Violence on Traditional Religious Artifacts by Christians during Evangelism/Crusades in Igbo land of Nigeria 2000-2017: A Historical Discourse

One of the fundamental obligations of Christians is preaching and spreading of the gospel of Jesus Christ for the purpose of conversion. In Igbo land of Nigeria, this quest for preaching has been on the increase with more Christians becoming extraordinarily zealous to evangelize all kinds of people by ‘fire or by force’. However, one disturbing thing is that some evangelism crusades organized in some areas are characterized by violent attacks on traditional religious artifacts. The main reason put forward for these attacks include the belief that traditional religious artifacts hinder the people’s progress because they (the artifacts) carry with them the heathen evils of traditional idolatry. A historical discourse of such evangelism crusades held in Amansea, Ugbenu, Oraukwu, Igboukwu etc bear marks of violent attack on traditional religious artifacts. Evangelism in itself is not the problem but the deployment of physical violence and verbal attacks on the artifacts of traditional religious adherents. It is discovered that this brand of Christian evangelism is becoming offensive and irritating to some concerned traditionalists who are at the receiving end. A situation as this when unaddressed could trigger off dangerous crises and reprisal attacks capable of destabilizing the peace of the society. In addition to this, the study found out that violence on traditional artifacts obliterates history, culture, arts, religion, piety and impedes robust cross fertilization of ideas between old and the new. As great and rich symbolic repository of knowledge, artifacts provide successive generations with abundant information about how, why, what, when and where they are coming from in a variety of ways; their destruction is a regrettable loss to every society.