Ambientes y entornos saludables creados y fortalecidos

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degenerated into chaos and conflict of violent destruction of traditional worship symbols of the traditionalists.

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participants that the hardship, financial stagnation, ill fortune and so on that pervaded their lives were caused by voodoo and the black magic power of the traditional religion adherents.

The truthfulness or otherwise of the assertion has remained contentious and this invariably is to be seen as the root cause of violent attacks on the traditional religious artifacts during evangelism crusade in some parts of Igbo land in recent time.

The crux of the matter is that the telling of one’s own story in the course of Christian evangelism is apt and would be better understood if it toes the line of the truth and conspicuously in concurrence with the word of God. As Newman (n.d) puts it, the task of evangelism often includes telling our individual story along with the larger gospel story. The emphasis herein remains that, it is obvious that the individual story be told in the course of Christian evangelism as necessity demands. But the story should be truth, tantamount and of equal parallel with the principle as outlined in the great commission mandate.

In the great commission mandate, the principle of truthfulness during evangelism expects Christians to tell Jesus Christ’s story as it were. When one look at the ethical response to the issue of duplicating or telling the story of Jesus Christ during evangelism, the result is that it clearly makes one to avoid the trap of fostering an attitude of religious superiority and violence. The pointer is that the perceived reason for the Christian evangelical conflict and violence with opposite religions such as traditional religion is pushed forward by individuals that choose to tell their own story in colouration of Jesus’ true story as it concerns evangelism.

Therefore it is imperative and suggestive too that today Christians in this case Igbo Christians should imbibe the character of truthfulness to the gospel on evangelism as they go about evangelizing and making conversion of non-christians as a practical step that would give support to coherent conversion in their area. Just as Gendron (n.d.) adviced, we must avoid using half-truths and reducing the gospel to nothing more than a fire escape in order to manipulate people into making a decision.

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On the issue of integrity in evangelism, the fact remains that the great commission mandate and the work of Christian evangelism as commanded by Jesus Christ has distinguishing features on integrity. To clarify the word concept, integrity alongside the main thrust of this section, Anderson (2000) observes that the word integrity comes from the same latin root as integer and it implies a wholeness of person. Just as we would talk about a whole number, so also we can talk about a whole person who is undivided, nor being a different person in different circumstances. A person of integrity is the same person in private that he or she is in public. As already indicated in the above passage, integrity connotes the state of wholeness and undivided in a given course of duty or endeavour. Bringing this to bear in relation to the principle of integrity in Christian evangelism, the suggestion is that as much as integrity is the characteristic of evangelism, Christian evangelists and participants must show high degree of honesty and strong moral principle to maintain the integrity of evangelical mandate as embedded in the true demands for a Christian evangelism.

Reflecting on integrity in evangelism as code of conduct for Christians, Lynch (2013) observes that Christians should seek to honour the Lord through an ethical and open approach in our attempt to persuade others to believe the good news about Jesus Christ. We disavow any approaches which depersonalize people, or that seek their conversion through manipulative, coercive, or overtly emotional means which bypass a person’s critical faculties, or that mask the true nature and demands of Christian conversion. The main concern of every Christian is that Christian evangelism should aim to honour the evangelism template as commanded by Jesus Christ.

The need for Christians to profess an evangelism that is integrity-oriented without flippant abuses of humanity and distortion of the message of evangelism will be a welcomed development. It would be in the right direction for Igbo Christian evangelists to take practical steps toward understanding the basic principle for a coherent ethical evangelism to carry out

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the work of evangelism crusade with integrity devoid of any offence to other religions.

Noteworthy is the fact that an evangelism that is rooted in integrity and obedience to the evangelical command of God do not ruffle people’s feather in the course of its duty of evangelizing them. For individuals or organizers of crusades in some parts of Igboland to think that the gospel cannot be preached without some element of coercion and violence is faulty and devoid of the truth. It is not only against Christian ethics but such an act of evangelism tends to suggest a loss of the sense of the great commission mandate.