Monday Discourse With Dr

A Comment on Dr. Aliyu Tilde's Pope John Paul II

Usman Yerima

I read Dr. Tilde's article about the Pope's legacy, history, the Church, and by extension issues facing Christianity today. As an independent thinker who is well aware of Nigerian Muslims sentiments against people of other faiths, I am not convinced that Dr. Tilde's commentary is a honest tribute to the Great Pope. In my opinion, it is a disguised effort to criticise as Muslims often do, other faiths, especially Christianity at this time where the whole of Christiandom Worldwide is united as one to honor the memory of a great patrich of the church. I think many Observers, Dr. Tilde inclusive, are shocked at how the death of one man can bring millions of people together in unity. In my observation of religious commentaries, it is very common to see Muslims point out the so called divisions in Christianity. Muslims love to refer to the denominations within Christiandom as division. So it comes as a rude shock that the Pope's passing has futher strenthened the bond in Christiandom as all Christians mourn and celebrate the legacy of Pope John Paul. The Pope's Funeral attracted a record number of over 7 million people, to which Rome never imagined such a turn out. Many mourners travelled far and near to be part of that history. Millions of people waited in lines for over 12 hours or more just to catch a glimpse of the man they had come to love and respect for several years.

As I read Dr. Tilde's commentary, the so called tribute shifts dramatically in the third paragraph to what appears to be undermining the credibility of the Christian faith. Dr. Tilde began by ignorantly stressing that in the past 500 years, christianity has declined sharply. He never bothered to provide, as most knowledgable intellectuals would do, statistics, data, number or proof to substatiate his claims. He simply stated on his own authority, which is meaningless, that Christianity has declined sharply.

For a man who supposedly holds a doctorate, I am surprised he is not aware that making such comments must be backed up with numbers such as either declining church membership, churches, conversions of christians to other faiths, etc. Such statistics would show the pattern of decline over years, and can be used a reasonable validation to support his claim. Dr. Tilde however failed to provide such data. Ordinarily, I would not dwell on the issue of numbers, but Muslims, especially Nigerian Muslims, love to display fantastic numbers which they often inflate and therefore claim majority. Dr. Tilde stopped short of doing this when he began talking of the decline of Christianity. I must agree to an extent that Christianity has been somewhat stagnant in Europe. But Europe's stagnation cannot be the required conclusion that Christianity is dwindling. That assessment would be extremely ignorant and quite franky a denial of reality. The correct assessment would be that the Catholic stronghold in Europe has diminished and there has remained a stagnantion in the past quater century.

According to Annuario Pontificio (Catholic annual yearbook)..."The number of baptised Catholics "has increased worldwide from 757 million in 1978 to 1.06 billion in 2001". Here is something for Dr. Tilde to chew on. According to an an Islamic website, http://www.islamicweb.com/begin/population.htm muslims Worlwide total 1.6 billion people. So in comparison, the World population of Muslims is almost equal the Population of just Catholics Worlwide. Dr. Tilde went to further in his article to claim that scientific discoveries in physics have discredited many doctrines of the church, however, he failed to mention any of these discoveries. How intelligent is that? How can a reader clearly make the connection to his claims? I would like to know what scientific discoveries discredited church doctrine. Dr. Tilde also mentioned Frederick Nietzsche's contribution and how earlier philosophers before him questioned the most fundamental beliefs of the church. Again, this makes no sense. No specifics or details here. What exact beliefs were questioned so that readers can make their own assessments, review and draw conclusions? In the 4th paragraph, Dr. Tilder again digresses even further and then introduces the issue of women and homosexual ordination facing some churches in north America, and England. These are two issues that should be addressed seperately. First off, if Dr. Tilde has any knowledge in Christian history and theology, he would understand that Christianity has traditions seperate from devine laws. In the Christian Bible, words believed to be spoken by God or Christ are usually distinctly identified and seperated from opinions of early Christian church elders like the Apostles. It is therefore not uncommon to see in the Bible where the Apostle Paul in his letters to emerging Churches in Asia minor and other regions, instruct the Christian churches on how certain issues of difficulty and dilemna needed to be handled. In those cases, Paul would often provide his own opinion especially if the matter involved an area where there was no governing law. For example, Paul wrote to the Church in Corinth that women in the Church ought to be covered...that is they had to cover their heads during service, and that a man should not be shaved. However, he made sure to indicate in that same letter that those admonition were not matters of law in the Church neither did God decree it. That was just his view on dress code. So here we see an example of how the church functioned. Tradition did and still do exist, but traditions are different from God's Commandment.

