). That element should not be allowed to vitiate a genuine cultural artistic creation that has considerable positive impact, psychological and social roles among the traditional Igbo. How regrettable and surprising to note that decades after those occasional captivating displays at the Seminary by Nnadi-Ebube, Iti Mmanwu is still reported to pose serious pastoral challenges in certain parishes across Igboland.

Vatican II Council and the Turn-Around The Second Vatican Council brought in its wake a radical shift in virtually every significant aspect of life of the Church. Particularly in the areas of the Church’s understanding of itself and its mission in the world, Vatican II articulated some of the most profound and revolutionary insights that have continued to shape developments both within and outside the Church, concerning particularly the well-being of man, society and religious life. Lumen Gentium (the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church), for example, opens with the declaration linking the mystery of the Church with the unity of the human race (art. 1), while Gaudium et Spes (the Constitution on the Church in the

56 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 47-60 Modern World), speaks of the universal application of the “reign of God” (Missio Dei), as one that is not necessarily ecclesiocentric, but does apply “to all men of goodwill in whose hearts grace works in an unseen way”. On the vital subject of religious freedom in a contemporary world that is markedly plural and complex, the Council proclaims in no unmistaken terms that the human person enjoys the fundamental right of religious freedom. Although, none of the documents of Vatican II mentions African/Igbo Indigenous Religions by name, there is a wide consensus that the latter are included in the all-embracing category of non-Christian Religions discussed in Nostra Aetate (the Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions). In one of its most oft-quoted pronouncement on the subject, the Council clearly spells out the Church’s current position on religions of the world other than Christianity, including the Igbo Indigenous Religion.

The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with reverence those other ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men ... the Church therefore, exhorts her sons, that through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions, carried out with prudence and love and in witness to the Christian faith and life, they recognize, preserve and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, as well as the social-cultural values found among these men.”

Several positive developments with direct or indirect bearing on the interaction of the Catholic Church and Traditional Religions of humankind, including the Igbo, have continued to take place in the Church in the past approximately 50 years since the successful conclusion of the Second Vatican Council. The establishment of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue (PCID) which was not long ago headed by a highly distinguished Igbo Church elder, His Eminence Francis Cardinal Arinze is one such important development. In a recent directive; “Letter of the Pontifical Council to the Presidents of Episcopal Conferences in Asia, the Americas and Oceania” (Nov. 21, 1993: 4), and later to the Presidents of the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar, the agency urges greater pastoral attention and dialogue with Indigenous Religions towards proper inculturation. It states further that elements of both a religion and the culture influenced by it can enrich catechesis and liturgy and therein attain their fulfillment. On the subject of inter-religious dialogue 57 Ejizu: Better Late than Never between Catholics and Indigenous Religionists, the document insists that dialogue be understood in the broadest possible sense, namely as the pastoral approach “in the ordinary sense of encounter, mutual understanding, respect, discovery of the seeds of the Word in the religion and the joint quest for God’s will in order to present the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ in the most appropriate manner, so that the Church may have deeper roots among the people” (Letter of PCID to the Presidents ..., Nov. 21, 1993: 4).

The Way Forward In statistical terms, the pendulum has definitely swung in favour of Christianity in Igboland. E.A. Ayandele may have proclaimed the tune of the collapse of Igbo Pagandom Jericho-wise rather in a haste, particularly since socio-religious change does not occur the way he implied. But with the figure of over 70% of the total population of the Igbo numbered among their members, the different Christian groups may have a modest ground for rejoicing/to pat themselves on the back. On a closer look however, there does appear to exist real indications for uneasiness and concern, including shallowness of faith and the ever growing incidents of syncretism among converts. Faith, after all, as A.K. Obiefuna had often insisted does not have much to do with numbers. Besides, the experience of the once booming Churches of North Africa that were easily overrun by Islam, and more recently, the erstwhile thriving Churches of Europe that have been decimated by the forces of liberalism and secularism are instructive enough for any well-meaning Igbo ecclesiastic, student and scholar of culture who might be tempted to be complacent. The challenges confronting the creative encounter of Igbo Indigenous Religion and Christianity are still enormous. The important encouragement now is that the prevailing intellectual ferment and current disposition in inter-racial and cultural relationships in the world at large, and in ecclesiastical circles, as we have tried to argue above, are very much in favour of originality and creativity. The bulk of the challenge now appears to rest squarely on the shoulders of the Church at the local level. 1. The awareness of the critical importance of the need for creative encounter between Igbo Indigenous Religion and Christianity ought to be a top priority project in dioceses across Igboland. The role of the diocesan bishop as leader of the project should not be in doubt in any way. (One can only but applaud the effort of the Catholic Archdiocese of for its bold initiative in establishing and sustaining the Kristi Odenigbo apostolate/project). 2. In furtherance of the above, a full-fledged department or directorate of culture and religious dialogue, manned by well trained and enthusiastic experts (in , or arts, or music, or religious and cultural

58 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 47-60 studies, etc) working full-time and properly funded should form an integral part of our diocesan curias in Igboland. 3. Diocesan-wide pastoral councils and synod, if need be, should be organized from time to time to discuss seriously and review contentious pastoral issues arising from the encounter of Igbo Traditional Religion and Christianity in parishes and communities. 4. With specific reference to Ofo, I dare suggest that the solution should not be too difficult to figure out. I find it difficult to understand why some categories of Ofo, particularly the lineage Ofo, (Ofo Umunna specifically), (the primary medium of communication with divinity and link with the ancestors the traditional Igbo evolved long time ago) should not, in principle, be permissible to Catholics who are qualified to own and hold the symbol in Igboland. The challenge is for the dioceses and the parishes involved, to articulate details and acceptable modalities for the proper integration of such Ofo types into the faith-life of the community. Once the principle is acceptable, the diocesan directorate of culture should draw up a rite for an annual renewal of commitment by the Ofo holders at the Parish and zonal levels.

Conclusion The task of ensuring a proper interface of Igbo religious culture and Christianity is a living project that should be of utmost importance to the Church in the region. Our aim in rehearsing the progress of that project in the past history of the Catholic Church in Igboland was not in any way for the purpose of “missionary bashing”. It was simply to enable us bring the problem into proper focus in order to be able to tackle the challenges they pose. The Igbo sage, it should be recalled, had counseled that, Onye amaghi ebe mmili bidolo maba ya, O gaghi ama etu O ga-esi zere ya (If one does not know where the rain began to beat him/her, he/she would not know how to protect oneself from it). The task of making faith to become culture in our land remains the primary assignment the Universal Church lays on our shoulders as worthy sons (and daughters) of Igbo parentage. It is the greatest and most enduring legacy we owe our people. There is no better way of accomplishing that goal other than by guaranteeing that the culture we inherited from our noble Igbo ancestors and the received Christian faith which the expatriate missionaries from France and Ireland sowed in our land and ‘watered’ with their blood mutually interface, challenge and be challenged, enhance and revitalize each other.

59 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 61-71

RELIGIOUS SYNCRETISM IN OUR RURAL CHURCH COMMUNITIES: PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES 

Paschal-Paul Okeke Pope JohnPaul II Major Seminary, Okpuno-Awka, Nigeria [email protected]

Introduction There are often absorbing risks and fears when exploring the concept of religious syncretism. Nevertheless, the proposal in this paper is to briefly highlight that the notion of syncretism is a problematic reality immanent in the crossroads of any religion; secondly, that syncretism has both negative and positive implications; thirdly I wish to suggest a few pastoral strategies and insights to reduce tensions and frictions between Christianity and cultural practices in our different rural communities in the name of ‘religious syncretism’. However, there are some crucial questions that cannot escape our curiosity. In the first place, to what extent does religious syncretism militate against the growth of Christian faith in our rural church communities? Secondly, are there possibilities of promoting understanding and bridging the conflictual situations? And finally, how do we make Christian faith to be incarnated in ways appropriate to local needs? It is quite obvious that the communication of the gospel message to people with different culture and mentality is a commitment that requires deep and serious theological and pastoral exploration in order to elicit sustainable peaceful growth in the faith. Christianity ought to be a way of life and an identity for us. The realisation of this makes the problem of syncretism remote.

