Nigeria – Politics, Religion, Pentecostal-Charismatic Power and Challenges

By Akintayo Emmanuel

Nigeria presents an enthralling case study for understanding developing architypes in interreligious encounters in Africa. The global community needs a cultural understanding and sensitivity for productive engagement with the Arab and non-Arab Muslim world. The Nigeria religious exigencies provide a requisite intelligence into the challenges facing a global community seeking to foster peace. Without a domain of tolerance, love, equity and justice, Nigeria will continually be immured by pessimism, parochialism, cynicism and mutual suspicion. Despite being the largest economy in Africa and the most populous Black country, Nigeria demonstrates incessantly an uncommon fault-line between Christianity and Islam.

The significance of this goes beyond the borders of Nigeria but has become a global showcase anywhere the two religions exist contemporaneously. Nigeria is the nexus between west and central Africa. Rooted in the dusty Sahel of the north, the savannah plains, the rich rainforests of the Atlantic coast, the rocky hills of the West, and the oil-filled swamps of the Delta. Nigeria is the beauty, sound, vision, passion and the soul of the African continent.

In Nigeria, the Nigeria Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement possesses a distinctive flair that demands a holistic understanding of the movement’s historical, cultural, fundamental and religious dimensions in a multifarious religious landscape. The disquisition of the movement’s political cognizance, identity, power, authority, theology, popular culture, ethics and missiological impact in northern Nigeria presents a fine embroidery of their trials, frustrations and challenges, but inveterate in faith, hope and love that opens up innovative panoramas of peaceful dialogical prospects and coexistence between Christians and Muslims in northern Nigeria.

In Nigeria - Politics, Religion, Pentecostal-Charismatic Power and Challenges, Akintayo Emmanuel reconnoiters the complex missiological hindrances challenging the Nigerian Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement. Their contextual missional landslide disheveled with complicated paradoxes in the way the Christian majority have responded to Muslims in northern Nigeria is anatomized. The Nigerian Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement’s puissance to solve some of Nigeria political, ideological, cultural and spiritual dimensions of crisis and sectarian violence is achievable if the movement can mitigate her missiological hindrances.

The responses of Nigerian Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement to Nigeria’s socio-political and ethno-religious complexities can construct a great future for the soul of Nigeria. They do not only have the capacity to provide the Christian alternatives to Nigeria’s peculiarities, they can also stimulate Nigeria’s deification among other nations by continuing to disent

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Oct 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9798886934977

Akintayo Emmanuel

Akintayo Emmanuel is a missionary according to the election of grace. He is a global conference speaker, an interculturalist and geneticist by profession. Akintayo is the CEO of Global Leadership and Intercultural Studies Initiatives (GLISI) and Africa Entrepreneur and Socioeconomic Development (AESDA).

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Preface

The missiological potential of the Nigerian Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement among northern Nigerian Muslims is immense. However, the treacherous persecution of Christians in northern Nigeria has deteriorated into acts of terrorism, including the emergence of the world’s most deadly Islamic terrorist groups. The hindrances generated by Christian persecution in northern Nigeria have produced incessant rivalries and volatility stimulated by mutual prejudices and exclusivist approaches among the two religions in northern Nigeria. The religious instability in Nigeria is exacerbated by the abuse of religion for ethno-political and socio-economic purposes, that aggravates hostility and conflict in Nigeria. Therefore, northern Nigerian Christians and Muslims have redefined their status and modified them in response to differing local circumstances, developing ingenious retorts to religious conflicts and divarication.

In this book, readers will understand the missiological hindrances confronting Nigerian Pentecostal-Charismatic Christians in northern Nigeria, their responses to these hindrances, the prospects for combating this religious conflict, and some recommendations on how to overcome these missiological hindrances. The bibliophile will discover the historical roots of Christianity and Islam in Nigeria and how frictions among the adherents have resulted in conflicts that have triggered the loss of many lives across northern Nigeria.

This exploration validates a well-organized Islamic terrorism and the trafficking of Islamic Sharia law into Nigeria’s constitution that have generated a dual ideology for Nigeria, leading to complex missiological hindrances. Nigeria stands out as a nation of interest with two conflicting national ideologies that are antithetical to each other—democracy and Sharia. Certain elites in Nigeria are particularly interested in elevating Sharia over and above the Nigerian constitution and as the central source of legislation. The challenge is to restore a democracy promoting religious tolerance and freedom to its rightful place in the Nigerian constitution, as opposed to a constitution with two diametrically opposed ideologies. Without a well-adjusted constitutional amendments, Nigeria will be on the brink of experiencing uncontained bloodshed and the annihilation of the Christian majority.

Although the Nigerian Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement has been on the scene of religious, political and social transformation for some time in Nigeria, the implication of this is that is not to say that the movement’s political power would immediately usher in political stability and expedite a genuinely democratic process. As of the present, the Nigerian Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement’s political impact is yet to effectively translate into the sort of tangible, significant political dominance that would facilitate a viable democratic process. Dissolving the Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement missiological hindrances among northern Nigeria Muslims will foster the progress and efficiency of their missional landslide in northern Nigeria.

