Folks,

I dont mean to stoke any religious fire, but I find the following story in last saturday's Thisday compelling enough to start asking questions about who or what some pastors in Nigeria are really serving; and the veracity of their calling.

WIth these kind of stories, its not difficult to see why the most religios nation on earth is also one of the most corrupt and morally decadent.

Money Mess...
The business of "churching" has become so fertile that almost every street or close hosts as many as three churches. Beer parlours, brothels and churches now alternate spaces for their various clients. While some claim they received the "divine call into the ministry" many also believe that they were called by economic circumstances, as their propensity has long shifted from converts to cash. Raw cash. Disagreements over management of the burgeoning financial tills of the churches have often led to fierce divisions in the body of Christ leading to multifarious break-aways and the spill in the size and number of churches, without an attendant saner society. Wealth, affluence, showmanship and crass worldliness have become the defining features of modern day churches, especially those hewn on Pentecostal wings. Some say it all agrees with the prophecies of the Holy Books about the last days. Yet, there appear some thin strings of exception to the ill fad, as some churches insist that the prosperity message is far beyond money issue. What exactly has taken over the body of Christ? In this report, KAYODE IDOWU takes a critical look at the unfolding phenomenon of money and rebellion in the church.

Nigerian Pentecostal Christian community woke up to a most disturbing development last month. Newspapers were awash with stories on the attempted breakaway by the Ghana branch of Living Faith World Ministries, also known as Winners Chapel. The leader of the Ghanaian mission, Bishop George Adjeman, was reported to have made an attempt to declare the independence of the church. Part of his plans was to change the name of the church to Champions Chapel. He was reported to have resisted a new posting to Ibadan and decided to go it alone.

What was the root of this "evil"? Money, of course. A lot of money. According to various accounts of members of the church, Adjeman was unhappy that after "labouring" for Bishop David Oyedepo for 18 years, he had nothing to show for it, while Oyedepo was living in affluence, with a private jet to boot. After a series of meetings and negotiations with the Ghanaian, brokered by the Ghana Pentecostal Council (GPC), no agreement could be reached. Adjemah stood his ground. He was said to have finally made a demand that he be paid $50,000 "severance fee" along with the Church Mission house and a car.

This was reportedly frowned at by Bishop Oyedepo who wondered if that was not tantamount to buying him out. He was eventually persuaded by the GPC to see it as "blessing" a product of the church who was about to start his own ministry. Indeed, Oyedepo was persuaded to see Adjeman as a "son" and whatever he was giving him was a parting gift. After consulting with the elders of his church in Nigeria, Oyedepo was said to have agreed to approve $100,000 instead, without a car and a house. By this time, Adjeman had backed out of the negotiations and was no longer ready to accept any "buy out". Instead, he wanted to appropriate the church to himself.

Meanwhile, the nearly 20,000-strong church membership had been split over the rebellion. While some were in support of Oyedepo, the others were sympathetic to Adjeman. In the ensuing melee, the police authorities in Ghana closed down the church to avoid further crisis and possible blood-letting. Adjeman was prevented from taking over the church after the leader of the Nigerian delegation, Pastor Abraham Ojeme, had lodged a report with the police authorities. Ojeme was reportedly humiliated by Adjeman's men on his trip to Ghana. The crisis is yet to abate and there are strong indications that Adjeman will soon incorporate his own church, with the chunk of the members from his former church - and also a large chunk of the million dollar revenue.

When Adjeman reeled out all the financial transactions of the church, it left no one in doubt that money, especially dollars, was in super abundance in the church and the crisis indeed had a very Mammonic root. Adjeman quoted mind-boggling figures that would tempt even the "uncalled" to start his own church.

Rebellion in the Name of God...

The money and rebellion mess is not just a Winners Chapel affair. Recently, Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo, who had also staged a walk-out on the Four Square Gospel Mission (while on posting to London) to start his own church, named King's International Christian Church (KICC), ran into some disagreement with the British government over money matters. When he was setting up the church, it was registered as a nonprofit body, as usual. He was asked to be taking 10 per cent of church earnings as his upkeep allowance, tax-free. The church income was very small then. However, last year, the British government discovered that the church was now making millions of pounds which Ashimolowo was accused of keeping away from their knowledge. The government also said it would no longer allow the pastor to take 10 per cent of the earnings, as the income had already exceeded what could be regarded as that of a nonprofit organisation. Ashimolowo allegedly threatened to close down the church and start another the church if the government remained adamant. The crisis is yet to abate, and he has been more frequent in Nigeria and Ghana since then.

Bishop Benson Idahosa of the Church of God Mission faced a lot of rebellion in his lifetime. The first two Bishops he consecrated broke away from the church. When he attempted to retrieve church property from one of them, his emissaries never returned to the Benin headquarters of the church. They were presumed dead.

Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor of the Word of Life Church, Warri, also broke away from Idahosa's church one fateful Sunday. He had left a meeting with the Bishop in Benin and headed straight to the Warri branch of the church which he was pastoring. He went into the service, said a few words, broke down in tears and announced that he was leaving the church. Virtually all the church members went with him.

Pastor Tunde Bakare of the Latter Rain Church was the first pastor of a "model parish" (a modernised church) in the Redeemed Christian Church of God. He pastored the Acme Parish. One day, he caught the vision to start his own church, and he left with almost all the members of the parish.

Is it the desire for an empire or love of money or both that motivates "rebellious" visions in the Pentecostal churches?

