Los nuevos contextos de la práctica docente

Conceptually, Prayer Houses refers to a further wave of Pentecostal activity that began in the 1940s and consisted of smaller groups, often associated with charismatic figures possessing healing and visionary gifts, and bearing a close resemblance to the Garrick Braide movement in terms of their focus on ‘prophetism,’ symbolic ritual, and lack of formal global connections. Some were imported from Western or south-eastern Nigeria; others grew directly out of Igbo soil. Again there were elements of continuity and discontinuity with

previous movements, and influences from local and global forces. For instance, Bolton (1992) observed that majority arose during the 1940s were related in some way to the Apostolic Church movement. They lacked any formal Western links, these groups generally took on more local colour in their quest to relate their indigenous heritage to the symbols and message of Christianity. They were important here because many civil war revivalists and neo-Pentecostals patronised them during the 1960s, when dual allegiance to mission church and prayer house was relatively common.

In contrast to Western and south-eastern Nigeria, prayer houses were of relatively minor importance in Igboland prior to the 1960s and the civil war. Enang (1979) partly attributed this to the tendency of the Mission church members to disparage them, regarding them as superstitious and unsophisticated, especially those imported from Western Nigeria.

This is reflected in the Igbo saying, Ada eji anya di mma eje uka ekpere (No sane or clear-minded person goes to prayer houses).Those who attended often acted surreptitiously, hiding their white garments until they had arrived at the worship-ground due to Igbo loyalty to mission churches and the relative strength of Anglican and Roman Catholic churches. As Kalu (1996) noted that, many Igbo people believed that the church of the white missionaries was the ‘real thing.’ It was only when they had failed to meet consumer demands and nationalist fervour had removed the constraints to patronising alternatives that prayer houses flourished.

Kalu (1996) further noted that during the Biafra war, Prayer houses were among religious options available to those looking for protection and security. They had not been a significant presence before the war due to the strength of the mission churches. But the Biafra crisis exposed the frailties of mission church spirituality and the inflexibility of their organisational structures. In their quest for quick solutions to their problems, an increasing number of Igbo began to patronise prayer houses, often located near refugee and army camps.

Onuigbo (1996) also observed that their popularity rested on their close affinity to Igbo

traditional piety, their pragmatic approach to religion, and their promises of protection and security. In the aftermath of the war, some prayer houses became a target of revivalist critique and evangelistic ventures, and consequently lost many of their members of the Biafran army, as well as refugees. Many former revivalists became members prior to their conversion to ‘born-again’ Christianity. These included Scripture Union leaders and neo-Pentecostal church pioneers.

The war exposed the frailties of the mission churches and the inflexibility of their organizational structures. People’s quest for quick solutions to their problems made an increasing number to patronize prayer houses. A good number of people attended these prayer houses while they maintained the mission church affiliation during the war. These included some founders of Pentecostal Churches before they became born again. At the end of the war, some of these prayer houses were criticized and consequently, many members were lost to the membership of the new Pentecostal system.

As narrated by Murray (1985), the explorations on the River Niger (1830-1857) laid the foundations for the Christianisation of Igboland. During the 1857 expedition, the Anglican CMS opened the first permanent missionary base at Onitsha, North-Western Igboland, and until 1885, it remained the only missionary organisation active within Igboland. Brian (1990) added that the high imperial era (1880 to about 1920) saw a significant increase in European missionary recruitment due in part to the influence of evangelical revivalism and Keswick spirituality. Interdenominational rivalry was an important theme. Following the Berlin Conference (1884-85) and the subsequent scramble for Africa, missionary societies competed for territory. Isichei (1995) pointed out that from 1892 until their reunion in 1931, there were two Anglican bodies, the CMS and the Niger Delta Pastorate (NDP). The Niger Delta Pastorate flourished in southern Igboland.

Meanwhile, in 1905 the CMS established a base in Owerri, Central Igboland, from where it spread rapidly.

Presbyterians opened their first Igbo station in 1888, and were largely responsible for the Christianisation of Cross River Igboland, the territory of the Eastern Igbo. Methodists entered Igboland in 1910, and established a chain of missions along the Port Harcourt to Enugu railway line, but their comparative failure to develop a ‘native’ agency hindered their progress. The first faith mission to enter Igboland was the Qua Iboe Mission, which established a station at Oloko, Southern Igboland in 1920. The French Holy Ghost Roman Catholic Missionary Society arrived in 1885, and opened a mission in Onitsha. Subsequently, Igboland became the centre of Catholic missionary activity in Nigeria. One legacy of interdenominational struggle for domination was religious disunity, which continued as a feature of the Christian landscape throughout the colonial period.

