Practice What It Preached

WaPo Nigerian Churches Tell West to Practice What It Preached on Gays - Christians Express Sense of Betrayal as European and U.S. Bodies Move to Accept Homosexuality, Once Denounced by Missionaries - Little more than a century ago, legions of Christian missionaries arrived here from Europe with an imposing agenda for changing traditional African practices. Worshiping animistic gods, they told people, was sinful. So was keeping carved idols at home. And in a land where polygamy was common, the missionaries taught that marriage was a sacred union between one man and one woman, period. Today, many devout Christian Nigerians adhere firmly to the view that homosexuality is ungodly, and they have been rankled by its growing acceptance among church leaders in the United States and Europe.

That is the problem with trying to be politically correct.

As the descendants of Nigerians who abandoned their traditional values under the influence of Western preaching, some Christians here say they feel betrayed and offended that the spiritual descendants of those missionaries are now trying to change the rules. "Homosexuality is against the book," said Dayo Okusami, 58, as she picked up a Bible at this month's opening of the National Ecumenical Center, a multi-denominational cathedral in this capital city. "Here we still follow the book. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of homosexuality. That's it. God doesn't change. He's not human." In a nearby pew, Julie Ade-Cole, 60, was even more adamant. "If America does not stop going in the direction of Sodom and Gomorrah, I can see God's wrath coming heavily down," said the retired government worker, who views the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina as divine punishment. "The Lord has favored them so much, they have started taking God for granted.

It is much worse than taking God for granted. Groupls like the ACLU are trying to banish him from the publlic square, completely.

They have become arrogant."