Prevailing views about god among African children aged eight to eleven in selected churches in Ibadan, Oyo state of Nigeria

Abstract

This study was an attempt to find out the views of God that exist among African children and the prevalence of such views; and to examine how the demographic variables of gender, age and church denomination relate to their views of God. The research was done in two phases. Respondents were chosen from three denominations that comprised of seven churches. One church was the site used for the first phase and the remaining six were sites for the second phase. The respondents for the first phase consisted of twenty-four children randomly selected from the first research site. They were interviewed to find out their views of God and data was analyzed qualitatively. A questionnaire was constructed from their views revealed from the first phase which was administered to 420 respondents from three denominations. Convenient sampling was done for the second phase of the research. The questionnaires were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences, evaluation edition 15.0. It was revealed that children have views of God that indicate their knowledge, understanding and beliefs about the existence and nature of God, His functions, their relationship with Him. Their views depict knowledge of His abiding presence with them and the names by which they call Him. The study shows that the children‟s concepts of God especially the wrong and erroneous ones were influenced by the society, the teachings they receive, their needs and insecurities and their moral upbringing among many other things. There was no variance between gender and the children‟s image of God. However, significant differences were revealed in the views of God among children aged 8-9 and 10-11 and among children from the 3 different denominations.