Faith and Values in Africa, By Toyin Falola
Adebayo Ajadi
https://toyinfalolanetwork.org/faith-and-values-in-africa/
Cornelius Hamelberg
https://toyinfalolanetwork.org/faith-and-values-in-africa/
This - in its entirety and its relevance, is certainly one of the most profound lectures that I have yet encountered about our contemporary African dilemmas in our faith-filled continent ( and diasporas).
Such food for thought - to be understood, digested and acted upon , ought to be widely circulated ( distributed ... .because without an in-depth awareness of the problems, how can there ever be a solution ?
The titular theme of the lecture “ Faith and Values” - is so timely, not only with regard to Africa, as every earthling - not only those familiar with Surah Al-Ma'idah // (al-Ma'idah: The Food) the Christian and other Scriptures are asking how can the Jewish people of the nation state Israel, who are entrusted with fulfilling God’s holy mission, “a holy people” who are supposedly saturated in studying and observing the precepts of the Torah be accused of committing Genocide in Gaza , even after surviving Hitler’s aborted Final Solution ?
Maybe we should not conflate "Israelites" with the pyromaniacal war criminal Netanyahu and his crew?
I’d just like to take up a tiny, but not insignificant aspect of the lecture.
In the Al-Quran Al-Karim it is clearly stated,
“There is no compulsion in religion. The right direction is henceforth distinct from error. And he who rejecteth false deities and believeth in Allah hath grasped a firm handhold which will never break. Allah is Hearer, Knower.” (al-Baqarah: The Cow - ayat 256)
From that point of view, I was reading Ojogbon Falola’s lecture, reading happily along and mostly in agreement with what he was saying, until I arrived at this very interesting sentence beginning with ,”This shift from indigenous to forced forms of piety…”etc. prior to which I, and I suppose the better half of Nigeria - Muslim Nigeria had always thought that belief, believing in a deity/a God/ ”Jehovah” / the Almighty / Olodumare / Rabbil Alamin was entirely voluntary; so, for my own questioning mind, which, hopefully , always reads critically ( it’s a reflex), the main question arising from the first part of that sentence in that paragraph was about the locus of the authority exerting the “forced” or forceful compliance, whether it is/ was earthly or heavenly ?
Earthly? But then again according to certain Jewish traditions ( stories) According to Jewish tradition God held a mountain over Israel to compel them to accept the Torah…
Having ascertained that in less than a billionth of a second, it was a delight to read on as true to expectations the Ogjobon continued with his elucidations and exhortations for the next x paragraphs, leading to the final conclusion, neither a crescendo nor a whimper : “ “transformation depends on communal responsibility.” act locally….
Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah, are you there ?
I hope that the Pentecostal fanatics are also there.