Transcript

Word To Us · WBCA Podcasts

8:14
"So I'm Nigerian"
8:16
"I said that in the beginning"
8:18
"Both my parents were raised Christian"
8:20
"I'd like to say"
8:23
"They weren't raised in any specific - what's it called?"
8:25
"Uh, what's it called? Denomination" "Denomination"
8:28
"But I was baptized as a child"
8:30
"Me too" "I'm pretty sure my parents were baptized as a child"
8:32
"Yup" "So I don't know if that makes us Catholic"
8:34
"Or I don't know exactly how that works"
8:39
"Yeah" "But nonetheless they were both raised Christian"
8:42
"I was raised in a Catholic [Christian] household" "Yup" "I was baptized as a child"
8:45
"And one thing that I find"
8:49
"I guess variations"
8:51
"Let me talk about variations specifically within Nigeria"
8:56
"Compare to America because I'm not very well versed in how Christianity kind of evolved within America"
9:02
"But I can speak for the whole of Nigeria in the sense that"
9:04
"Nigeria is a multi-ethnic country" "Mhm"
9:09
"So number one"
9:11
"Like there are multiple tribes within Nigeria"
9:13
"Mhm" "Like they all have their own cultures and their own customs right?"
9:18
"And the Southern part of Nigeria are mostly Muslim. You know what I'm saying, they follow Islam"
9:26
"Most of them are underneath the Hausa-Fulani which is a tribe in Nigeria" "Mhm"
9:31
"They're the biggest tribe in Nigeria which all usually preside in the South"
9:35
"And then if you move- Sorry not South, the North"
9:37
"And then you move South which is where my family's from"
9:40
"You have a bunch of different other tribes"
9:42
"Some of those tribes would be Igbo and Yoruba" "Yes"
9:45
"Those are tribes that have been Christianized" "Yes"
9:48
"By- during the Colonial era, right?" "Yeah"
9:51
"And while these tribes still have their own customs and traditions"
9:55
"Mhm" "That follow sort of spiritual practices in some format"
9:57
"Mhm" "They mostly, again, they have been Christianized to a certain degree"
10:02
"They baptize their children you know what I'm saying" "Mhm"
10:05
"There's mass churches all around"
10:08
"The Southern part of Nigeria, you know like its actually insane"
10:14
"I guess in some sense it's kind of strange and a little interesting to see how Christianity evolved within each of these different cultures"
10:28
"Because of the fact that again in a multi-ethnic place"
10:31
"How do you evolve one religion into the main religion" "Yeah"
10:34
"Amongst all those different people, you know what I'm saying?"
10:37
"Mhm" "People who don't even speak the same language"
10:38
"Right" "Following the same religion and it's very interesting to kind of"
10:41
"See how they all portray that in their own way"
10:44
"So growing up in a Nigerian-Christian household"
10:47
"Mhm" "You know, let's talk about just Christianity developing as a child, you know what I'm saying"
10:54
"In the sense like
10:56
"You grow up not knowing anything else, you know what I'm saying" "Yeah literally"
10:59
"It's like the only thing you know is Christianity"
11:01
"And I assume that's the same for any other outwardly practicing religion, you know what I'm saying" "Yeah"
11:05
"You grow up not knowing the other ones that exist, you know what I'm saying" "Mhm"
11:08
"But, I feel like as a child
11:11
"When- as you're going through things and sort of developing
11:13
"And you're kind of like trying to formulate your identity and stuff like that" "Mhm"
11:16
"Being introduced to other cultures never made me feel as though I wasn't centered in my own religion"
11:23
"Yeah" "You know what I'm saying"
11:24
"Like we learn about Buddhism and Daoism and all these- and Judaism"
11:31
"We learned this in history class in elementary school" "Yeah"
11:33
"And it was never that I never felt anything other than Christian you know what I'm saying"
11:38
"I felt that I was pretty devout as a child within my Christianity you know what I'm saying" "Me too"
11:43
"Prayed every night, my family did that, that was one thing we did"
11:46
"Went to church every Sunday you know what I'm saying" "Yup"
11:51
"Prayed before you ate" "Yup"
11:53
"I used to- you can ask my seventh grade teacher- it was so funny"
11:55
"I used to have a bible" "Oh yes"
11:57
"I used to have a bible in school and I had that bible with me everywhere I went" "Me too"
12:00
"I used to put it on my desk in school and he said 'you can't do that'"
12:03
"And I said 'but this is my religion' and we had a whole conversation about it"
12:06
"Oh my gosh"
12:08
"I was like- I was a pretty- if not- I would like to say the word devout but performative could be used"