Nigerian Pentecostal-Charismatics must be reminded that democracy and full-blown Sharia are completely discordant. In the midst of this fraught and ever-changing sociopolitical situation, the Nigerian Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement must not only provide for the spiritual needs of fellow adherents and non-adherents—the disenfranchised and the marginalized—but also provide for their social needs in practical and tangible ways.

List of Abbreviations

Glossary

Boko Haram: A Hausa term that translates as ‘Western education is forbidden.’ This is the popular and best-known epithet for the group, which calls itself Jama’atul Ahlul Sunna li Da’watiwal Jihad (People Command to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad). It’s a radical Salafist Islamic movement in the distant north-eastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri that rose to international attention for the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls in the town of Chibok. They are highly infamous for their extreme brutality, to the point that Global Terrorism Index declared the group the deadliest terrorist group in the world.¹

Culture: Human life is expressed in a variety of ways, and culture can be described as a comprehensive plan for living.² It is a society’s complex, integrated coping mechanism,³ the total ways of living shaped by the continuing life of a group of human beings from generation to generation.⁴ It is a more-or-less coherent set of ideas created and shared by a group of people transmitted to their children, enabling them to make sense of their experience and cope with their natural and social worlds to their collective advantage.⁵

Evangelism: Evangelism is telling the good news of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus for humanity’s sins.⁶ It is to bring the good news to the unsaved either by print, picture, good works of love, or by the example of a transformed life.⁷ It is that dimension and activity of the Church’s mission which seeks to offer every person everywhere a valid opportunity to be directly challenged by the gospel of explicit faith in Jesus Christ⁸ and to embrace him as Savior, becoming a living member of his community and being enlisted in his service of reconciliation, peace, and justice on earth.⁹

Fulani herdsmen: Fulani herdsmen in Nigeria are pastoralists who migrate from place to place, searching for grazing lands for their livestock. Due to global warming and weather challenges in northern Nigeria, they have found it difficult to settle in one place because of their livestock.¹⁰ They are widely regarded as troublesome impediments to large cattle ranchers.¹¹ I concurred with Jonnie Moore and Abraham Cooper who distinguished between the term Fulani militants, and the scores of peace-loving Fulani tribespeople throughout Nigeria and the broader region. They ascertained that the tribespeople have nothing to do with the terrorism committed by some of their kinsmen and are often themselves victims of their atrocities. They added that, it is not in their interest to establish that people in the government in Nigeria who are actually Fulani Muslims are necessarily affiliated, directly or indirectly, with the Fulani militants. They believe there are people of influence in the government who want to find peaceful and prosperous future for all Nigerians citizens, irrespective of their religion or ethnicity.¹²

Islam: A monotheistic religion started in the Arabian Peninsula by Prophet Muhammed in the sixth century AD. In the religious sense, Islam means submission to the will of God and obedience to his law. Islam affirms the oneness of God (Allah) and no other. Mohammad is his prophet.¹³

Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity: The form of Christianity in which believers receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit and have ecstatic experiences such as speaking in tongues, healing, and prophesying.¹⁴ It’s a non-homogenous Christianity that encompasses classical or denominational Pentecostals, charismatic or Neo-Pentecostals, and indigenous or Neo-charismatic Pentecostals. This group’s rapid growth and vast diversity has posed a challenge in defining its parameters; however, it is minimally defined as those segments of Christianity which believe and experience the dynamic work of the Holy Spirit, including supernatural demonstrations of God’s power and spiritual gifts, with consequent dynamic and participatory worship and zeal for evangelism.¹⁵

Mission: Refers to the Great Commission by Christ recorded in Mathew 28:18–20, involving doctrine and practice, orthodoxy and praxis, care of human spirit and body, and both spiritual and physical cultivation of God’s creation.¹⁶ Summarized as the proclamation of the gospel, baptism, and discipleship of new believers, service, social structural transformation, and creation care.¹⁷

Missional: An adjective denoting something that is related to mission or has the dynamics of mission.¹⁸ It focuses on the doing of missions. It is associated with the concept Missional Church, which emphasizes that the Church does not merely send missionaries but is instead sent by God with a missionary mandate and is therefore on mission wherever it finds itself.¹⁹

Missionaries: People commissioned by the church or a Christian mission agency dedicated explicitly and intentionally to the work of missions. The term missionary was first associated with the office of an apostle. Early missionaries were considered to be continuing in the tradition of the original twelve apostles, who were called and sent by Jesus to preach the gospel in all the world and make disciples of all nations.²⁰

Missions: Not to be confused with mission, the term missions is used to describe the various specific efforts of the Church to carry out the task of mission in the world, usually related to the spread of the gospel and the expansion of the Kingdom of God.²¹

Nigeria: Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, whose population reached about 185 million in mid-2015 according to estimates, making it the world’s seventh most populous state.²² It has over 300 ethnic groups, among which three ethnic groups dominate: Yoruba, Hausa-Fulani, and Igbo. It is a pluralized society of multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic, and multi-religious groups, with over 400 distinct lingo-cultural groups.²³

Northern Nigeria: The far northern states of Nigeria, home to a Muslim majority and numerous ethnic groups and religious communities, all largely rural. It includes historically important urban centers such as Kano, Sokoto, Zaria, Maiduguri, and Kaduna, cities famous for learning in the Islamic world for centuries and predominantly comprised of Hausa, Fulani, Kanuri, and about other 160 smaller groups.²⁴

