A HISTORICAL SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY AND EKWULOBIA CULTURE, 1913-2013
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Background to the Study
Ekwulobia is one of the towns that benefitted from the coming of the European missionaries and their religion, Christianity in 1913. Christianity is no longer a new phenomenon in Ekwulobia. The process of Christianization in Ekwulobia which brought these two different religions and culture into contact and conflicts experienced reciprocal shocks. Agha (1996) stated that conflicts are abound to occur when the old and new meet because each will claim superiority over the other (p.16). The people of Ekwulobia gradually embraced Christianity. Christianity has demonstrated in its human character that it is the custodian and promoter of human values; though one may not rightly assert that Christianity has always played this role flawlessly. Before the advent of Christianity in Ekwulobia, the indigenes of Ekwulobia were very religious. Mbiti (1969) explains this clearly: Wherever the African man is, there is his religion, he carries it to the fields where he is sowing seeds or harvesting a new crop, and if he is educated, he takes religion with him to the examination room at school. Wherever he is going, he has his religion and culture with him. (p. 24). Leonard (1986) supported this view saying, “Igbo people are truly and deeply religious people of who it can be said that ... they eat religiously, drink religiously, bath religiously and dress religiously” (p.38). 2 When Christianity came to Ekwulobia, the indigenes gave a cold reception to it because most of the people they came to evangelize looked at the new religion as a threat to their own religion as in the case of Anglican and the coming of Catholic Church in Ekwulobia. They saw Christianity as the importation of the white man’s culture which cannot easily mix well with their own culture. Before the advent of Christianity, Ekwulobia was governed by traditions and custom. Ekwulobia people did not know that there were other cultures and traditions which were different from their religious beliefs and worship. There were traditions that were given high positions in Ekwulobia like Iso-ebe, Igba-eke, Igba-udo ,Okponsi, Igochi Umunwaanyi, Achukwu masquerading, Oriri Uto, Ezeasika, Ilo-uwa, Iju-ase, Ogwu, Mgborogwu na Mkpaakwukwo and so on. Through this culture and tradition, they organize their life, style and worldview. There was a cultural clash between the western culture vessel in which Christianity has been conveyed to Ekwulobia and the authentic values of Ekwulobia culture because the people of Ekwulobia find it extremely difficult to abandon their way of life for a new way of life that is yet to prove a superior alternative. Even some of the converts and practitioners of Christian faith seem not yet ready to let go of some aspects of their culture. This is so, because the Christianity that was brought was fully engulfed in western culture: western philosophy, theology and cultural values such as monogamy, rituals and ceremonies and also western names. All these posed a serious problem for the establishment of Christianity at the initial stage and also the reason why all the efforts to 3 have deep touch of the Christian message in the lives of the people seemed to be shallow. The missionaries came with their own brand of religion called Christianity that was headed by Jesus Christ. This brand of religion was regarded by the missionaries as the best way of worshipping God and by this they implanted the message of Christ in the minds of Ekwulobia people especially those that accepted their religion. For them, Ekwulobia traditional religion ought to be discarded since it was no religion at all and religion entails the conception of the abstract which Ekwulobia people could not do. According to Ludwig (1980) “how can the untutored Africans conceive God that is not seen”. Ebelebe (cited in Ekwunife, 2016) added that the missionaries were praised for the developments brought all over Igbo land; he also blamed them for not taking cognizance of the people’s culture. Rather what they left was Irish church structures and practices transplanted into Igbo land. Christianity came to Ekwulobia in the year 1913 through the Anglican missionaries, while the Roman Catholic faith was brought through Adazi in Anaocha in the year 1925 by Rev. Fr. C. Liddane C.S.S.P. who was then the Parish Priest of Adazi. When Christianity came to Ekwulobia, the missionaries forgot that the people of Ekwulobia, before they came, had their own mode of worship and belief in the Supreme Being. The white missionaries did not consider all these rather all the religious artifacts were branded idols, fetish and everything about them was referred to as heathenism.
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