7 - The Baptist Church in Ede: Christian Struggles over Education and Land

Summary

As the earlier chapters of this book have illustrated, Islam was established in Ede at the town and compound level by individuals committed to contributing to the town, dramatically so in the figure of Buremo, the town's first Muslim, who helped the Tìmì save Ede by miraculously defeating the Ibadan army (see chapters 2 and 3). While the conversion to Islam of individuals created difficulties in many families and compounds, the creation of new and explicitly Muslim compounds helped to resolve these. And although the reign of the town's first Muslim Tìmì met with resistance, it nonetheless contributed to the acceptance of Islam as the dominant religion. While the later emergence of competing Muslim groups illustrates the tensions internal to the town's Muslim community, it is fair to say that by the early twentieth century Islam was firmly rooted in Ede both at the town and compound level.

In contrast, Christianity arrived in Ede through missionaries whose primary aim was to convert individuals, whom they offered often exclusive access to educational and spiritual resources. These resources were usually linked to the wider networks of their particular church, which provided the initial funds required to set them up. Understanding individual change as the basis for communal progress rather than vice versa, the overall wellbeing of the town, or even the formation of an ecumenical Christian community at town level, was a secondary concern for many Christian missionaries. But if the low degree of inclusion into local structures disadvantaged the development of a Christian community, it did not always disadvantage Christian individuals, who were drawn into networks beyond the town through their educational achievements. As a result, the early Christian groups in Ede experienced a strong tension between loyalty to the individual churches, which often provided the resources that made Christianity attractive, and the need to be embedded in the town's relevant forms of social and political organisation.

In towns like Ede, this perceived Christian emphasis on individual success rather than the public good thus challenged notions of town politics in which all sections contributed to communal progress.