On Saturday 24th November 2018, the epoch-making
dedication of the Glory Dome belonging to Dunamis International Church, took
place at their newly constructed headquarters along Umaru Musa Yar’Adua expressway,
Abuja. The event attracted whoever was somebody in Nigeria’s religious,
political and highbrow circles.
Expectedly, no sooner had the dedication ended than the
cyberspace and opinion circles began to be harangued with views and takes on
the matter. ‘Oh! This is not what we need at this time. Oh! The church has become
a money making industry! Oh! We need more industries! Oh! These pastors are
feeding off the people’s brainwashed ignorance! And a host of other things too
numerous to enumerate individually.
Now, I wish to wave this disclaimer. I am not a member of
Dunamis church, neither am I a fan of any of these megastar preachers for
reasons I know only too well. But, as a stakeholder in the body of Christ which
is universal, I feel obligated to lend my voice to this discourse and put
certain things right.
It is so interesting and actually entertaining to realize
that the people who arrowhead this smear campaign of churches and pastors are
not Moslems or Buddhists. They are not these ‘atheists’ who have suddenly grown
in umber in recent times. They are not even proponents of the traditional
religion. They are the same Bible-wielding, church-going, professing
Christians. When it comes to insulting the church and casting aspersions, they
turn wordsmiths and sentence stringers
of the best definition. The very same people. It is for this same reason that I
have decided to put certain things right, and to turn this growing angst the
right direction. If na church, dem go get mouth.
Yes. The church is now an industry that pays in mega bucks. I
have not denied that. A child of God sows a seed in faith. He pays his tithes
as a Biblical obligation. He gives gifts to a servant of God in tandem with
Bible dictates, and thus, he has ignorantly and in a hypnotized manner,
enriched a pastor’s empire. I have heard. If na church, dem go get mouth.
But you can consume a carton of beer in one sitting alone,
and more if there are three or four guys around. When you do that, consider how
much you have contributed to Nigerian Breweries and other allied industries, with
your eyes open and your sensibilities in tact, and if that happens four times every
month, then calculate the result every year. You can buy a house for a woman
that is not your wife, take her on shopping spree, and even overseas trips, for
a seven-minute roll in the hay. A nigga said it was better to get a car for his side
piece, because it was economically cheaper than patronizing the girls of easy
virtue regularly, on the basis of cost benefit analysis. His senses are still
intact when all of this is happening, and there was no gun to his head. When you
stake your hard earned money on the outcome of a match or game happening miles
and miles away(which, by the way, is bare-faced idol worship by the Bible) from
you, remember how much you are enriching the betting industry, without any form
of duress. I know a boy who staked his school fees for five years in this
venture, and is beginning from the scratch once again. Your mobile devices and
gadgets have a separate drive which you have passworded because they contain clippings
upon clippings of all manner of sexual debauchery which you downloaded from Pornhub. The data is yours, you paid for it,
and spent your money your way, and they keep declaring billions and billions of
dollars as turnover each year. You are not brainwashed.
If na church, dem go get mouth.
You say, oh, we need more industries instead of churches. Yes, we
need industries. Economic activity needs to happen. But the fact that there are
many churches has nothing to do with economic activity. You see, we are not
turning the arsenal of weapons in the right direction. The government you pay
taxes to, that promised you jobs, amenities and security do not get the amount
of tonguelashing the church gets, when they fail abysmally to deliver on their
promises. They don’t. Again, no one can
say for sure that the church at its level now is not impacting the society the
best way it can. The church is a voluntary organisation. Are there charlatans
among them? Certainly. But the truth is
that in reality, the church is not the government. The problem
is not with the church. It is with the people operating it. Things do not work in Africa because we have
been doomed to be insincere and evil and backward. It began from our ancestor,
Ham ,and the curse he received for mocking his father’s nakedness. That’s why
capital flight and brain drain are our key characteristics. As a matter of
fact, the spirit of the right God, engenders prosperity and advancement. The
Bible says righteousness exalts a nation , but sin is a reproach to any people.
In the West, much of what they are enjoying today in terms of advancement has a
lot of connection to the spiritual labour of men like Charles Spurgeon, Winston
Churchill, John Knox and his likes, great men of God who stood in the gap for
their nation, laboring in the gospel of Christ. In Africa, there are many
churches but with less development because of the brand of Christianity we
practice, which has no bearing with the Bible, not because there are churches. When
na church, dem go get mouth.
You say, religion is the opium of the masses. I say, no,
fake religion is the opium of the masses. Karl Max was just talking based on
how much he was exposed to at the time. Christianity is not the religion where
someone will was put under the influence of a type of grass and the
hallucinatory images of naked big breasted virgins numbering over three scores
would cater to his sexual fetishes, and thus spur him on to taking risks when the drug has worn off. Mohammed
said he does not know the judgment that awaits him, but Jesus said in my Father’s
house there are many mansions. IF IT WERE NOT SO I WOULD HAVE TOLD YOU. It is
so painful that it is people who were given this kind of promises that are the
first to fire such salvos. Na church, so dem go get mouth.
Tithing is Biblical. Sowing seeds is Biblical. Giving gifts
to servants of God is Biblical. Has it been bastardized? Maybe, but that does
not make it wrong. If something is fake, it means it was copied from somewhere.
In the Bible days, the book of Malachi says to pay tithes ‘so there might be meat in my house’. The church
is not supposed to be a pauper’s paradise; read your Bible. The phrase ‘as poor
as a church rat’ was only applicable when the church did not know its pride of
place. It is the house of a King; the King of Kings to be specific. When na
church, dem go get mouth.
Let us be guided, and agree that we are all brainwashed together.
That is my simple take.
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