My deep appreciation goes to Professor Jonathan Draper, my supervisor, for his love and support throughout the period of the research studies. I am also indebted to Professor Gerald West; his concern and guiding comments at every stage of the course contributed greatly to the final shape of the dissertation.
List of Abbreviations
List of Appendices
Background to the Study
What is the attitude of Yoruba Anglican Christians in Ijebu/Remo area of Ogun State, Nigeria towards people living with HIV and AIDS. To explore the transformative potential of the texts in Luke, and to draw relevant implications for the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) in the HIV and AIDS era.
Theoretical Framework
First, the interpreter identifies his/her own specific context that dynamically matches the context of the text. They deal with the analysis of the biblical text in the light of the interpreter's context.
Research Methodology
Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with lay people and consecrated Anglicans. The topic of discussion was the Yoruba context and the outcasts. A survey of the Anglican Church's attitude to HIV and AIDS (using the dioceses of Ijebu, Remo and Ijebu North as case studies).
Research Design
- Research Method
- Focus Group Discussion
- Interactive Observation
- Contextual Bible Study Method
- Description of Participant and Context of Study
- Location of Study (Study Area)
- Study population
Project Area: The project area of the study is Ijebu-Remo Diocese of Ogun State. The study was conducted in the three dioceses of the Anglican Communion in the Ijebu-Remo division of Ogun State, Nigeria.
Research Ethical Clearance
- HIV and AIDS in Nigeria
- HIV and AIDS and Anglican Church in Nigeria
- The Concept of Stigma
- HIV and AIDS Stigma
- Stigma, HIV and AIDS and Church/Theology
- The Gospel of Luke
- The Man Luke
- Luke’s Audience
- Luke: The Historian and Theologian
- The Gospel of Luke and Stigma
- Unique Features in Luke’s Healing Accounts
- Healing and theme in Luke’s Gospel
- Healing in the Gospel of Luke
- Healing and Exorcism in Luke
- Healing and Leprosy in Luke’s Gospel
- Literature and Purity issues in relation to this Research
In addition, HIV and AIDS have also affected society's social systems. Underlying the discourse on the healing stories in the Gospel of Luke are Luke's theological themes.
Introduction
He is of the opinion that healing in Africa is an integral part of society and religion is a matter in which the whole community is involved. Healing in the Yoruba traditional setting is better studied within its cultural context and an understanding of the people's culture will lead to an acknowledgment of their belief patterns symbolized in their healthcare delivery system.
Concept of Culture
Jegede (1998:15) regarding the Yoruba culture observed that there are some basic sacred and secular beliefs that run through the traditional health system and provided a strong background for the association of diseases and behavior/attitudes among the Yoruba. Within the Yoruba culture, there are some basic sacred and secular beliefs that run through the traditional health system and they influence a strong base for healing and health problems.
Who are the Yoruba?
The twelve-fold scheme of Yoruba culture is as follows: Language, Governance, Myths, Fine Arts, Religion, Oral Literature, Law, Defense, Technology, Trade, Agriculture and Economics. Knowledge of the Yoruba religion is adequate for a thorough understanding of the Yoruba culture.
Ritual Context of Social Exclusion in YorubaLand
In a study conducted by Ilesanmi (2004), he drew a working diagram of the Yoruba people dividing the culture into twelve parts of a “living organism”. The Yoruba language is the core of their existence and is the vehicle through which other cultural disciplines find expression.
Purity and the Yoruba Traditional society
For this reason, the high Yoruba chief establishes a link between the members of the society and the deities. Devotees of the same deity are bound only by the same code of conduct and each deity condemns ritual and moral transgressions that are within his province (Awolalu and Dopamu 2005:235).
Selected Yoruba Sayings on Purity
When it comes to purity in the Yoruba context, the character of a person is of utmost importance in public purity. There is a saying among the Yoruba that goes: Imototo ile l'olori oun gbogbo, eni fe 'binrin obun, o'fowo reke ede, that is, “the cleanliness of a house is the head and anyone who is with an unclean woman gets married, has his money. stand out".
Spheres of Purity among the Yoruba
- Purity as an Act of Cleansing
- Purity as Celibacy or Deliberate Sexual Abstinence
- Purity as Contact with Sacred Objects and Sacrificial Blood
- Purity as Circumcision
- Purity as Abstaining from Taboos and Unethical Behaviours
The following is an exposition of the concept and practice of the purity system among the Yoruba. To repeat, among the Yoruba, purity is believed to be closely related to health matters.