Understanding Religious Syncretism I have been reflecting on the concept of ‘syncretism’ over many years in order to find out what it means really. I made a decision to detach myself from religious or denominational attachments or emotions so as to be able to arrive at something objective as well as something that can be helpful to our own people’s

61 Okeke: Religious Syncretism in Our Rural Church Communities faith problem. The more I try to follow this step, the more confused I become. I encountered a lot of impasse in the process of defining what ‘religious syncretism’ connotes. As a theologian, I thought it could have been an easy task for me but it is not. As a way out, I went into Church history to search for traces of religion and syncretism. To my greatest amazement, I discovered that it is a notion pervasive in the major religions of the world especially in the middle ages. Series of crusades were carried out because of the accusation of admixture or bringing foreign elements to a particular religion. I came to a situation where I concluded it has been a problem of the ages which has not been properly addressed in many areas. It is an issue that needs pastoral and theological approach. And so, I am adopting these approaches to propose ways that proffer helpful solution. For many Christian theologians, the word ‘syncretism’ is not only seen as a constructed fusion of religion but also as a risk to genuine Christianity. Syncretism even though is a “very confusing and tricky term.” In its various usages, it could be viewed as a fusion of differing systems of belief or a process by which elements of one religion are assimilated into another religion resulting to a change in the fundamental tenets or nature of the religions in question. The Hodder Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms holds that “…syncretism of the gospel occurs when its essential character is confused with elements from the culture. In syncretism the gospel is lost as the church simply confirms what is already present in the culture.” With the above definition, the question that arises is how do we “find a spiritual quality of faith that can survive and flourish within the new complexity of culture?” Christianity obviously is a religion of contact. The problem of syncretism is encountered with each new outreach of Christianity with other cultures. This is not surprising because “the gospel is not good news unless it engages the culture of its hearers in a way which takes seriously that culture’s identity and integrity.” In this perspective, syncretism can be contrasted with contextualization or inculturation, that is, the practice of making Christianity relevant to people in their own culture. The underlying concept here is ‘relevancy’. If this is so, it presupposes that the dynamic interaction between the gospel and human cultures becomes a task of great importance. Jesus Christ commissioned the apostles to “go out to the whole world and proclaim the good news”. In the process of the proclamation of the good news they are to meet people of different languages, colours, cultures and worldviews. What will be the situation? Can there be initial points of interaction? There is need to distinguish carefully between syncretism and contextualisation or inculturation. These theological concepts do not communicate the same message. Even though the gospel transcends all cultural embodiments, in reality a pure encounter with a culture-free gospel is impossible. Therefore, for 62 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 61-71 contextualisation to become effective in any religious circle, ‘syncretism’ is inevitable. But the grand question here becomes the meaning and interpretation of what we hold as syncretism. I tend to see an inherent hermeneutical problem in various understanding and application of the concept of religious syncretism to what is happening in some of our rural communities.

No Wall without At Least a ‘Lizard’ Ideally, it is easy to discuss about a religion without any syncretistic element. However, historical overview and study of different world religions prove that there is no religion without syncretism, both in respect of its origin and its subsequent history. This goes to a large extend to affirm that no religion is a package completely ready-made from heaven. This notwithstanding, I use the concept of a reptile lizard in the subtitle as an icon to depict my personal approach to religious syncretism and delicate pastoral problems that resurface in our rural communities. Nevertheless, the harmfulness or the harmlessness of our local lizards in our different walls may depend on how we approach or confront the lizard. All the same, the phenomenal truism is that the lizard is always present in our walls whether furbished or not furbished. How I wish the concept of the lizard above will offer a little insight to the problem we are trying to explore. Eugene Hillman calls our attention to the fact that “Christianity, no doubt because of its missionary dynamic and incarnational model, offers a more dramatic example of religious syncretism.” Furthermore, in his sketch of the historical development of Christianity, Hans von Soden holds that “in fact Christianity was a syncretistic religion from the very beginning, insofar as Judaism, which at that very period was very complex in its manifestation and far from the uniformity of the later anti-Christian rabbinism, had already become syncretistic itself.” It makes a little sense to accept that syncretism presupposes encounter and confrontation. The concept of evangelisation as a process of bringing the gospel to the people where they are rather than where you would like them to be provokes sober reflection. However, to a lot of fundamentalists, it sounds painful to hear something like this, because to them the word syncretism symbolises corruption of the ‘absolute’ truth and therefore always carries a negative connotation. To some reasonable extent they are right, in the sense that syncretism carries without doubt, implications of

63 Okeke: Religious Syncretism in Our Rural Church Communities impurity and the capacity towards mixing seemingly incompatible cultural elements with Christian faith.

Two Dimensions of Syncretism Negative Dimension Every coin has two sides. More so, every knife serves both as a good servant and as a bad servant. The difference, however, lies on the ability of the user to know how to intelligibly handle the knife to bring the best out of it. A perfunctory and assuming attitude can cause unpremeditated damages and bruises. Syncretism as an outcome of contextualisation retains a negative connotation if the loyalties expressed to Christianity are diverse and confused. Healthy cultural elements are welcome in the worship of God. However, any element of the people’s culture that holds any human person hostage or denies his/her fundamental rights and rational freedom can never be promoted or allowed to survive by any true religion. Looking at its negative influence, syncretism is not only a threat to the distinctive character of the Christian message but also an awful diminution of its goal. It is seen from many quarters as decline of the pure faith. From this viewpoint, the incorporation or accommodation of beliefs and practices that are incompatible or in serious tension to Christian values and insights leads to the point of losing its original identity. Inculturation, however, should not mean an unqualified acceptance of all the features of the existing culture. Human cultures usually involve features that need to be purified and corrected in the light of the gospel. For example, one might think of practices such as sorcery, human sacrifice, slavery, sacred prostitution, caste system, polygamy, and polyandry, oppression of widows and denial of their rights, etc. These are evils in themselves.

Therefore, Christianity has every right to ward off any element/s conceived as threat or antithetical to her true Christian identity and the growth of the church in our communities. However, this could be achieved not through violence but in a spirit of constructive dialogue.

Positive Dimension The above negative implications notwithstanding, Christianity loses its missionary dimension when it ceases to encounter people in their respective cultures and worldviews. The gospel has to become part of a local culture and yet maintain a ‘critical distance’ in order to uncover life-denying aspects of the culture in question. Jesus did not fight/condemn every Jewish religious and cultural

64 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 61-71 practice but rather he fought for and condemned the ones that were obnoxious and oppressive in nature. Lack of this approach and consideration questions the validity of the theology of incarnation. More so, given the belief of Christians in incarnation and what it symbolises in the economy of salvation, appropriation of positive cultural symbols and values and their religious expressions become part of conversion and contextualisation. However, the problem is not appropriation as such, but what those symbols and practices point at, and whether they function to enable Christian faith be entrenched in a particular culture, or confuse Christian identity and loyalty towards Jesus Christ. The idea of a “pure gospel” unrelated to people’s way of life is an illusion. W. Pannenberg suggested that syncretism might even be seen as a positive characteristic in Christianity, because it is the way in which the universal Christian message incarnates within other cultures. He holds the view that Christian faith may be enriched in contact with other cultures by the influence and the challenging questions which come from them. In the same line of thought, Peter Van der Veer holds that syncretism can give answers to situations of societal strife seemingly caused by insurmountable differences in religious or cultural identities. It can lead to a discourse of tolerance and communal harmony. In a way of synthesis, it is only the positive cultural values, which edify and promote human dignity and which in themselves do not conflict with Christian values could the process of inculturation (incarnation) become possible. Pope Paul VI, in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, stated that in the light of the Gospel, the Church must appropriate all the positive values of culture and of cultures and reject those elements which impede development of the true potential of persons and peoples. Similarly, Pope John Paul II maintains that a faith that does not become culture is a faith that is not fully lived out. How can we, then, constructively accomplish these to minimise conflicts and still maintain authenticity in Christian faith and Christian identity?

Minimising Conflicts in our Different Rural Church Communities in the Name of ‘Syncretism’ The mission of Christianity is a direct follow-up of the mission of Jesus Christ. To understand this mission, we have to pick up our Bible once more and read the gospels. It is never a private individual mission but that of Jesus. Therefore, the spirit of Jesus should be the underlying paradigm in our Christian

65 Okeke: Religious Syncretism in Our Rural Church Communities missions, commitments, and goals. He is a good shepherd who gathers rather than scatters, he bridges every gap; his presence brings joy, hope, and security to people that has been battered by hunger, poverty, sickness, injustice and insecurity. He was part of the people and shared their life-style: dressing, feeding, music, ritual, language and values. He appreciated them as they were and that was why he was able to penetrate their lives and cultures and reformed the things oppressive and unjust in their system. How I wish the disseminators or carriers of the Christian message conform to this way of Jesus and respond to situations in a positive and creative fashion. Teilhard De Chardin remarks that “Christianity is not, as it is sometimes presented and sometimes practised, an additional burden of observances and obligations to weigh down and increase the already heavy load…” which people are carrying.

