Bad Christians and bad Muslims

However this theme changed with Andrew’s litany of some Christians who are not able to practise the teachings in the Bible. Most interesting and shocking was this testimony of Christopher: “It was a cool evening in Abuja. I was about entering my car in Wuse when three gun men stopped me and ordered, ‘get into […]

However this theme changed with Andrew’s litany of some Christians who are not able to practise the teachings in the Bible. Most interesting and shocking was this testimony of Christopher: “It was a cool evening in Abuja. I was about entering my car in Wuse when three gun men stopped me and ordered, ‘get into the car before I blow off your head’! I obeyed. They ordered me to start the car and thereafter put me at the back seat. One of them took over the steering and was driving to an unknown destination. They were arguing whether to kill me or not.  One of them said, ‘the man is cooperating, why should we kill him’? At this point, I started praying and speaking in tongues. One of them asked me, ‘Are you a Winner?’ Yes, I answered! He replied, ‘I too worship in Winners Chapel. You see it is ‘you people’ in government who pushed us into this dirty business. I graduated twelve years ago from the University. No job, this is why we are harassing you guys’. I told him that I too have no job. One of them said, keep quiet! And you are driving this sophisticated car! I replied, ‘the car belongs to my brother in America.” The brief of the story is that Christopher was pushed out of the vehicle while the gun men left with the car. He was not killed because of his ‘colleague in faith’ from Winners Chapel”. The lesson from this narrative is that we can not conclude that stealing is prescribed in the Christian religion because a gun man who claimed to be a Christian is in a stealing business.
In our meeting on trauma counselling on June 18, 2014, some reports show that abduction of girls and forced marriages have been an old practise in some parts of Northern Nigeria. A Muslim participant in the meeting from Borno State of Nigeria gives this report: “Before the Chibok saga, violence against women and girls has been rampant in Borno State even in the Capital city, Maiduguri. Sometimes, gun men would knock at your door in the middle of the night, wake you up and give you a meagre amount of money, saying, ‘that is the dowry for your daughter’. They would forcefully take the girl away. Sometimes, when they are under the influence of drugs, they would even rape the mother before taking away the daughter. Very often, these girls are minors. These issues started as far back as 2011. Sometimes some youths chant, ‘God is great’, celebrating whenever a security agent is killed. Even when the security agents try to rescue the girls, the youths find it difficult to trust them because of their initial attitude towards the villagers each time there was an attack by the gun men. Sometimes, the gun men attack buses on the highway to abduct girls from the age of five. In one of our trauma counselling sessions, we encountered a young girl who was suffering from vesicovaginal fistula (VVF). She refused to leave the house of the kidnapper saying that her life is already useless and that the rapist should better kill her.” In response to this report, somebody corroborated that sometimes these girls are taken to the house of a prominent leader in the community in the name of protection. Sometimes, he either marries the girl himself or marries her out to another Muslim. No one knows what they use on these girls to change their orientation to life.    
On June 9, 2014, in reaction to my publication, “Chibok Saga: Is this Islam”? I received this mail: “Dear Father, I read your piece with the above title. I am disappointed at your naivety.  Muslims are using texts in the Quran that refer to peace to deceive you. What Boko Haram is doing in the North has support in the Qur’an.” Kindly check the following websites:
1.   Rape in Islam (WikiIslam).  
2. Deception of non-Muslims (WikiIslam)
3.  List of killings ordered or supported by Islam (WikiIslam).
4. Invitations to Islam prior to violence (WikiIslam)
5. Permissibility of martyrdom (http://wikiislam.net/wiki)
6 Audio (Islam: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow/ Online)

Finally, I suggest you stop wasting time dialoguing with Muslims. Our Lord Jesus Christ said we should preach the gospel to the end of the earth and not to dialogue with our killers. Thank you. Mr. Nehemiah Sokponba (This is a pen name)”.
I actually searched the suggested websites and listen to the recommended audio online. My discovery is that the passages referred to in the Qur’an in the six itemized subjects can not be practised literarily in the modern era by enlightened and civilized people with the gift of reason. Relying on these verses for this age is akin to using the passages of the Old Testament of the Bible to promote violence, war and polygamy. Moreover, the Church has made dialogue an obligation and not an option. “The Church regards with esteem also the Muslims. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth” (Nostra Aetate 3). We must admit that there are still many decent and peaceful Muslims in the world even in Nigeria. We cannot take the abuse of Islam by “bad Muslims” as the rule and principle. We must also acknowledge that some Muslims who are partners in dialogue have been advised by some radical Muslims that they are wasting time in dialoguing with Christians. If there were no dialogue between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria, the nation by now would have been lured into religious war by the enemies of progress and peace. One can imagine how a country going through this kind of war would look like.
Fr. Professor Cornelius Afebu Omonokhua is the Director of Mission and Dialogue of the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, Abuja and Consultor of the Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims (C.R.R.M), Vatican City ([email protected]).