The Church in Northern Nigeria: The entirety of the Christian community, the organized church denominations and individual Christians in the entire northern Nigerian region.²⁵

Theology of Mission: A disciplined study that deals with questions that arise when people of faith seek to understand and fulfill God’s purposes in the world, as demonstrated in the ministry of Jesus Christ. It’s a critical reflection on the attitudes and actions adopted by Christians in pursuit of a missionary mandate, the task of which is to validate, correct, and establish on better foundations the entire practice of mission.²⁶

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Kate Meagher and Abdul Raufu Mustapha, Faith, Society and Boko Haram, in Overcoming Boko Haram. Faith, Society and Islamic Radicalization in Northern Nigeria. ed. Abdul Raufu Mustapha and Kate Meagher (Woodbridge Suffolk: James Currey, 2020), footnote 1.↩︎

Alan Neely, Christian Mission, A Case Study Approach (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1995), 4.↩︎

Charles Kraft, Anthropology For Christian Witness (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1997), 38.↩︎

Lesslie Newbigin, The Open Secret: An Introduction to The Theology of Mission (Grand Rapids, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995), 142.↩︎

Charles Taber, The World is Too Much For us, The Modern Mission Era. 1792–1992, An Appraisal. Culture in Modern Protestant Missions (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2000), 3.↩︎

Dave Early and David Wheeler, Evangelism Is…How to share Jesus With Passion and Confidence (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2010), 58.↩︎

John Stott and Christopher J. Wright, Christian Mission in the Modern World, Updated and Expanded Version, (Illinois: Downers Grove, Intervarsity Press 2015), 91.↩︎

Thomas Stranky, Evangelization, Missions, and Social Action: A Roman Catholic Perspective, Review and Expositor 78:2 (1982), 343–50.↩︎

David Bosch, Evangelism: Theological Currents and Cross-currents Today, International Bulletin 11:3 (1987), 98–103.↩︎

Abdul Basit Baba Issah, Fulani Pastoralists Crisis in Northern Nigeria, INSAMER (2018),

https://insamer.com/en/fulani-pastoralists-crisis-in-northern-nigeria_1607.html (accessed December 21, 2020).↩︎

Joshua Project, Nigerian Fulani in Nigeria,

https://joshuaproject.net/people_groups/10949/NI (accessed December 22, 2020).↩︎

Johnnie Moore and Rabbi Abraham Cooper, The Next Jihad. Nashville (TN: W Publishing Group, an imprint of Thomas Nelson, 2020), xi.↩︎

Tariq Ramadan, Western Muslims and the future of Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 11.↩︎

Joel Robbins, The Globalization of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity, Annual Review of Anthropology 33 (2004), 117–143.↩︎

Wonsuk Ma, Asian Pentecostalism: A Religion Whose Only Limit IS The Sky, Journal of Beliefs and Values 25:2 (2005), 192.↩︎

Jenny McGill, Furthering Christ’s Mission: International Theological Education Author(s), Transformation, 32:4 (2015), 225–239.↩︎

Walls and Ross, Mission in the 21st century: Exploring the five marks of global mission, (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2008), xiv.↩︎

Christopher Wright, The Mission of God. Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (Downers Grove, Intervarsity Press, 2006), 24.↩︎

Ibid., xviii.↩︎

Ibid., xvii.↩︎

Ott et al., Encountering Theology of Mission, Biblical Foundations, Historical Developments, and Contemporary Issues (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010), xv.↩︎

Krzysztof TRZCINSKI, How to Theoretically Opposite Models of Interethnic Power-Sharing That Can Complement each Other and Contribute Political Stabilization: The Case of Nigeria, Politeja African Studies 42: (2016), 53–74.↩︎

Olarenwaju et al., Multiculturalism, Value Differences and Cross-Cultural Conflict in Nigeria: Surgery on a Centenarian, Journal of African Union Studies 6:1 (2017), 39–62.↩︎

International Crisis Group, Northern Nigeria: Background to Conflict, Africa Report 168 (2010),

https://allafrica.com/download/resource/main/main/idatcs/00020452:21cfc614a9841e6c2fd491a49b5c8481.pdf (accessed December 26, 2020).↩︎

Arne Mulders, Crushed But Not Defeated. The Impact of Persistent Violence on the Church in Northern Nigeria, Open Doors Summary Report (2014), http://opendoorsanalytical.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Crushed-but-not-defeated-Revision-Summary-Report.pdf (accessed February 4, 2021).↩︎

Andrew Kirk, What is Mission? Theological Explorations (Minneapolis: Fortress Press), 2000, 21.↩︎

Chapter 1

General Introduction

The Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement in Nigeria has become a significant religious movement, due in large part to its vivacity, proliferation, and rising inclusion. With an estimated 202 million people, Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation; and the Christian population in Nigeria is 87 million, a group comprised largely of Evangelicals and Charismatics.¹ Interestingly, Nigeria’s population is split between Christians and Muslims, and both faiths hold global missionary agendas.² The northern part of Nigeria is predominantly Muslim, while the South is mostly Christian. Nigeria is a country that consists of two predominant religions: the Christian population has been influenced by Western nations, and the Muslim population influenced by Middle Eastern nations. Since the 1950s, Christian-Muslim relations have been evaluated in Africa through political and religious perspectives. This trend has been marked by the proliferation of African nationalist movements, which only sought independence from colonial masters; thus, charismatic Christianity has encountered social and political hostilities perpetrated by the Muslim population of northern Nigeria.

