By
Obododimma Oha
One interesting evidence to show that human beings
want to make God in their own image could be seen in the type of communication
given to Him in our discourses. Not only is God, a non-human, given a human
language, He could be made to speak a human language (I hope He speaks and understands all!) and favours a particular language! It is the
particular language in which He is said to have made a given revelation, which He has symbolically assumed to have chosen as His (just as He chose a particular race!) and which we have to venerate as a "special language" of worship. That
shows you our desperate attempt at linguistically characterizing Him as burdened with the excess luggage of our sentiments!
OK , I am
using English in this discourse and therefore referring to the antecedent
"God" as "He," even graphologically beginning the animate,
non-human, pronoun with capital. Maybe, I am afraid, secretly and my letters betray me! Maybe I think that a small case in a
"God-pronoun" is downgrading or denigrating. Maybe I already identify
my God as literate in a given language and able to decipher gestures and
stylistics of graphetics!
Having
inherited a religious tradition in which God has to be linguistically revered, I
should consistently assign Him a high variety of language and not a low one. He is mighty and the human language that He speaks should equally be
mighty! So, when God descends from His linguistic height to speak a variety of
language associated with common folks, a fanatic should begin to get worried!
Yes; this is my story: I heard Jesus and His disciples speaking Nigerian Pidgin
in a CD on the Passion of Christ playing from a video shop in Ibadan, and I was
worried. Oh, dear Jesu, dem don finish
you! Fada, try forgive dem, for dem
no sabi wetin dem de do!
I heard that
one Nigerian Christian singer, Chuks Ofojebe, sometime ago sang that Jesus in
Africa has to enter the canteen, relax and get ready to be served eba. And He has to eat it with His naked fingers! Jesus in Africa
must be African and must be Africanized in every aspect.
So, when Sam
Ezugwu recently released a Christian praise song, "Come Make We Thank Our
God," in Nigerian Pidgin, one was excited. Seeam here!
It seems that Heaven has eventually
recognized the language of common people in Nigeria; it seems that God now
speaks their variety of language, and may go beyond signification to begin to
fight for them.
No mind dem,
O Lord!
Talk Pidgin!
Carry go!
Make you
fight for us!
You also fit getam for YouTube.
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