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Many religious texts misinterpreted to promote gender-based violence, says cleric

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By Juliana Agbo, Abuja

The Archbishop of the Lutheran Church of Christ in Nigeria (LCCN), Rev. Dr Panti Filibus Musa, has said many religious texts are often misinterpreted and manipulated to widen the gap between men and women so as to encourage gender-based violence.

Rev. Musa, who is also the President of Lutheran World Federation (LWF), made this known to The Nation in Abuja while receiving award of Patron of Gender Justice.

He reiterated the need to review the understanding of religious texts and its right interpretations.

According to him, “If we want to make progress, we have to review the way we understand our religious texts and how it is interpreted to look at men and women as being created in the image of God.

“There is always that tendency that the Bible is misused and these issues will continue to grow.

He further said the cases of the violence in some homes against women and the girl-child has been fuelled by the pandemic, whereby people were in a lockdown for a long period of time.

While explaining that the award will spur him to do more and seek more partnerships in order to promote efforts against the menace in the country, he said there will be more collaboration now at the country level to look at the issue as a societal and systemic issue that cannot be addressed just by one person and organisation.

“This requires a specific strategy to take this to the grassroots level by social organisations and government. We need to do beyond speeches and presentations but work towards this to be sustained.

“It should continue all the time with strategies also by teaching our children at home, schools and religious organisations. They need to grow up with the transformed attitude.

“There must be many approaches dealing with this issue. This is about transforming the heart of men and women and how we deal with our religious texts”, he said.

He however called on the government to implement policies that are on ground at various levels and work towards them to be sustained.

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