By Abah Anthony John
The director of mission and dialogue of the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria (CSN) has identified some of the challenges confronting the work of Evangelization in the West African Nation.
Rev. Fr. Joseph Tile Nomhwange in an interview with Aci-Africa on Thursday 6th of June, on the sideline of the maiden edition of the National Catholic Bible quiz competition organized by the CSN, highlighted Christians Persecution and commercializing of the gospel by pastors for financial gain as some of the challenges confronting the spread of the word of God in Nigeria.
“The Challenges that we are dealing with in Nigeria today is the challenge of Christians being persecuted on a daily basis in this country in several ways, is it in governance? Freedom of religion or even getting a piece of land to build a church especially in the Northern part, every day Christians are being persecuted,”
Fr. Nomhwange continued, “Anybody that is killed or attacked because of their faith, that is persecution. We have lost thousands of Christians in this country since the advent of Islamic terrorists called Boko Haram and Christians are still being targeted on a daily basis, from kidnapping for ransom to Banditry and other organized criminality, in some communities in the north of Nigeria we find a lot of Christians who had to flee the communities because of Persecution and this has continued unabated, but we thank God even in the face of Persecution, the faith continues to grow. And I think God is alive in his church and he is doing wonders in this Church.”.
Fr. Nomhwange who is of the Society of African Mission (SMA) also expressed concern over the commercializing of the gospel by pastors and Preachers, saying the trend has be a challenge for effective evangelization and missionary work in Africa most populous nation. “Another challenge we face in evangelization in Nigeria is the trend of making money from the gospel, some pastors are commercializing the gospel by compelling their faithful to pay for ridiculous items in their churches, making people to begin to suspect that Christianity and the gospel has become a business. That is one challenge that we need to deal with. Because when people come to conclusions like that, even when they hear the word from a reliable source, they turn their back to it because somebody somewhere has made them believe that this is purely a business.”
The 50-year old Clergy of Nigeria’s Gboko diocese also explained why the church in Nigeria is sending missionaries to Europe and America after it has received missionaries from them in the past. “I think God has blessed the church in Nigeria tremendously with the gift of faith. And we must not forget those who helped to bring that faith to us. If we have received missionaries from Europe and America in the past and today the faith has grown in Nigeria, it is only proper that we give back to them. Because everything, not just the word, not just the faith, everything we have received is in view of giving out. The church would always be missionary. There is never coming to a time when we would stop being missionaries. We would always be missionaries. Because once the church stops being missionary, it stops being a church”.
On the National Catholic Bible quiz competition organized by the department of missions and dialogue which he superintendent over at CSN, the Nigerian Catholic priest who was Ordained on 14th of June 2008, stated that the essence of putting together the competition is to promote the study of the word of God among all strata of the Society. “The first thing we are hoping this Bible competition will achieve is that it will make us have a renewed love for the Word of God, a renewed commitment to the Word of God, a new passion for the Word of God, that we will not just hear it, that we will begin to practice it after we have made it our own. But it will never become our own if we have not heard and it will never hear if we don’t pick our Bibles.”
The Nigerian director of Mission and Dialogue of CSN further maintain that, “This competition, among other things is celebrating God in his Word, but more importantly, also is that it encourages us to read our Bibles, that we must pick up our Bibles and begin to read it because it is the Word of God. It is simply the Word of God. It is the only way we come to know God. It is the only way we come to relate with God. If we don’t know his Word, we would not know him. And if we don’t know him, we cannot relate with him. So the Word of God plays that role in our live. And as the Scripture tells us, the Word of God is active and alive. It’s amazing what the Word of God can continue to do in us, even the words that we have heard before. So we hope that this will spur Christians not only to come and support this kind of enterprise of sponsoring the quiz, but also that we would pick up our Bibles and begin to read more passionately.”
According to Fr. Nomhwange, “There is never a time that is too early to begin the study and the reflection of the Word of God. And there’s never a time when we become too old for it. And so that is what has brought us here today. We are hoping that this would be a challenge for Christians everywhere, but particularly Catholics who have the wherewithal to be able to sponsor a thing like this. He said
