Desplazamiento Forzado Floridablanca Comparativo 2005-2011

Gideon O. Oyibo is a strong critic of contextualization of Urhobo Baptist funeral practice. He thought that the church, especially Urhobo Baptist church has compromised too much with traditional and ‘paganic’ culture of ancestor worship and worship of the dead282 and therefore should break away. Not only did he condemn Urhobo burial but also the way it is being done by Baptists churches presently (2012) with programmes

279 _{Jovi Ejovi Aganbi, Urhobo Hymnal (Sapele: Agbomeji Endurance Press, n. d), hymn numbers}

152–175, 187–282, and 285–290.

280 _{Rev. Daniel Dikeji Miyerijesu founded the God’s Grace Ministry out of the Church of Nigeria}

(Anglican Communion) in 1993. He changed his own surname from Mimeyerayin (‘I am just saluting them’) to Miyerijesu (‘I am saluting Jesus’). The former connotes the circumstance of a relationship that is not cordial either at the family or community level.

281 _{This writer however does not agree with indiscriminate burning of materials that could be}

preserved as Urhobo cultural artefacts.

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like songs service, funeral service, outing thanksgiving service and memorial service.283 He however suggested that the outing thanksgiving be changed to family dedication service.284 He also argued against the usefulness of memorial churches, naming churches after the dead, a community, a quarter or a road as unscriptural and makes the church a property of the dead and the inheritance of his or her living relatives. He expatiated further that the act is a demonstration that the church exists to honour and celebrate the glory of the dead and to subject the church to the influence of the spirit of the dead.285 Therefore, he commended the Convention for stopping the practice and further recommended the change of names of all Baptist churches that have been named after the dead.286

Understanding death to be resulted from ‘God's judgment against man's rebellion,’287 Oyibo laid much emphasis on Mathew 8: 22 and understood Jesus to mean that it is those who are spiritually dead that should be concerned with the burial of the dead.288 He stated that the living or the church has no responsibility to the dead than the disposal (interment) of its corpse, as the most important factor in burial and not any of the associated ceremonies,289 because burial is a mourning not celebration.290 He argued that the corpse is unclean and should not be brought to the church sanctuary for any form of worship with the dead.291 Instead, he recommended that funeral services be restricted to family compounds,292 claiming that the Priests Prophets, Jesus and the Apostles did not

283 _{Ibid., 49–60.} 284 _{Ibid., 59–60, 127–128.} 285 _{Ibid., 105–107.} 286 _{Ibid., 108, 122.} 287 _{Ibid., 111.} 288 _{Ibid., 114, 129–131, 133.} 289 _{Ibid., 15.} 290 _{Ibid., 118.} 291 _{Ibid., 113, 115} 292 _{Ibid., 119, 123.}

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play any role in burial.293 Other reason he gave is that the dead is not conscious of the activities of the living on its behalf and therefore can neither reward nor punish.294 He presented an example of a solemn burial in which a person bereaved of his mother simply met the mother’s family on the day the mother died and arranged for the burial the next day. He stated,

The next day, the Church people and other family members available were present for a brief service or solemn assembly at the family compound. After the interment, there was a provision of light refreshment which a good number of people did not wait for.295

He did not however give detail information about the deceased, her age and role in the family, the church and the community when alive. Neither did he clarify on items in the service at home or at the grave site. It would have been necessary to ascertain whether the program amounted to a ceremony or not and whether it was for the living or the dead or both. Are the people also spiritually dead to have performed that burial no matter how simple it was?

It is important to note that Oyibo’s emphasis on care, honour and appreciation of people when they are alive instead of waiting for their death and burial296 coupled with his advocacy for simple burials with prudent expenses are commendable. It is proper for Baptist ministers to encourage prudent spending among the people they oversee. Nevertheless, the total condemnation of Urhobo culture of burial is rather to the extreme. In addition, the sample of simple burial which Oyibo narrated may not fit in certain situations especially if the deceased was a prominent person in the family, the church or the community when alive.