However, the evolution of Pentecostal-charismatic churches in Nigeria has been complemented by the upsurge of celebrity pastors. Even so, there has been ignorance and lack of interest in witnessing to Muslims, which has brought misfortune to the Pentecostal-charismatic churches. In reality, Pentecostal-charismatic churches in Nigeria have confronted Muslims in an attempt to evangelize them. However, these encounters have been marred by mutual mistrust, conflict, and violence, including the raping and killing of Christians, burning down church buildings and businesses, and causing many people to be homeless and displaced. In part, this is due to inadequate training on how to witness to Muslims effectively. Since the Christian center of gravity has moved from the West to Africa, Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic missionaries must focus on their Muslim neighbors. Surprisingly, most Pentecostal-charismatic Christians are still largely ignorant of the Muslim world. There has been little to no apologetics training, publications, or conferences designed to inform and train Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic missionaries. Some Pentecostal-charismatic leaders do not even encourage contact with Muslims or teach Islam to Christian students. John Azumah states, ‘Nigeria has experienced ethnic and sectarian bloodshed, and hundreds of Muslims and Christians have been killed…Philip Jenkins singles out Nigeria as a ticking time bomb.’³

Regarding Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic missionaries’ missional work among Muslims, the objective of this study is to evaluate the missiological hindrances confronting Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic missionaries. Since the inception of the Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement in Nigeria, there has been little informed understanding of how to witness to Muslims. There is yet to be a scholarly work done on the Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic missionaries’ movement among Muslims in northern Nigeria from a Pentecostal-charismatic Christian perspective. Consequently, this present study will be a much-needed contribution to mission studies that will have an excellent proposition for the prominence of mission within the Nigerian Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement.

The Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement has currently reached social prominence in Nigeria because of its skillful use of social media. According to Mathew Ojo, ‘Charismatic Christians are the most dynamic element in Nigerian Christianity, affecting millions of educated young people.’ ⁴ Ojo cites Michael P. Hamilton, who defined charismatic from a Western perspective, stating, ‘Christians within Protestant and Roman Catholic churches who testify to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, who experience its accompaniment of speaking in tongues, and who exercise the gifts of the Holy Spirit, principally the gift of healing. Charismatic Christians in Nigeria share these features with their Western counterparts.’⁵

This book examines the missional hindrances confronting Pentecostal-Charismatic Movements in northern Nigeria. It also recommend practical ways to reduce or prevent religious clashes between Christians and Muslims in northern Nigeria. The Christian Post reported that over one thousand Christians were killed in Nigeria by Islamic extremists in 2019, and an estimated twenty-seven thousand Christians have died in the last ten years.⁶ The possibility of a peaceful coexistence of Christians and Muslims in northern Nigeria is in jeopardy. Christians are meant to be peacemakers, according to the words of Jesus Christ, who declared, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.’ (Matthew 5:9).⁷ As peacemakers, Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic Christians can build a redemptive relationship with Nigerian Muslims in the face of rejection, fear, and hate.

Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic missionaries have a better chance than Western Christian missionaries to cross religious, cultural, and geographic barriers in order to develop a redemptive relationship with Muslims. Only through forgiveness, genuine love, cultural sensitivity, and peacemaking can Pentecostal-charismatic Nigerian missionaries effectively reach out to their Muslim counterparts. As Allan Anderson and Samuel Otwang declare, ‘African Pentecostal movements have gone a long way toward meeting the physical…and spiritual needs of Africans, offering…ways to cope in a dangerous and hostile world…they proclaimed that the same God who saves the soul also heals the body…and provides answers to human needs.’⁸

The Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic missionary community will benefit immensely from this scholarship. This disquisition recommends practical ways to overcome missional obstacles that Christians encounters among Nigerian Muslims. It will help Nigerian Christians and Muslims because it promotes the significance of peaceful coexistence between the two major religions in Nigeria. Another way this erudition will benefit the Nigerian Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement is that it specifies social welfare programs, including the necessary holistic missiological acts that they can undertake to address poverty and inequality in northern Nigeria. Such social welfare programs could include establishing Christian mission hospitals and schools to educate northern Nigerian Muslims and create better employment opportunities for them. This study will also benefit government workers, political and religious leaders, businesspeople, and parishioners of the Nigerian Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement because it provides steps that will reduce or totally eradicate the current religious crisis in Nigeria. In addition, this construct will benefit the indigenous Christian missionaries from southwestern Nigeria who are very eager to provide missional alternatives to Muslims in the North. It specifically provides help for businessmen and women in the marketplaces and politicians because it addresses inventive missiological practices and sustainable preference for Christian civilization in the North.

