Department of Christian Studies

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    African Polygamy: Church Action, · Community Reaction, and · Personal Interaction
    (1994) A.M. OKORIE
    Polygamy ~as been at the heart of the whole polemics within the Church and the African community. This social problem has been from tQ.e mid-nineteenth century until today. 1 The Western entry into Africa brought various changes, especially the introduction of Christianity. The Church and the community interacted, but in the practice of polygamy the Church and the community became strange bed-fellows. As Alan Tippett describes it: uThe .current situation is urgent."2 I shall briefly explore the nature, extent and function of polygamy, the problem or concern being debated, the Church action on polygamy, the community reaction in Africa, and my personal interaction with this sensitive socio-ecclesiastical issue.
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    AFRICAN WIDOWHOOD PRACTICES: THE IGBO MOURNING EXPERIENCE
    (1995) A.M. Okorie
    The Good News of Jesus Christ has brought salvation and hope to many who suffered in their former way of life. No greater contrast can be found than in the two different approaches to death, that of the Christian faith and that of African traditions. The Gospel liberates believers from the fear of death and fear of the living-dead. Yet the deep seated world view of African traditions persist, even in Christian communities. Dr. Okorie explores the mourning experience of the lgbo of Nigeria, as experienced particularly by the widows. He briefly mentions some of the ways in which the biblical teaching should transform the traditional approach to death. Death with alf the beliefs and practices surrounding this universal experience deserves more thought in order to know how to bring complete deliverance to God's people held in bondage of fear.
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    MEALS AS TYPE-SCENES IN THE THIRD GOSPEL
    (1996) A.M.Okorie
    Luke includes a reference to food in many chapters of the Third Gospel. It is obvious that meals play an important part in the Lukan presentation of the story of Jesus. The meals of Jesus have profound theological significance, and this significance mounts as each scene is carefully unfolded by the author. This paper is directed towards the establishment of a fixed pattern or type-scene which will serve to identify those scenes that can technically be called meal-scenes.
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    JOHN THE BAPTIST AND ELIJAH
    (1999) A.M.Okorie
    The purview of this paper is to examine the relationship between John the Baptist and Elijah. The paper will be divided into four parts: Old Testament background to the Elijah motif, John the Baptist and the Elijah motif in the Synoptic Gospels, as well as in the Johannine Gospel, and correlative issues.
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    Tithing in African Christianity: An Enquiry into its Origin in United Missionary Church of Africa (UMCA), Nigeria.
    (The Department of Religious Studies, Faculty of Arts, Universirty of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria, 2019) Fawenu, Bamidele Olusegun
    Academic discussion of African Christianity is broad in content and scope. In recent time attention has been given to criticism of prosperity preaching with emphasis on tithing in African Pentecostalism. However, not much has been done on the practice of tithing among the mainline churches that are equally pro-tithing yet less financially buoyant like the Pentecostals. United Missionary Church of Africa (UMCA), a pro-tithing mainline Church seems to fall short of the financial strength commensurate to the longevity of the Church in Nigeria. The expatriate missionaries who established the Church have been commonly blamed for not teaching indigenous members of the church on financial stewardship including tithing. Therefore, this paper investigates the origin of the practice of tithing in UMCA so as to unveil the facts and objectively set the records straight regarding the emergence of tithing in UMCA. Data of interviews done with key leaders and patriarchs of UMCA were supplemented with those retrieved from archival documents. Content analysis and Historical criticism were used. The paper basically focuses on ascertaining whether or not the expatriate missionaries taught Nigerians tithing with significant emphasis. The paper will advance the frontier of scholarship on tithing from an African Christian experience and fill an historical vacuum for UMCA. Findings show that the expatriates Missionaries gave and taught tithing but with some restraints at the inception. Stronger emphasis on tithing started with the indigenous leadership of the church as necessity of funding the church independent of foreign assistance emerged.
