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As a young man fresh from a Methodist seminary my first appointment
as a pastor was a small Methodist Church in what used to be a
farming community one hundred years earlier. Like most cities in
America, the urban expansion that began at the end of WWII had
affected the community and so the church became part of what is now
called suburbia in the United States. These are residential areas
removed from the inner cities where the middle class and mostly
whites now live. I was a black man in a white church, but more than
this, I was also an African with an accent. With all the zeal of a
man with a newly minted degree and the enthusiasm of wanting to make
a difference, I agreed with the women of the church that the
tradition of having a bazaar and bake sale to raise money for
mission work should continue. Announcements were made during church
services soliciting donations for the sale. It was a good cause and
many donations did come in. A few weeks after the first donation
arrived, a church member who volunteered to sort the donations
knocked on my office door to complain about “the filth brought to
the church basement”. Not understanding what she meant I decided to
walk downstairs with her to see it with my eyes. When we arrived,
she quickly reached and grabbed a book with the title “The gift of
sex” and complained rather loudly that there was no place for such a
book in the church. She proceeded to launch into people who called
themselves Christians but would not hesitate to corrupt others.
After I had succeeded in calming her down, I told her that I knew
about the book written by a Christian counselor for married couples.
I further explained to her that if Christians were to throw away
every book that has a “dirty” word in it, then the Bible would be
the first to go since it has all kinds of stories in it.
That experience in my first church was more a symptom of what was
happening around me in the 1980s. The Christian community was swept
by the fundamentalism fever of the Reagan era. The Rev. Jerry
Falwell had started an organization known as the Moral Majority. The
message of the Gospel with the Moral Majority centered on certain
behaviors that they did not like. They also condemned thoughts that
they found abhorrent. Furthermore, they took upon themselves the
responsibility of fighting for God and becoming God's spokesperson.
They adopted the Republican Party as the party of God and each
election we in the church received phone calls, pamphlets, videos
and sermon samples on “How the Christian Should Vote”. The battle
lines were drawn with groups such as blacks, single women,
foreigners, Hispanics and people from other political parties who
were seen as anti Christians. The line between evangelization and
acculturation was blurred at best and non-existent at worst. The
culture wars had begun and only those who think a certain way could
be called “Christians” which gradually took on a connotation of
intolerance since the love thy neighbor part had been thrown out and
exiled from the Bible. This attitude and preaching kept the
Republican party in power for a long time in America despite
corruption and mismanagement.
I am seeing this playbook adopted in Nigeria from what we are
reading in the media. Some religious leaders seem very busy
launching the culture wars, such that the implicit message seems to
be that we cannot be Christians and Africans. A recent article
condemned African names as “Unchristian”, but has no problem
adopting European pagan names. The problem is that when we make
ourselves spokesperson for God we can make ourselves a part of the
message. God does not need to be defended. African theologians have
worked so hard to define African liberation theology and some of
these people who are still preaching the neo-colonial theologies may
want to read up on what it is and how we can use the Gospel to help
ourselves instead of looking for ways to re-colonize our minds. It
is interesting to see that so many quote the scripture to support
their views in the newspapers. It may help to educate some of these
folks that those who engaged in slavery used the scriptures as
justification and wars have been fought when people believe that God
is on their side. Christianity is not a complicated religion it is
easy if we remember that the most important rule is not who wears
what cloths and who answers what name, but loving our neighbor as
ourselves. Religion has certainly been used as a force for good in
many societies and at others has been a source of oppression and
misery. Which route we choose depends on our education system
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