Valuing What We Have Our departure from our home environment to other continents makes us appreciate the deep religiosity of our people, the liveliness, the prospective, the enthusiasm of Christianity whose future is all before it, whose problems are of growth and expansion. These challenge our pastoral plans and creativities towards sustaining the richness of our values and positive cultural potentials to consolidate the Christian faith and make it more acceptable and more appreciable in our local communities. This is a homework, which I suppose has been on and still ongoing but has never received sufficient incentives. It was Yves Congar who expressed that ‘faith is lived, clothed, enveloped, expressed in a culture.’ Doubtless, the faith is robustly growing, but it is still searching for understanding and identity. I am of the opinion that Christian life must be based on the communities in which everyday life and work takes place. This makes the people have a sense of belonging and see Christianity and Christian rituals as something that reflect their worldviews and communicate meaning in their lives and not a contradiction to what they value and cherish. Unity, Not Division More so, we need to reflect on the reality that Christianity is supposed to bring unity and peace and not disintegration, to bring happiness and not sadness and mourning, to liberate and not to ostracise, to promote shared community living and values. In these perspectives, I wish to propose that priests/pastors and pastoral workers in our respective communities reflect on how they carry out their pastoral duties and their methods of approach in the exercise of their duties to realise these objectives. There could be insensitivities and arrogance when

66 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 61-71 working with people in our rural communities. Such attitudes hamper true Christian objectives and create pastoral problems. Out of misguided zeal and distorted comprehension, we can destroy positive values and ancient cultural monuments/icons that are treasured by the people because of implicit assumptions. This could cause emotional and cultural pain. Authentic Christianity does not encourage inflicting pains on people. We have to be sensitive and make inquiries/research before acting less we destroy the faith instead of building it up. Transforming Power of Dialogue The power of dialogue can never be undervalued when priests/pastors and pastoral workers exercise their duties within the community. Dialogue offers immense opportunities to understanding ourselves, the circumstances and the events around us. Even though the purpose is not always to reach a common conviction but to achieve an attitude of mutual respect, of mutual willingness to listen and to learn, of mutual readiness to cooperate for the well-being and harmony of the community. This approach lessens frictions and fosters enabling environment to faith growth and revival. Different Popes in the Church have often spoken of the existence of dialogue between Christianity and culture. Equally, they call for the evangelisation of cultures, asserting the necessity of regenerating cultures by an encounter with the gospel. Human cultures impoverish themselves when they exclude the riches of other traditions. Conversely, they always stand to benefit from opening themselves to the truth and goodness found in any cultural tradition, especially a tradition that has been leavened by Christian faith. Dialogue is a recognised method of evangelisation. It is a way of making spiritual and human contact. The outcome can sometimes be very amazing. John B. Kariuki Wakarega affirms that “the challenge demands that the evangelizer should not only be well-informed about the situation of the people being evangelised, but should also be aware of their contextual and cultural milieu. This knowledge is essential because it helps the evangelizer to address the relationship between evangelisation and the cultures and religious convictions these cultures enshrine.” The constructive result of dialogue depends on the clarity and intelligibility of what is communicated and the prudence, which makes allowances for the psychological and moral circumstances of hearers (Mt. 7:6). For instance, Avery Dulles lamented that in earlier centuries, missionaries tended to carry their own cultures with them. They did not clearly distinguish between the faith and its

67 Okeke: Religious Syncretism in Our Rural Church Communities cultural expression. Converts were trained to express their newfound faith in the language and style of the missionaries, who came from the most part of Western Europe or, more recently, from North America. As a result, Christians in North and South America, Asia, and Africa tended to be highly Europeanised, or at least Westernised, and in many cases they remained small foreign enclaves estranged from the culture of their nation. Dialogue per se is an exploration of the possibilities in the search for truth, and fundamental to this engagement is the recognition of difference and otherness. Genuine and fruitful dialogue cannot occur without the willingness to face the reality of the otherness. Dialogue is often the key towards mutual understanding, respect, tolerance and harmonious co-existence wherever confluence of cultures become a reality of life. It is quite obvious that Christian message is often addressed to people with already an existing culture, which share a common language, customs, ways of social life, religious life, ways of understanding and interpreting the world they find themselves. As such, the communication and reception of the Christian message calls for a response from them as well. Analogically, dialogue can be likened to a visa which offers a traveller access to his/her destination. Without this travelling permit, an idea of crossing another country’s border becomes a wishful thinking far from reality. In a similar context, Catherine Cornille argues that the impulse to dialogue arises from the desire to learn, to increase one’s understanding of the other, of oneself, or of the truth. It thus presupposes humble awareness of the limitation of one’s own understanding and experience and of the possibility of change and growth. In other words, it is not a mere sending of information, but a commitment that involves negotiating between people in order to foster understanding. This however, does not move forward in a linear fashion, but sometimes proceeds in a cyclical and somewhat jigsaw fashion. In the same line of thought, Donovan remarks that

Dialogue is no longer a luxury. It is a necessity in the world of today. No community or body on earth possesses absolute truth or the answer to the earth-threatening problems facing humankind. We must begin to look on “others possessing truth,” so that theirs might become ours, that we all might move out of the isolation in which we have been operating. Dialogue promotes genuine understanding and respectful listening. It helps to dissolve misunderstandings and prejudices. This dispositional approach inevitably deepens sacramental knowledge and understanding, and of course inspires a desire for the reception of the sacrament among the . Though the path to dialogue is not easy, it is always a credible path to sustenance 68 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 61-71 and appreciation in the midst of difference. David Lochhead views dialogue as a categorical imperative. According to him, there is no situation in which dialogue is not an appropriate relationship. There may indeed be situations in which dialogue is so undercut by our own resistance to dialogue that the relationship is never established. In whatever anyone sees it, there is no situation in which we escape from the dialogical imperative.

The Value of Listening Listening is a positive feature of any human structure. Peace will be lacking wherever it is undermined and neglected. The tower of Babel collapsed because the people were no longer listening and understanding one another. Their proposed projects collapsed. Conflicts and wars erupt due to the fact that the parties involved could not listen to the voices of reason. The importance of being a good listener when living or working in any community needs to be highly developed and encouraged. Everyone is important and everyone deserves to be listened to. The faith given to the Church is not a private possession. It is a public trust to be passed on to others in very humane way. The New Oxford American Dictionary defines listening as “taking notice of and acting on what someone says: responding to advice or a request.” Listening involves making an effort by being alert and ready to hear something, to hear somebody and to respond with respect to the other person expressing his/her beliefs, fears, pains and difficulties. Listening is not mere hearing and taking in the words spoken or gestured by the other party. It must address the whole message, which includes a deeper meaning that is often left unsaid. Even though it takes energy and commitment to listen really well, listening is one of the most powerful pastoral ministerial tools to demonstrate that one cares about the other person. Puchalski argues that

The most important skill is listening to the patient. In doing so, we need to put aside all the distracting thoughts and expectations of outcomes from our minds. In essence, we become receptacles into which the patient pours out, heart and soul, all of his fears, anxieties, despair, and pain.

Listening is a means of being present and acknowledging the humanity of the other person. Bill Kirkpatrick describes listening as “the key that ‘opens the way’ towards other people. It is an invaluable asset. Clearly, it is an art; with

69 Okeke: Religious Syncretism in Our Rural Church Communities continual practice, it can become a great art, but for most people today, it is a lost art.” It is a spiritual magnetic and a re-creative force. It is sad to remark, far fewer of priests, pastors and pastoral agents are comfortable, or even think about their listening skill. A lot of conflicts arise in our local church communities because of the inability to listen to one another, to consult and to read the signs of the time. The ability to listen to one another may even reduce prejudices or negative assumptions and unquestioned ideologies we may have about certain things. With listening skill, we discover that everyone is “understandable” and approachable. Listening is an art, but by achieving good listening skills religious leaders can inspire openness and trust within the communities they communicate the faith. This can facilitate diminution of conflicts in our local church communities. Education Education forms and informs the human mind and conscience. It can facilitate change of mentalities. Obviously, there can be cohesion when people are rightly educated. Knowledge is light while ignorance is obscurity. That is why it is important for priests, pastors, catechists and pastoral agents to commit themselves to collaborative and regular catechesis within the communities they work. It is culpable error to presume that everyone knows the right thing and that everyone thinks rightly. A position of this nature could be suicidal. People need to be taught. The mass media can also be used as another mode of communication in educating the people. However, no matter how effective this could be, it cannot take the place of person-to-person contact, which can reach the individual’s conscience. Tele-evangelists, it would seem, cannot achieve deep and lasting conversion without the follow-through provided by other factors, such as personal prayer, reading, and support of the faith-community. The importance of catechesis can never be underestimated. It is obvious that it is because of ignorance and insufficient knowledge concerning Christian faith and local cultures that misunderstanding and conflict arise from time to time in our parish communities. In order to educate, you have to reach out and have contact with the people. You have to convince them that you love them, that you are interested in their progress, happiness and what goes on around them. You have to identify with them in their joys and sorrows. Therefore, if periodic enlightenment forum in the form of seminar or symposium could be organised in different communities to deepen understanding and the rapport between Christianity and the local cultures, conflicts are bound to decline drastically. The work of priests, pastors and pastoral agents is to gather and feed the people in word and sacrament and not to scatter, starve and instil division in their lives. 70 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 61-71

The new media which play crucial role in the formation of the younger generation should be put into use. Electronics styles of communication are engendering a new mentality from which people accustomed to print culture are estranged. For the gospel message to be heard by this generation, it must be translated, as far as possible, into images and language that can be disseminated by film, radio, television, and computers. Centres of evangelisation should establish websites. It is pertinent to find ways to authenticate reliable presentation of the gospel and to prevent people from being misled by factual errors and false interpretations. Conclusion It is important to come with some conclusions at this point. Firstly, that contextualisation or inculturation if rightly understood is different from religious syncretism. The word syncretism sounds borrowed and imperialistic. Christianity does not encourage or promote syncretism in its faith life; rather, it searches in each culture, how to make itself better understood and appreciable. The gospel needs to root itself in our culture and never a captive to it. Secondly, syncretism can never be associated with the awareness and identity-consciousness that are rapidly growing with many Christians in our communities today. Even though tension between the universal gospel and local particularity is inevitable, the challenge is that the clergy and the laity should collaborate to minimise such and ensure that Christian faith becomes freed from the dehumanising and life-denying aspects of our local cultures and appropriate the life-affirming and positive values therein. If the points expressed above are reflected upon and put into practice, I think Christianity will be fully entrenched as a way of life in our society. This trend will gradually dissolve conflicts and unnecessary tensions in our different communities.