According to Thaddeus Umaru, contemporary northern Nigeria is an economically deprived region, grappling with poor infrastructure and the collapse of industries and the agricultural sector.⁹ This issue has dealt a devastating economic blow to the region, and these socio-economic factors, coupled with deep-rooted ethnic and religious divides, are powerful contributing factors to the ongoing violent conflicts. Umaru adds that in most cases, religion is only being used to perpetrate violence in the region, and the wide gap between the rich and the poor and a large population of youth without employment opportunities had created a vulnerable reality in which they are being mobilized to cause pandemonium.¹⁰ Ojo notes, ‘The competition between Islam and Christianity seems to have been heightened by the existing power competition that is endemic in national politics…the charismatic movements are politically relevant because they have provided a mechanism for wider linkage of opposition to Islamic fundamentalism.’¹¹

A very important question that this study provides answers to is: What are the missiological hindrances of the Nigerian Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement among northern Nigerian Muslims? Other enquiries that are adequately resolved include: What is the historical background of Islam and Christianity in Nigeria, and how did Christian movements emerge in Nigeria? What is the Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic approach to missions in northern Nigeria? How has the relationship between Christians and northern Nigerian Muslims influenced the persecution of Pentecostal-charismatic Christians? What is Nigeria’s Pentecostal-charismatic missiological evaluation of Muslims in northern Nigeria?

The colossal task of studying the missiological hinderances confronting the Nigerian Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement among northern Nigerian Muslims cannot be overemphasized. Nigeria encompasses a compact area of 923,768 sq. km, a land mass that extends from the Gulf of Guinea in the south to Sahel.¹² Dialogue, tolerance, and brotherliness between Christians and Muslims have been eroded in some parts of northern Nigeria, including the states of Borno and Zamfara, in which Christians or church buildings can hardly be found. Umaru stipulates that dialogue might be a risky venture, if not an impossible one among Christians and Muslims in northern Nigeria because mutual trust and sincerity, which are the basis of dialogue, have been replaced with suspicion, doubt, and fear, making it difficult to engage openly in authentic dialogue.¹³

Catherine Cornille asks, ‘How can dialogue be fostered? What are the resources within Islam, and Christianity in particular that will enhance and sustain interreligious dialogue and peacebuilding in both traditions? Why should one engage in dialogue and listen to another of a different religious tradition?’¹⁴ In Nigeria, some politicians have used religion to acquire political power in order to exercise control, thus causing ceaseless fighting and tragedy. Although Scott Appleby has stated that religion has an impressive power on people and society, thereby making theological study a resource for peacebuilding and better understanding among religions to be more dynamic.¹⁵ The focus in this book does not include the solutions that the combination of theology and politics can offer toward a failed social and economic structure of the Nigerian society. Interestingly, everyday interactions between millions of Nigeria Muslims and Christians in the western part of Nigeria are ongoing; but despite this close juxtaposition, there still exists an idiosyncratic communal relationship between the two of them in the North.

Werner Jeanrond advocates that the dawn of the new millennium has sharpened the awareness of pluralism globally, and this has brought about a shift challenging the old paradigm of exclusive attitudes, ushering in a new approach to life in general and religion in particular.¹⁶ He adds that new and increasingly easy means of communication and travel have facilitated the meeting of people from different groups, cultures, and backgrounds. He emphasizes that mass migration resulting from the two world wars, the end of the Cold War, and the sharp level of inequality in the distribution of labor and world resources have led to a much greater encounter between people of different religious traditions.¹⁷ The contribution of Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic missionaries serving among Nigerian Muslims has signaled a new wave of religious impulse in a country with great ethnic, social, linguistic, and religious diversity. Ojo asserts that the charismatic movements have remained steadfast in their basic ideology of renewal.¹⁸ They regard evangelism as their most important work, focusing on conversion and redemption, both of which are needed to deliver man from evil spirits, witches, bad luck, and repeated failures. These beliefs are prevalent in the African worldview. Through evangelism, charismatics churches hope that the overall economic, social, and political situation of Nigeria can be transformed into a better one. Ojo stresses that evangelism had indeed provided the charismatics with an alternative perspective for coming to terms with contemporary conditions.¹⁹

While this is partly applicable to the purposes of this exploration, the core theological question is whether Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatics are only increasing the numbers of their parishioners at the expense of raising Christlike disciples through the sound teaching of God’s Word. By so doing this transformed Christlike disciples that will transform their communities by the help of the Holy Spirit. Randy Arnett has observed that pentecostalization emphasizes flamboyant lifestyle and prosperity, and just as the Word Faith emphasis grows among the churches, pentecostalization grows accordingly. He states that the acceptance of the premises of the Word Faith movement promotes further pentecostalization as the movement integrates itself in the churches.²⁰ Ojo adds, ‘The charismatic movement in Nigeria is a phenomenon of major scope and persistence…spreading because the leadership and members are appropriating biblical messages to meet…personal and social needs amid the uncertainties…in the country…and transforming religious and social values.’²¹ Mujahid Shitu affirms that the Christian missionaries who evangelized Nigeria met a well-established Islam, with the strategic use of Arabic studies for Muslim evangelism designed for the continuous growth of Islam. He states that Nigerian Christian missionaries still seek expertise on Islam because they have seen the growth and expansion of Muslim communities as a threat to the spread of Christianity.²² Shitu argues that the teachings of Islam by Christian religious representatives mostly result in the distortion of Islam with subjective sources that emphasize the Christian interpretation of Islam to confuse and convert Muslims. He concluded that the history of Christian evangelism in Nigeria demonstrates a pattern of ongoing offensives against Islam due to improper training of clergies and priests in Islam for evangelistic purposes.²³

The missional impact of training Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic missionaries in understanding and relating to Nigerian Muslims is inevitable. This is because for the vast majority of Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic missionaries, attending a Bible college or getting an excellent theological education is not a prerequisite for witnessing among Muslims. Training Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic missionaries will be an efficient way to multiply effectiveness among Muslims. The 2 Timothy 2:2 strategy will still work in northern Nigeria: ‘And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.’

