The Relevance of African Independent Churches to the Yoruba of South Western Part of Nigeria

Abstract

African Independent churches (AICs) have contributed immensely to the spirituality and preservation of values and traditional institutions of the Yoruba people in the southwestern Nigeria. Emerging from the missionary’s and colonialist’s imposition of western ideals, liturgy and life styles, African Independent Churches penetrated into the minds of the Yoruba people through contextualization of the bible’s truth and de-westernization of the gospel. Hence, they prevailed in interpreting the bible from African’s perspective. The relevance of AICs is therefore obvious in the entire life of the Yoruba people ranging from their culture, spirituality, politics, social life, economy, education and others. It is therefore evident that, the relevance of AICs has led to its proliferation and attracted a numerous membership from all walks of life in the South western Nigeria. Interestingly, a good number of the missionary churches have today taken a cue from the AICs to incorporate some of the ideals of AICs into their churches especially in the area of respect for some of the African culture they found compatible with the Christian Bible

Key words: African Independent Churches, Relevance, Culture, Colonialism, Liturgy