71 Nwaigbo: Holy Spirit and the Youth in Africa THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE YOUTH IN AFRICA  Ferdinand Nwaigbo Catholic Institute of , Port Harcourt, Nigeria [email protected]

Introduction Pneumatology is an attempt to grasp the mystery of the Holy Spirit, the mystery which gives the youths the strength to bear witness to Christ. First of all, there is a focus on what the youths do. The article focuses on the ecclesial witnessing of the youths in Church and human society. The Church lives by witnessing to Jesus, the Christ. The Church in Africa lives out her life in the youth and continues Jesus’ witnessing in human society. The Church in Africa, the Family of God has a strong functioning body called the Youth Organization with various religious functions, clear rules and regulations. The youths witness to Christ through the living voice of the gospel and the Church’s kerygma,martyria, diakonia and koinonia. In witnessing to Jesus, the Christ in Africa, the youths gather the Family of God as brothers and sisters endowed with the spirit of unity, justice and peace and lead all to the truth of Christ.

State of the Question Theology cannot, knowing what its responsibility is towards witnessing to Jesus called the Christ, fail to speak in this direction about the Holy Spirit and faith. The questions, however, are: Who is a witness? Whom is he/she witnessing? What is a witness? What is he/she witnessing? How does he/she witness? Why does he/she witness? In their relationship to God, the Deutero-Isaiah addresses the people of Israel as witnesses of Yahweh “you are my witnesses” (Isaiah 43:10). In this context, the concept of witness is bound with service – diakonia. In Johaninne writing, the word witness is tied with martyrein, “I testify on my own behalf”(John 8:18). In this vein, the word witnessing correlates a personal involvement and in this sense witnessing is understood as martyria – a witness is a martyr. In the Acts of the Apostles, we come across the idea of the process and contents of the preached or proclaimed word, that is, the Word-event as a type of witnessing – kerygma. The Holy Spirit empowers the believing community to witness and share the Word of God, in a manner of koinonia. In the way of

72 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 72- 87 koinonia, the Holy Spirit makes the proclaimed word of God accessibly, concretely, and intrinsically present in the Church. The proclamation of the Church transforms the living voice of the gospel, as a living validity to be shared within a living community. The definition of the content of the Church, its dimension of proclamation of the kingdom of God, service to humanity, witnessing (martyr) to the truth and communion between God and human beings and human beings among themselves, has remained the main subject matter of systematic theology. In taking up these concepts like proclamation, service, witnessing (martyr) and communion, the dominant themes of ecclesiology remain systematically tied to Christology, to the Person and work of Christ – a good ecclesiology is inseparably tied to Christology. The Church emerges in time through the proclamation of the kingdom of God by Jesus Christ, in other words, the Church is the fruit of the proclamation of the kingdom by Jesus Christ. The theme of the Church is the theme of the kingdom and has a quite positive significance to the social, ethical and essential political peace, justice and reconciliation of humanity. At the same time, the Church is the substance of God’s action in the world which is related to faith, hope and charity and to the richer concept of the kingdom of God. In human hands, the Church becomes an instrument of forging peace, justice, and reconciliation. The martyria, witnessing is always an indispensable component of proclamation (kerygma). In its relation to martyrion, kerygma is a way of bearing witness to the truth and testifying to the truth of our salvation in Jesus Christ. Kerygma has a twofold meaning; first it means the act of proclamation through preaching, teaching and instruction and secondly, it is a call to conversion and to a new life of grace in Christ. At all events, the Church always realizes herself in a twofold sense, namely, in serving (diakonia) and witnessing (martyria). In service and witnessing, the Church appears in the full sense of the word, and fully realizes herself in relation to Christ. Diakonia stands at the centre of the definition of the Church, expressing the Church as the nearness of God to men and women which is experienced in peace and justice, and above all in service to the poor and those who are farther removed from the welfare of the human society. Service expressed the most characteristic of Jesus and Jesus’ disciples, “the kings of the gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them that are called benefactors. But not so with you, rather let the greatest among you become the youngest and the leader as one who serves. For which is the greater, the one who sits at table, or one who serves? (Luke 22:24-27). Service is a substantial function of the Church, which Paul sees as doulos, as attitude of a slave, who 73 Nwaigbo: Holy Spirit and the Youth in Africa serves (Rom 6:18,22). In Johannine gospel, the word service (diakoneo) recalls the picture of a person, who is at a table, in order to perform a special service (John 12:2) and to wash and dry their feet (John 13:1-10). The Son of Man comes to serve and not to be served and to give his life as ransom for many. Service as the irreplaceable function of the Church has a Christocentric root, it has its foundation on Jesus who came to serve. Besides, the Church is constantly called the community of those, who come into existence through service; the community that exists not to rule but to serve. Service and witnessing (martyria) are related, in that service is self-sacrificing, self-giving, self-suffering, and in fact sacrifice of one’s life. At the core of the understanding the nature of the Church is the concept of koinonia, fellowship, communion or community. The nature of the Church as a communion grows from the message of the kingdom and service to humanity. The Church is a communion between God and human beings and between human beings among themselves. This communion is realized in the context of Baptism and the celebration of the People of God, the Eucharist which is the celebration of communion of all the believers in Jesus Christ. In the new era of the Church in Africa, the clearest and tangible expression of the Church as a communion is the Church as Family of God (Ecclesia in Africa 63). In Christian theology, diakonia, martyria, kerygma and koinonia are four ways of witnessing in the Church to “Jesus, called Christ”(Matt 1:16). The theological basis of witnessing is the relationship of the person who is witnessing to the person who is being witnessed to. The primary qualification of a witness is based upon what the person, who is witnessing has seen and what he or she has heard about the one who is being witnessed to. This correlation forges a relationship that gives witnessing its theological foundation. Witnessing is making not only something known, but also making someone known. A person, who is witnessing has a good relationship to what or whom he or she is making known to another person. In their special relationship to Jesus, called Christ, the youths are qualified by the empowerment of the Holy Spirit to bear witness to Christ, in the Church as a community of diakonia, martyria, kerygma and koinonia. The presence of Jesus Christ in the Church is the presence of the Holy Spirit, who is promised to her. The witnessing persons or the youths are actually empowered by the Holy Spirit, who witnesses to Christ (1 John 5:6-12) and by the same Spirit, who is residing in them – “you are the temple of the Holy Spirit”(1 Cor 3:16, 6:19). All the four elements are indispensable and interconnected with Christ’s officium – prophetic, kingly and priestly mission of Christ in the world. Proclamation as an event of preaching, teaching, instruction and call to conversion

74 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 72- 87 is a prophetic assurance which has come and become realisable in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus is a servant-leader, who gave his life for the life of the world. In the context of the Eucharistic koinonia, we share the life of Christ with each other – communion. The Holy Spirit is present in the Person and work of Jesus Christ – officium Christi. Prominently, the witness of Jesus Christ (the prophetic office) is attested to by the Spirit; secondly, the work of reconciliation brought about by Christ (the priestly office) is made alive in the life of the believers by the Spirit; and thirdly, the service of Jesus Christ (the royal office) is incarnated in a community of faith through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit appropriates to the youths the work of Jesus Christ. This can be understood from two perspectives – the youth as object of the work of Christ and the youth as the subject of the work of Christ. In the former sense, the priestly office of Christ consists in the work of forgiveness granted to us, in redemption made available for us, and in the peace granted to us as sons and daughters of God, who is the Father of all and who cares for all. Jesus Christ completed his work of redemption, forgiveness, reconciliation and peace through his death, resurrection and glorification by the Father. In the latter sense, the participation in the threefold office of Christ answers theologically the question: who are the youths? The significance of the threefold power of Christ as priest, prophet and king is that it is through this expression that the ecclesial witnessing of the youths is well understood. The youths are called to participate in the royal freedom from the dominion and slavery of sin and through their holiness of life, they bring about the coming of God’s Kingdom in human society. This kingship is knitted together with the divine plan of God to care and nurture the earth (Gen 1:28); this involves civilization of love and integral development of the entire creation – the ecosystem. Through the dignity of the servant-king, they serve Christ in others and bring them to Christ, the King (Vatican II, Lumen Gentium 36). In the participation in the prophetic office of Christ, they bear witness to Christ in both words and deeds - witness of life. In sharing in the priestly office of Christ, they join Christ by making spiritual sacrifices to God and offering their entire self and the whole creation to God in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. As priests, prophets, and kings, “all the works, prayers, apostolic labours, hardships, family life and even leisure, which are done in the Spirit become spiritual sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ.” The physical participation in the threefold office of Christ is the fruit of the internal participation and work of the Holy Spirit in an ecclesial community.