Currently, there are little or no training courses designed to raise the cultural awareness of Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic missionaries among Nigerian Muslims; nor are there any theological seminaries designed to teach and train Nigerian charismatic missionaries on how to understand and relate to Nigerian Muslims with a redemptive view. There is no training on how to handle political and social issues among Nigerian Muslims. Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic Christians are yet to be adequately proficient in the importance of cultural intelligence among Nigerian Muslims; but understanding these implications can help Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic missionaries to better respect, love, and respond to the needs of their host culture.

The missional discoveries made in this exploration connotes that, Pentecostal-charismatic missional training can reduce religious conflict in Nigeria. It can also foster peace and security in the region. Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic missionaries must not bear false witness about Nigerian Muslims because they are afraid of them; instead, they must be educated to view them as those who need salvation. Ebenezer Obadare states, ‘The emergence of a charismatic form of Islam…exclusively associated with Pentecostal Christianity … is triggered by Pentecostalism’s recent success in a competitive religious field which is not mimetic, but reflects internal…tensions within Islam, which unfolds against the backdrop of political competition with Christianity in Nigeria.’²⁴

Obadare confirms that the Nigerian Pentecostal-Charismatic Movements are believed to have provided a haven of safety for many, and it is also gaining tremendous momentum with an increased popularity that has caught the attention of the Nigerian Muslims, especially on Sunday morning when Muslims are not devotionally engaged. Furthermore, Obadare asserts that Pentecostal-charismatic churches are booming in the universities, weaving their practices into the everyday fabric, injecting the Pentecostal-charismatic context into popular culture, including music and Nollywood videos.²⁵ Additionally, Obadare observes that the new Islamic movements have stepped into the vacuum created by the shrinking ranks of Muslim clerical leaders; hence the term, charismatic-Islam. The rise of this term is a byproduct of multiple developments: interfaith competition for power, Christian conversion impulse, independent internal discourses, and tensions among Muslim intellectuals.²⁶ Obadare states, ‘Arguably, the most visible symbol of Islamic revivalism is the phenomenon of Muslim youth prayer movements established to stop the hemorrhaging of young Muslim men and women to Pentecostal groups.’²⁷ The missiological question that must be answered is: how can Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic churches utilize contemporary gospel music, dance, provision of jobs, and business opportunities to attract the youth of Nigerian Muslims? John Azumah detailed the encounters of Christians and Muslims in the form of immigrant/host community relations, invader/ruler, ruled relations, commercial competition, missionary interactions, and political interest that have resulted in different dynamics in the relationships between them.²⁸ Azumah cites Yoruba Church Mission Society (CMS) missionary Samuel Crowther’s (1806–1891) encounter with Islam and engagement with Muslims. He elucidates that Crowther understood that confrontational polemics, which at the time was the standard European missionary approach to Islam in India and Africa, did not work. Crowther then developed a more conciliatory and respectful approach relying solely on the Bible to answer Muslim objections, which Andrew Walls calls an African Christian approach to Islam in an African setting.²⁹ In support of Crowther’s methodology, Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic missionaries could adopt the same model among northern Nigerian Muslims. However, the volume of this book is stressed the inevitability of Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic missionaries on the need to invest in learning the culture, language, and religion of Muslims in the North and for those with adequate knowledge of the Bible to be at the forefront of those missionally engaging Nigerian Muslims. Azumah adds, ‘The African churches need to develop its own hermeneutical and theological framework in its…engagement with Muslims…a God who is with us, and against others…has nothing new or radical to offer in an Islamic context…in the encounter with Muslims, Africans need an incarnational theology…that takes on flesh.’³⁰ Azumah also cites the Edinburgh 1910 mission conference report, which among many other facts stated that if nothing is done to counteract the advance of Islam with all energy, the entire Africa continent will be lost to paganism, even the territories already Christianized.³¹

Umaru postulates that the relationship between Christians and Muslims in northern Nigeria had been marred by violent conflicts stemming from deep-rooted ethnic, social, economic, and religious divides. Umaru states that religion, which is often blamed for every conflict, continues to play a vital role in people’s lives.³² According to Umaru, religion remains a sensitive and divisive issue used by some individuals, groups, and politicians to further polarize Muslims and Christians. Umaru also notes that poverty and a lack of development have created a breeding ground for conflict, violence, and insecurity.³³ Hence, the aim of Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic missionaries must include following a single eye theological track in order to escape political manipulations.

