There is a close relationship between the traditional Igbo-African culture and its treatment of women and the traditional Jewish culture and the status of women therein. This article examines the implications that the life, ministry, actions and inactions, of women prophets in the Old Testament hold for Christian women in contemporary Southeastern Nigeria where the Igbos live. Despite the obvious difference in time and clime, it is discovered, among other things, that the life and ministry of these women prophets challenge present-day Igbo Christian women to be much more courageous and self-confident, to raise their moral bars, to speak out all the more, to participate more actively in the political leadership of their region and the nation at large, to be much more committed to the Word of God, to be given, as women of fewer words but of mighty deeds, to a much more prophetic witnessing anywhere they find themselves.
Beyond its entertainment value, every piece of creative literature has something more to say which reading between the lines often has a way of revealing. This is true of the novel Purple Hibiscus by the award-winning Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. While his novel says something about the family, politics, post-colonial history and religious realities such as priesthood, mission, Mary, and the Eucharist, this paper looks at what it can tell us about liturgical inculturation and its implications for the Roman Catholic Church in Nigeria. It is hoped that the paper would help to continue, in the spirit of interdisciplinarity, the conversation on the nexus between Ecclesiology and Creative Literature.
Like many places in Africa, youth unemployment in Nigeria is massive. Granted, some scholars have deliberated on the role of the Church in Nigeria in tackling it; their preoccupation, however, has been majorly with the Church in Nigeria as a whole, rather than with individual churches. Employing historical and descriptive phenomenological methodology, this article, on the contrary, considers the role of the Roman Catholic Church in South-East Nigeria, in the fight against the same issue, of youth unemployment. The article, among others, makes a case for a much more participation of faith-based organizations in confronting the many social problems facing the youths in contemporary Africa.
There has recently been an upsurge in the persecution of Christians in Nigeria, especially in northern Nigeria by the militant Islamic sect Boko Haram, and in the Middle Belt and other areas of the country by Muslim Fulani herdsmen. One of the characteristics of these persecutions is that while they are targeted mainly at Christians, these Christians are never separated along the lines of their denominations. This article highlights the ecumenical implications that the scenario holds for the various Christian churches in Nigeria, churches that before now have been schooled in elements of extreme denominationalism.
This article brings together Christian theology, creative literature and history in the current spirit of interdisciplinary scholarship. It endeavours to unveil, in the first place, the image painted of Nigeria as a post-colonial entity in the novel, Purple Hibiscus, by the award-winning writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Through the events, characters and realities employed by her in painting the above-mentioned image of Nigeria, it is evident that the historical period captured is most likely located in the military regimes of Ibrahim Babangida (1985–93) and Sani Abacha (1993–98). The article then considers the role that the Catholic Church in Nigeria, especially its hierarchy, played during the period and what that performance of such has to say to the same church leaders in Nigeria, today. These reflections stand inside the emerging tradition of a public theology in Nigeria.
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