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Youths are Witnesses of These Things – The Community of Kerygma The word witness is derived from the Middle English witan to know, which denotes a form of knowledge and consciousness. In the ordinary usage, witness refers to evidence based on personal and immediate knowledge of facts, events or experiences. The person, who is witnessing is called a witness. A witness gives an evidence of what he or she consciously knows to be the truth. A person who witnesses has a great value of truth because he or she possesses the truth. The word witness permeates all avenues of human life. In public life, people require a witness in a court trial, in order to judge a case correctly and justly. On ecclesial level, witnesses are demanded by the Church’s law for a valid and legitimate performance of certain ecclesial acts, for example, in Church marriages, two witnesses are required in the ceremony. In the early Church, especially during the time of heresies, the presence of two persons was required by the abjuration of a heresy. In Christian theology, witness has a deep Christological root in Jesus Christ who is called the Christ. As the eternal Word of God, who took human flesh, Jesus of Nazareth was the most complete self-revelation of God in his humanity. As a sacrament of God’s visible presence in the world, Jesus was the greatest self-communication of God in the history of human salvation and the foremost witness of God in the world. In the Scriptures, the same characteristics that marked Jesus as the witness of God marked the Holy Spirit as the witness of Jesus, the Christ. Jesus is the foremost witness of God and the Holy Spirit is the greatest witness to Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, gave witness to Jesus Christ (John 15:26) and to the truth, guiding and directing the disciples of Jesus into all the avenues and paths of truth (John 16:13). The disciples of Jesus, the ecclesial community called into being through the life, death and resurrection of Christ continues to bear witness to Christ, who is the Truth (John 14:6). The ecclesial concept of witness is firmly rooted in the work of Jesus, the Christ-Event. The Christ-Event is composed of “the historical life, death and resurrection of Jesus.” The first followers of Christ were the original witnesses to the earthly life and ministry, salvific suffering and crucifixion, redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus into glory of the Father. They experienced the Post-Easter events and directly carried this witness (the message of salvation) to all individuals, peoples, nations, cultures and human communities around the world. In this sense, witness is related to the

76 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 72- 87 proclamation of the Word of God and events of Christ with the word of mouth – witness as proclamation. Another important dimension of witnessing is the aspect of relating it to the Christian concept of martyrdom. In his martyrdom, John the Baptist witnessed to Jesus Christ with his own life. In this understanding, a witness is someone who, because of his or her faith in and for love of Jesus Christ, undergoes suffering and death and to such “we are powerfully attracted, so great a cloud of witness is there given (Heb 12:1) and such a witness to the truth of the Gospel.” This is the sense in which Lumen Gentium 50 understands witness. The other side of witness to be mentioned and discussed fully here is what the Post-Synodal Exhortation, Ecclesia in Africa called the “ecclesial dimension of witness.” According to the document, “the Church must continue to play her prophetic role and to be the voice of the voiceless. But to achieve this effectively, the Church, as a community of faith must be an energetic witness to justice and peace, in her structures and in her relationship among the members.” In this way, the youths in Africa bear ecclesial witness to Jesus Christ through the words of their mouth (verbal witness), through their deeds and actions and through their daily life in the society by spreading peace in human society. A further refinement of the above type of witness is found in the parable of the Good Samaritan. The example of the Samaritan is a good model of witnessing to Jesus Christ by serving those pushed out of the circle of the society. This model of evangelization is called evangelizing circle. The Samaritan was a bearer of the good news and a perfect model of how the youths can be witnesses in the prophetic and transformative message of the gospel in ecclesial communities. The youths extend their witnesses to Jesus Christ by showing him as a model for every human being that fears God and seeks God with sincerity of heart (Vatican II Lumen Gentium 16). According to Paul VI, “modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.” Witness is a great concept embedded in the Scriptures. In the gospel, great prophetic figures such as John the Baptist, the deacon Stephen are portrayed as models of witnesses to Christ. Related texts to John the Baptist in the gospel create his image as a prophet. As a witness, the Baptizer knew Jesus as “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). In Johannine sense, to know Jesus is accessible through a God-given experience of the Spirit, and not through natural perception or by flesh and blood. One can truly be a witness to Jesus, when one perceives the divine presence of the Holy Spirit, which resides in him/her.

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The Youths in the Economy of the Diakonia of the Holy Spirit We cannot separate the work of the Holy Spirit from the Person of Jesus Christ present in the organogram of the Church’s institutional structure. To preserve the unity of generations of youths, who are precisely the gifts of the Holy Spirit to the Church and human society, the Bishops of Nigeria have given a freehand to the young Catholic faithful in the country to operate as a statutory organ in the Body of Christ, the Church in Nigeria. The Church in Nigeria is not only an institutional structure, but also a living Temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 3:16). It is the Spirit indeed who guides the Catholic Youths Organization of Nigeria (CYON) through the Church. How important is the Catholic Youths Organization of Nigeria (CYON) for ecclesial witnessing to Jesus, called the Christ? At the national level, there is the presence of Catholic Youths Organization, which goes with different names in different dioceses of the Church in Africa. In Nigerian context, we speak about Catholic Youths Organization of Nigeria, which is a statutory body. The CYON, like the Catholic Women Organization (CWO) and Catholic Men Organization (CMO), is a statutory body under the jurisdiction of the Catholic Bishops of Nigeria. The CYON places the identity and personality of the youths deeply into the framework of the Church as a family of God in Africa. The Church authorities in Nigeria issued some guidelines and regulation to the formation and running of CYON. They have chaplains all over the country to help them apply the guidelines and prescriptions laid down by the ecclesial authorities. The CYON is an ecclesial element or body to be safeguarded in a sound evangelization of the Nigerian youths. The organization empowers the youths to explore their own capacities and talents, and to survive, develop and control their vocation and future. The discovery of their abilities, identities, talents and capacities are manifested during their meetings at local and international levels. As a sign of maturity and means of communication, the CYON has offices, officers, funds and houses in many mega cities of Nigeria. Youths differ in their respective gifts of nature, abilities and interests, and they are qualified to hold offices by virtue of their character and ability to perform. At best, the CYON addresses the question of reducing the shocking and growing inequalities among the youths. The CYON calls the youths to be of one mind and of one heart in a deep communion of faith, hope and charity, as well as in prayer and solidarity, in order to oppose everything that is negative in Nigeria and in a special way to oppose religious terrorism, political thuggery, ethnic tensions, tribal conflicts and misunderstandings, so that they may become truly sons and daughters of our Father, who is in heaven.

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The CYON raises the question of ethnic and tribal unity in Nigeria. In Nigeria, we find first of all many ethnic groups thrown together by their colonial history and some of these will be struggling for survival, while others are moving towards dominance. In some parts of Nigeria, there are variations of ethnic groups rooted in religious differences and, for that reason, there is the question of deep and sensitive handling of the programme of inter-religious dialogue and co-habitations of different ethnic and religious groups among themselves. In a society like Nigeria, which is religiously pluralistic, the youths see it as their vocation to promote unity among different religions and ethnic groups. The formation of the CYON is very much the line of keeping the identities of Catholic youths. The purpose of the organization is to rally round all Catholic youths – both male and female from all ethnic groups – towards serving God, Jesus, called the Christ and men and women of the modern world with abundant generosity and effectiveness. The greetings of the youth give credence to this – For God and for Youth! Through Christ! When we begin to speak about the pneumatological dimension of the Catholic Youths Organization in Nigeria, the greetings of the youths expand to grasp the Spirit of Christ – For God and for Youth! Through Christ! Expands to For God and for Youth! Through Christ in the Spirit! The Spirit is the source of contact with Jesus, Christ, with Christ’s life, with Christ’s mission. We read in the letter to the Romans that “whoever does not possess the Spirit of Christ, does not belong to him”(Rom 8:9). The prerequisite of belonging to Jesus Christ is the privilege to possess the Spirit of Christ. In this vein, “no one can say Jesus is Lord, unless he/she is under the influence of the Holy Spirit”(1 Cor. 12:3). In Jesus Christ, God the Father and the youths are one through the action of the Spirit, who endows each individual with varieties of gifts for the service of the community. This Trinitarian circle completes the entire metaphor of one body in Christ. They are not opposed, but spring from the unity which is created by the Spirit of Christ. Today’s youths bear the responsibility “to preserve the unity which the Spirit gives and the peace that binds them together. There is one Body and one Spirit, just as there is one hope to which God has called them. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, there is one God and Father of all men, who is Lord of all, works through all, and is in all”(Eph. 4:3-6).

