Human Rights and the Mission of the Church in Nigeria

Book excerpt: The human rights question constitutes a vital link to the mission of the Christian Church. The Church is thereby obliged by principles of the gospel mandate to defend, promote, and protect human rights. Using the Nigerian context as a model, this book examines how the Church exercises its mission towards salvaging the deplorable situation of human rights violations. The Church is accused of intrusive, ethnocentric, and triumphalist tendencies in some methods and structures, which constantly expose it to steady allegations of human rights violations. This scenario evokes an in-depth investigation into the matter to ascertain the extent of the Church's credibility and competence in the human rights question. (Series: TÃ?1⁄4binger Perspectives on Pastoral Theology and Religious Education / Tubinger Perspektiven zur Pastoraltheologie und Religionspadagogik - Vol. 46)