ECWA should search its soul

Dr. ALIYU U. TILDE

I will start from the conclusion of this article. The Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) should search its soul. But in its beginning, I must establish my emotional connection to ECWA and why I feel I am entitled to advise it so.

Ford Foundation, 2004

In 2004 when I was serving on Ford Foundation’s interview panel for selection of post-graduate fellow, one of the applicants, a middle-aged man came in and introduced himself as staff of ECWA from Jos. I suddenly picked interest in him and asked him a number of questions to verify the activities he claimed in ECWA, having known ECWA in the area he came from for the past 40 years then. Sorry, I cannot recall his name now but I know he must be a big man somewhere today with a PhD.

When he left and we were to give our assessment of him, I pleaded with the panel that if there were one person we will send for the doctorate fellowship, it must be him. And I went ahead to tell the panel, on which only one other member was a northerner—my Christian sister, Nana, from Billiri—that ECWA is among the most community-oriented churches that have contributed so much in the education and healthcare of the people of Jos and its environment. I told them how I benefitted from its free healthcare services as a child in the 1960s and early 1970s. And nobody said anything afterwards. He instantly won the fellowship.

ECWA Humanitarian Services

The middle finger of my right-hand and the scars on my legs, I told the panel, all attest to the selfless community service of ECWA staff to people regardless of their religion in those days. Our belonging to the epicenter of the ECWA orbital has painted in our psyche a fair portrait of the Church and how it works to deliver the compassionate message of Jesus (Peace be Upon Him, PBUH).

The indelible mark of the Baba Danbauchi and his small ECWA clinic was all we had in Tilden Fulani in the 1960s and he delivered his work with a diligence that few ECWA staff can match today. When he tragically disappeared in 1985 never to be seen again, the whole community went into morning. If ECWA would look for a monument or a shrine to embodies the down-to-earth activities and success of its founding fathers, that small clinic at Tilden Fulani, whose picture is hereby attached, is a perfect candidate. Though abandoned long ago it still stands. Beyond the clinic, Asibitin Jan-Kwano is there in Jos, now Bingham University Teaching Hospital, to treat anyone in Jos and its environs for free, in those days. ECWA services were so powerful and unifying that I can declare without any equivocation that if I were to be a Christian, my Church would have definitely been ECWA.

The Mighty ECWA

ECWA is not a small fry by any measure. The trio missionaries of Walter Gowans, Thomas Kent and Rowland Bingham of 1893 must be smiling in their graves were they to read the following self-testimony of the organization in Wikipedia:

“ECWA has the largest mission organization of any African church living up to its name Evangelical the Evangelical Mission Society (EMS) has sent out about 1,600 missionaries.

Throughout Nigeria, especially in the central regions, ECWA churches are growing rapidly. Some churches have experienced as much as 400% growth in the last several years… There are currently more than six thousand ECWA congregations with more than ten million members. ECWA has over ninety District Church Councils (DCC’s) hundreds of Local Church Councils (LCC’s), thousands of Local Churches (LCs) and hundreds of Prayer Houses (PHs).

“Bingham University, Karu was started in 2005 as a way of meeting the soaring need for not only quality, secular education, but education that recognizes and integrates the moral and spiritual values of the Christian faith that fueled its establishment. ECWA started three Theological Seminaries: ECWA Theological Seminary, Igbajathat started as a School of Prophets in 1918, ECWA Theological Seminary, Kagoro was established in 1931, and Jos ECWA Theological Seminary in 1980. There are also eight Bible colleges and fifteen theological training institutes. ECWA’s Medical Department coordinates a wide network which includes four hospitals, a Community Health Program with over 110 health clinics, a Central Pharmacy and the School of Nursing and Midwifery.[7] It is also involved in radio, publications for outreach and discipleship, rural development, urban ministries, and cross-cultural missions.[8] There are more than 1600 missionaries from ECWA churches who serve in Nigeria and other countries with the Evangelical Missionary Society (EMS), the missionary arm of ECWA.”

Abduction

Against this background, the abduction scandal that the ECWA Church is involved in came to me as a shock. I would not be surprised if it were one of those Pentecostal churches. But ECWA—my ECWA— really came as a surprise. How can a branch of a Church so big allow for unholy and criminal resort to abduction of innocent children, almajirai for that matter, under the disguise of training? Mama Baturitya that used to share biscuits to our primary school children in the late 1950s or Malam Danbauchi, the dispenser at the clinic in Tilde, would have never done that. What then has happened to the Church recently that it would resort to unholy methods for which it was not known sixty years ago?

