THE CIVIL WAR REVIVAL (1967-73)
4. Paths to Conversion
4.5 Surviving the War and the Peace
For some revivalists, born-again conversion was a direct consequence of their war experience, and was again linked to the pursuit of spiritual power and abundant life.
Kukah maintains that the war created a sense of disillusionment with the secular order,
133 OI, Benjamin Ikedinobi, 12.5.00, Onitsha.
134 Another former revivalist told me that during the war many came to him to receive healing prayer, because they ‘recognised the presence of power,’ but this did not always lead to their conversion. OI, Cyril Okorocha, 8.2.99, Woking.
135 John Lofland and Norman Skonovd, ‘Conversion Motifs’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 20, 1981, 373-85.
136 Quoted in Bolton, Glory, 119.
a craving for spirituality, and a search for alternative means of ‘surviving the peace.’137 One informant, a Yoruba who experienced the revival in Eastern and Western Nigeria, told me that ‘spiritual hunger’ was greater among Igbos because of the suffering they endured.138 Out of 43 informants ‘born-again’ during the revival, 11 (26 %) said the Biafran crisis had contributed to their conversion. This supports Rambo’s assertion that some form of crisis can act as an initiator of conversion processes.139
During the war, SU in the east experienced a significant increase in converts.140 Feelings of insecurity and anxiety for the future made many Igbos more receptive to the gospel and intensified their religious quest. Sometimes this resulted in the rejection of other religious options in favour of revival Christianity, as they sought for power to counteract evil and acquire protection.141 Fear of not surviving the war was one reason given for conversion to ‘born-again’ Christianity.142 If we recall, old age with dignity (nka na nzere, Igbo) constitutes the goal of Igbo traditional life, and consequently many
137 Matthew Hassan Kukah, ‘The Politicisation of Fundamentalism in Nigeria’, in Gifford (ed.), New Dimensions in African Christianity, 195.
138 OI, Muyiwa Olamijulo, 17.1.02, Ikot Enwang. See also OI, Augustine Nwodika, Augustus Mbanaso, and Leo Anorue. Another revivalist compared the SU fellowship groups in Igboland with those in the south-east immediately after the war: ‘The Fellowship there and at Calabar were quite strong though they have never known the type we knew at Umuahia because we knew the nakedness of life. We saw and experienced the cruelty of man to man but were never denied of the unending goodness of the Lord most High.’ Raymond Nwosu, Letter to Roberts, 22 September 1970.
139 Rambo, Religious Conversion, 44, 54-6. See also John Lofland and Rodney Stark, ‘Becoming a World-Saver: A Theory of Conversion to a Deviant Perspective’, American Sociological Review, 30, 1965, 864.
140 Roberts, Letter to Dan Onwukwe, 11 April 1970; OI, Bill Roberts, 23.7.99, Cullompton.
141 OI, Don Odunze, Onyinye Ogbonna, and Ndubueze O. Oti. See also Achunike, Dreams of Heaven, 57. According to informants, many Igbo young people made bargains with God during the war, promising to serve him wholeheartedly if he protected them. Several revivalists stated that the war made them more ‘consecrated’ to God and increased their Christian commitment. See written testimonies, Felix Okafor, Nnenna Okoye, Dennis Okafor; Sam Okoli, Letter to Roberts, 7 June 1970; Matthias U. J.
Eluwah, Letter to Roberts, 26 February 1970.
142 OI, Don Odunze, Ndubueze O. Oti, Thompson Nwosu, and Wilson Uzumegbunam.
Igbos are fearful of dying prematurely.143 For those who accepted the revival message, its emphasis on the imminent return of Christ enabled them to break free from their fear of death and fix their eyes on heaven.144 After the war, many Igbos interpreted their survival as evidence of God’s providential power and this too precipitated a search for salvation.145
War trauma and deprivation also intensified religious commitments by dealing a severe blow to materialistic lifestyles and future ambitions, and creating a crisis of identity.