Ekechi (1972) acknowledged that a turning point in the evangelism occurred from 1906 with a mass movement to Christianity involving all the mission churches. The first 50 years of Christian mission in Igboland yielded about one thousand baptised Igbo converts, but by 1910, Christians in Eastern Nigeria outnumbered those of the west of the Niger. This rapid expansion, described by Ekechi (1972) as a ‘religious revolution,’ followed the British conquest of the Igbo interior. Missionaries were able to travel with relative security, and many Igbo communities were exposed to missionary influence. They saw the missions as allies against the violence of conquest, and interpreted their defeat, and the white man’s relative prosperity, as evidence that their gods had failed and the new should be given a chance. A key factor was the close association between mission and education. The nineteenth century Igbo communities had shown little interest in Western education because it seemed to offer few opportunities. This changed when Western education offered an escape from the tyranny of the Warrant Chief and opened new employment opportunities. Education became the principal means of evangelisation, and different missions established schools in villages and towns in their efforts to expand. Okorocha (1992) argued that the quest for

education and the opportunities it offered in terms of enhanced status and prosperity was a search for salvation in terms of ezi-ndu.

None Roman Catholic mission cooperation had been neglected in Nigerian nationalist historiography, which has tended to focus on missionary rivalry. According to Ekechi (1972), despite disagreements, the missions formed a united front against Roman Catholics and established comity agreements, resulting in the partition of Eastern Nigeria into five Protestant denominational districts: CMS, NDP, Presbyterian, Qua Iboe Mission, and Methodist. While Roman Catholics refused to recognise these agreements, other missions continued to contest mission boundaries until 1932 when they became fixed. Anglicans occupied Northern, North-Western, North-Eastern, and Central Igboland, but were especially dominant in the urban areas of Onitsha and Owerri. Methodists occupied Southern Igboland, the Okigwe-Isuikwuato corner of Central Igboland, and established a strong base in Umuahia.

Later, they moved into the North-Eastern culture area and the urban areas of Enugu and Abakaliki. Presbyterians were initially restricted to Cross River Igboland, but during the 1960s spread further a field. The Qua Iboe Mission continued to work mainly in the Aba area of Southern Igboland. Meanwhile, Roman Catholics established churches and schools throughout Igboland. Later, Africans disputed these boundaries, and during the remainder of the colonial era, none Roman Catholic denominations spread beyond the territory allotted to them. But for a long period, religious pluralism was mainly confined to urban areas.

Hastings (2000) noted that both Roman Catholic and none Roman Catholic missions in Africa experienced contrasting fortunes during the inter-war years. None Roman Catholic missionary dominance in Igboland was effectively reversed, as Roman Catholic missionaries moved increasingly into education and used the school as an instrument of evangelisation.

For none Roman Catholic missions and the CMS in particular, there was a steady decline in missionary recruitment for economic and intellectual reasons. Financial trouble resulted in a drop in recruitment levels, except among conservative evangelicals. However, the main factor

was a theological shift from fundamentalism to liberalism, which shattered Western evangelical unity during the 1920s. This affected the CMS and the Student Christian Movement, and had repercussions in Nigeria. The formation of the Ruanda Mission in 1926 as an independent wing of the CMS meant that East Africa tended to attract conservative evangelical CMS recruits, and West Africa liberals. I return to this later when I consider the work of Scripture Union.

Hasting (1994) also added that during the 1950s, the ‘paternalistic benevolence’ of the inter-war years gradually gave way to a more self-critical awareness and recognition of the validity of African experience. This intellectual vitality was more apparent within none Roman Catholicism than Roman Catholicism, which would have to wait until the effects of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) had filtered down before any significant reform could take place. Mission churches continued to increase at a prodigious rate, and the quality of church institutions (schools and medical facilities) improved. Mainline churches in Nigeria obtained a degree of autonomy, and by the 1960s, they represented the dominant brand of Christianity in Igboland.

From the 1950s, however, there was also a growing conservative evangelical presence in Igboland. According to Fiedler (1994), the Sudan Interior Mission (SIM), part of the Faith Missions movement, was influenced by the North American Holiness movement through its founder Rowland Bingham. Bingham entered Nigeria in 1901, and established his first mission station at Patigi in 1902. Sudan Interior Mission’s goal was to reach Muslims, and due to comity agreements agreed to concentrate on the Middle Belt and the North. Its early opposition to the ‘school approach’ to evangelism hindered its progress, but after it opened its first school in 1930 it expanded rapidly, and by 1940, had planted 62 mission stations. It was committed to indigenous church principles, and in 1954, its Nigerian churches became an autonomous body called the Evangelical Churches of West Africa (ECWA), with its headquarters in Jos.