Debating Igbo Conversion to Chris- Tianity: a Critical Indigenous View

Since the 1970s the dynamics of conversion have been a focal point of research with regard to the impact of Christianity on traditional African societies. Much of the scholarly debate about the matter has concentrated on West Africa. Such academic authorities as Elizabeth Isichei, Robin Horton, and Caroline Ifeka-Moller provided different theories about the relative importance of various factors. Within the genre of the novel, West African writers like the Ibgos Chinua Achebe, John Munonye, and T. Obinkaram added their voices to the debate through their fictional reconstructions of the confrontation of missionary Christianity and traditional cultures. That of Onuora Nzekwu is explored in this article. 1. DISPUTING THE FACTORS UNDERLYING THE IGBO RELIGIOUS METAMORPHOSIS The conversion of much of the expansive and internally diverse Igbo tribe in southern and south-eastern Nigeria to Christianity during the first few decades of the twentieth century after stiffly resisting the intrusion of missionaries before 1900 is one of many dramatic chapters in the history of the church in Africa. Indeed, the rate of conversion during a thirty-year period after 1900 is especially remarkable. As one historian of Christianity in Igboland has pointed out, fewer than 1 000 Igbos may have converted during the latter half of the nineteenth century, but the census of 1931 indicated that in a total population of 3 172 789 Igbos no fewer than 347 427 (ca. 11 per cent) identified themselves as Christians. Of the latter, the 94 049 Catholics constituted a plurality of 27 per cent.2 To be sure, some critics have contended that little depth of commitment to Christian doctrines accompanied this breadth of nominal change and membership in various mission-sponsored churches. They have also underscored their perception that traditional Igbo religious beliefs and practices remained strong in the ranks of the converted. Perhaps no 1 Prof. F. Hale, Dept. of English, University of Stellenbosch. 2 Elizabeth Isichei, A history of the Igbo people (London: Macmillan Press, 1976),