PH Mundial – Port Harcourt Online Newspaper News Across The Region
Related Articles
By Young Erhiurhoro
I have read with interest the recent publication of God’s Kingdom Mission, authored by the church’s archminister, Brother Roland Ogene, on the topic, ‘Is the Feast of Tabernacles really a Jewish Festival? And should Christians Promote and Participate in the Celebration of African Cultural Festivals?’ and published under their weekly column in the newspapers.
Though I do not find his teaching on the above topic comfortable, as also with others, I want to commend him for bringing this topic to the public domain, especially the second part of it which asked the question, ‘If Christians could promote and participate in African cultural festivals.’
This discuss is therefore a sort of response or answer to his question, and also to throw light on why it’s expedient and lawful for the various cultures and people of Nigeria, especially the Urhobos and Isokos, to participate in and promote their indigenous festivals as time and season demands.
Frankly, Ogene’s question was asked at the right time, given that Africa as a continent and the many ethnic groups in Nigeria, particularly the Urhobos and Isokos, are currently experiencing ‘a high breeze and blaze’ of cultural exploitation of the people, with many of our cultural festivals having gone into extinction and the few remaining ones lacking stability and the pomp and vitality that once attended them.
These challenges have emanated from teachings such as Ogene’s in churches in our various communities across Africa today.
Without doubt, such teachings have discouraged many young people from participating in cultural festivals across Africa. This is more pronounced in Urhobo and Isoko ethnic groups.
For instance, as a cultural enthusiast, if you go round the communities in both Urhobo and Isoko ethnic regions, you will find that participation in these cultural festivals is at the lowest ebb. The interest and urge, as in the time of old, is no longer with our people especially the youths. This is as a result of the kind of teachings and preaching by many of the church leaders.
This ugly scenario is not so for the Yoruba and Igbo ethnic nations. These two groups fondly uphold their cultural values and beliefs and put them in practice in their everyday life. Their cultures have grown beyond the crude and archaic period by using modern technology to improve the celebration of these festivals. Today, they have television stations through which they showcase their rich cultural festivals. They also use film productions and such modern practices that are still lacking in both Urhobo and Isoko communities.
This is why I said Ogene asked his question at the right time. A time when countries across Africa and other parts of the world are relying heavily on the use of modern technology to revive and improve their cultural festivals to generate income and create employment for talented youths, we are here in Nigeria talking of how to wipe away our cultural festivals in the name of Christianity.
This is a time religious and political leaders are supposed to talk about cultural renaissance in Africa instead of this surge of acculturation and foreign cultural pollution blowing everywhere.
It’s a time we supposed to preach religious tolerance to adherents instead of using religion as a weapon to tear the people apart. This is a time the federal and state ministries of culture and tourism in the country are supposed to work out modalities, policies and programmes to revive and sustain the celebration of these cultural festivals, which is why the ministry of culture and tourism is established both at the federal and state levels of our government in the first place.
Perhaps unknown to many, much of the foreign sports we watch and clap for today are cultural festivals of some groups of people in the world. For instance, football, wrestling, boxing etc are products of the culture, or cultural festivals in themselves, of some groups of people. Today, these sports are highly paid careers and professions.
However, my intention is not to put up unnecessary and unfavorable arguments or to ask ambiguous questions that have no meaning or relevance to the tenets of peace and peaceful co-existence amongst the Nigerian people. It’s glaringly clear that what the Bible teacher has taught is based on his understanding of the Holy Bible and also in relation to his religious beliefs and practices.
I always tell people, especially Christians that claim the holy book as their beacon, that the Holy Bible is a very complex religious book which can only be understood through powerful intuition and total commitment. It’s not different from any other religious book. On this note, the Bible teacher should remember that Nigeria is a multi-religious country and as a religious leader, he must uphold the tenets of the rule of law, equality before the law, fair judgement that is hinged on justice, and finally, to respect the religious rights of other citizens of the country.
We shouldn’t forget that one of the biggest problems confronting and ravaging this country today is the problem of religion and ethnicism. In Nigeria, Christians will always tell Muslims and traditional worshippers that they are saints and more closer to God. In the same way, Muslims will say Islam as a religion is the only approved religion for Nigeria, while the traditional worshipper heavily proclaims his religious beliefs and practices as the best way to see God.
Thus the battle lines are very much clear for one to see.
People like us are thrown into confusion when we see the religious calamities besetting the nation, compounded by the national issues of insecurity and failed democracy and governance.
How soon can we forget the religious wars between Christians and Muslims in various parts of this country?