12:16
"But I was a pretty devout Christian at least at that young age"
12:32
"Exactly, you know again growing up around other people"
12:36
"Who also follow the same religion as you, you know what I'm saying"
12:39
"Exactly, you don't really see anything else, you know what I'm saying"
12:42
"Right" "But I think"
12:45
"I don't know. The age in which I"
12:48
"I think I started to kind of like question that"
12:52
"Not even question, I don't think that's the right word for it"
12:54
"I think the age in which I started to kind of"
12:59
"Inspect that belief" "Mhm"
13:01
"Was, um, probably around eighth grade"
13:06
"Mhm" "Like a little bit before high school"
13:08
"Because at that time"
13:11
"That was when- well, number one"
13:14
"At that time, I had become friends with people who were not devoutly Christian" "Right"
13:20
"And then- my- they're still close friends with me, I had a couple of friends who were atheists"
13:26
"Uh huh" "They didn't believe in God"
13:29
"And while that wasn't something that I think I"
13:32
"Personally felt inclined to necessarily"
13:35
"It was something that definitely made me"
13:37
"Question my own foundation and beliefs"
13:41
"In terms of talking about myself more personally"
13:45
"Mhm" "Both of my parents were raised Christian"
13:49
"Actually I went back to Nigeria, maybe two or three years ago"
13:52
"And I got to see my father's church"
13:55
"Wow" "My father's fathers church"
13:57
"Wow" "Yeah"
14:00
"It was my grandfather's funeral, God rest his soul" "God rest his soul"
14:03
"Yeah, he brought me back to the original church"
14:05
"And you know it was such an experience"
14:07
"To see how different Nigerian churches were from American churches"
14:10
"Mhm" "It's kind of the same thing like"
14:14
"We'll look at churches in America you know what I'm saying, there's a"
14:17
"White churches" "Right"
14:20
"And then there's Black churches" "Right"
14:22
"Cause I'm like is it like big sanctuary"
14:24
"Are there smaller rooms? Is it a dedicated building?"
14:27
"Church in another building? Like I'm just-"
14:30
"So, Nigeria's a- again, it's not a very wealthy country"
14:33
"So, it was one center of course"
14:36
"Mhm" "I think they might've- in my"
14:40
"Verbiage, they have the same aura or sense of like"
14:42
"Yeah" "The way they preach"
14:45
"And the way they kind of like"
14:47
"Show off their culture"
14:50
"Within the religion, you know what I'm saying and it's very much louder"
14:52
"Than the traditional white- what's it called? White Christianity is."
14:56
"Yeah" "Like I feel that when I go to whiter churches"
14:59
"You know what I'm saying, it's very quiet, it's very controlled" "Yes"
15:02
"You know what I'm saying. It's very within itself" "Yes"
15:05
"While with Black churches, again the church that I went to back in Nigeria you know what I'm saying"
15:09
"It's very loud, people are jumping, people are dancing"
15:12
"People are you know what I'm saying" "Yeah"
15:13
"People are shouting you know what I'm saying that's a-"
15:15
"That's a way they learned how to express their religion"
15:19
"So in that sense it's kind of"
15:22
"Interesting to see the dynamics"
15:24
"Between Christianity developing in"
15:27
"The Black America versus Christianity developing in Africa"
15:31
"Yeah" "Because you know two very different places"
15:34
"Two very geographically distant places"
15:36
"Evolving almost in the same format, you know what I'm saying"
16:56
"Yes and I began to"
16:58
"Hang around, you know what I'm saying, circle"
17:01
"Circle myself with people"
17:03
"Who did not follow the same religion as me"
17:06
"And again I don't think that's made me"
17:08
"Step away from my religion" "Mhm"
17:10
"As much as it made me"
17:11
"Inspect my religion a little more" "Yeah"
17:14
"You know what I'm saying" "Yup"
17:15
"And even more, I think the reason why I was"
17:17
"So close to these people was because"
17:19
"At that time I was also grappling with other"
17:21
"Versions of my identity" "Mhm"
17:23
"That I wasn't really sure about" "Mhm"
17:26
"And seeing them able to live"
17:27
"In their identity"
17:29
"To, if not the fullest"
17:31
"Of being able to live it" "Yup"
17:33
"Kind of made me grapple with"
17:35
"Where my identity stood at"
17:37
"Not only in terms of my religion"
17:39
"But just in general you know what I'm saying" "Yeah"
17:42
"I came out as gay"
17:44
"Mhm" "Sophomore year of high school"
17:46
"But I knew I was gay" "Mhm"
17:49
"Maybe seventh or eighth grade"
17:51
"The middle school I went to was very"
17:55
"How do I talk about this?"
