God and the Worship of God

About the Book

God for man is at home, not away in distant skies. The kingdom of heaven and the hope of glory are within. Divinity lies buried under the motions of the Body and the scurrying of the Mind. It is the still small voice, drowned out mostly by the clamor of material and mental interests. It is a pure, mild Presence, awaiting the day when the Mind will give heed to its quiet speech.

The Supreme God is not available; but within the quietude of his own Body every man may find a fragment of that same God, made personal in his own individuality. He has placed in our nature a share of his own life. He has apportioned amongst all his creatures that measure of his power which each is capable of receiving. Chi or Oke-Chukwu (my share of God) is the name given by the Igbos of Nigeria to this share or portion of God residing in all creatures.

In man the indwelling Spirit is the Christos, the son of the Almighty Father. This portion of divinity within the Body is all of God that man can possibly absorb. The cosmic God is hardly an object of worship by humanity; but that segmented portion of God that is lodged within the Body of mortals Ð that is the actual divinity assigned to receive the attention, homage and worship of mankind, and to be eaten sacrificially.

Man is a triune entity comprising the Body and the Mind held together by the Spirit. The Mind is an organizing intelligence seated in the brain, from where it thinks, plans and imagines.

The Mind, amid life's din is bewildered and becomes an actor, wearing different masks to suit the different roles it has to play. It acquires a host of false personalities - an "I" for each situation. These false personalities aggregate on the surface of the Mind, forming a mask called the Ego.

ManÕs indigence arose from his total loss of contact with his own Spirit or God. The way to his salvation is the dissolution of this Ego and the re-establishment of the lost contact with his Spirit.

When the Mind surrenders its Ego to the Spirit, the latter becomes its friend, ally, Guide and Shepherd. We re-become as little children, fit to enter the Kingdom of the God within. Mind communing with Spirit is true worship.

About the Author

Emmanuel K. Anizoba: A Biographical Note

Born in 1945, Emmanuel K. Anizoba was brought up in a Christian family with a strong Polytheistic ancestry, in Umubele village of the blacksmith town Awka, Anambra State, Nigeria. Being the son of a government teacher, he accompanied his father during the latter's movements from one school to another and attended government primary schools at Ajali, Awka and Afikpo. A very turbulent youth, he attended secondary school at Okongwu Memorial Grammar School Nnewi (1960-63) and Igwebuike Grammar School Awka (1964). Having performed poorly at the end of his secondary school career (bagged a grade 3 school leaving certificate!), he entered the civil service in 1965 at Enugu as a finance clerk from where he joined the Biafran army (July 1967 - January 1970).

In June 1970, his eldest sister invited him to Geneva, Switzerland, to study French in order to gain admission to study economics at the University of Fribourg. At Fribourg, he got a Licence es Sciences Economiques et Sociales in 1976 and in 1979 he got a PhD in Econometrics. He was on the Dean's list at the University of Fribourg and was appointed Teaching Assistant to the Econometrics Chair. In 1980 he left Switzerland for Nigeria, where he continued his brief teaching career at the University of Port Harcourt.

He joined the African Development Bank (AFDB) in 1981 as a Statistician Economist. At the AFDB he managed the Loan Accounting & Financial Statistics Division (1996 - 2001) before being appointed Advisor to AfDB's Financial Controller in 2002.

At the age of sixty years, Emmanuel K. Anizoba retired from the AfDB in April 2005. He settled in his Umubele village Awka home, where efforts are underway to revive the polytheistic and living tradition of his ancestors. He is married and has five children.