The Conflicting Influence of the Christian Messages in Igboland By: Rev. Fr. Dr. Michael K. Onyekwere, SDV The Conflicting Influence of the Christian Messages in Igboland examines how the homogeneity of a people called the Igbos was destroyed. What they held as sacrosanct degenerated under conflicting and pluralistic Christian messages, thereby replicating the Babel experience in Genesis. With this book, Rev. Fr. Dr. Michael K. Onyekwere, SDV wishes to draw readers’ attention to identify the reasons why there is a breakdown of the values that gave identity to Igboland, threatening their identity as one people. He hopes to offer some solutions and leave some room for further work to be done in the area of conflict management and ecumenism.
For not integrating initially some of the good elements in Igbo culture, many Igbo Christians have double personality - Christian personality and traditional personality. They are Christians on Sundays but traditionalists on weekdays. To combat such an anomalous situation, in imitation of Christ's effort at completing what was lacking in the Jewish religion, author Edwin Udoye proposes radical inculturation. His book equally contains many serious theological reflections such that it recommends itself to both theologians and the scholars researching on the religions of the world. Udoye has therefore made a very significant contribution worthy of commendation to both theological and religious studies.
In our age and time, many Igbo Christians are faced with crises of faith and identity as to whether they are Christians, faithful to the teachings of their religion, or Igbos, loyal to their native customs and cultures. Addressing these crises, this book identifies and proposes ways of incorporating the Christian message, through a systematic process of inculturation, into the life of the Igbo people so that they can be at home with the message of the gospel, and at the same time, at home with the Igbo cultures. It assists the Igbo people to live out their Christian life as a truly Igbo people, and not in the foreign garments of missionary Christianity. Broadly, this book presents the intrinsic relationships and indissoluble marriage between religion and culture. It highlights the fact that, every religion has cultural influences, just as every culture has religious influences.
This book is about the dangers of religious intolerance, conflict and violence oriented strategies in our contemporary society. It exposes the evangelical strategies of Christian Churches and Denomination in the Nigerian society and critically analyses the elemental causes of conflict and violence in Igboland.
This collection of essays explores the critical and fluid nature of security challenges that have plagued Nigeria since colonial times. Insecurity in diverse forms remains the bane of growth and progressive development in the country, and has the capability to derail a society no matter how sophisticated. What has generated insecurity at the macro- and micro-levels? How has insecurity been tackled? Why have security challenges escalated particularly in the post-independence period? What lessons could be learnt from the way security matters have been (mis)handled in the past? This volume presents chapters on the historical roots and antecedents of security challenges, and considers the nexus between the economy, political leadership and development, and its impacts on security in modern Nigeria. It also explores the effectiveness of the strategies employed to address security challenges, and discusses why some security challenges have lingered.
Exploring the history of ethnic, regional, and religious diversity in Nigeria, this volume traces most of the country's current problems to its colonial exploitation. Plagued by ethnic divisions, economic inequality, and corruption, Nigeria appears to conform to the stereotypical view that Africa's problems are mostly the result of primitive tribalism. But as Nigeria's Diverse Peoples demonstrates, most of Nigeria's problems today were set in motion by Europeans during the slave trade and colonial eras. Focusing on three main ethnic groups (Hausa-Falani, Yoruba, and Igbo) and ranging from precolonial times to independence in 1960 to the present, this breakthrough study portrays a Nigeria now striving to make a unified nation of itself. Offering a fresh understanding not just of Nigeria but of Africa as well, readers will enter the richly complex world of Nigeria's ethnic history.
The book is aimed at students and scholars of conflict, Africa, ethnic politics, and religion. It may also appeal to religious and political leaders. It proposes a new perspective on how ethnicity and religion shape political outcomes and violence in Africa, adding psychological elements to standard political science arguments.
Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of Figures -- List of Contributors -- Introduction -- 1 The Nigeria-Biafra War: Postcolonial Conflict and the Question of Genocide -- SECTION I Genocide and the Biafran Bid for Self-Determination -- 2 Irreconcilable Narratives: Biafra, Nigeria and Arguments About Genocide, 1966-1970 -- 3 Marketing Genocide: Biafran Propaganda Strategies During the Nigerian Civil War, 1967-1970 -- 4 The Case Against Victor Banjo: Legal Process and the Governance of Biafra -- 5 The Biafran Secession and the Limits of Self-Determination -- SECTION II A Global Event -- 6 The UK and 'Genocide' in Biafra -- 7 France and the Nigerian Civil War, 1967-1970 -- 8 Israel, Nigeria and the Biafra Civil War, 1967-1970 -- 9 Strange Bedfellows: An Unlikely Alliance Between the Soviet Union and Nigeria During the Biafran War -- 10 West German Sympathy for Biafra, 1967-1970: Actors, Perceptions and Motives -- 11 Dealing With 'Genocide': The ICRC and the UN During the Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967-1970 -- 12 Humanitarian Encounters: Biafra, NGOs and Imaginings of the Third World in Britain and Ireland, 1967-1970 -- 13 'And Starvation Is the Grim Reaper': The American Committee to Keep Biafra Alive and the Genocide Question During the Nigerian Civil War, 1968-1970 -- 14 'Black America Cares': The Response of African-Americans to Civil War and 'Genocide' in Nigeria, 1967-1970 -- SECTION III Trauma and Memory -- 15 Women and the Nigeria-Biafra War -- 16 'Biafra of the Mind': MASSOB and the Mobilization of History -- 17 Memory as Social Burden: Collective Remembrance of the Biafran War and Imaginations of Socio-Political Marginalization in Contemporary Nigeria -- 18 The Asaba Massacre and the Nigerian Civil War: Reclaiming Hidden History -- 19 Imagined Nations and Imaginary Nigeria: Chinua Achebe's Quest for a Country -- Index