When we refuse to respect the religious rights of others, then we are looking for nothing but trouble in the land. The land may not know peace until we begin to accept each other’s views or religious beliefs and practices especially as manifested in our different cultural consciousness.
Without doubt, religion is one of the divisive tools that the political class uses to tear Nigeria apart today; our religious leaders, whether Christians or Muslims, are cheaply used by politicians to propagate seeds of discord and enmity across ethno-religious lines in the country. This can only be avoided when we start to toe the line of religious tolerance amongst the various religious groups in the country.
Now to the issue of whether we should participate in and promote African cultural festivals. As a lover and promoter of the African culture, I say yes. We should be allowed to participate in and promote our cultural festivals because they are part of us and we are part of them.
Man and culture are inseparable in all areas of life. If we accept the general definition of culture as the total way of life of a group of people, what then is wrong when the people participate in and promote their cultural festivals? I see nothing wrong with such cultural celebrations.
We shouldn’t also forget that, there’s no way we (African Christians) can be more righteous and religious than those that brought Christianity to us. As the Bible says, our own righteousness is just like a filthy rag before the Lord. Can we now justify the claim that there are no pagans or deities or shrines in Europe or Jerusalem? Can any Bible teacher prove that all persons in Bethlehem of Judea or Galilee are Christians?
Even in Rome, the seat of the Catholic Church today, can we say that there are no pagans or idol worshippers as many of us in Nigeria claim? Let’s not deceive ourselves. We are too righteous and religious in our own thinking, to the exclusion of others including our own Christians brethren.
Today, the British Museum is housing so many artifacts like masks, images and other antiquities majorly carted away from the African soil during the slave trade and the colonial era. These artifacts are deposited in the museum for people to see and learn from them. It’s a source of income to the nation and also to satisfy the inquisitiveness of the younger generations about the identity, history and culture of their people and the African continent.
Why can’t the British government that sent missionaries to many parts of Africa to bring us the new religion of Christianity proclaim a law to demolish the British Museum because it’s loaded with devilish items from Africa? Can we see how we want to be righteous and religious in our practice of Christianity?
The British Museum is today standing tall as one of the oldest and well equipped museums in the world. Yet, we want to set ablaze every shrine, mask, image or deity in our various communities because we are preachers of the gospel. Truly, our kind of Christianity in this part of the world is to wash outside the pot while ignoring the inside which is equally dirty.
We are the types of Christians that want to remove the log from our neighbour’s eyes when our own eyes are covered with dirt. We wear sheep’s coats, but our hearts are as dangerous as a wounded lion. We call the Lord with our dirty mouths during the day and run to the devil at night when we are faced with temptations and challenges. Who is deceiving who in the service and worship of God?
Conclusively, condemning the participation in and promotion of African cultural festivals whether in the light of the Bible or any other Christian religious book is out-rightly wrong and against our constitution as a country. Every community or village in this world has a culture and their own ways, beliefs and cultural practices.
Before the advent of Christianity in Africa, we will agree, we had our own ways of worshiping God and rendering divine services to Him. Don’t forget, those festivals incorporated or tagged today as Christian festivals, such as Christmas, Easter and even the Holy Communion, were once cultural festivals of some groups of people in the western world. But today, we have accepted them as Christian festivals to replace our own cultural festivals. Where is the inheritance of our forebears and ancestries?
This is the long lasting supremacy and superiority hold the whites have over blacks or Africans, and have inculcated in our thoughts through the western education they brought to us.
This is a misnomer and it’s uncalled for in modern societies. As it’s today, Christians have their own festivals, likewise the Moslems and also the so-called pagans (traditional worshippers). No festival should be condemned by any person in respect to teachings and preaching of any kind.
Allow the people to participate in and promote their cultural festivals. It’s their religious right to do so. Any teaching or preaching from any kind of religion that infringes or tramples on other people’s rights is illegal in a multi-religious country like ours. Like I said at the beginning of this discourse, we must imbibe the spirit of religious tolerance if we want peace in our various communities across the country.
Let’s allow God to judge our religious practices and activities. We can’t take the place of God to pass judgement or condemn those we perceive as our religious enemies.
However, if we continue to condemn our cultural festivals in the name of preaching the gospel of salvation, they will fizzle out from existence soon. But we must know that, a people without culture are worse than infidels and slaves, even Christians. Every living thing on earth has a culture. Let’s participate in and promote our cultural festivals. They are our lives.
Young Erhiurhoro;Kjc is a reporter and member of the Urhobo Historical Society.
