Tithing in African Christianity: An Enquiry into its Origin in United Missionary Church of Africa (UMCA), Nigeria.
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Date
2019
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The Department of Religious Studies, Faculty of Arts, Universirty of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria
Abstract
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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x. Fawenu, Bamidele Olusegun. (2019). “Tithing in African Christianity: An Enquiry into its Origin in United Missionary Church of Africa (UMCA), Nigeria.” In Samson Adetunji Fatokun, Jacob Kehinde Ayantayo et al., (Eds.), African Christianity in Local and Global Contexts: A Festschrift in honour of Rev. Prof. Isaac Deji Ayegboyin (212-223). Ibadan: Department of Religious Studies, University of Ibadan.