Intro
This blog will concentrate on Christian-Muslim Relations. The entries will mostly be slightly edited copies of materials from my emerging series Studies in Christian-Muslim Relations, a series that will eventually have 8 volumes. For more information about its layout, see my website SocialTheology.com.These entries will feature entries from a Nigerian case study. Nigeria is a unique case in that you find some 65 million Christians facing 65 million Muslims. There is no constellation like this anywhere else in the world. No country has two such huge and equal blocks of both religions within its borders. Another part of the dynamic is that though both are on the increase in Nigeria, Christians appear to be increasing faster and are poised to outnumber Muslims. At the moment, both claim a majority along with the rights that come with that status. However, the 2007 census did not include religious statistics, so that it is anyone’s guess as to which religion can boast the larger following. But, as always, perception and propaganda outstrip the facts in power and significance.
Though I concentrate on Nigeria, it is Nigeria as a case study with global implications from several points of view:
- What dynamics develop when you have two large blocks of these religions living together? These large blocks are some 60 million each!
- What happens when you have these two aggressive missionary religions competing for a place in the sun?
- What happens when a once almost supreme Muslim community is confronted with an emerging Christian community that has woken up to a growing sense of political awareness and power?
- What happens when you have a confrontation between a Muslim community that vehemently rejects secularism in favour of sharia and a Christian community that insists on a form of secularism?
- What happens when both communities are fearful, mistrusting of and angry with each other so that they can no longer hear each other out?
The flow of events in Nigeria is a powerful example of how things are NOT to be done from either side. I expect that Nigerians who read these monographs will feel deeply ashamed of the violence they unleash on each other in the name of their respective religions.
But these studies are not written primarily to embarrass Nigerians. Their purpose is to arrive at some parameters within which they can develop more positive relations with each other, relations of respect and tolerance, that will allow both religions to flourish within the one nation.
These relations have been bedeviled by untold blood shed and destruction ever since 1980. The series describes and explains the riots themselves and the issues of confrontation. Most of the study concentrates on the opinions of Nigerian Muslims and Christians themselves by providing extensive quotations and appendices, especially from the media. Each volume deals with a separate aspect of the relationship.
These studies do away with taboos, now politely dubbed “political correctness” and as well as with religious wishful thinking. We are encouraged to get real. The fatal influence and role of secularism in these relationships in Nigeria come across very pointedly. The weak inheritance of a dualistic gospel transmitted by Christian missions also is explained and constitutes a major reason for confusion in Nigeria.