While it is necessary for Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic Christians to be more involved in Nigerian politics, there is a need for them to avoid competing for political relevance because of the explosive nature of religion in Nigeria, which could be a veritable weapon for political maneuverings. Umaru proposes that Christian belief and practice in northern Nigeria need to develop the hermeneutics of the biblical themes of mercy, goodness, compassion, justice, peace, respect, forgiveness, and reconciliation. This leads to a theological interpretation that is open, inclusive, and affirming of others due to not being threatened by differences. He adds that Christian witnessing in northern Nigeria requires Christians to foster the process of peacebuilding through dialogue activities that engender reconciliation and healing in communities torn apart by violent conflict.³⁴

In his thematic assessment, Azumah states that the quest for an appropriate Christian response to Islam has sadly polarized Christians along the lines of evangelical versus ecumenical, truth versus grace, tough versus soft, confrontational versus conciliator, or various approaches to dialogue.³⁵ He explains that Christians accuse each other of spreading fear about Islam and engendering hostility toward Muslims (Islamophobia) on the one hand, and naively going soft on and becoming apologists for Islam (Islamophilia) on the other. Azumah explores the different Christian approaches to facing Islam. He claims that perpetrators of religious violence must be portrayed as criminals and terrorists, and their actions criminal (rather than as Muslims attacking and burning down churches and making security agents go after them). Azumah stresses that Christians are witnesses, and that rather than defending themselves, they must view the defense of the gospel as the sole duty of the Holy Spirit, who will work through Christian witnesses. He further explains that the Christian response to Islam is not to be driven by fear and self-preservation.³⁶ It is therefore imperative to rationalize how Nigerian charismatic missionaries can avoid extremes in witnessing to Nigerian Muslims and live by Jesus’ words: ‘But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another.’ (Mathew 10:23).

Rosalind Hackett dissects how the Pentecostal-Charismatic Movements in Nigeria are increasingly favoring media as suitable sites for transmitting their teachings and erecting the movement’s empires. She notes that evangelization has always been a primary goal of these movements and that the appropriation and use of modern media technologies facilitate the dissemination of God’s Word to the masses.³⁷ Hackett asserts that the use of media is a tool of expansion and a reflection of global aspirations. However, it is also part of a calculated attempt to transform and Christianize popular culture to be safe for consumption by born-again Christians. Hackett indicates that the conversion of nominal Christians is far less dramatic and challenging than that of a Muslim in northern Nigeria, an area by and large resentful of outside religious influence because it is the stronghold of Nigerian Muslims. Hackett notes that the millennialist beliefs of charismatic groups add urgency to their evangelism and inspire everyone to be agents of God’s work in these end-times, when anointing and spiritual empowerment override theological training or the charisma of office. Hackett affirms that with a vast viewing audience, the enhancement of electronic medium, and an evangelist with a powerful message and a good dose of charisma, there will be an attraction of larger followers.³⁸ The use of social media and technology by Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic missionaries to build a redemptive relationship with Nigerian Muslims, was carefully deliberated in this volume. The adoption of such missional strategy could reduce personal contact that exacerbate violence.

Christian Gorder asserts that Nigeria is the heart of an expanding Muslim-Christian globalized conflict between those who claim religious supremacy. He adds that in 2004, the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) declared Nigeria to be the most religious nation on earth, with over 91% of Nigerians attending at least one religious service a week.³⁹ Gorder also claims that as Nigerian Pentecostals have become more committed to evangelism, interfaith tensions have increased with Muslim neighbors. He adds that Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatics are rapidly rising in influence and are increasingly active in converting Muslims to Christianity hence the relations between Pentecostals and Muslim extremists in Nigeria has become a living hell. Gorder also stresses that as emerging Pentecostal-charismatics missions began to focus efforts on the unreached people of the Muslim North, their mission activities have become a catalyst to inspire some Muslim clerics to start mission activities of their own. Muslim evangelists have adopted methods from their Pentecostal counterparts, including distributing literature, showing films, sponsoring all-night prayer meetings, and conducting miracle services to ask God for supernatural healings. He notes that cultural integration and defusing destabilizing tensions do not seem to be priorities for most Pentecostal leaders. Gorder concludes that many Pentecostals in Nigeria choose to learn little about Islam, and many seem to harbor a high degree of prejudice against their Muslim neighbors.⁴⁰ Subsequently, I have endeavored to ascertain whether Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic Christians do not encourage direct interaction with Nigerian Muslims or teach Islam to Christian students.

Ezekiel Ajani perceived that organized mass evangelistic Christian gatherings, popularly called crusades in Nigeria, might have added to the religious conflicts in northern Nigeria. He asserted that critical missiological reflections must continue to be made on these crusades among Nigerian Islamic cities as a way of assessing their relevance.⁴¹ Ajani referred to some earlier attempts to hold massive crusades in some core Islamic towns in northern Nigeria, all of which were met with vehement oppositions, properties destroyed, and lives lost. Ajani indicated, ‘One of such instances was the religious fracas which erupted in October 1991, when Reinhard Bonnke, a German Evangelist, was slated to hold a week-long open-air evangelistic crusade in Kano city. The opposition by Islamic youths was so intense that the crusades were canceled, several properties damaged, and over two hundred lives were lost.’⁴²

He identified one critical area in which crusades fall short: their inability to ensure people’s sustainability with conversion claims. According to him, these crusades do not have verifiable lasting results when it comes to conversion decisions, follow-up, and membership to churches. He added that unless the issues of follow-up and discipleship of new converts are taken seriously, crusades would only function as an avenue for celebrating Christian identity and a circulation of the same people boasting conversion claims but lacking true spiritual direction.⁴³ Could there be other mission strategies that Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic missionaries can adopt to missionally engage Nigerian Muslims rather than a city-wide crusade? These were reviewed in this book appropriately.