Yoruba and Illness (Disease) Aisan
In the Yoruba cultural context, there are some taboos (eewo) and norms related to health, which are not codified in actual sense, but are transmitted orally from generation to generation. Kleinman (1978) said that disease, which is reserved for abnormalities in the structure and function of organs, is the center of the biomedical model.
Purity vis-à-vis Stigmatization and Discrimination
According to Talcott Parsons, the sick role obliges an individual to go from the community of the healthy to the world of the sick. Detection of the HIV pandemic in a particular family would cause such a family to lose its status in society.
Cultural Context of HIV and AIDS in Yoruba Society
The more personal and intimate the source of the ritual symbolism, the more telling is its message ... the body is a model that can stand for any bounded system. These are defined respectively as: "attempts to explain away rules of purity by reference to scientific, medical or hygienic principles" and "the assumption that all rituals and rules of primitive peoples are completely irrational and have only a magical or mystical meaning" (Bowie 2000) .
Social Change in Yorubaland
The presentation of Christianity to the Yoruba people by the European missionaries did not help them understand the concept of God and purity. Oke (1993) also argued that most people of the Yoruba nation respond to illness in accordance with their culture.
Purity System
The idea of purity was given an external physical expression in the integrity of the body, seen as a perfect vessel (Olyan 2008:2). Mary Douglas also refers to it in the third chapter of her book Purity and Danger, which is very appropriate for the idea of purity in the Old Testament.
Purity Maps in Jewish Context
It can also mean the boundaries or line of a particular society, the "image of society", says Douglas, has a shape; it has outer boundaries, edges, and an inner structure (Douglas. In the Jewish context, there are inner lines and boundaries that describe the social structure of society at the time of Jesus.
Body and Boundaries in the Jewish Context
The above discussion clearly demonstrated the fact that there was a fundamental concern with issues of impurity within the socio-historical context in which Jesus lived. The Judaism of his time was characterized by its diversity in its interpretation of Israel's laws of purity, but underlying the factional arguments were basic principles of practice and belief agreed upon by the generality of the Jewish people.
Purity in First Century Judaism
For the Pharisees, the future security of the nation depended on the achievement of purity. The Pharisees act as standard bearers of the search for purity and holiness in public life (Borg 1984:57).
Cultural View of the Context of Luke’s Gospel
However, the use of the social sciences in biblical interpretation has not been without critics. First, with the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, the symbolic universe of the Jews had been shattered.
A classification based on purity and impurity in Luke
Luke and Purity
For example, his "Woe to the Pharisees" form puts the two together in comparison to what is found in Matthew's Gospel (Luke 11:39-40). Gentile Christians do not need to be circumcised and contact with them does not defile (cf. Lk 11:38).
Historical Jesus and Purity
Jesus' understanding of holiness and thus purity was completely different from that of the Pharisees. It helps our understanding of the Pharisees' criticism of Jesus on matters of purity.
Moral purity and ritual purity: Jesus attitude to purity laws
On the whole, seen from the religious, social and political context of Jesus' time, i.e. according to McKnight, Jesus' table fellowship with sinners was a sign of God's forgiveness and a symbol of the eschatological kingdom.
Luke’s Jesus and the Law
The purity code speaks of distinction, division and separation, but Jesus preached and lived the vision of a new social life in the Kingdom of God. Therefore, it appears that Luke's Jesus is pious, obeying the requirements of the Torah, and Luke did not indicate a violation of the Torah when Jesus violates the rules of purity.
Leprosy and Purity Laws
Luke has Jesus instructing the lepers to show themselves to the priest, as in Luke 5:12-16; and he touched them not (contrary to Mark 1:41).
Conclusion
The story of the lepers can be seen as something about disease, impurity and exclusion in the ancient world, even though they were later healed by Jesus. Therefore, the biblical text can contribute to the church's understanding of and response to the problem in Nigeria today, through transformative reading of the Bible in Contextual Bible study groups.
The Bedrock of the Jesus’ Mission (Luke 4:16-19)
He did this by presenting statements about the extent of God's grace to the Gentiles. The phrase translated "to set free those who are oppressed" is taken from Isaiah 58:6 in the Septuagint (LXX).
The Anointing of Jesus
To establish a basis for our interpretation of the text, we first note that in the Jewish synagogue worship was divided into two parts. The second part witnessed a reading from the prophets, which was often followed by an explanation of the passage just read.
The Mission of Jesus
For this category, the good news is the provision of hope and salvation from their unpleasant situation in the Person and activities of the Messiah. In this context it conveys the power of the gospel to free from the slavery of sin.
Proclaiming the Year of the Lord’s Favour
- Why were the Lepers at the border?
