Survivors, theologians and church leaders debate whether mercy can coexist with justice, protection and agency.
By Mary Kiara
LAGOS, Nigeria – When Reverend Stephen Ojapah walked toward what he believed was his execution, his captor asked if he harbored animosity. But the Catholic Priest, abducted from his parish and beaten during captivity, offered forgiveness.
Yet that profound personal act of spiritual grace sits uneasily beside a harsh reality on the ground: Christian communities across Nigeria’s Middle Belt continue to face targeted violence, abductions, and village clearances.
As the death toll mounts, a complex debate is unfolding among clergy, scholars, and frontline survivors over how faith should respond to systematic terror.
While some church leaders emphasize traditional endurance and personal reconciliation, a growing chorus of frontline pastors and traumatized survivors argue that spiritual mercy cannot replace the state’s duty to enforce justice, or a community’s right to survival.
Father Ojapah himself draws a sharp line between his personal spiritual choices as a Christian and the secular obligations of the government.
“I am not asking the government to forgive terrorists,” Ojapah told TruthNigeria. “The government has a completely different role from me as a person.”
That distinction lies at the center of a difficult conversation taking place in pews across the country: How can believers reconcile the Christian call to forgive with the desperate need for defense and accountability?
The dilemma extends beyond Nigeria’s borders.
In neighboring Niger, Italian Catholic missionary Fr. Pier Luigi Maccalli spent 750 days in captivity after Islamist militants kidnapped him in 2018 and transported him into Mali. He eventually described forgiveness as part of the spiritual endurance in the desert.
But international and local observers note that individual endurance often contrasts sharply with the corporate need for community protection.
The Tension between Spiritual Grace and State Justice
When 20-year-old student Deborah Emmanuel was stoned and burned by violent classmates in Sokoto in May 2022, her grieving father, Garba Emmanuel, surrendered any demand for temporal justice, stating publicly: “We leave it all to God.”
For theologians examining the crisis, the challenge lies in ensuring that personal acts of forgiveness are not misinterpreted as institutional resignation or a green light for lawlessness.
“What I see whenever I hear of this idea of Christians just essentially needing to silently go to their deaths is a narrow interpretation of Scripture in a way that perpetuates Christian passivity and a lack of Christian agency,” Dr. Christopher Wadibia, an independent scholar and author of Political Pentecostalism and Faith-Based Development in Nigeria, told TruthNigeria.
“Throughout 2,000 years of global Christian history, Christian communities have organized institutions to protect vulnerable believers, such as the Knights Templar during the medieval period. Christian passivity in the face of violent extremism is inappropriate.”
Historical papal teachings on mercy consistently separate personal forgiveness from the state’s mandate to maintain public safety.
Yet institutional church leaders often advise extreme caution of a pragmatic assessment of local hostility.
“If you live in a hostile environment, watch what you say, watch your tongue,” Rev. Joseph Hayab, Northern Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, said in an interview with TruthNigeria.
“Some Christians live in pretense, using names that make them unidentifiable as Christians; we don’t blame any Christian for being timid because the laws won’t protect them. Apply wisdom, because speaking carelessly causes the entire church sorrow.”
For many northern believers, what appears to outsiders as quiet resignation is simply a survival strategy in regions where formal security is absent.
Frontline Victims Demand Temporal Justice
On the farmlands of Benue and Plateau states, however, victims of targeted massacres express a different sentiment, insisting that temporal justice must take precedence before spiritual reconciliation can be considered.
“How can I forgive people who did this to me for no reason?” Christiana Joseph, a 20-year-old survivor whose father was killed by Fulani militants on his farm in Benue State, told TruthNigeria. “No. Let the government punish them first. Justice must be done. If there is no punishment, they will just go and kill more people.”
This grassroots pain has led several frontline clergy to take an active stance on community protection.
Following a July 2026 night raid that killed 3 civilian guards, Reverend Ezekiel Dachomo of the Church of Christ in Nations issued a fierce rallying cry.
“Everybody go for self-defense! Defend yourself to death!” Dachomo announced, emphasizing that local believers would no longer stand by passively.”
“Christianity must survive. Our patience does not mean we are cowards.”
The Search for Accountability
The debate over self-defense is magnified by deep public distrust of state security agencies.
Critics frequently point to official rhetoric, such as statements by National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu describing insurgents as misguided brothers, as evidence of an institutional reluctance to confront the threat decisively.
“When communities stay silent out of fear, they effectively act as a structural lifeline for these groups,” former intelligence officer Dennis Amachree told TruthNigeria.
As the violence across the agricultural belt continues, Nigerian Christians are navigating an agonizing path: maintaining their spiritual identity while seeking the physical security necessary to survive.
Mary Kiara reports on Terrorism and Religious Freedom Policy for TruthNigeria.