I illustrate the above point because the issue of women ordination to the priesthood follows this same scenario. In the early Christian movement, Women were encouraged due to tradition to take the back seat in Church administration. That position was mainly tradtional because in the early century, women were often relegated to the back and society was mainly male dominated. During Christ's ministry, this tradition changed as women were allowed close access to Christ. Women became a signifant portion of the movement working alongside the men in the ministry of Christ. In the Bible, some women that were regular figures with the Disciples were Mary and Martha. There is also Mary Magdalene who was cured of demonic possession and later became a integral part of the ministry of Christ. Some ancient traditions even suggest that some of the apostles were quite uncomfortable with the openness and level of equality with which Christ treated all the disciples, men and women. If we look at Churches in Africa, women Evangelists and Pastors already exist in local churches because it is not the teaching of Christ that women be excluded from serving as Pastors. People may not like it, but no law from God bans women from serving in that capacity and that is what matters. The Catholics may feel differently. On the issue of homosexuality, the teachings of the Christian Bible is quite clear on this subject. So this is not about the Church shifting position on matters of law, but it is people moving away from aleady established principles of God to satisfy their own individual desires. Dr. Tilde again should understand that he is nothing new new. In John's Gospel, the Bible does speak of heresy in the latter days. It also speaks of false teachings and doctrines and also of apostacy in the Church. In other words, the Bible seemed to have known centuries prior of the challenges that lay ahead, and wisely warned adherents of the faith. Dr. Tilde then dived into politics and the usual anti west sentiments that have become the battle cry of Muslims these days. I am confused. I thought his article was a tribute to the Pope. In his ignorance, Dr. Tilde opines that Europe in their desperation and fear of the Jihadist Muslims has opted to use Christianity as a rallying point. Again, the Dr. fails to explain just how Europe is doing that. When Muslims carry on redundantly like this, one shudders at their hypocrisy. For decades, muslims have left their 'honest' countries and migrated in millions to take residence in these 'imperialist and evil' west. The West cannot even keep the Arab immigrants out. In these same Western countries, the Muslims are granted residency, social services and wellfare, equal protection under law, rights to self determination, etc, all these under Western laws and system that Dr. Tilde disparages so much. In the West, these Muslims are granted religious freedoms, and allowed to establish their religious centers in societies that are traditionally non Muslim countries. The question then becomes, how are non Muslims faring in Islamic societies? Do they enjoy similar freedoms and rights? Furthermore, Dr. Tilde is living a life of self denial if he thinks Islam does not pose a danger to the rest of the modern World. Again here Dr. Tilde credited the Pope for his opposition of the war in Iraq and for paying attention to the Christian Muslim relations in Nigeria, and in other places. Yes, the Pope had enough sense and leadership to thread carefully with nutcases and Lunatics in the Muslim World waiting to go off at the slightest opportunity.

Dr. Tilde also made rather surprising comments about the World respected Cardinal Arinze. Dr Tilde criticises the Cardinal for what he calls the "events happening in Nigerian for the past five years...". I wonder what events Tilde is refering to. Obviously, he must be talking about Obasanjo's presidency. Dr. Tilde further criticises Cardinal Arinze for the Cardinal's failure to act during the Jihadists rampage in Kaduna where hundreds of innocent lives were lost. This single view point concludes that Nigerian Muslim, especially the ones of northern Origin, lack any capacity to reason with logic. They are brain dead. If I recall correctly, the Kaduna incident was not the first time the insane and bloodthirsty Muslims had embarked on their killing spree. Their appetite for violence dates back to past administrations where Northerners served as Heads of State, yet they who were in charge of protecting the people sat and watched as the killings occured. The northern Emirs whose corridors and backyards these killings occured sat by and often watched as blood thirsty Muslims slaughtered people. The Sultan of Sokoto who supposedly is the head of all Muslims in Nigeria lived right there at the territory where all these killings and destruction occured right under his nose, yet he lacked the testicular fortitude to call his flock to order, but the illogical Dr. Tilde, faults Carinal Arinze for non intervention? I find this insane? First off, Cardinal Arinze is based in Rome, and dedicated to his priestly duties. If the rampaging Muslims do not respect the Laws of the country, or the leadership of the country, and lack complete regard for existing Christian leadership on the local scene right there, how in this World would they care what Cardinal Arinze in Rome says? For some years, the Cardinal hosted a religious hour on T.V that was televised internationally. Aside from that, Arinze's work include papal evangelism where he visits faithfuls in different Parishes for reach out purpose. When we hear of stories of how the Pope entered and prayed in a Mosque in Syria, the vatican open admits that Arinze because of his Nigerian origin and understanding of the Muslim community, was the man who set up that papal visit to Syria and the Pope's entrance into the Mosque and meeting with Islamic clerics with the hope of strenthening relations between the two faiths. The Cardinal again worked towards this kind of dialogue and arranged for the Pope to meet with the Muslim leadership in Nigerian on his last visit. What the Pope saw was thr destruction of Churches and killings of innocent people which moved him to tears, and he commented that Christianity was under attack.

As I read Dr. Tilde's useless and senseless article, I again notice the fear of Christianity which haunts most Muslims. I cannot understand people would so greatly fear a group or a religion that they discard as corrupted. If something lack merit, how come it poses so much threat? When Muslims are faced with difficult circumstances about their theology, they never engage anyone in a common sense dialogue where they educate or defend their core beliefs. When Muslims are faced with questions, they rather attack other religions than defend theirs. My observation of Christians however, is that Christians, would make the very best effort to defend what they believe, and use their Bible or even history as reference points. Muslims on other hand hate for people to use history to validate their belief and origin of their faith. The hyprocritical and defficient Dr. Tilde has attempted to hide behind this sorry article which he calls a tribute to the late Pope, but instead has used it to jump redundantly from one unrelated issue to anoother, all the while confusing himself in the process.