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    Community Development in the Light of Ecclesiastical Sensitivity to Climate Change in Ilorin
    (Routledge, 2019) Fawenu, Bamidele Olusegun
    Climate change and consequent debilitating effect on humanity is a global phenomenon. Industrial carbon emission, pollution, improper waste disposal and poor waste management plus wrong agricultural practices are some of the human activities that have evidently aggravated global atmospheric warming. The need for humanity to rise to her responsibility of stewardship of the environment for a sustainable development of the community becomes emphatically germane. Therefore, this chapter examines the extent of awareness of Churches in Ilorin West Local Government Area, Kwara State Nigeria about the menace of climate change and ascertain their involvement in the fight against it. The data collected from a questionnaire administered to selected Churches were analyzed using simple percentage. The earliest reference to environmental care in Genesis 1:26-28; 2:15 was exegetically examined with bias for lexical and contextual implications of selected key words in the passage. The chapter shows that the Churches in the researched locale need to be more informed on this subject and get involved in helping the community to reduce human activities that encourage climate change so that developmental efforts could yield enduring results.
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    Xenophobic Expressions in Post-Apartheid South Africa in Retrospect of Leviticus 19:33-34's Injunctions and Ubuntu.
    (Department of Religion and African Culture, Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, 2020) Fawenu, Bamidele Olusegun
    The sustained trend of violence against immigrants of other nations in post apartheid South Africa calls for serious concern because of the yearning in recent years for Africa renaissance through Pan Africanism, a yearning largely credited to Thabo Mbeki, the former President of South Africa. While the realization of this craving is still being anticipated, African race is confronted with xenophobic attacks leading to loss of lives and properties. Taking cognisance of the official response of South African Council of Churches to the issue and leaning on historical and exegetical research tools, this paper interrogates the reason for the perpetuity of the problem despite prominence of anti xenophobia ideologies in the cultural, political and religious domains of the country. Biblical prescription for treating a foreigner contained in Heiligkeitsgesetz (the holiness code) of Leviticus 19:3334, ubuntu and the advocacy for the African renaissance was used as prisms for responding to this social malaise. The gleanings from the Bible text align with the prominent South African cultural philosophy of Ubuntu and the objectives of the African renaissance crusade. Hypocrisy of political leadership, scapegoat blame fixing by traditional leadership is found as part of the reasons for the sustained recurrence of xenophobic attacks. Therefore, the Government of South Africa and traditional rulers should engage in National re-orientation for the citizens and demonstrate political will to eliminate this social debacle. The Church should along side harness economic resources to empower the indigent, engage in campaign against continued perpetuation of xenophobia through sincere and sustained religious education.
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    An Exegesis of Malachi 3:6-12
    (Scott Christian University, Machakos, Kenya., 2020) Fawenu, Bamidele Olusegun
    This paper exegetes Malachi 3:6-12 using historical-grammatical method of exegesis and principlism in order to suggest a workable application of the injunction on tithing to contemporary Christians in Africa, particularly in Nigeria. This becomes necessary because of the recent resurgence of affront on the pro-tithing Churches’ teaching and practice of tithing. It was found out that for ancient Israelites who were the immediate audience of the Oracles of Malachi, tithing is inseparably connected to the agricultural produce from the land of promise; failure to remit the tithes appropriately resulted in seizure of rain and consequent failure of agricultural productivity of the land. Therefore, the injunction and penalisation attached to its default subsisted within the ambit of covenant relationship Yahweh had with the people. In relation to the New Testament teachings, giving is a timeless principle that subsumes tithing. Therefore, while percentage specific giving may not be rigidly mandated today, financial and material stewardship is a timeless principle for the community of faith then and now, which must be premised on genuine personal relationship with God.
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    The nexus between tithing and prosperity in United Missionary Church of Africa, Nigeria.
