https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl60h4pX8ZI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl60h4pX8ZI)
Please, I would like some advice on something possibly many of us on this forum have gone through. I have been raised by pastors but growing up have been more and more suspicious of the jealous and poor God and become more and more afrocentric in my spirituality. However, my parent's condemnation of our sprituality as 'evil' and "demonic" creates a such deep point of contention between us that my Mother (especially, and/or expressedly) increasingly senses as a "conflict of spirits". She has come to believe that whenever I speak against the christian god that it is the devil working through me and even fears me spreading this "contamination/corruption" to my little 13,12 and 8 year olds siblings, who have the capacity to think critically about the Christian God and easily see the cracks in the ideology (not that I try to interfere in their journey because I am not worried about them having the same realizations I did).
With that said, here is my Question 1 : how do I approach this "conflict of spirits" in such a way that allows peace in our house/relations? As you can imagine with pastors that are genuinely filled with love but also ruled by fear, in their worldview I would be embracing what they are trying to exorcise. I cannot help but be angry and sad at the power of the spritual manipulation of christian ideology and the disgust my parents have for their own people's magic, this is at least partially the reason I have limited patience for my parents' spewing of White spiritual lies of bondage/fear. They also cannot tolerate me not going to Church with them. But just knowing the impact of christianity on our people, being in Church makes me unhappy to say the least.
Question 2 : Must you be initiated into the spiritual system of your ethnic group? I have to seek initiation in secret because of my parents beliefs (which rules out the possibility of going to my parents' village in Nigeria) . As all of my family and I are living in Cape Town and have very little knowledge of any nigerian community there it would be easier for me to become initiated into a local system, however I am of the Igbo nation and wonder if this would not be conflicting with my ancestral heritage.