The Eucharist as the Centre of Koinonia for the Youths The entire life of the Church’s mission and her activities are connected to the Holy Spirit, and to the sacrament of the Eucharist (the Eucharistic faith), the source and centre of the Church’s life. In response to the greetings of the priest, who says to the worshipping community “the Lord be with you” and the 79 Nwaigbo: Holy Spirit and the Youth in Africa community answers positively with the words “and with your spirit”. The spirit that the worshipping community is wishing the celebrating priest is the spirit of the Beatitudes, namely, the spirit of peace, mercy, forgiveness, love, joy, courage, patience and tolerance. The African context particularly demands the spirit of dialogue, humility, simplicity of life and reconciliation with God and fellow human beings. Many research works of African theologians have dealt with the theme of reconciliation, in theory, but in praxis people around those theologians have never experienced the ultimate value of reconciliation and peace. At the liturgy of the word, especially by the proclamation of the gospel, the priest greets the people again, with the words “the Lord be with you” and the people respond “and with your spirit.” The second greeting includes among its constitutive elements the spirit of the gospel. The priest is called to witness (marturia) to the spirit of the gospel that he announces. The faith-community desires to see in their parish priest the transparency of the spirit of the message he proclaims, becoming in some measure a reality in his life. The spirit in question here is also the spirit of courage, to be able to bear witness to the gospel at the point of being martyred for the cause of faith and justice – martyrdom. Deeply the spirit in this case portrays the spirit of sharing the gospel (euangelion) with others. The Eucharistic liturgy lives in an ontological dimension of the eternal now, as a cosmic reality. At the beginning of the Preface, when the priest will offer the entire creation to God, from the rising of the sun to its setting, he dialogues with the people in this fashion: “the Lord be with you” and the people resonates with “and with your spirit.” Words and human language – the Lord be with you, and with your spirit – bring the priest and the worshipping community into communication with the entire creation and with one another. The dialogue creates solidarity between the members of the People of God – the clergy, religious and laity. Epiclesis: When a priest prays over the bread and wine, he will ask God for blessings "by sending down your spirit upon them like the dewfall." The priest presents Jesus Christ to the worshipping community in the power of the Holy Spirit, so that men and women may come to put their faith and trust in the Son of God and come to accept him as a Saviour and serve him as their Lord in fellowship and communion of his Body, the Church. The new development that occurred today in theology in the Western Church is the new understanding of the Person of the Holy Spirit in the work of salvation. The liturgy is the accomplishment of Christ’s salvific work in communion with the Father in the Holy Spirit. The Church is a Eucharistic community called together to live the life of the Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit, there is no Church. The Holy Spirit

80 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 72- 87 establishes the Church from the beginning and guides her throughout its continuing history. During the sign of peace, the priest exhorts the people with the following words – “the peace of the Lord be with you always,” and the people answer “and with your spirit.” This is an exhortation that establishes essentially inter-relationship between persons and hence ultimately the affirmation of the persons in the community of faith, hope, and love. The sign of peace evokes the element of love in the faith community, that is, how the Christians love one another. The spirit we wish a priest is the spirit of love and service: the spirit of washing one another’s feet, in form of tolerance and mutual love, rather than being given to mutual hatred and distrust - love one another as I have loved you. At the concluding rite, the priest greets the people with the words “the Lord be with you,” and they respond “and with your spirit.” The Church is a communion of the saints of all times, in all places. The spirit meant at this juncture is the spirit of evangelization or the missionary spirit – go to all nations, teaching them and baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19-20). In this sense, the new evangelization is the application of the New Testament mandate, the mandate that bears the authority of Christ himself (Matthew 28:18). This is a mandate communicated to us through the teachings of the Church, especially through the sending of the People of God into the world to bear fruit in good seasons. The Spirit is the new and abiding presence of Jesus Christ in an ecclesial community, where the youths belong and carry out their mission. The mission of CYON is to unite the youths in Christ, who is the Truth through the Spirit. This Truth judges all forms of hatred, dispels hostility and cruelty that exist between individuals and individual youths, and between a youth of one ethnic group or the other tribal group. This Truth is a constant call for peace among the youths. The foundation of CYON as a community of koinonia, which experiences and bases its existence and mode of being in Holy Spirit, is the key concept for solving the various problems of the youths and for bridging ethical and societal differences among the youths. As an organization, the CYON has structures and boundaries, plays with power and financial muscles and tends to be conservative and counts on stability, numbers and members. In this forum of youth gathering, I see a tension between organizational character and charismatic dimension. The image of CYON that underlies our reflection is that of a charismatic community. This is seen as the strength of CYON when compared to other organizations like CMO and CWO. The CYON has the vocation of being a charismatic assembly, living and

81 Nwaigbo: Holy Spirit and the Youth in Africa witnessing, like the early Christian community: “You shall be my witnesses”(Acts 1:8). Witnessing to Jesus, called Christ does not mean clinging to an ideology or holding on to a principle, but implies walking along the path of the one who gave his life for his friend (martyrdom/witnessing) and called his followers to do the same. This opens another aspect of witnessing as a service. The vocation of a witness is not to be a boss, but a call to serve. In this sense, the very meaning of an executive officer in a Catholic Youths Organization of Nigeria (CYON), for example, is a position of a servant leader. The central meaning of witnessing is caught up in the term servanthood (diakonia). The ecclesial witnessing through diakonia-servanthood, however, is a very difficult model to follow, while the natural inclination of human beings is to follow the path of honor and recognition and loved to be served. To accept the servant model of ecclesial witnessing is a bitter pill for many youths to swallow.

Martyria as Way of Inculturating the Linguistic Diversities of Africa Ecclesial witnessing involves a function of a baptized person within the Church and society. The spiritual side of ecclesial witness stresses the function of youths within the Church. The content of ecclesial witness implies the way youths devote their energy to the increase of the glory of God by engaging in prayers (especially Our Lord’s Prayer), listening and doing the word of God, love for the Church, compassion and charity to the People of God, commitment to sacramental catechesis, Eucharistic adorations, actively participating in the liturgical celebration of the parish community, especially within the context of Eucharistic assembly, performing works of mercy, and especially being heralds of good tidings that advance true civilization of love and culture of life. Prayer in its pure form is a basic content of ecclesial witnessing. This includes creating of places of silence for the youths, providing models of liturgical life in parishes. Majority of the youths are actively involved in the world and have less time, and perhaps ever less inclination to pray or attitude of indifference towards prayer. Listening to the word of God is a priority for ecclesial witnessing of the youths. Indeed, the sense of youth witnessing grows from the listening to the “creative word of God that comes from the mouth of God.” Briefly, it can be said that the ethos of the research is rooted in ecclesiality, that is, in their functions and activities as living organisms and dynamic witnesses of Christ in the Church. The witnessing of each individual youth will therefore depend on the Holy Spirit and on the sacramental reality of the Church. We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who makes us sons and daughters of the Father. 82 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 72- 87

In a sense, the vocation of the youths demands that the young people be consecrated in the Spirit of the Truth. In such a state of vocation of life, it is very essential to consider the youths and the question of witnessing to the Truth from a pneumatological angle. In order to place the theology of the youths more effectively to the service of the Truth, we have to make much more notice of its pneumatological and charistimatic dimensions. In virtue of the salvation given to us in Christ, we have to ask the Father for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus promised the disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit, who will comfort them, and teach them all things (John 14:26). By receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit through baptism, youths become permanent witnesses of the encounter with Jesus, called the Christ. They carry on their witnessing through the proclamation of the Word of God and participation in the celebration of the sacraments. Words and sacraments are the two foundation stones of the youth witnessing. The Church is the rock on which ecclesial witnessing is laid upon. The strongest basis for ecclesial witnessing in the Church and human society is the transcendence and immanence of God in the Person of Jesus, the Christ. Jesus gave the apostles a final command to make disciples of all nations. The apostles, who received the mandate of witnessing to Jesus’ Truth, passed on their mission of witnessing to the early Christian communities, who were viewed as the Church receiving her mission of witnessing from Jesus through the apostles. Since the day of Jesus’ resurrection, the Church has always considered witnessing as one of her primary responsibilities to men and women in the world. Jesus gave the Church the gift of the Holy Spirit in order to fulfill her mission of witnessing to the men and women in the world. At the very beginning of Catechesi Tradendae, one encounters the relationship between Christology and Pneumatology in the work of saving history of humanity, especially from the scope of the theological thinking of John Paul II. The two constants in the study of the Person of Jesus, the Christ consist in discovering the relation of Jesus Christ to the Father and the Holy Spirit, the former involves “his relation to the one and the only God named Father,” that is, the relation of Jesus to God as Son and the Second Person of the Trinity and the latter involves a Trinitarian theology of the relation of Jesus to the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit guides the Church and strengthens her in faith. Faith enables us to assent to the word of God in the Holy Scriptures, helps us to grow in personal relationship to the Holy Spirit in the Church and prepares us to bear witness to Jesus, called the Christ to men and women in human society. The study of Catechesi Tradendae reveals that true catechesis gives birth to faith and aims at leading the children of God to faith.

