Christianity In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

Achebe uses religion to not only give an example of how Christianity was used as a weapon of colonisation, but also how the Ibo religion pushed people to join the crusade as it were and aid and promote colonisation. One of Achebe’s main goals in Things Fall Apart is definitely to showcase the multifaceted beauty of the traditional Ibo culture and recapture a pre-colonial moment. However, this book was written for not only a western English speaking audience to bring forth a discourse in the field of postcolonial literature, but also So how does

Ibo religion is shown as a driving force that pushes the Ibo people into aiders of colonisation without realising their actions. While the people of the village of Umuofia revered their Gods and believed in the spirit cult of the egwugwu. They regularly gathered to hold court before these mystical spirits and they followed the prophecies of Chielo, the priestess of Agbala. But while the Ibo tradition is shown as a grand thing, it is also a …show more content…
He looks upon the Ibo people and sees them as a primitive tribe. The District Commissioner, too, talks to them as if they were children. He is full of arrogance and imposes power on the six leaders, without offering them any alternatives. The exchange between him and the egwugwu is much less respectful. Rather it is derogatory and humiliating, and depicts how the White man views the superiority of his own religion. Christianity is meant to be a religion of kindness, but here there is none of that. Umuofia, Okonkwo's village, also never went to war until it the Oracle had given them permission to do so and there was a valid reason to do so. Even at the end of the novel as Okonkwo and the rest rally for a war, he knows it will not happen. They will not fight their brothers, even if Okika has declared it as their only recourse as it is not within their