    (Department of Religion and Human Values, University of Cape Coast, Ghana., 2021) Fawenu, Bamidele Olusegun
    Tithing, which refers to the practice of giving one-tenth of one‟s income or produce for religious purposes, is a prominent Judaeo-Christian pactice. Extant studies have focused more on the controversy surrounding the applicability of the Old Testament tithing law to Christians than its connection to the lived experience of tithers. Therefore, this study juxtaposes the practice of tithing with lived experiences of tithers in United Missionary Church of Africa (UMCA), Northcentral Nigeria with a view to ascertaining the extent to which compliance to the tithing injunction elicits God‟s blessing. This enquiry becomes germane due to the emphasis of pro-tithing churches on the inevitable nexus between prosperity and tithing. In-depth interviews were conducted on 32 purposively selected pastors and deacons: eight from each of the four language-groups districts — English-speaking district (ESD), Nupe-speaking district (NSD), Yoruba-speaking district (YSD) and Hausa-speaking district (HSD) — of UMCA. Copies of a questionnaire were administered on 757 randomly selected church members across the four language-group districts. Qualitative data were subjected to content analysis, while quantitative data were subjected to percentages. UMCA mmbers think of blessing attached to tithing largely as economic emancipation, health and security. However, the survey shows that occasional tithers experienced sickness: ESD (44.4%), NSD (54.3%), YSD (32.2%) and HSD (42.0%); financial difficulty: ESD (45.1%), NSD (78.3%), YSD (49.3%) and HSD (58.6%); and robbery: ESD (23.8%), NSD (16.0%), YSD (16.4%) and HSD (14.0%). Also, regular tithers avowed experiencing sickness: ESD (42.4%), NSD (77.9%), YSD (41.7%) and HSD (53.2%); financial difficulty: ESD (53.8%), NSD (95.4%), YSD (66.3%) and HSD (61.6%); and robbery: ESD (32.0%), NSD (27.7%), YSD (30.2%) and HSD (18.9%). Conversely, a good percentage of non-tithers claimed that they do not have such experiences in connection to defaulting in tithing; ESD (55.6%), NSD (66.7%), YSD (70.0%) and HSD (78.6%). The paper argues that a balanced teaching on material prosperity that does not give false hope and expectations to people should be re-emphasised among Christians generally and in UMCA specifically.
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    The Church and COVID-19 Lockdown in Nigeria: A Discourse on Selected Issues
    (Department of Religions, Faculty of Arts, University of Benin, Nigeria, 2021) Fawenu, Bamidele Olusegun
    The new coronavirus traced to Wuhan, China took the world by storm and necessitated a repeat of lockdown of human activities similar to the era of the 1918 Spanish Flu. Physical distancing was mandated to curtail the spread of the deadly virus. The resulting ban of gatherings for social, economic as well as religious purposes ignite agitations from certain religious stakeholders particularly the Church in Nigeria and spur critical discussions on vital aspects of church life. Therefore, this paper engages the meaning and composition of the church, priesthood of all believers and evangelism and divine healing, which are some aspects of the Church life that were probed due to the lockdown. The question is, to what extent did the experience of the lockdown redefined aspects of the Church life and deepened the knowledge of Christians on their religion? Will the redefinition be sustained as the new normal or is it momentary? The interrogation is based on the fact that usually religion does not only respond to crisis; it is at the same time reconfigured by crisis of the magnitude of COVID-19. Historical survey and content analysis of relevant literature were adopted for the task. The issues raised during the lockdown must have enhanced the understanding of Christians about their faith thus the church sets the Church for maximizing the gains of the lockdown in respect of quality of Christian living and propagation of the faith.
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    Deuteronomy’s philanthropic stance against poverty: An advocacy for charity tithe in United Missionary Church of Africa, Ilorin.
    (Department of Religion and Human Values, University of Cape Coast, Ghana., 2022) Fawenu, Bamidele Olusegun
    Poverty alleviation has been discussed extensively in economics and other disciplines. While theology has not been left out of the discourse, there has been little emphasis on the perspective of theological anthropology concerning poverty alleviation. This paper explores Deuteronomy’s philanthropic posture towards the poor from the perspective of theological anthropology and how such an anthropology is applied through the practice of tithing in the United Missionary Church of Africa (UMCA) in Nigeria. The paper adopts the Kantian understanding of poverty and uses contextual analysis to interpret relevant biblical texts. Data from focused group discussions conducted in selected churches of UMCA, Ilorin, were also analysed. It was found that though the book of Deuteronomy is the ocentric, its narrative is intensely concerned with the liberation of humans, especially the weak in society. It was also established that UMCA models its practice of care for the poor on the tenets of the book of Deuteronomy; however, the church must also motivate its poor to aspire towards self-reliance. The paper concludes that tithing is a caritative measure that could be adopted towards effective poverty alleviation in UMCA.