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Catechesi Tradendae raised the further issue of the incarnation of faith in an existing culture:

As I said recently to the members of the Biblical Commission: 'The term "acculturation" or "inculturation" may be a neologism, but it expresses very well one factor of the great mystery of the Incarnation.' We can say of catechesis, as well as of evangelization in general, that it is called to bring the power of the Gospel into the very heart of culture and cultures.

The saving message of Jesus Christ is witnessed in every culture of humanity and through the instrumentality of healthy organisms, cultures and persons. In this context, the youths in Africa are the instrumental persons in witnessing to the saving message of Jesus Christ and the transmission of the Christian faith in the continent. Faith and culture enable them to hear the voice of the Church in Africa crying for justice, peace and reconciliation in the darkest regions of the continent. According to Nwaigbo:

The challenge is to create a new self-awareness which will help people to understand the nature of their vocation as God’s Family. As children of God who are divided among themselves, they need to address the problem of their common cultural heritage as a natural family that was crucified in the past and to examine their relationship with each other as people drawn into the new life of God through the event of the Resurrection.

The theology of the Resurrection opens another source of African theology. African cultures were dead in the past, but today they are resurrected in the new light of the grace of the theology of inculturation. In a theological sense, culture is the sacred remains of God’s creation. God declared creation to be good and beautiful. In this view, creation faith tends towards human culture. Faith and culture are not opposed to or independent of one another, but in a real setting of Christian life, they occur in theological mixtures. Culture is fundamental to humanity. It is fundamental to human nature as to express what Aristotle would call the nutritive, that is the most organic dimension of our nature. In this sense, faith without culture is futile. It cannot bear seeds. The Christian faith has its own provisional validity, particularly, it is ordered by God, by Jesus, called Christ, who is the gospel of love, by the Church who is the bearer of the seeds of grace and salvation of the human family and by 84 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 72- 87 religious hope which opens the Kingdom of God, but it cannot be detached from the living and healing cultures of humanity. God is the polar star of the Christian faith and a living culture. Without God, both faith and culture become idolatrous. What one must not allow is for a living culture to be detached from the Christian faith. In contemporary society, only in the condition of having an ultimate intention can faith and culture be virtuous rather than vicious. None of them should be understood in mutually exclusive sense. Faith, even if we consider it in a pure transcendent sense, devoid of the contents of culture, becomes a variegated and complex phenomenon. Accordingly, faith is not simply an affair of the transcendence. Faith without culture is dead. It is not a living faith, because it cannot give life. A living faith takes root in a culture, especially in a culture of life. Culture of life is transformative, it is nutritive, it transforms human life and human society and it is like a seed and considered as symbol of life of men and women in the world. Certainly, seeds grow out of trees as the trees’ crowns, as trees are spreading unrestrictedly in the natural rays of sunlight and sunshine, and at the same digging their roots ever deeper in the earthly soil. A living faith is like a tree that grows in two directions, that is, in the upward direction and in the inward direction. The upward movement of faith takes the direction of the heavenly life, the transcendence, the divine and it is open to the velocity and flow of the spirit, while the inward movement of faith takes the direction of the earthly life, the immanence, the human (humus), and is rooted in human culture. Like a tree, a living faith bears seeds of peace, justice and reconciliation. The twenty-first-century may be considered as an age in which the geography of faith and culture is changing. God is no longer seen by some men and women of this age as the polestar of faith and compass of culture. According to Nwaigbo, the advances in culture of science, medicine and globalization of human behavior and culture have twisted the geography of the living faith and nutritive culture of the contemporary society. The progress of the contemporary age blinds men and women of today to the appropriate appraisal of their human conditions. It induces them to spurn the polar star of the living faith and compass of human life. The contemporary age has initiated a new order marked with the culture of death and secularism. The Year of Faith is the contemporary refinement of this position. In the Year of Faith, the Synod for the Transmission of Faith reminds the world about the sources of spreading the faith in remotest and darkest heart of the earth: “these, then, are the four elements which comprise the storehouse of memory which the Church hands down: the profession of faith, the celebration of 85 Nwaigbo: Holy Spirit and the Youth in Africa the sacraments, the path of the commandments and prayer. The Church’s catechesis has traditionally been structured around these four elements.” This includes the social doctrine of the Church, which is the storehouse memory of justice and peace in the world. All these are paths leading to witnessing in the contemporary world. The social doctrine of the Church is faith doing justice, a concrete direction emerging from conflict, oppression and injustice towards commitment to the transforming charity of Christ and works of social justice in the world. The social doctrine of the Church appears as path of witnessing, because in faith, we are doing the work of justice in the world. This path receives new light from Jesus’ teaching on the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5-7) and in the forces of the new evangelization in Africa today. The question, therefore, is what contribution have the youths made towards incarnation and inculturation of the Year of Faith in Africa? Does the theology of the Holy Spirit capture and incarnate the existential realities of life and African self-understanding of faith? How far is the concern for language actually penetrating into the flesh and worldviews of the CYON? Does the profession of faith, the celebration of word and sacraments, the keeping of the commandments and prayer life of the youths reflect indigenous perceptions and dimensions that are incarnated in our local languages? The celebration of the Eucharist among the youths, especially at the national level would serve to produce a contextual celebration that articulates some major Nigerian languages. In celebration of the Eucharist, parts of the Mass can be responded to by at least few major ethnic languages, instead of foreign English language. This will serve as a new Pentecost, that is, the unity of all the Nigerian languages in the youths through the Holy Spirit.

Summary, Conclusion and Recommendations We have dealt with the ecclesial witnessing for Jesus, called the Christ by the youths in contemporary Nigeria, Africa. Catholicism cannot dispense faith in Jesus Christ as a Saviour nor theology of Jesus as Christ. This conviction is accompanied with the commitment to the community of faith called the Church, and understanding of the nature of this ecclesial community, which is a station for a transparent witnessing to Christ. The youths are called through catechesis to continue Jesus’ witnessing to God’s reign in the world: “You are witnesses of these things” (Luke 24:48). Witnessing, evangelizing, and catechizing form an interface for the basic understanding of responsibility of the Church in Africa in the new evangelization. Catechesis is a type of ecclesial witnessing about faith in Jesus, called the Christ and the message of his gospel. Witnessing is very 86 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 72- 87 important for a fruitful evangelization. Today, as many young people are distancing themselves from Christ and their Catholic roots, there is a need for youth catechesis in developing a mature and adult faith in an ecclesial community and bearing witness to Jesus, called Christ. There is a need to understand the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the youth – both in private and public life. The Spirit of God sustains peoples’ efforts to bear witness to Christ. Hence, a call today for a new understanding of the indispensability of the role of the Holy Spirit in the plan of God’s salvation is to be promoted in evangelizing the youths, so that they may hear and know the riches of the mystery of Christ. Life in the Spirit enables the youths to understand the equality of all persons as based upon the fact that we are of the same nature and origin, we are redeemed by Christ, and enjoy the same calling and destiny. The youths in general are captivated by the Spirit of Christ. They are awaiting a new star to point out Christ to them and to inspire them in Christ’s Way, Truth and Life. They are ready to welcome popes, bishops, priests, spiritual directors and chaplains who are ready to do this. Therefore, the Church in Africa has to be prepared to assume this ecclesial responsibility. At the end, we recommend that Catholic chaplains with visionary leadership and penetrating insights into the doctrines of the Church are needed in all the private, state and federal universities, polytechnics and colleges of education, particularly, in a country like Nigeria, where the teeming population of Catholic students are brewed regularly from Catholic secondary schools all over the country. In these chaplaincies, the regular sacraments of confessions and the Holy Eucharist are to be administered as events that are meaningfully celebrated in the daily life of the youths. Moreover, youth chaplains are to see to it that the vocation of the Catholic youths to the priesthood, religious life, lay state is strengthened and nourished by an active proclamation of the word of God, liturgical worship, catechetical instructions, catechetical workshops and seminars, and other spiritual guidelines. There is a need for a guideline, for parameter, for role model, and for great discipline in the life of the family, in the Church, and society to influence the youths of today. The youths of today need solid role models who will guide, direct and lead them to Christ. In the same vein, an adequate training of youth chaplains is an indispensable responsibility of ecclesiastical authorities. Theological Education of youth chaplains should be considered a priority in the Church today. Most of the youth chaplains have only formal theological training from the major seminary. Youth chaplains should be sent to higher educational institutions of Theology,

87 Nwaigbo: Holy Spirit and the Youth in Africa where they will be grounded in different disciplines of theology and techniques of imparting the Christian doctrines to the youths.

