Monday, October 24, 2005

Nigerian Churches Tell West to Practice What It Preached on Gays
Christians Express Sense of Betrayal as European and U.S. Bodies Move to Accept Homosexuality, Once Denounced by Missionaries
By Craig Timberg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, October 24, 2005

ABUJA, Nigeria -- Little more than a century ago, legions of Christian missionaries arrived here from Europe with an imposing agenda for changing traditional African practices. Worshiping animistic gods, they told people, was sinful. So was keeping carved idols at home. And in a land where polygamy was common, the missionaries taught that marriage was a sacred union between one man and one woman, period.

Today, many devout Christian Nigerians adhere firmly to the view that homosexuality is ungodly, and they have been rankled by its growing acceptance among church leaders in the United States and Europe. As the descendants of Nigerians who abandoned their traditional values under the influence of Western preaching, some Christians here say they feel betrayed and offended that the spiritual descendants of those missionaries are now trying to change the rules.
Story

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