Yes. Some two decades or so, it changed its name from the Evangelical Church of West Africa as we knew it before to Evangelical Church Winning All. Does that portray a shift in its method of gaining converts in competition with Pentecostal churches or what?  Is it a desperation to “win” followers for the Church which it thinks it is not doing well enough? And how could abduction help “winning” someone?

Denial

It is unfortunate that instead of admitting to a glaring crime, the Secretary General of ECWA took the path of denial. Hear him:

“There is nothing close to that. ECWA is a global organisation and is involved in a lot of projects. We have healthcare institutions, spiritual welfare, empowerment and so on… That house that was raided is one of the places we have and used it to help people irrespective of their ethno-religious affiliations. The place is just like a school where somebody has to bring you. We don’t accept anybody below 18 years. We charged people money for admitting you into the school. We train them on different businesses. You will spend one year before you graduate.” Daily Trust, 27 June 2022

The denial by the Secretary General of the Church falls short of any evidence that will convince the public. If it is true that the apprentices at the Centre are all above 18 who came willingly and paid money to be registered, where is the evidence that Nura and Abdulrahman as well as the over 20 other children did so? Where are the documents to prove that? Who brought them? When and from Where? How much did they pay? Where is the record to support these claims? None.

The allegation of attempt to convert the abductees to Christianity is also cogent as evidenced in the religious routines that the “trainees” were forced to undergo—for their “spiritual welfare”, I guess. What evidence from the Church disproves that allegation by the victims? None.

Soul Searching

While human rights organization have started calling for full investigation into the scandal, I will appeal to the Church to carry out its in-house scrutiny. Its Headquarters must abandon the path of denial which its Secretary General is treading. As a people of God, they must search for the truth.

Beyond investigation, the present leadership of ECWA at the global level should rush to cleanse the Church of activities that will tarnish that innocent childhood image which I have of it and which truly exemplified the teaching of Jesus (PBUH). He did not abduct anyone but, as the Qur’an said, he told the Children of Israel:

“Lo! I come unto you with a sign from your Lord. Lo! I fashion for you out of clay the likeness of a bird, and I breathe into it and it is a bird, by Allah’s leave. I heal him who was born blind, and the leper, and I raise the dead, by Allah’s leave. And I announce unto you what ye eat and what ye store up in your houses. Lo! herein verily is a portent for you, if ye are to be believers.”

Failure

The Church in Northern Nigeria has performed well in bringing civilization to many, but to the Muslim population, I must say, it has to learn to live with the reality that it is dealing with a very hard nut. It is just impossible to convert Muslims to Christianity except in isolated cases of few vulnerable people in the periphery of Islam that are not fully integrated into Muslim traditions.

The reason for their failure is eternal: Muslims in Northern Nigeria have known Jesus (PBUH) for over 900 years before the arrival of missionaries in the region. They knew the details of all biblical stories about Jesus the Messiah, the Holy Spirit, Mary, the Virgin Birth, the attempt to crucify him and his ascent to heaven. Not only that they know him but they believe in him and in the authenticity of these events. What is there new that a missionary would tell them then? Trinity, which is also discussed in the Qur’an? Salvation, when Muslims believe that they are on the same path as Jesus (PBUH), the salvation path of Abraham and all the Prophets after him, for which Muhammad (PBUH) is the seal? A person with this all-encompassing belief cannot be convert to something smaller, which his large whole encapsulates. You don’t abandon a whole for a part. Do you?

This is the dilemma of the Church in Northern Nigeria—no significant converts from the Muslim community since the isolated incidence of the Isawa converts of the 20th Century. However, even in the face of this predicament, the Church can do a lot more for Jesus (PBUH). The Muslims consider Christians as the closest to them in faith and affection, as the Qur’an says. That bridge is there to connect us in peace forever. That common platform of belonging to same divine root, the monotheism of Abraham, is there to bind us together.

Activities of mutual compassion—healthcare and education—is what a church like ECWA should engage in in Northern Nigeria, as did its founding fathers. It should purge and dissociate itself from the murderous, disgraceful and hate inciting politics of identity that emanates from the minority complex of some of its members. That is not Christianity. That is politics. Worst is subterranean crimes like abduction of innocent children for conversion in the name of the Church. Haba! Of what spiritual benefit is it to abduct 20 or so children among a population of over 140 million that you cannot convert to your faith, fair and square?

Conclusion

Let my ECWA search its soul. Its religion, history and might demands that. Let it fish out the bad eggs among its members whose activities are tarnishing its image and hand them over to the authorities. Let it once more rededicate itself to spread of love, compassion and dedication to humanity for which it was known. Let it come clean in its association with the Muslim community such that together we can attain peace and development for the region and our country in general. Let it search for the truth from within and not live in denial. The truth shall set it free.