Developments in Christianity in Southwestern Nigeria Immediately after the First World War

Abstract

Immediately after the First World War, the effect of such a massive war was already biting hard on the world populace. Nigeria as a nation shared in the problem through diseases and economic depression. This paper identifies the existing major Christian Mission organizations in Southwestern Nigeria before 1918. Their names and dates of arrival are as follows: the Wesleyan Missionary Society (September 1842), Church Missionary Society (December 1842), the Baptist Mission (February 1849), and the Catholic Mission (as from 1860). It further examines the advent of Nationalism in Christianity in Southwestern Nigeria, the occasion for it and the foremost nationalistic churches founded between the late 19th and the Early 20th Centuries. It also observes the events that happened in Southwester Nigeria vis-à-vis the aftermath of the war on Christianity and Christians in Southwestern Nigeria and how they responded to it. Some relevant literatures were consulted to dig out the facts pertaining to the study. Logical reasoning and historical method were used in treating findings and in reconciling the information and evidence in the literature. After the war, there was massive repatriation of the foreign missionary expatriates because of insufficient fund to maintain them and outbreak of diseases (prominent was the Bubonic Epidemic in Southwestern Nigeria) which resulted in the death of many people. Gates of churches founded by the missionaries were closed since they felt Africans could not administer churches independently. African Christians were grossly abandoned to their fates. Christians gathered at the gates of the secured churches to pray and fast for a divine solution to the problems. A praying society thereafter emerged. The economic depression at the time was interpreted as the aftermath of the sins of man. Solution to the Bubonic plague was found through Cura Divina (Divine Cure) by the drinking of consecrated water. The Precious Stone Society which later blossomed into the Faith Tabernacle Nigeria disproved the earlier assertion of the foreign missionaries that Africans could not oversee churches. African personnel were important in the founding of a self sustaining, self funding and self governing Christianity that addresses the myriad African existential challenges.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n6p619