I believe most of you
know this blog originates in Vancouver, Canada. Well, I am currently in Lagos,
the former political capital of Nigeria and now the commercial capital. The political capital has been shifted to
Abuja, a city built from scratch in
the middle of the country, said to be
the biggest construction project in all human history! Well, that’s Nigeria. Like the USA, the
bigger the better. I’m here together with my wife, visiting our youngest son
and his family—for a whole month!
I’m not sure when I can
actually post this post, what with less than a stellar quality computer and a
fickle electrical supply. Every time the main electrical net decides to take a
break, and that happens several times a day, we get switched to a huge
generator within twenty seconds. However, every switch one way or the other,
turns off the computer. It being a
decrepit machine, it sometimes takes close to an hour for it to recover from
the shock-- pun intended. In addition, so far, we have not been able to access
the internet, which is a sine qua non for getting this post to your screen. So,
while I hope to keep writing while here, I’m not sure when you’ll get to read
it. Perhaps not till we return to Vancouver in mid-October. Hopefully, before then. At least, when you do finally read it, you’ll
realize we did not forget about you, our readers.
I regret I did not warn
you of this trip. I simply did not foresee these problems. I had been assured
we would have access to a working computer. Well, we do, but the two factors
described in the last paragraph have thrown a rod into our plans to keep in
touch with you. Hopefully, it won’t be as bad or as long as I now fear could
become the case. I just have to trust
that you’ll have the patience to sit it out and stick with me.
I had a different topic
in mind for this installment, but having started with Nigeria, I have just
decided to stick with it. After all, Nigeria is a fascinating country, in spite
of its reputation for corruption. Perhaps you have at one time or another been
the beneficiary of Nigeria’s famous scam letters. Well, yes, more than one of
its Presidents has declared corruption one of the country’s two major problems,
the other being religious conflict. Those are the two topics for which the
country is the most “famous.” However, my son works at the highest echelon of
the Lagos business world and insists that today’s Nigeria has started a new
trajectory, a new story of vigorous business that, he is sure, will invigorate
the country’s business culture to heights it has never before experienced. In
fact, he is playing a major role in making this happen. I write this with great
pride in him, especially because he has frequently told me that his ministry is
really a natural extension of my 30-year ministry in the country.
Yes, I use the word
“ministry” in describing his work of invigorating business. For one thing, his is a not-for-profit
enterprise in the context of a large Nigerian foundation. But even if it were a
for-profit outfit, that in itself would not disqualify it from being a ministry.
Secondly, his personal motivation comes from his Christian faith. During my missionary career, I was getting
paid by the church; he, by this big foundation.
However, our motivations are similar.
As both a professional missionary and an academic missiologist, I warmly
consider him a colleague of mine in the service of the Kingdom of God.
Of course, if you
remember some of my past posts, you may recollect that I insist that religion
is part of and underlies all of life, including business. That’s the reason I
often and easily switch from religious topics to “other” topics. In fact, every post of mine has this
religious base, mentioned or not. I may b e writing about water topics, but
underneath it you will always find Christian concepts of conservation,
responsibility, stewardship, justice, etc.
Same with topics like business or, for that matter, even politics.
So, yes, my son is engaged in a ministry.
Oh, yes, Nigeria. Well,
not much space left for this particular post. So, just a few interesting facts,
some of them for your trivial pursuit games. Nigeria is the only country where
you have around 80 million Christians and 80 million Muslims—two large equal
sized blocks. In no other country is there such a constellation of these two
religions. In most cases it is a matter of a large majority and a small
minority of either. China may have more Christians and perhaps even more
Muslims—I have not seen Chinese Muslim statistics—but they would both be
overshadowed by the influence of Confucianism and the power of Chinese
Communism. Nigeria is the country where
it will be decided whether these two religions can co-exist as equals. That, by the way, is the major issue in my
eight volumes Studies in Christian-Muslim
Relations. See the Islamica page on my website <www.SocialTheology.com>.
If the above is not
exactly a trivial pursuit issue, the next one is. What is the largest country
that has English as its official language? From the context you will guess
it is Nigeria. Correct. But can you
explain this trivial fact? Another: What
country sees the most Anglicans in church on any given Sunday? Yes, ….!
This does it for the day.
See you when I can get this into cyberland. Hope you're still with me. I will try to make up for this extended delay by churning out new posts more frequently, at least for a while. Hey, am I back in the promise mode? Not intended, really.
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