By Fola Oo
Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the Nazi Party, Adolf Hitler, started his young-adulthood as a seminary student with the intention of one day becoming a priest. During his spiritual odyssey, something hedged him off-track and he became one of the most heinously wicked men etched in the spine of history. Why did he renege on his first love? We may never know.Russian Joseph Stalin was a church boy who had the intention of becoming a pastor, but young Stalin was run off-track and later coiled into the cocoon of atheism. Why did he renege? We may never know. Mahatma Gandhi was the preeminent leader of Indian nationalism in British-ruled India. He once said this about Christians: “I love your Christ but I hate your Christians because your Christians are unlike your Christ”.
Gandhi had some pastor friends, but what he saw in their characters and behaviours must have shocked him. Invasion of the pastoral ministry by self-seeking, self-serving, selfish theological thespians in cassocks is a main reason why many are washing their hands off the Nigerian church. The arena is swamped with garroting excrescence, and hovering over us now is a thick cumulus of uncertainty about what the church truly stands for.It is unfortunate that the ease with which churches are started has made it possible for men of low-self-esteem, predator-preachers and perverts to wreak havocs on unsuspecting parishioners and extort money from the vulnerable by every means necessary.
A notorious armed robber yesterday becomes an Apostle today without a shred of scrutiny. A dreadful, smooth-talking drug lord, who now cuddles a big bible, clads in designer apparels, is now the G.O. of Tabernacle of Trial and Tribulation, where he conducts stage-managed exorcisms called deliverance services on vulnerable followers, and no one is tough on him. Scam-artists on the altar litter our streets with handbills calling for a crusade and people turn up. Pedophiles start churches and orphanages with no one beaming a searchlight on where they are coming from. Destinies of poor children are laid at the feet of reprehensible beings who call themselves “pastors”, and we are not vehemently challenging them. None of us is qualified to assent anyone who claims to be a pastor or who claims to have been called by God to start a church. But there is nothing wrong to raise the alarm when some obnoxious acts are perpetrated in our midst in an alarming rate, in the name of God, and in our nation where it is believed one out of 500 Christians is either a pastor, an evangelist, a Bishop, an Overseer, an Apostle or a Deacon.
I am not going to join issues with religion-rubbishing, pastor-persecuting folks out there who see nothing good about the church. There are good pastors doing good things; yes, they are few.Pastors come in different shades, shapes and forms. Some were made, and some were born. Some are called by God, some called by self. Some are called by their spouses, and some by their adoring friends. Some are called through the bite of hard times, some are called when the going was and probably still good. Some pastors are married, some are single; some are divorced, some are in their seventh holy-wedlock, and some have vowed never to be married. While some pastors are men and women, some we are not sure if they are men or women. Some are gay, some are straight, some speak in tongues, and some snitch in tongues.
Some drink alcohol and smoke cigar, and some are teetotalers who don’t smoke. Some are introverts, some are extroverts, some are loners and some are gregarious. Some believe they are the only ones going to heaven, and some believe they are already in heaven here on earth. Some dress well and some believe it is a sin to dress well; some drive nice cars, and some believe God hates nice cars and their owners. Some have no pets and for some their multiple jets are their pets. Pastors come in different shades, shapes, and forms.Many of these pastors have turned their churches into clearing houses for thieves and looters.
They lay the right hand on robbers in deliverance, and take delivery of their loot with the left. Money drives all things, and many of our religious leaders, who have become a big part of why many hate church, are not coming to equity with clean hands.Flagrant flamboyancy, immoral activities, occultist escapades, manipulations of the mind of members, and financial waywardness are some of the identified problems going on in church.Because a lot of men of God speak from both sides of their mouth, politicians don’t offer no respect.
Man of God shuttles between governors’ offices across all states looking for the “lost sheep” that may never be found.Sanctity in the sanctuary has taken the first flight out into the realm of the nonsensical, and insane acts are all over the pew and pulpit. If the man of God is not mentioned as a member of the league of billionaire-pastors, there is war. When a man of God dies, cult members take turns to perform their own rites and rituals on his body at the funeral. Because there is no sanctity in the house of God, sanity has disappeared. It is a shame! Declaring 222, 333, and 666 days of dry-fasting and prayer in many of our churches may just be a waste of time.
Why? The hearts of many are wrapped around ungodliness that is a stench in the nostrils of God. We move our mouths in prayer, but our hearts are of stone immovable, filled with debris of deception and garbage.Our prayers are bouncing off the roofs and landing where they will never be answered by God who answers by fire. Many have forgotten or are ignoring the fact that it is only the prayer of the righteous that avails much. One then needs not wonder why Nigeria remains more decadent and sickening than it ever was.Yet, the hope of Nigeria’s greater tomorrow rests nowhere else but on the church-of-the-living-God that is presently in partnership with filth and frivolities.
My regard for men and women of God doing good works all around us in Nigeria and other parts of the world is unwavering. The work of a pastor is not an easy undertaking; the emotional drain on true servants of God and their families is unthinkable as they strive daily to meet the helluva pile of needs of many who come to them for help. My hat is always at a tinge for these special breed of beings that are doing what God has called them to do. I read of a servant of God in Lagos, Nigeria whose church has been training citizens in 11 different vocations free of charge for years. After each exercise, he releases them out into the society making impact, and they don’t have to enlist as members of his church!
If half of the churches in Nigeria can do what this church and a few more are doing, hoodlums will be off our streets and our tomorrow will be replete with hope. God or Christianity is not the problem; the practitioners of the faith are.There are things we can do, and we will discuss them in my concluding treatise. The church has a positive role to play in any society, and we all know. For those who believe ministry is a cop-out from poverty, unemployment and un-employability, for those who believe church work is a personal business where the number of exotic jeeps and big houses acquired at home and abroad are why they have been called, someone will soon be coming after you.
To be concluded
© CC BY-NC-ND 2014