293 _{Ibid., 113.} 294 _{Ibid., 26.} 295 _{Ibid., 125–126.} 296 _{Ibid., 120.}

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Moreover, the emphasis on a Christian corpse as impure is inadequate. To think that the church or the living has no responsibility to the dead is also faulty, and to regard people who perform burial as spiritually dead can be counter productive. I do not think that bringing the corpse of a Christian to the church sanctuary or conducting burial service in the church could cause any descecration because ‘whether we live or die we belong to the Lord.’297 There are people who look forward to a good church burial and a similar motivation is noticed among the Igbo Christians by Okorocha.298 Although corpse impurity was emphasised in the OT and God forbade the priests and nazarites to care for their dead relatives, Christians ought to dispose of their fellow dead bodies ‘as reverently and efficiently as possible.’299 Even though they are dead, they were formerly our family and church members and we need to treat their dead bodies with respect. At least we treat their properties with respect, then, how much more their bodies in which they formerly nurtured us and cared for us? Again, what do we think of the bodies of believers which were formerly the temples of the Holy Spirit and which will be raised at Christ’s second coming? Christ has changed the curse and the course of death,300 therefore the sting of death is gone.

The practice of marking the grave cannot also be justifiably condemned because of its cultural and anthropological importance whereby the living descendants use the grave of their ancestors as evidences of ownership of plots of land especially in Africa? Francesca Stavrakopoulou301 pointed out that among the people of West Asia in Bible

297 _{Romans 14: 8.}

298 _{Okorocha, The Meaning of Religious Conversion in Africa, 264.}

299 _{Geoffrey Rowell, The Liturgy of Christian Burial (London: SPCK, 1977), 2.}

300 _{Lehman Strauss, Life After Death: The Great and Glorious Miracle Promised by Our Creator}

(Westchester, IL: Good News Publishers, 1961), 15, 20; 1Timothy 6: 14, 16; 2Timothy 1: 10; Hebrew 2: 14; 1Corinthians 15: 22; John 11: 25; Philippians 3: 20, 21; Romans 8: 11.

301 _{Francesca Stavrakopoulou teaches Hebrew Bible in the University of Exeter and researches on}

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times, the burial and especially the grave site performed the function of ‘territoriality.’302 By territoriality, she meant the use of burial plots as instruments of ‘propriety or appropriative “links to land” within many cultures,’ thereby making the dead able to ‘mark, and thus claim, land for the living.’303 Similarly among the Urhobo, the land on which family ancestors are buried is called udu (‘family land’), and burial sites still remain a legitimate and strong prove of family ownership of lands in all of Urhobo Land until the present time (2012).304

Another important point to note is that one burial account or all the burial accounts together in the Bible do not give a whole picture of Jewish burial custom which Oyibo regarded as biblical burial because the main interest of the Bible writers was not to give instruction on burials. And even if they do, Jewish burial developed from Jewish culture and could not stand as Christian burial. It is also obvious that ‘the old customs tend to survive’ with new movements but ‘given a new rationale.’305 Hence, it cannot be ruled out that Christian burial practice has been influenced by both Jewish and non-Jewish cultures which it had come in contact with. But certainly, Christian interpretations have been offered for such practices. In like manner, certain Urhobo cultural practices during funerals could be redirected with new Baptist understanding rather than total discouragement without a relevant substitute.

Furthermore, church leaders need to exercise careful caution in allowing personal experiences to become a standard on issues where people are capable of different Stavrakopoulou and John Barton, eds., Religious Diversity in Ancient Israel and Judah (London: T & T Clark International, 2012), xv).

302 _{Francesca Stavrakopoulou, Land of Our Fathers: The Roles of Ancetral Veneration in Biblical}

Land Claims (New York: T & T Clark International, 2010), 3–4.

