Mojola Agbebi

Mojola Agbebi (1860–1917) was a Nigerian Yoruba Baptist minister. He was formerly named David Brown Vincent, but during the wave of African nationalism in the late 1880s, he changed his name. Agbebi was a strong advocate of indigenous leadership for African churches. He initiated evangelistic work in Yorubaland and in the Niger Delta. Quotes According to the Apostle’s estimate, the preaching of Christ, the triumph of the Gospel, the success of practical righteousness is the essential thing; all others are non-essentials. Agbebi opened his discussion of African Christianity by distinguishing what he regarded as the essential purposes of Christianity from forms of worship and institutional practices that he regarded as secondary. Hymn-books are non-essentials to the preaching of Jesus Christ. Agbebi was arguing that African Christians did not need to reproduce European forms of worship in order to practise Christianity. He used hymn books as an example of practices that could legitimately differ between cultures. The joys are one, Redemption is one, Christ is one, God is one, but our tongues are various and our styles innumerable. Agbebi was arguing that Christian faith could have a common theological foundation while allowing different peoples to express that faith through their own languages, musical traditions and cultural forms. In the carrying out of the function of singing, therefore, let us always remember that we are Africans, and that we ought to sing African songs, and that in African style and fashion. Agbebi was advocating an African cultural expression of Christianity. He argued that African Christians should not assume that European musical forms were necessary elements of Christian worship. Prayer-books and hymn-books, harmonium-dedications, pew constructions, surpliced choir, the white man’s style, the white man’s name, the white man’s dress, are so many non-essentials, so many props and crutches affecting the religious manhood of the Christian African. Agbebi was criticizing the assumption that African Christians needed to adopt European institutional and cultural forms in order to be fully Christian. He presented these practices as external forms rather than essential elements of Christian faith. Among the great essentials of religion are that the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached unto them. Agbebi contrasted what he regarded as the substantive purposes of religion with external forms of worship. He emphasized practical religious work and concern for people rather than Europeanized forms and ceremonies. I would add, however, that at present the cultivation of cotton, the raising of rubber trees, of coffee, kola nuts, etc., the calling forth the riches of the soil, sanitation and the promotion of handicrafts form part of the pressing essentials of religion. Agbebi broadened his discussion of religious responsibility to include agricultural production, sanitation, handicrafts and the productive use of African resources. He connected religious responsibility with material and social improvement. European Christianity is a dangerous thing. Agbebi used this forceful expression while criticizing forms of Christianity that he associated with European colonial and commercial interests. He distinguished the Christian faith itself from what he regarded as the harmful practices of European Christianity in Africa. What do you think of a religion which holds a bottle of gin in one hand and a Common Prayer in another? Agbebi was criticizing the contradictions he perceived between European missionary Christianity and the conduct of European commercial and colonial actors in Africa. A religion which points with one hand to the skies, bidding you “lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven,” and while you are looking up grasps all your worldly goods with the other hand, seizes your ancestral lands, labels your forests, and places your patrimony under inexplicable legislations? Agbebi was linking his criticism of European Christianity to colonial dispossession. He objected to the seizure and regulation of African land and resources while European Christianity preached spiritual salvation. External links Category:1860 births Category:1917 deaths Category:Clergy from Nigeria