88 Book Review

BOOK REVIEW

Title: Cardinal Dominic Ekandem Author: Cosmas K. O. Nwosuh, Msp Publisher: Ambassador Publications of the Missionary Society of St. Paul, Iperu, Nigeria. Date of Publication: 2012 Reviewer: Professor Valentine O. Ekechukwu. E-mail: [email protected]

First published in 2012 by Ambassador Publications of the Missionary Society of St. Paul, Iperu Remo Ogun State, ISBN 978-978-931-878-0 (limp cover) and 978-978-931-879-7 (cased cover), the book has 541 formal and 30 pre-formal pages. It is organized into sixteen chapters, excluding a preface, a foreword and an epilogue. This book has been written after seven years of deep research, including a sabbatical at the Dodge City Diocese, Kansas, USA. The book is written by a priest of the Missionary Society of St. Paul of Nigeria, a worthy disciple of Dominic Cardinal Ekandem, after an MA and a PhD in Church History from The Catholic University of America, Washington DC and an MSc in Education from Newman University, Wichita, Kansas. We, surely, need no further justification of the intellectual, religious and social qualifications and authority of Rev. Fr. Dr. Cosmas K. Okey Nwosuh to write this book. The book is a piece of scholarly work, deeply researched and presented in such a flowing narrative that lends itself readily for easy reading. In his writing, the author has not allowed his intellectual and religious stature to intimidate uninitiated lay person like myself. From the front cover to the back page, including of course, the scintillating preface by His Lordship, the erudite Matthew Hassan Kukah and the eminent foreword by His Eminence, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, every page thrills. It was such a relish that I forgot I needed to do a review. In the introductory quote from Pliny the Younger, the author notes; “I hold it a noble task to rescue from oblivion those who deserve to be specially remembered”. I wish to reassure Fr. Nwosuh that the task he has undertaken is as dignified and gracious as it is righteous. Recede into oblivion? Never! An illustrious son of Nigeria, an eminent Prince of the Catholic Church, Dominic Cardinal Ekandem is as remembered on earth as he is honored in heaven.

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In the introduction, the author puts a disclaimer; “First, this is not the biography of Dominic Cardinal Ekandem. It is yet to be written. I see this study as a sketch towards the accomplishment of that task”. As self-effacing as this disclaimer is, I beg to disagree. As we await further update from the author, I crave the indulgence of both the author and the reader to state unequivocally, that this book is definitely a biography of Dominic Cardinal Ekandem and indeed beyond this; it is such a rich repository on aspects of the development of the Catholic Church in Nigeria that would serve as a veritable reference document to scholars of Church History. In his second disclaimer, the author warns his readers as did St. Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 135-200 AD) in his famous work Against Heresies, “not to expect from me any display of rhetoric, which I have never learned, or any excellence of composition, which I have never practiced, or any beauty or persuasiveness of style, to which I make no pretensions.” What the author seeks to disclaim are indeed the hallmark of the book. All through the book, the author’s intellectual competence and academic training in philosophy and logic were unmistakable. This is most evident in Chapter 1 – An Eventful Year. He starts “We do not know the exact day, month, and year of Dominic Cardinal Ignatius Ekandem’s birth. The man himself did not know. He was born in a culture that had oral instead of a written tradition. From other records and sources, Ekandem deduced that he was born in the year 1917”. He then goes through nine pages drawing copious logical evidences of related occurrences to justify that His Eminence must have been born in 1917. This was an overkill. Perhaps, the wide varieties of very significant occurrences around his birth are solid proof that his birth was indeed eventful. The irony and inherent twist of fate between Dominic Cardinal Ignatius Ekandem’s background and the eventual ministry are typical of an Apostle of Jesus Christ. His father, Chief Ekandem Ubo Etuk had a privileged relationship with the colonial government. Chief Ekandem was intermediary between his people and the government. He sat at court as interpreter and messenger. He understood English language. It is a major irony that neither was Chief Ekandem then converted nor did young Dominic immediately benefit from his father’s relationship with the colonial masters and naturally the missionaries. Dominic Ekandem was indeed a first generation Catholic. Neither of his parents had embraced Christianity before his birth. His mother, Madam Nwa Ibong Umana Essien died an adherent of the African Traditional Religion. His clan, Ibiono Ibom was governed by two deities – Anantia and Abam. His father was the village head and high priest. The young Dominic assisted his father occasionally. Adherents of African Traditional Religion believe in one God, the creator who is good and does

89 Book Review no harm. They believe in good and bad spirits. They believe in ancestors. They had ritualistic practices. They had no formal liturgy. Like Saul, Dominic Ekandem was a strong believer in his God, albeit, he persecuted no Christians, but he was later converted like Saul, though, in no dramatic way. He was brought up in the traditional religion ritualistic practices but, subsequently, trained formally in the liturgy of the Catholic Church. He was a priest-in-training in the order of the African Traditional Religion but was to become a Chief Priest in the Altar of the Most High through the Catholic Church. What a divine intervention! Fr. Nwosuh organized this Book in such a methodical structure; adopting a systematic modular presentation of the chapters in a manner that one chapter flows logically from the preceding one but with each chapter autarkic-making its own independent meaning, including of course the preface, foreword and epilogue. It is presented à la carte for the lazy reader. Chapters 1-4 deal in great detail with the birth, background, childhood, education, priestly training, ordination and early priesthood of Dominic Ekandem. In chapter 5, the author presents the elevation of the young–seven year old priest to Episcopal office. He thus became the first indigenous West African Catholic Bishop. Bishop James Moynagh had recommended Dominic Ekandem as Auxiliary Bishop of Calabar without consulting him.

Ekandem’s consecration became a reference point and a weapon of indictment against other missionary bishops in diocese with many native priests from where native bishops had been expected to emerge earlier. … However, Moynagh had requested Ekandem’s appointment as an Auxiliary Bishop “not to be a first” but to demonstrate his conviction that “the church in Nigeria must grow with its own Bishops”

Ekandem’s episcopal duties as Auxiliary Bishop of Calabar, his appointment as Bishop of Ikot Ekpene, the challenges of the Catholic Church during the civil war, the embarrassing crisis of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Handmaids of the Holy Child Jesus and the indigenisation of the church are comprehensively treated in chapters 6 – 11. From chapters 12 – 15, the author chronicles what I would consider Ekandem’s most prolific period of his episcopacy; his presidency of the National Episcopal Conference of Nigeria (precursor to the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria) from 1973, his appointment as Cardinal, his participation in the 90 Ministerium – Journal of Contextual Theology Vol. 1 (2014) 88-92 conclaves of 1978, his founding of the Missionary Society of St. Paul (MSP), his elections as first President of the Christian Association of Nigeria and as the first President of the Association of the Episcopal Conferences of Anglophone West Africa, the founding of the Catholic Institute of West Africa and his appointment as its first Pro-chancellor, the establishment of more diocese and the Abuja Archdiocese were documented in this section. Chapter 15 documents the twilight of Dominic Cardinal Ekandem, all the honours – national honours, honorary degrees, chieftaincy titles, his retirement, his failing health and death and the Church he left behind. The strength of Fr. Nwosuh’s scholarship is the intellectual honesty. He surely eulogized His Eminence as profoundly spiritual and virtuous, presenting him, understandably, perhaps, as the best thing that had happened to the Church in Nigeria. Though he makes no apologies to any religious partiality, the reader may encounter, he still found space to present the human weaknesses of the Cardinal. According to the author, the Cardinal could be intolerant and unforgiving.

He was known to be one who never believed in or accepted “confrontational politics”…Perhaps, this explains why he was slow in forgiving betrayals, disobedience, and insubordination. It was common knowledge among his clergy that “those who disagree with him never know peace”. He very rarely shifted his positions once a decision was made. He could be stubborn, unyielding and at times unforgiving (p. 257).

The author also records the Cardinal’s inclination to bias and favoritism with a rather imperious disposition. He writes:

In the opinion of some of his priests and people, Bishop Ekandem inadvertently alienated and confused many by promoting the candidacy of his choice in an insensitive manner. They recognized that he could have been neither indifferent nor neutral as to who his successor should be. They were disappointed by his apparent high-handed manner of approach in promoting his favorite candidate who was not popular (p. 261).

It is in chapter 9 that the author best exposed the frailty of the doyen of the Nigerian Catholic hierarchy in the crisis of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Handmaids of the Holy Child Jesus. The ethnic bias against the Superior-General of the Congregation, Mother Gertrude Nwaturuocha and her subsequent exile was so aptly demonstrated.

91 Book Review

The author lays no claim as to this book being a history of the Catholic Church in Nigeria. I perfectly agree. It is simply a biography of Dominic Cardinal Ekandem and, of course, his profound contributions to the Church. The Cardinal’s eminent position in the history of the Catholic Church in Nigeria is typically within the context of his being the first in respect of his episcopal ordination and elevation to the cardinalate. An impression that may be read from the book is that of weaving the history and development of the Catholic Church in Nigeria around the Cardinal. This could be a major weak point of this book. A more quantitative presentation, i.e., more data in numbers would have been useful in many of the chapters dealing with the Cardinal’s contributions to the growth of the Church, but I agree that the author’s discipline may have influenced his aversion to numbers and thus the excessive qualitative presentation. In his epilogue, Rev. Fr. Dr. Cosmas K. Okey Nwosuh, MSP, a self-confessed disciple of Dominic Cardinal Ignatius Ekandem, inadvertently or perhaps wittingly builds a strong case for the beatification of Dominic Cardinal Ekandem. It would be wrong for me not to agree!

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