303 _{Ibid., 3.}

304 _{Interview with Chief Magistrate Daves Emakunu, Idjerhe, 9 July 2012.} 305 _{Rowell, The Liturgy of Christian Burial, 1.}

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experiences. It might be relevant at this point to consider the background in which Oyibo formed his opinion. During his mother’s burial in 1997, he was not happy with what he regarded as too much expense, and too beautiful casket. He became more disturbed when the preacher at that burial contrary to his expectation commended the children for the beautiful casket. Since then, Oyibo decided otherwise to preach against extravagant burials among Christians.306 Writing about a similar situation on Christianity in China, Daniel Chen observed that the historical opposition of Christianity to Chinese culture of ancestor veneration reveals more of the opinions of the missionaries and Popes involved than it reveals of Christianity itself.307 Finally, Oyibo’s view of burial without ceremony cannot be acceptable to the Urhobo who estimate the value of a burial by the associated ceremonies and to simply inter a corpse without adequate ceremonies amount to burying a person ‘like a fowl.’308 It has also been noticed that ritualizing death makes people to cope with their grief.309

From this review, the following observations are noted. One, because the Euro- American missionaries who introduced different Christian denominations and denominational practices to the Urhobo did not welcome reference to the Urhobo ancestors, their consequent Christian theology and liturgy had little or no relevance for Urhobo culture and values. Two, there are Urhobo scholars among the RCC and CON/AC who recognised the problem and are giving thought to contextualization of Christian faith in Urhobo Land. They have taken some aspects of Urhobo funeral practices into consideration. Three, there are however other Urhobo especially in the

306 _{Oyibo, Death and Burial of the Dead, vii–viii.}

307 _{Chen, ‘A Christian Response to Chinese Ancestor Practices in Taiwan, 195.}

308 _{This expression was used by people of Abraka-Urhobo at the occasion of the burial of a woman}

who died in childbirth. Members of the church involved felt that because it was a sad kind of death, the burial should not include any elaborate ceremony but the family members of the deceased refused and said, ‘since she has children, we cannot just bury her like a fowl.’

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leadership of DSBC who think that Urhobo funeral rites could not have a place in a Baptist church.310 The dilemma that Urhobo Baptists encounter during funeral rites stems from such approach.

The two positions above have their strengths and weaknesses. On the one hand, those who argued for contextualization could win the approval of Urhobo people but run the risk of being perceived as encouraging pre-Christian practices of sacrifice to ancestors. On the other hand those who argued against contextualization belief they are defending biblical Christianity but the effect of their action produces ‘split-level Christianity’ among Urhobo Baptists. Therefore, this study charts a middle course to strike a good balance between cultural sensitivity to Urhobo tradition and faithfulness to DSBC church tradition. Hence the research argues for a contextual Urhobo Baptist funeral liturgy that will meet the needs of Urhobo Baptists who seek to be faithful both to their culture on the one hand and the beliefs of DSBC/NBC on the other hand. It takes into consideration both the valued traditions of the Urhobo and the Baptist tenets to construct a contextualized Urhobo Baptist funeral liturgy. With this integration there will be three principal effects, namely, (1) to save the Urhobo Baptists the double cost of having to satisfy the church and the society separately; (2) to satisfy the DSBC concern of discouraging members from dual faith practices during funerals; and (3) to gain more converts from among the Urhobo who have hitherto refused to embrace Baptist faith because of its non-welcoming attitude to Urhobo funeral culture. The discussion in the next chapter identifies the theoretical framework relevant to this research and presents the methodological approach.

310 _{The NBC/DSBC Burial Policy that instigates this research was enforced in Urhobo Land in 1997}

and in the whole Convention in 2005. Certain aspects of Oyibo’s views may not be official, but has influence as leader of DSBC.

81 CHAPTER THREE–METHODOLOGY

This chapter clarifies the methodological approach. Starting with the research problem and questions; it presents the rationale for the choice of the qualitative field research method. It also highlights the academic justification for the case study and the research sample. The theoretical framework consists of the functional theory of Bronislaw K. Malinowski, the symbolic and theological anthropological theories of Victor W. Turner (1920–1983) and Paul P. J. Sheppy, and the contemporaneous and contextualized hermeneutical theory of Osadalor O. Imasogie. I added insights from my pastoral experiences and the study of Urhobo language. The chapter further discusses the methods of data collection, analysis and synthesis, ethical considerations, and limitations of study.