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Nativity Plays and Sociocultural Assumptions

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 We were at our son’s nativity play few days ago and I had a better time than I’d previously imagined. It was somehow cute seeing little children dressed up as sheep, cattle, donkeys, chickens, stars, and angels in an attempt to retell the Christmas story. There was a surprise though, in Nigeria, nativity plays usually feature three wise men, but here they had three “white” kings of orient. I imagine verisimilitude is difficult with an almost all-white cast! I joked to my wife at the end that they didn’t have the scene where Herod massacred toddlers— I imagine that is perhaps considered age-inappropriate , not cute and cuddly and bad for Christmas cheer. Subsequently, I have been thinking about this typical nativity scene portrayal and  how the way we typically read the Christmas story is well, mostly wrong. It is interesting that of all the four gospels only Matthew and Luke report the birth of Jesus. Matthew does not go into great detail about the birth of Jesus beyond repor...
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SUICIDE: A THEOLOGICAL APPROACH. Part 4

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  A  Pastoral  T heology  of Suicide When suicide occurs—whether within the church or beyond it—it often leaves communities reeling and burdened with painful, unresolved questions. While theological reflection may offer frameworks for understanding, such answers rarely alleviate the profound sense of desolation experienced by those left behind.   Pastoral theology invites us to hold tenderly the tension between God’s justice and mercy, recognizing that our doctrinal convictions about salvation and judgment profoundly shape how we minister compassionately to those affected by suicide.   In this section, our aim is to explore some of these questions and offer pastoral insights that may help guide care, presence, and compassion in the face of such loss. Is  suicide a sin? Throughout church history, Christians have wrestled over this question. Another similar  issue  is  to wonder if  Christians who die  by suicide  forfeit t...
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SUICIDE: A THEOLOGICAL APPROACH. Part 3

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  A  H istorical  T heology  of Suicide S uicide in the  P atristic  p er iod  (AD  100  to 500) There was no sustained theological reflection on suicide during the early patristic period. One proposed reason for this silence is the assumption that suicide was fundamentally incompatible with the Christian moral framework. As such, it was not initially treated as a pressing ethical or theological issue requiring explicit engagement. The act was implicitly regarded as  untenable  for a believer. This changed with the work of Lactantius (c. 240–320), who, in his apologetic writings against pagan philosophy, offered a more explicit condemnation of suicide. He characterized it as not merely a sin, but a greater crime than homicide. Lactantius argued that the person who dies by suicide is guilty of murder and, more significantly, of usurping the divine prerogative, since God alone is the giver and taker of life (Roberts et al., 2022). In...
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SUICIDE: A THEOLOGICAL APPROACH. Part 2

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  Suicide in the Bib l e The Bible is fundamentally a theological text , chronicling God’s redemptive work across the grand narrative of creation, fall, redemption, and new creation . While it is not a psychiatric or psychological manual , it offers profound insights into the human condition, as it portrays God’s interaction with real people facing real struggles. Many of the emotional and existential experiences recorded in Scripture resonate deeply with the challenges faced by individuals today. In this way, although the biblical narrative is embedded within specific historical, cultural, sociological, and literary contexts, its theological message transcends these boundaries, remaining relevant and applicable across time and cultures. Nonetheless, caution is  needed  when interpreting the biblical text through the lens of modern psychological categories. It is important to avoid uncritically imposing contemporary Western psychiatric constructs onto ancient texts, lest ...
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