The Igbos, as we have noted, are an achievement-orientated society where success and status, linked to material prosperity, are prevailing cultural themes.146 The war precipitated a dialogue in Igbo hearts and minds as they searched for new meanings to explain present dilemmas and new means to reconstruct shattered identities.147 One former revivalist recalled that before the war Igbos
143 Kalu, Embattled Gods, 30; Okorocha, Religious Conversion, 73. Okorocha, Religious Conversion, 70, quotes an Igbo traditional prayer:
Nnaa hu lee Our beloved Fathers, Biko nyenu anyi ndu O. Please give us life.
Ezi ndu, Ogologo ndu Viable life, long live.
Na ahu ike n’odinma Good health and wellbeing.
Onwu Egbuchulanyi! May we not die before our time!
144 An example was Nnenna Chukwuma, who told me that her fear of dying, intensified by her experience of air raids, contributed to her conversion. OI, Nnenna Chukwuma, 26.5.00, Enugu.
145 For example, Okoroafor, William Okoye, 39: ‘The few survivors, the maimed inclusive, appreciated the mercies and the lovingkindness of the Almighty God who alone made all things work well for them.
Many began to seek after the Most High in spirit and truth.’
146 Uchendu, Igbo, 16, 92; Okorocha, Religious Conversion, 193.
147 For example, OI, Felix Obiorah, 6.10.01, Umuahia: ‘I think there were a lot of resources in the country in those days, and every person was just thinking how much you can get, especially in this part of the country. . . But the war disenchanted everybody and impoverished everybody. People who were millionaires, at the end of the war they were given £20 period. It levelled everybody . . . So they had to find some meaning somewhere. Life didn’t mean much anymore. People lost dear ones during the war.
And then people were famished with hunger, and that kind of thing. You just begin to think that there has to be meaning somewhere.’
had a notion of the ‘other’, but the main thing was to work hard, make money, build a big house, live well. And then the war upturned all that. Some of them lost everything they had. . . They began to think about what life was all about, and that gave rise to them going to listen [to the gospel] for the first time. In other words . . . God used that to get our attention, which is the positive side of the war.148
The example of Frances Lawjua Bolton (née Egwu) is a case in point. A nominal Anglican and member of the educated elite,149 her family lost everything during the war and were forced to become refugees. This initiated a search for salvation that culminated in her conversion through contact with SU.150 Another informant described the crisis he experienced after the war when he found himself unable to continue his education and with no employment prospects. His religious quest was precipitated by the example of a friend who ‘was going through the same situation, the same hunger, the same deprivation, but he had attached a different meaning to life than I had.’151 Sometimes conversion narratives contained contrasts between losses incurred during the war and gains from the experience of ‘new life in Christ.’ One SU member wrote,
‘Though I might have lost dear ones in the war and lost some years of education yet my gain is greater for I gained the greatest and the best which is my salvation.’152
148 OI, Ken Okeke, 17.12.98, London.
149 Bolton’s father, John Egwu, was a leading Igbo pharmacist and Presbyterian elder, and her mother was the first Igbo female pharmacist. Her uncle was Sir Francis Akanu Ibiam, the first governor of Eastern Nigeria. OI, Frances Lawjua Bolton (néeEgwu), 23.5.99, Loughton; Bolton, Glory, 48.
150 OI, Frances Lawjua Bolton, 23.5.99, Loughton. Bolton told me that before the war ‘life was good.’
But partway through the war she began to suffer from ‘psychosomatic quadriplegia,’ which she put down to shock.
151 Meshak Ilobi, personal reminiscence, May 2000.
152 Elizabeth Onukwue, Letter to Roberts, 23 May 1971.
These examples support Stark and Bainbridge’s theory of religion as compensation.153 In each case, born-again Christianity offered compensations to those suffering forms of deprivation and loss associated with the war. Here the revival represented a rupture with traditional thought and challenged the Igbo concept of ‘life’ with its focus on this-worldly blessings. It emphasised the future enjoyment of ‘heaven’ as compensation for present sufferings, and injected purpose and meaning into the experience of adversity by stressing its redemptive qualities. Where I disagree with Stark and Bainbridge is their argument that the persistence of needs that cannot be met in this world explains why people believe in a next world. In line with traditional thought patterns, Igbo revivalists expected compensations in this world as well as the next.