By Badama, Ishaku Abuga
Freedom, which is Eleutheria in Greek, is a concept that is embraced by every human society but sometimes abused and misunderstood in its practice and application. Hence, the agitation to be free increasingly defines most human communities who struggle for liberation from existential human factors that enslave them. In Middle Belt of Nigeria, Christians’ expression of freedom is highly hampered by internal conflicts within the Church because of the challenges of ethno-religious crisis, religious discrimination and cultural imperialism by the northern hegemony and powerful feudal elements. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians communicated his concern for the Christians to be free from the yoke of slavery. Scholars have done very good works on the topic under investigation, but little is known to have been done on the realities of the social settings where the practice of freedom is misunderstood and abused. The specific objectives were to: (i) examine the concept of freedom in Galatians 5:1-15; (ii) examine the relationship between freedom and the crisis of identity that engulfed the Churches of Galatia, and (iii) contextualize the pericope in the real life situation of the Church and Society in the Middle Belt of Nigeria.