200 Girls Still Missing, Victims of Nigeria's Religious War

[cbayer]

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/7829/200_girls_still_missing__victims_of_nigeria_s_religious_war/

April 29, 2014

The pentecostal prosperity gospel that pervades Christian Nigeria is tested by a terrorist attack on a school, and the kidnapping of its students.

By ANTHEA BUTLER
Anthea Butler [@AntheaButler] is a Contributing Editor to Religion Dispatches. Her forthcoming book, The Gospel According To Sarah: How Sarah Palin’s Tea Party Angels are Galvanizing the Religious Right will be out in 2013.

Women take to the streets in Nigeria to protest Boko Haram's violence against children

In a nightmarish act of violence, Islamist insurgents, members of Boko Haram, forcibly kidnapped 240 girls in the middle of the night on April 14th, burning their school. While a few girls escaped, 200 or so are still missing.

The name "Boko Haram" translates to "western education is a sin," and the kidnapping of these young girls is a way to put the fine point on what the group detests: education. The kidnapping is also a way to let their enemies know what they want: an Islamic state in Nigeria.

While President Goodluck Jonathan and others have said the struggle with Boko Haram is not a religious war, as the terrorist group targets Christians as well as Muslims, it is impossible to deny the role of religion in the conflict. The fate of these young women who have been kidnapped, and the fact that the government has not been effective in rooting out Boko Haram, lies in religious understandings, and an ineffectual president resting on his Christian laurels.

President Goodluck Jonathan, a pentecostal, has held prayer meetings, called for councils, but remains remarkably silent on the kidnapping. Perhaps that is because he was busy preparing the gold iPhones for his daughter's wedding which took place right after the kidnapping.

more at link

[cbayer]

1. Kicking for exposure.

It's becoming murkier as to what role religion may or may not be playing in this scenario, but it's unspeakable tragic and still going on.