Nigeria bishop addresses the evils of Islamist extremism at interfaith summit

Zelda Caldwell   By Zelda Caldwell for CNA

 

Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of the Diocese of Sokoto, Nigeria / EWTN/YouTube screen shot

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 3, 2022 / 17:30 pm (CNA).

Before a gathering of religious leaders in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, a Catholic bishop from Nigeria gave an account of how his country had become a “cauldron of violence” at the hands of Islamist extremists.

Addressing the G20 Religion Forum in Bali on Nov. 3 in advance of the Group of 20’s meeting later this month, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah testified to the violence committed against both Christians and Muslims caught in intra-sectarian warfare.

“Every day, news of abductions, armed robberies, kidnappings for ransom, murders, and assassinations of our innocent citizens persists. Our sacred spaces have become killing grounds,” the bishop said. “Hundreds of worshippers have been murdered in mosques and churches across the country.

According to a report by the nongovernmental organization Open Doors, 4,650 Christians were killed in Nigeria in 2021— that’s more than the number killed in all of the other countries in the world combined.

The G20 Religion Forum was hosted by Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama political party, which, according to its press release, represents 120 million “moderate” Muslims, or about 40% of the country’s 231 million Muslims.

The conference was convened to “prevent the weaponization of identity” and “curtail the spread of communal hatred,” according to its stated goals.

Kukah, the bishop of the Diocese of Sokoto in the northwest region of Nigeria, where Muslims are in the majority, commended the group for “taking the historic step to address these issues directly,” he said.

In his address, he shared details of some of the recent acts of violence committed by Muslim extremists in his diocese, including the kidnappings of fellow priests and the case of Deborah Samuel, a Christian student who on May 13 was accused of blasphemy and brutally murdered by a mob of Muslim students.

Kukah explained that Muslim elites see secular laws as a threat to Islam and, therefore, disregard them. Nigeria’s constitution includes protections of the freedom of religion and prohibits federal or state governments from adopting any religion as a state religion.

“In northern Nigeria, Muslim elites have tended to see the institutions of the modern state as an alien imposition that attempts to displace their own religion, with Western education as a foreign enemy to Islam. They thus consider the present constitution and secular laws as fundamentally subordinate to Islam, and in practice ignore the written laws of the land as they see fit,” the bishop said.

He urged the world’s religious leaders to work together to oppose those who commit violence out of “grand delusions” that their religion requires it of them.

“This cancer of the weaponization of religion threatens us all. History shows us that empires and emperors have had their day. The world will always be full of men and women with grand delusions about how they have been divinely sent to create a new world at the cost of human blood,” he said.

The Nigerian bishop pressed the religious leaders to “work in collaboration with civil society to “ensure a fairer world for all.”

In conclusion, he called on governments to end religious discrimination and defend their country’s constitutions.

Religious leaders, he said, should also avoid “the manipulation of identities” and instead “encourage areas of integration through education, common citizenship, intermarriages, and other platforms of social cohesion anticipated and enshrined in our constitutions,” Kuha said.

The G20 Religious Forum also featured the testimony of the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Erbil, Iraq, Bashar Matti Warda. In his address, Warda painted a pessimistic picture of Iraq given the majority-Muslim country’s long history of violence.

“Throughout the Islamic world, the reality of structured violence, persecution, and marginalization against the minorities remains, century after century,” Warda said.

“To raise this matter in Western or global audiences is to invite a charge of ‘Islamophobia,’ mainly from social critics speaking theoretically from places far removed from any threat or actual experience. But for we Iraqi Christians this is not an abstract matter,” he said.

Warda continued: “There is a crisis of violence in Islam and for the sake of humanity, including the followers of Islam themselves, it must be addressed openly and honestly.”

There is hope, he said, but only through forgiveness and the renunciation of violence.

“Ours then is now a missionary role, to give daily witness to the teachings of Christ, to provide a living example to our neighbors of a path to a world of forgiveness, of humility, of love, of peace. Lest there be any confusion here I am not speaking of conversion. Rather, I am speaking of the fundamental truth of forgiveness and a renunciation of violence which we Christians of Iraq can share and do so from a position of historically unique moral clarity.

