Dr Glenvile Ash­by

The tem­per­a­ture had risen to an un­con­scionable 97 de­grees, enough to make you va­cate the streets of mid­town Man­hat­tan. But do­ing so was nev­er re­al­ly an op­tion. You see, an im­por­tant mes­sage had to be de­liv­ered."It was ab­solute­ly nec­es­sary," ac­cord­ing to Ifa priest, Ma­ha­ba Olufe­mi.In a swanky eatery, Ma­ha­ba and wife Jacque­line Ahy­ee, both draped in eye-pop­ping Africa rai­ment sat, ate, and opined on what they viewed as "detri­men­tal prac­tices" with­in the Or­isha and Shango Bap­tist faiths.Ma­ha­ba, who claimed Shango Bap­tist roots from his moth­er's lin­eage, mourned when he was a teenag­er. His spir­i­tu­al trav­els are ex­ten­sive and im­pres­sive. This, he shares with his wife, al­so an Ifa priest.For a mo­ment he ex­plained the fun­da­men­tals of the faith-the mer­cy seat, fast­ing,mourn­ing, and an­nu­al feasts.He iden­ti­fied some Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tists as in­im­i­cal to the Or­isha prac­tice, of hav­ing in­ter­nalised the mis­guid­ed Eu­ro­pean be­liefs of the African re­li­gion-as ne­far­i­ous and un­civilised.

"Then there are oth­ers who are friend­ly, will at­tend Thanks­giv­ing and pil­grim­ages, but nev­er get ini­ti­at­ed as Or­isha devo­tees," he said.The Shango Bap­tists he called "the third group that wears two hats-who mix Bap­tist and Or­isha prac­tices." But he iden­ti­fied an­oth­er fac­tion, which he pe­jo­ra­tive­ly called, "the Elite priest­hood" in the Yoru­ba tra­di­tion."This is where the trou­ble be­gins," he said.He railed against the grow­ing ef­forts of this emerg­ing group to "Yoru­bise every­thing by break­ing with Caribbean tra­di­tions, and in ef­fect, "triv­i­alise the work that so many in the Shango faith have built and pre­served for cen­turies."These new com­ers are iso­la­tion­ists," he said, ac­cus­ing them of be­ing dri­ven by class, and in­tel­lec­tu­al ar­ro­gance.He warned against such prac­tices that are de­struc­tive to the uni­ty of all Yoru­ba peo­ples, al­though he con­ced­ed that re­mov­ing the Chris­t­ian el­e­ment in the Or­isha wor­ship will even­tu­al­ly oc­cur."Yes, we should, over­time elim­i­nate in­fant bap­tism and re­place it with Es­en­taye, and change the bur­ial and mar­riage rites, but in time. Yes, I recog­nise the syn­creti­sa­tion came out of op­pres­sion and to­day there is no need for it, but change can­not come overnight," he ar­gued.And in­vok­ing his­to­ry, he ad­vised that the faith­ful seek a com­mon ground.

"The Shouter Bap­tist Pro­hi­bi­tion Or­di­nance was an at­tack against all of us," he said."Yet," he said, "peo­ple are en­gag­ing in high­ly sus­pi­cious prac­tices, even the one who claim to be on the strict­ly Yoru­ba path."Ma­ha­ba ques­tioned the pro­lif­er­a­tion of ti­tles in the Or­isha faith and chal­lenged the au­then­tic­i­ty and depth of learn­ing by "so called Yoru­ba priests.""To be­come a priest, you have to im­merse your­self in the lan­guage, go to Nige­ria and study, not for two weeks or a month but for a few years. That's the foun­da­tion of any mean­ing­ful qual­i­fi­ca­tion," he said.He went on to char­ac­terise Ifa or the Yoru­ba Sys­tem of Div­ina­tion and Knowl­edge as com­plex, and for the most part, oral­ly trans­mit­ted, al­though he men­tioned some au­thor­i­ta­tive books by Wande Abim­bo­la, spokesper­son for the Or­isha Tra­di­tion world­wide, "as help­ful.""But, how else can you re­al­ly ac­cess the knowl­edge, un­less you live with the peo­ple?" he asked rhetor­i­cal­ly. Ma­ha­ba and his wife, who trav­elled to Nige­ria af­ter re­sign­ing from their jobs and sell­ing their pos­ses­sions, are livid over the coun­ter­pro­duc­tive, even im­plo­sive trends with­in the Or­isha and Shango Bap­tist move­ments."Peo­ple are buy­ing ti­tles," Ma­ha­ba said.

"The term 'chief' was used loose­ly by Eu­ro­peans to iden­ti­fy one in a high po­si­tion which could be sec­u­lar. Yet, we see all these chief­tain ti­tles giv­en to peo­ple with no ex­pe­ri­ence in any­thing. What we are see­ing to­day is show­case spir­i­tu­al­i­ty."He cau­tioned the Or­isha faith­ful that they risked ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a prob­lem be­set­ting the Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist faith in New York, which someti­He at­trib­uted this prob­lem to ar­ro­gance and ego, and the in­for­mal struc­ture of the church, with no mean­ing­ful over­see­ing as­so­ci­a­tions."Every Bap­tist leader is a law un­to him­self, so there is no ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy that you find in oth­er re­li­gions.And in clos­ing, he is­sued a call to the faith­ful to re­frain from a "de­struc­tive prac­tice" with­in both move­ments."To de­ceive in­no­cent peo­ple and some­how tell them that the Shango Bap­tist and Or­isha faiths are con­nect­ed to the Kab­bal­ah, is wrong."This de­mon­ic prac­tice did not orig­i­nate from the Egypt­ian mys­ter­ies ei­ther, and on­ly stains the im­age of both tra­di­tions."He chal­lenged the fol­low­ers of the two faiths to re­sist cor­rup­tion and du­plic­i­ty, urg­ing them to em­bark on a jour­ney of self dis­cov­ery, em­pow­er­ment and com­mu­nal de­vel­op­ment. "No one will do it for us, and if we fail, we on­ly have our­selves to blame."

• Dr Glenville Ash­by is a for­eign cor­re­spon­dent for the Guardian Me­dia Group

glenvil­leash­by@gmail.com