17:57
"You know I would say very predominantly"
18:00
"African American"
18:02
"Caribbean"
18:04
"Caribbean predominant Christian-ish school"
18:07
"You know what I'm saying" "Yeah"
18:09
"Everybody kind of like had the same"
18:11
"Not grew up the same"
18:13
"But like their parents"
18:14
"But their parents had similar" "Yeah"
18:17
"Of what Christianity looked like for them"
18:18
"Got you"
18:20
"So to diverge"
18:23
"From the"
18:25
"The pathway, you know what I'm saying"
18:27
"The mentality was not"
18:30
"The mentality was like 'you know, now's not the ideal [time]"
18:34
"You know what I'm saying"
18:35
"I'm strong but I'm not that strong"
18:39
"But then high school came along"
18:41
"And high school was a whole different crowd of people"
18:44
"I mean number one"
18:46
"Different race you know what I'm saying"
19:25
"No, I was a Bsie [came in at 9th grade]
20:04
"My thing is- I- you know"
20:06
"It really depends on"
20:08
"Who you are as a person" "That's true"
20:10
"I think I would have developed"
20:12
"Interestingly"
20:14
"Regardless of where I went to school, you know what I'm saying"
20:16
"Yeah me too" "But I feel like being in BLS"
20:17
"Felt a little bit more"
20:19
"I'm not gonna say freeing you know what I'm saying"
20:22
"But I think I had a little bit more
20:24
"Room to move around you know" "Yeah"
20:26
"I feel like again in my old school"
20:28
"Everything was one way or it was the hard way"
20:30
"Yeah" "And I really didn't want to choose the hard way"
20:35
"But you know BLS had all these di-"
20:37
"I'm not gonna say diverse you know I'm not gonna say that much"
20:39
"Different people"
20:42
"A lot of white people"
20:56
"Things you don't really know until you're in"
20:58
"In it" "In these different groups you know what I'm saying"
21:00
"Like I didn't even know there was"
21:03
"I didn't even know there was different like- you know like"
21:06
"I knew Asia was different places" "Yes"
21:08
"But I never understood all the different customs"
21:10
"Yes"
21:55
"Exactly which goes back into the religion topic"
22:00
"It's like- okay, again"
22:02
"The friends I made they were also"
22:05
"Gay, LGBTQ+"
22:07
"But they were not the same religion as me you know what I'm saying" "Right"
22:11
"So they were all atheist" "Right"
22:13
"And, you know, they all have their reasons for being atheist"
22:16
"Or- I think they were all also raised in Christian households"
22:20
"Mhm" "Which didn't connect to them at their stage in life"
22:22
"Maybe, around the same time that we all entered high school"
22:26
"Mhm" "But I was still Christian and still believe in Christianity to this day"
22:31
"Again, it made me kind of question where I was at because"
22:35
"Because now you have all these different perspectives, you know what I'm saying, challenging"
22:39
"You know the foundation that you laid" "Exactly"
22:41
"Circle myself with people"
22:43
"And on top of that you already have this shaky identity"
22:44
"Right" "You know what I'm saying"
22:46
"You're already questioning things"
22:48
"Trying to figure things out for yourself"
22:50
"Mhm"
22:52
"And it kind of makes it hard, you know what I'm saying"
22:54
"It makes it hard to kind of stand in one thing"
22:57
"Mhm" "Especially when those things feel like polar opposites"
23:00
"Exactly"
23:02
"And they're not! I don't want to express them as though they are"
23:06
"But a lot of people do see it that way"
23:11
"There's not a lot of space when it comes to the discussion of homosexuality in regards to Christianity"
23:23
"And it's something that I think I'm still trying to understand to this day"
23:28
"I don't know if you have anything to add"