- The Christological Title – Luke 17: 13
- Why send the lepers to the priest? Luke 17: 14
- The Samaritan Leper – Luke 17: 16
- A Limited Zone and Uniting Force
- The Story in the Synoptic Gospels
The story of the healing of the lepers is one of those polyvalent accounts of Jesus' miracles recorded in the synoptic gospels. Luke in the story of the lepers presented the lepers strictly according to the rituals of pollution and the boundaries of the context line.
- Luke 5: 12 “Bible passage”
- Luke 5: 13 – “Jesus’ Touch”
- Luke 5: 14
This verse contains two main themes: the imposition of silence and the instruction to go to the priest to perform the Mosaic rites - the purification ritual. All the synoptic gospels have the command to report to the priests and the command to perform the Mosaic ritual ceremonies; but the imposition of silence is not recorded in Matthew.
Purity rules and Boundaries in Luke 17:11-19 and Luke 5:12-15
In the story of the ten lepers in Luke 17:11-19, we can draw many parallels in our attitude toward people living with HIV and AIDS. People living with HIV and AIDS such as lepers are being marginalized and treated as unclean once their HIV and status is known.
Conclusion
The story offers Yoruba Christians a new horizon for understanding the Bible and Jesus' attitude towards the marginalized. Introduction: The agenda of this dissertation, as established from the outset, is to study the attitude of Jesus towards outcasts in the Gospel of Luke in the cultural context of the Yoruba.
The Perception of HIV and AIDS
These findings were consistent with the views of Orubuloye, Caldwell, and Caldwell (1993) in a study in Nigeria on clergy views of the disease, in which they found that the majority of clergy define HIV and AIDS as a punishment from God. People's perceptions of HIV and AIDS influence their attitudes toward people with HIV and AIDS and their families.
Attitudes to People Living with HIV and AIDS
However, 86.7% of respondents will not marry people living with HIV and AIDS, while 13.3% will marry them if necessary. This result was an expression of the positive attitude of people living with HIV in the study area.
Nature of stigma in Yorubaland
Respondents' perception that HIV and AIDS are a disease of immoral people and a punishment from God also has cultural undertones in that their belief system influences how they see and respond to things. It is widely believed among the predominant rural population that ill health is due to evil machinations of witches, gods and ancestors, and this belief system influences the health-seeking behavior of the people (Osunwole 1989).
Management of stigma in the study area
It is noteworthy that a family may do more than one of the above for members of their family living with HIV and AIDS. 11.2% are afraid of contracting the disease and 56% of the respondents were of the opinion that if HIV and AIDS are incurable, there is no point in taking care of them (PLWHA).
Discussion of Findings
In this case, the belief system of the people in the Yoruba context has determined the way they perceive HIV and AIDS. The researcher also discovered that the people's attitude towards people living with HIV and AIDS is a general positive attitude.
CONTEXTUAL BIBLE STUDY ON LUKE 17:11-19
- General Introduction: Read and summarize the story of Luke 17: 11 – 19
- SECTION A –
It was intended to focus on the content of the narrative, rather than its form, context, or history. The first part of the Contextual Bible Study was a set of textual questions posed in such a way as to stimulate discussion and also to force the group to gain critical distance from the text.
What is the text about?
- What Does The Passage Say About Lepers And Their Position In The Society Then?
- Where Were The Lepers Before They Met Jesus? And Why Was It So?
- What Was The Attitude Of Jesus To The Lepers?
- Why Did Jesus Ask Them To Show Themselves To The High Priest?
- Do We Have People In Our Communities Who Are Treated As Lepers Today? Why?
- SECTION B
- What Does This Text Say To People Living With HIV And AIDS?
- Is The Position Of Lepers In Luke 17:11-19 Similar To That Of The People Living With HIV And AIDS Today?
- Are Our Attitudes To PLWHA Also Influenced By The Socio-Cultural Realities In Our Land? Why?
- In The Light Of The Stories About Jesus Attitude In Luke 17, What Can You Infer To Be His Attitude To Outcasts?
- How Does Jesus Attitude Compared To The Christian Attitude To PLWHA Today? Any Differences And Or Similarities?
- Which Of The Attitude(S) Of Jesus Challenge Our Attitude As Christian To PLWHA In Our Context?
- How Can We Make An Impact On Our Community (And Our Church) About PLWHA And Our Attitude To Them?
- Hidden Transcript: People Living with HIV and AIDS
- Relating the Problem of Leprosy to HIV and AIDS
- Introduction
Is the position of the lepers in Luke 17:11-19 similar to that of people living with HIV and AIDS today. Providing counseling services to community members and people living with HIV/AIDS.
