I am a Christian. A Catholic, and strong in my faith. But when I saw a shrine being burned in a village and being publicised online, something in me went quiet in a way I did not like. Why did it have to go this far, and why was destruction worthy of publicity?
Before Christianity was introduced to us, our ancestors had belief systems. They had their chi, names like Amadioha, and many other ways of understanding the world. They had ways of understanding right and evil, human behaviour, order and consequence. They had festivals, masquerades, stories, rituals, many of which we still celebrate today, sometimes without questioning where they came from. They reenact them in movies. We costume them for entertainment. We applaud them on stages. We archive them as heritage.
Some people are not Christians, not because they are immoral, but because they are traditionalists. Some go to dibias or native doctors for healing, truth, or clarity in moments of hardship. That is how many remedies and forms of local medicine were discovered. Does that make them inferior to Western medicine? No. Does it make them evil? No. It simply means they followed natural and cultural paths available to them.
Some traditionalists give to orphanages that help their communities, which live by strong morals and dignity. And there are Christians who do terrible things, things far worse than those we accuse others of. Being a Christian does not automatically make one Christ-like. That is a responsibility, not a title. Faith should not require amnesia. Christianity, at its core, teaches love, restraint, and humility. It teaches that conversion is not violence, and conviction is not cruelty. The line between right and evil is not crossed the moment something predates us.
To disrespect another religion or culture because it is different from ours is not right. It is arrogance.
If these beliefs were meaningless, they would not exist in our history. They would not appear in our stories, our movies, our festivals. Our ancestors believed what they did to survive, to understand life, to make sense of good and evil. That matters.
Christians are not better than non-Christians. We are simply called to live as Christ lived. And that means judging human beings by their character, behaviour, dignity and actions, not by the name of the faith they practice. To mock or burn their symbols today does not make us more righteous. It only reveals something about human behaviour when power feels justified.
Sometimes, I believe that in heaven, we may be surprised by whom we find there, not because of the religion they practised, but because of the goodness they lived. Faith should make us better humans. Not louder destroyers.
***
Featured Image by Cottonbro for Pexels
The post Tochukwu Ekoh: Being Christian Should Not Mean Destroying Other Religion Believers appeared first on BellaNaija – Showcasing Africa to the world. Read today!.