Gbadamosi affirms that before Western education was introduced to Nigeria, the Muslim community already had its Islamic teaching system in place. He asserts that the Qur’an was central to informal education, and the students were taught directly at their teachers’ homes.⁴⁴ According to Gbadamosi, this Islamic education is still the pillar of northern Nigerian education, which is also the live wire of the Islamic caliphate established in the nineteenth century. He cited that in 1926, the Nigerian government succeeded in demonstrating that above all, Western education, at its core, contained Christian evangelization and that Islamic values and traditions were needed instead because of the large Muslim population. He notes that as of that time, Western education was becoming established in the Muslim North but was still controlled by the government.

Gbadamosi stipulates that the progress of Western education was rather a modest one in relation to the continuing popularity of the traditional Islamic system of education, but this was confronted by the force of tradition which had been impelling people at the North to continue in their old grooves from which a sudden break could hardly be expected. The northern society was not in full exposure to such external influence as would induce it to modify or alter its traditional life to an appreciable degree.⁴⁵ This is still the case of Nigerian Muslims; and as a result, this volume explicated on how Nigerian Pentecostal-Charismatic Movements have succeeded in using Western-style Christian schools to witnessing to Nigerian Muslims.

Allan Effa studied the growth of evangelicals in Nigeria, which, according to Operation World, is about thirty percent of the total population of Christians. He noted that their growing sense of mission is fueling a church-planting movement that has already placed Nigeria among the world’s top missionary-sending nations.⁴⁶ Effa emphasizes that for every missionary Nigeria accepted, five are sent to intercultural ministries in other countries. Allan explained that the Nigerian Evangelical Missions Association (NEMA), founded in 1982, brought leaders and missionaries together to encourage them to work toward common goals. According to Effa, NEMA has resolved to launch an initiative titled Operation Samaria that will mobilize fifty thousand Nigerian missionaries over the next fifteen years to take the gospel through North African Islamic nations.

Furthermore, Effa advocates that NEMA leadership believes that Nigerian Christians have been prepared specially for such a task because of their ability to persevere under economic hardship and their long acquittance with persecution propelled by clashes between Christians and Muslims. He added that commitment to this task would require much sacrificial giving from Nigerian believers and an even higher degree of partnership between denominations and mission agencies.⁴⁷ Likewise, in this volume, I clarifies the specifics of the theological preparedness of Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic missionaries toward persecution and violence from Nigerian Muslims in the North.

Danny et al. studied the ethno-religious violence that has plagued northern Nigeria in the last thirty years. They observed a broader difference in attitudes toward violence and peace among Pentecostals than among mainline protestants.⁴⁸ They postulated that Nigerian Pentecostals might be particularly inclined to violence. They cited a well-known Pentecostal leader who was killed in 2008 while leading a group of Christian youth whom he had mobilized to battle Muslims during a crisis in northern Nigeria.⁴⁹ Danny et al. cited Mathew Ojo, who concluded that the conflict was a result of a contest for space, whereby Muslims seek to conquer Nigeria because the Christians are evangelizing northern Nigeria. They emphasized the need for research exploring areas of cooperation, collaboration, and imitation between Muslims and Pentecostals in Nigeria.⁵⁰

As part of their research studies, they compared the character of Pentecostal leaders in northern Nigeria with that of the Pentecostal leaders in southern Nigeria, where there has been no significant ethnoreligious crisis. They observed that northern Pentecostals have significantly better attitudes toward Muslims than northern mainliners and that northern Pentecostals were more likely to engage respectfully and that like Muslims, they held a higher hope for a harmonious future together than northern mainline Christians.⁵¹ It is for this reason that I deliberated on how Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic Christians can interact with Nigerian Muslims to implement the peace needed for redemptive relationship between the two religions.

Mathew Ojo corroborates that although Islam is much older and more widespread in the North, Christian evangelization has made some in-roads into the North from 1900. He noted that the political situation in the North in the 1980s and 1990s had made room for northern indigenous leaders to emerge from newer charismatic organizations to champion the cause of northern Christians since southern Christians could not effectively do this.⁵² Ojo reiterates that the charismatic movement in northern Nigeria is an essentially religious phenomenon in terms of its vitality, rapid spread, and increasing membership and that the Pentecostal-charismatic in northern Nigeria has provided support for facing contemporary, social, and political challenges. He believes this movement constitutes an appropriate forum within which to exercise self-determination within a particular socio-political context.⁵³ In substantiation to this, I systematically reviewed the church-planting strategies of Nigerian Pentecostal-charismatic missionaries among northern Nigerian Muslims in this volume.

In Stephen Awotunde’s view, Islam has become more aggressive over the past twenty years, to the extent of obliterating Christianity from Nigeria. He mentioned that Christianity and Islam contend for recognition and dominance in Nigeria.⁵⁴ According to Awotunde, instead of today’s churches praying that God should destroy and kill the enemies that persecute them, they should be praying for boldness