“We forgive those who murdered us, who tortured us, who raped us, who sought to destroy everything about us. We forgive them. In the name of Christ, we forgive them,” the archbishop of Erbil said.


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6 Comments

  1. Alas, Islam is backward religion of war, violence and general disrespect for others. The Koran is a compendium of inconsistency, errors in science and history, together with incivility. Though this seems harsh, truth lays matters bare. Strong comments will cause some to think about how God’s way is the better way!

    If a Muslim takes offence at this categorization, we can discuss the Koran and hadiths. The Bible gives quite a different picture as how God commands all men to conduct themselves.

    1 Corinthians 14:15 What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also.

    1 Corinthians 12:3 Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.

    Galatians 4:6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”

    Romans 8:26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

    Acts 2:38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

    God wishes that none perish. Take Him up on His proposal for He is love, peace and offers salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. God makes it easy for man. Let us strive together!

    God bless one and all.

    • “Alas, Islam is a backward religion…” Ultimately, it’s not only about being either backward or forward. The hyper-rationalist West also is a box canyon—with its Pelagian, post-Enlightenment, “forward” Progress (capitalized).

      Instead, it’s about whether the singular and self-disclosing (!) Incarnation is an actual event at the center of human and each personal history, or not…

      The alternative self-understanding of Islam holds that it (Islam) is the original religion, from which all others are then relapses or corruptions. “There is not a child that he or she is born upon this fitrah, this original state of the knowledge of God. And his parents make him a Jew, a Christian, or a Zoroastrian . . . and if they are Muslims, Muslim.” (from the hadith as reported by Bukhari). No recognition of original sin or a more clarified natural law, only Islamic peace with, as you say, authorized violence against infidels.

      To quote Christian Scripture as you do is very good, but is aborted from dialogue since Muslim scholars know the Biblical source only through the distorting lens of the Qur’an and it’s preemptive and monolithic monotheism. They do not read the bible texts directly. Instead, the Trinity is dismissed as a relapse into pagan polytheism.

      The original divide is not between the two scriptures, but between “the Word made flesh” versus the “word made book.” A tough nut to crack, this particular “dialogue.” And the post-Christian/secularist West has no more of a clue than does fideistic/megatribal Islam.

      • Dear Peter:

        What a delightful Muslim apologist you make! If one only knew! 🙂

        Unfortunately, Islam is plagued with logical fallacies and is circular in its discourse. Christianity is unbent and leads us to truth, whereas Islam ends where it stared. Going in circles makes for a good amusement ride, however we are discussing the value of mans eternal soul.

        The Koran presents specious arguments that can not be supported. Islam came centuries after Christianity so the
        yardstick is the New Testament. Nothing that Islam purports, dislodges what the Bible has to say. Here is an excellent opportunity for the follower of Islam to try and disprove what is said heretofore. Indeed, the New Testament must be in concordance with the Tanakh (Old Testament) to prove its validity. Islam is at odds with the writers of the Bible, yet it does not “bring something better”.

        You have raised other important points in your reply, however let’s address one matter at a time, if you’ll permit!

        Matthew 24:35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

        Isaiah 40:8 The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

        John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

        Colossians 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

        John 16:13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

        Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

        John 12:48 The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day.

        God bless you,

        Brian

        • “Apologist?” It would be helpful if you would at least readeth the entries upon which you replieth like a brokeneth record.

          • Dear Peter:

            Don’t we have fun? Yet my attempt at irony appears to have gone awry! Yet through it all, don’t you think we are getting on nicely?

            You offered an insight which I value, when you said some in the Catholic Church are “allergic” to scripture. Has there been an overabundance of same as I offer a song of praise to the Lord? Is the spice of life a little folklore into the mix?

            i am not here to win a popularity contest, nor to try to outdo those with superior intellect, rather to celebrate Jesus Christ. You are here for the same reason, perhaps to examine the cerebral and scholarly side. You are not alone and you add to the conversation, especially amongst those who share your outlook. Yes, it takes all kinds and one way is not necessarily better than another.

            Let us not disagree, instead let us thank God, that through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, we are spiritually reborn and made to do good works to bless others.

            Your brother in Christ,

            Brian

  2. G20 Religion Forum – never heard of it before.
    Anglican Unscripted 769 – The Anglican Archbishop of Nigeria – same message.

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