A short video did what sermons, synods and statements have failed to do in years, it forced a national conversation about Christianity, power and misplaced outrage.
In the clip, actress and filmmaker Ini Edo is in tears apologising, pleading, almost begging the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) not to pull down her movie over its title, Dirty Christmas. It is an uncomfortable watch. Not because a Christian body objected to what it considers offensive, but because an artist found herself publicly prostrated before an institution that is neither a court of law nor a statutory regulator of creative expression.
When a movie title becomes a crisis and moral rot does not.
It is important to be fair at the outset. CAN is within its moral right to challenge anything it considers derogatory to Christianity. Faith communities are not required to smile politely while being mocked. Christianity, like any belief system, has symbols, seasons and sensibilities that matter deeply to its adherents. Drawing attention to perceived disrespect is not the problem.
The problem is what we choose to be outraged by, and what we consistently ignore.
Ini Edo has publicly stated that nothing in her film mocks, demeans or ridicules Christianity. She has gone further to challenge critics to point out any scene that does. Her argument is that the film reflects realities within our society’s real stories, real contradictions, real human behaviour set against a Christmas backdrop. She even requested time to address concerns about the title, insisting that the substance of the film does not assault the faith.
What truly threatens Christianity in Nigeria today – a movie title, or what happens daily inside our churches?
Should CAN be the one to police art?
At that point, reason should have taken over. If content is the concern, then content should be reviewed. If the title alone is the issue, then dialogue, not threats should follow. A film into which resources, labour and livelihoods have been poured into should not be sabotaged on the basis of a phrase, especially when no regulatory law has been breached.
Nigeria already has a body charged with vetting films. CAN is not it. Religious influence does not override constitutional processes. Once we allow faith bodies to decide, by pressure or pronouncement, what creative works may exist, we step onto a dangerous path, one where intimidation replaces regulation and public shaming replaces due process.
But this episode exposes something deeper and far more troubling than a jurisdictional overreach. It reveals the selective moral energy with which Christianity is defended in Nigeria.
If titles are what defile the faith, then perhaps CAN’s urgency is justified. But if actions matter more than semantics, then the silence on far graver issues becomes impossible to defend.
Nothing has done more damage to the moral credibility of Christianity in this country than the industrialisation of deception within its own ranks. Fake miracles staged with hired props. Anonymous wheelchairs lifted theatrically in crusades. Crutches waved in the air with no verifiable owners. Testimonies that collapse under the slightest scrutiny. In some cases, individuals involved in organising these charades have confessed on camera. The evidence exists. The harm is real.
Yet the thunder is absent.
Where has CAN been when self-styled prophets sell protection in bottles, oils and bracelets while surrounded by armed security? When scripture is weaponised to drain the desperate of their last savings? When fear replaces faith and manipulation masquerades as spirituality? These practices have impoverished families, broken trust, and turned Christianity into a marketplace of miracles. If anything deserves public rebuke, sanctions and sustained attention, it is this.
Even doctrinal incoherence has been treated with a curious gentleness. Churches that reject foundational Christian concepts, Trinity, Easter, even Christmas itself operate freely under the Christian label, without any serious theological engagement or organised dialogue from CAN. No roundtables. No intellectual confrontations. No attempts at clarification for the sake of the faithful. Silence.When Deborah was brutally stoned to death in sokoto,I wonder where CAN was.
And yet a movie title triggers mobilisation.
This is why the Dirty Christmas controversy feels hollow to many observers. Not because faith should not be defended, but because the wrong battles keep being chosen.
Christianity is not dirtied by art that reflects human complexity. It is dirtied when exploitation flourishes under its banner. It is dirtied when fraud goes unchallenged because the perpetrators are powerful. It is dirtied when moral authority is deployed against artists but withheld from profiteers of faith.
The Bible itself speaks of weightier matters – justice, truth, mercy, integrity. These are not abstract ideals, they are measurable by action. A Christianity that roars at symbolism but whispers at corruption has lost its sense of proportion.
None of this is a call for CAN to censor doctrines or police belief. It is a call for courage. Moral courage. The kind that confronts embarrassment within, not just perceived insults from without. The kind that understands that rebuke is more credible when it is consistent, and authority more respected when it is not selective.
If CAN must speak, let it speak where the damage is deepest. If it must protect Christianity, let it protect the people being harmed in its name. And if it must fight dirtiness, let it start with the institutionalised kind because no movie title has done half the damage that silence has.
That is the conversation Nigeria should be having now.
What this episode ultimately exposes is not just misplaced outrage but a troubling imbalance of power and priorities. When institutions speak without accountability, even accomplished adults are reduced to public pleading, and when symbolism becomes easier to police than integrity, moral authority begins to thin. We defend Christmas loudly, yet practice its values quietly, if at all. A faith confident in its truth does not panic at a mirror, and art, after all, does not invent decay it merely reflects it. The greater danger lies in a Christianity increasingly sustained by fear, objects and performance, one that no longer needs enemies to explain its decline. Today it is a movie title,tomorrow it will be a thought. Symbols are easy to defend, but integrity demands courage, and moral authority collapses when discipline is loud outside and silent within.
Christianity is not weakened by films. It is weakened when silence replaces rebuke and performance replaces truth.
If CAN must raise its voice, let it be loudest where the damage is deepest.
We should worry less about what artists call Christmas and more about what we have turned faith into.
True faith defends the vulnerable, not institutions.
When last did CAN publicly discipline a fake prophet?
A movie title vs. exploited widows, desperate sick people, manipulated faith.
Christmas defended in name, violated in practice. Calm authority is more devastating than rage.
The post Detty Christmas or Dirty Christianity?, by Stephanie Shaakaa appeared first on Vanguard News.
