Further themes in Christian drama in Nigeria

Abstract

This paper continues the exploration of themes in Christian drama in Nigeria beyond the scope we
treated in an earlier paper: “A Study of Selected Themes in Christian Drama in Nigeria”. In the paper we
discussed three important and common themes in Christian drama in Nigeria, namely: the theme of suffering, the theme of steadfastness under difficult conditions and the theme of love and forgiveness. Moreover, we recalled not only the definition of Christian drama, but also its classificatory schemes which we have presented in another paper “Definition of Christian Drama and Theatre”. We have made a case for the recognition of Christian drama as a distinctive subset within the general corpus of plays in Nigerian drama in English in an earlier paper, “A Survey of the Taxonomy of Contemporary Nigerian drama”. The purpose of this paper is to treat the additional themes: demonology, worldliness and materialism, and syncretic practices in the church. These themes which are interrelated are relevant in Christian literature. Before discussing the themes in question, we have provided a conceptual framework, from the general to theological perspective, for looking at the notions: demonology, worldliness, materialism and syncretism. We have used the following plays to illustrate the themes we are going to discuss in this paper: Cold Wings of Darkness and The Living Dead by A.E Anigala, Trial of the Beautiful Ones by Catherine Acholonu,The Secrets of the Devil, The beginning of the End and The Last Generation by Mike Bamiloye,The Church is the Problem by Samuel Ayodele and Evangelist Jeremiah by Sonny Oti.