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In
August and September, 2001, Paul Barker visited Nigeria
at the invitation of EFAC (Nigeria) President, Bishop
Josiah Fearon, to speak at the annual EFAC Convention and
clergy conference. Here he shares some reflections of
that visit. |
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It was a
day I would rather forget. After a weekend in Kaduna,
preaching, meeting clergy and talking with the Bishop
while watching live football from England, a dozen
clergy, black-shirted and dog-collared with me in tow set
off in a minibus for what was meant to be a mere 10-hour
drive to Yola on the Cameroon border. Via Kano, because
the driver did not know the way, and after several pit
stops to cater for me, having eaten something I wish I
hadn't at lunch, I arrived, over 12 hours later, in
stifling humidity, dehydrated and with just 20 minutes to
spare before I gave my first hour-long Bible study on the
Book of Revelation. It was not the ideal preparation and
bouncing along the potholed road I had fervently prayed
that Jesus would come before Yola. |
The Ven Dr Paul Barker is Vicar of Holy
Trinity Doncaster, Melbourne and Archdeacon of Box Hill |
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I am not
accustomed to being a celebrity, nor clergy conferences
having festival atmospheres. As we arrived in Yola there
were billposters on every street corner announcing the
conference and following convention. A car with
loud-hailers and posters also advertised the event. Six
hundred clergy and their wives attended the clergy
conference at this remote town with perhaps 3000 at the
convention that followed, arriving by the busload with
banners announcing their dioceses and home towns. And the
Nigerians were excited that Dr Peter (sic) Barker had
arrived. Between sessions I was besieged for photos and
gave out my address dozens of times. (The anticipated
letters requesting financial and spiritual support have
since been arriving regularly.) Tapes of my talks were
immediately on sale after each session so I spent the
week hearing my own voice booming through microphones
advertising the sale of tapes. |
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Nothing
is easy in Nigeria. It was the wet season and often talks
were competing with torrential rain on the tin roof of
the cathedral. Spasmodic electricity made microphones
uncertain and curtailed the use of fans at night leaving
me without relief from the sticky heat. There was a
tangible tension regarding the political situation in the
country and the Bishop often voiced his fears that
somehow we might antagonize the Muslims. |
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Yet
despite the difficulties, there is a vibrancy among
Nigerian Christians and EFAC that is exciting yet
disturbing. EFAC is certainly alive in Nigeria. I met
some women in Zaria who each week visit Muslim women in
the town and pray with them and read the Bible with them.
This is dangerous work. The women's Christian faith is
kept secret because they would be killed or abused by
their Muslim husbands if discovered. Nonetheless, Muslims
are being converted. |
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In the hotbed of
religious fervour in Nigeria, EFAC and some parts of the
Anglican church see themselves as competing with the
fast-growing Pentecostal churches. So EFAC prides itself
on being orthodox, evangelical, Anglican, charismatic,
apostolic and Pentecostal. There are even bumper stickers
that announce this combination. |
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This confusion is
disconcerting. While Bibles are well-thumbed, theological
integration and depth is scarce. Most clergy have minimal
training. Church planters often have none. Some who have
been in ministry for some time are just now starting out
on a Moore College certificate, courtesy of the college
and Kaduna diocese. More than anything, the church in
Nigeria needs solid Bible teaching. Hence my visit. |
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Much of the music,
though lively and enthusiastically played and sung, lacks
depth and sometimes verges on banality. So too the
incessant calls to 'Praise the Lord' which punctuated
every other speaker's address. Such superficiality
strikes me as dangerous, evacuating praise of content and
significance. The frequent altar calls suggested to me
the fragility of Christian assurance for many people. |
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Not surprisingly given
the tension with Islam in Northern Nigeria, issues of
spiritual warfare frequently come to the fore. The
concentration on such issues appeared to me to betray a
deficient theology of the cross. I had been deliberately
asked to speak on the Book of Revelation in order to help
strengthen their theology under persecution and in the
midst of spiritual warfare. To what extent this was
effective I cannot say. A few talks at one conference are
not much. But if the Nigerian Anglican church does not
gain a more robust and biblical theology at its
grassroots, then the consistent pressures it faces will
cause damage. |
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The Pentecostal views
on spiritual warfare, which seem to pervade EFAC in
Nigeria, were also reflected in the bookstalls at the
conference. There was an abundance of Benny Hinn and such
like but not much evangelical writing or theology. There
is a need for us in the West to work out ways of getting
more (and cheap) good biblical books into the hands of
the Nigerian church and its leaders. Having said that, I
was astonished that at a bookshop at the Theological
College of Northern Nigeria in Jos I picked up a
commentary, albeit liberal, on Jonah that I have searched
for over a number of years without success in Australia
– and it was less than $3AUS. |
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Cultural issues also
are high on the agenda. When one bishop in a sermon
hinted that women may possibly wear trousers, he almost
caused a riot and had to back down on what he had said or
the communion service may not have continued. There was
also sharp discussion about clergy robes and bishop's
mitres, a heated topic it seemed to me, and one which
publicly divided the bishops who attended. |
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A 6-hour taxi ride
from steamy Yola to the relief of temperate Jos,
accompanied by half a dozen live chickens the taxi driver
bought en route, brought me to missionary friends working
in a Church of Christ Bible College. I had been there in
1999 and it was again a delight to teach eager students
for a week who have sacrificed much to train for pastoral
ministry. Even here, with inadequate library resources
and lecturers struggling to grasp their subjects, there
remains a crying need for solid Bible teaching. I spent
some time with an Old Testament lecturer trying to help
him shape a course on Old Testament theology. His biggest
needs were more resources, more training for himself, and
more analytical skills for his own reading. |
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Much is said of the
boom in the Nigerian church. We rejoice in its growth and
strength, its commitment to the Bible and evangelism.
Most of its leaders have had opportunity to study in the
West. Yet much more can be done to train pastors and
evangelists so that a thoroughly biblical theology can
provide a firm and enduring foundation for ministry in
such difficult places and times. |
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