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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2009
Africa played a prominent role in the formation of earliest Christianity not least in the persons of Cyprian of Carthage and Augustine of Hippo. The Anglican heritage is considered through the experience of the Yoruba people in south-west Nigeria through whom christian faith came to the rest of Nigeria. The Anglicanism which came to the Yoruba was evangelical through the Church Missionary Society, though a key role was played by liberated slaves from Sierra Leone. Contexts in which the gospel is proclaimed and the way it is expressed may change, yet the contents of the gospel do not. A contextualized curriculum thus includes key courses such as biblical studies and systematic theology. It also includes contextual subjects such as African traditional religions and Islam and Christianity. The Church of Nigeria has thus undertaken a thorough review of the curriculum to adequately represent this kind of contextualized theology.
1. Bediako, Kwame, Christianity in Africa: The Renewal of a Non-Western Religion (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press/Orbis, 1995), pp. 7–16.Google Scholar
2. Fape, M.O., Where Are the Anglican Youths? Towards the Restoration of the Anglican Evangelical Heritage (Ibadan: Golden Wallet Press, 1999)Google Scholar. A detailed account of the advent of the Anglican Church is contained in Chapter 1 on pp. 1–20.
3. The history of the Anglican Church is shrouded in great complexities. See Neil, Stephen, Anglicanism (London: Mowbrays, 1977), p. 397.Google Scholar
4. The Instruments of Unity are: the Anglican Consultative Council, the Lambeth Conference, the Primates' Meeting and the Archbishop of Canterbury is now designated as a Focus of Unity.
5. Brown, Bishop Terry, ‘The Anglican Way and History’Google Scholar, paper presented at a meeting, ‘Consultation on the Anglican Way’ held in Singapore, 9–16 05 2007Google Scholar. Here Bishop Terry identified seven forms of Anglicanism, all with a common ancestral background to England.
6. Brown, , ‘The Anglican Way and History’.Google Scholar
7. Neil, Stephen, Anglicanism, p. 397.Google Scholar
8. Tucker, Sarah, Abbeokuta: Or Sunrise within the Tropics; An Outline of the Origin and Progress of the Yoruba Mission (London: James Nisbet & Co., 5th edn, 1956), p. 84Google Scholar. While Sarah Tucker spelt Abbeokuta, Yoruba modern orthography has it as Abeokuta.
9. Tucker, , Abbeokuta.Google Scholar
10. Walker, F. Deavile, The Romance of the Black River: The Story of the C.M.S. Nigeria Mission (London: CMS, 1931), p. 30.Google Scholar
11. Walls, A.F., ‘Black Europeans, White Africans: Some Missionary Motives in West Africa’, in Baker, D. (ed.), Religious Motivation: Biographical and Sociological Problems for the Church Historian (Oxford: Blackwood, 1978), pp. 339–48 (348).Google Scholar
12. The CMS Mission work in Yorubaland began in Badagry as the point of entry; and later missionary activities spread to Ibadan and Lagos.
13. Oduyoye, Modupe, ‘The Planting of Christianity in Yorubaland 1842–1888’ in Kalu, Ogbu (ed.), Christianity in West Africa: The Nigerian Story (Ibadan: Day Star Press, 1978), pp. 239–304 (257).Google Scholar
14. Ajayi, J.F. Ade, Christian Missions in Nigeria 1841–1891: The Making of a New Elite (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1969), p. 32Google Scholar. See also Walker, , The Romance of the Black River, p. 43.Google Scholar
15. Walker, , The Romance of the Black River, p. 44.Google Scholar
16. Oduyoye, , ‘Planting of Christianity in Yorubaland’, p. 257.Google Scholar
17. This is the first of the 1888 Chicago Lambeth Quadrilateral Statement; and Article 6 of the 39 Articles of Religion in the Book of Common Prayer.
18. Burton, Richard F., Abeokuta and the Cameroon's Mountains, Vol. 1 (London: Tinsley Brothers, 1863), p. 246.Google Scholar
19. This is the sense in which Tucker, Sarah entitled her book, Abbeokuta: Or Sunrise Within the TropicsGoogle Scholar to show the significant role played by Abeokuta in the spread of Christianity among the Yoruba. See n. 8 above.
20. Hymn ‘For my Sake’ by Bickersteth, Edward Henry 1825–1906 in Hymnal Companion, 601.Google Scholar
21. This article acknowledges the fact of inclusive language in theological debates. However, the Church of Nigeria does not ordain women in the present circumstance, hence the use of ‘men’.
22. Shenk, R. Wilbert, Henry Venn: Missionary Statesman (New York: Orbis Books, 1983), pp. 108–16.Google Scholar
23. Apart from these three Colleges, others serving the Anglican Church in Nigeria include: St Francis of Assisi, Wusasa, Zaria; St Paul's University College, Awka; Trinity College, Umuahia and Bishop Crowther College of Theology, Okene.
24. Martey, Emmanuel, African Theology Inculturation and Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993), pp. 63–94Google Scholar. This term was used by Emmanuel Martey to describe the contextualization of theology from the African perspective.
25. Hermeneutics is a biblio-theological tool for decoding original biblical texts as perceived by the author for his audience and making the same intelligible for the audience of the present milieu bearing in mind their contextual realities. While the fact remains that Africans have gained a reasonable degree of political independence, it is now that they have started applying the Bible in a concrete way to the realities of their daily living; be it in the realm of liberation theology or otherwise.
26. These other denominations include African Independent Churches such as the African Church, Christ Apostolic Church, Eternal Order of Cherubim and Seraphim Church, just to mention a few.
27. Fagbemi, Stephen Ayodeji A., Who Are the Elect in 1 Peter? A Study in Biblical Exegesis and its Application to the Anglican Church of Nigeria (New York: Peter Lang, 2007), p. 223.Google Scholar