Imprecatory Prayer and Its Implications for the Nigerian Church: A Christological Perspective

Abstract

Imprecatory prayers in this paper is described as a way of venting one’s rage against or cursing one’s enemy to death using the instrument of potent or offensive words to achieve the desired result. Albeit, it is a phenomenon that thrives in the past, mostly among the Pentecostal churches in Nigeria, but has gradually crept into some orthodox churches in today’s Christian worship. This problem is not limited to Nigeria alone, but Africa generally. It is a shared belief that through imprecations, evil forces will be neutralized, dislodged, and strangulated, or better still, can avert the impending doom or evil plan targeted at the adherent and thus reverse it directly upon the evil- wisher. This is popularly known as operation “Back to Sender” or “Fire for Fire.” Churches, where these practices abound, claim that imprecations are biblical. Their reference points reside on the selected biblical proof texts that have an element of curses in the book of Psalms and allude to Pauline and Petrine speeches in the book of Acts. Hence, the paper employs the discursive and analytical approach in examining the topic. It provides a wealth of imprecations in both the Psalms and Acts for a dialogical discourse among distinguished scholars. The findings showed that, though some portions within the Bible have a curse element, Christ’s command on loving our enemies and praying for our persecutors was a divine order that must be obeyed by the church universal.