"My God is Not a Poor God"

"God made man, man made money, money made man." That is an age-long saying that articulates the negative influence of crass materialism on the sublime values of humanity. Significantly, this saying holds true in the secular world as it does in the religious community comprised by churches and mosques, among others, where values would ordinarily be expected to be dominantly influenced spiritually.

Without doubt, money is indispensable and vitally important for organic existence entailing the growth process. A popular crime series writer captured this so aptly when he titled one of his many novels," You Are Dead Without Money."

Even the Christian scripture, the Holy Bible, underscores this fact when it says among others that money is the vehicle of evangelism. But contemporary trends in the church have raised a big question on whether money (by itself) can be separated from the love of money which the Christian scripture says is "the root of all evil. "

Critics have argued that the modern wave of Pentecostalism in Nigeria is so grossly materialistic in form and content that only a very thin line of distinction is left between churches and business enterprises. At the last count, speculations are rife that the government is heavily inclined towards levying taxes on church earnings (advocated long ago by the former president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Sunday Mbang), which hitherto ought to have been spared in the notion that churches, like non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are non-profit making. At the moment, the government has not unfolded any specific policy to impose taxes on religious organisations. But if it gets to do so, it might well be that it was instigated by the stupendous volume of money circulating within the church establishment (particularly some modern-day Pentecostal churches), and the undisguised display of such enormous wealth. Such display is usually in the high-flying lifestyle of presiding ministers, expansive property acquisition on and for huge logistical expenditures. Churches are believed to run overheads nearly as huge as Federal Government ministries.

for the church, the international leadership not only closed down the branch, it also eased out the renegade branch overseer reportedly with a sizable pay-off that extremely very few business organisations can equal.

By contemporary trends, the gospel ministry is for many Pentecostal pastors now big money and big hype. This is both in terms of revenue returns and media exposure. In other words, the churches have come a long, long way from the conservative and puritan beginnings of the Pentecostal movement in Nigeria.

In the beginning was "SU"...

Among the earliest proponents of the Pentecostal faith in Nigeria was the Scripture Union Movement (SU), which comprised Christians so passionately committed to "holy living" that they were generally looked upon by the wordly society as queer. Members of the movement were quite distinct from the society and easily noticeable to be so both in the characteristic modesty of their appearance and profound sobriety of character. Because they were few and non-confirming to wordly norms, it was at that time a stigma of sorts to be tagged 'SU' (implying puritan noncomformism). They were a slim bend sustained among other things by regular fellowship meetings and a distinct code of ethic. The Pentecostal movement in the early days was propelled as revivalist antidote to the spiritual coldness of the orthodox church.

With the eventual advent of other faith groupings like the Deeper Life Movement and The Apostolic Faith Movement, Pentecostalism acquired a greater vigour. Deeper Life, founded by a former University of Lagos mathematics teacher, Dr. W. F. Kumuyi, was not a church at the beginning but a Bible Study and "holiness" movement which drew members from orthodox churches across denomination lines. The records of Nigerian church history showed that clergyman indeed volunteered to select members from the fold to join the movement so that they could return to impact "revival" upon the churches that sent them out. But along the line, the movement metamorphosed into a church, whose members in those early days held the doctrine of abstinence from wordly wealth and pleasures to avoid contamination in their quest for heavenly destination. Like the Scripture Union members, the Deeper Lifers were distinct and non- comforming with the society's casual values. But they were widely perceived to have overstreched the abstinence doctrine by making money seem abominable, and genuine prosperity seem like a mortal sin. The church's doctrinal position on this has since altered somewhat in favour of accommodating prosperity.

The New Pentecostalism...

To show that money can be a useful tool to the Christendom and prosperity a compatibility a godly complement would seem to be the driving motive of the new wave Pentecostalism that has anchored the entire gospel message on the prosperity doctrine. From the puritan conservatism of the early Pentecostals, the new believers emphasised the compatibility of material wealth with Christianity and hold that affluence should be desired. The new liberality triggered an explosion of persons professing the 'born-again' faith; as against the old-time dispensation when Scripture Union members and Deeper Lifers, though acknowledged for their "holiness" lifestyle, were reared in the permissive context of societal ethics as outcasts of sorts.

But what the new Pentecostalism gained in liberality and sheer numerical explosion of adherents, it lost in the "holiness ethics". No longer were 'born-again' believers sheathed in their behavioural code from the permissive valued of the society. As it became socially fashionable to profess being 'born- again' and join up with the new Pentecostal movement, the church harboured a mixed multitude; such that more and more carnal values of the society were important to the church, making the church to become more like the society rather than the society becoming more like the church.

Another hallmark of the new Pentecostalism is the advent of truly anointed clergymen, who opted for flamboyant lifestyles to prove the point of the compatibility of godliness and prosperity. Not that such lifestyle detracted from the divine unction and authenticity of God's calling upon their lives. Such revered spiritual leaders like the late Archbishop, Benson Idahosa, founder of the Church of God Mission International headquarters in Benin, Edo State, proved the said point of compatibility with his life and ministry. The late clergyman was widely reputed as having been among the greatest proponents of the holiness doctrine and fiery evangelism of the world. Nevertheless, he was so materially endowed that his complete worth each time he stood to minister was estimated to be among the choicest and costliest that money could buy. It is indeed on record that he literally redefined pastoral ministry in Nigeria by breaking new grounds of service and rewards, including pioneering private Christian University ownership. As a mark of divine unction upon his life, his ministry was accompanied with miracles, signs and wonders.

Since Archbishop Idahosa's death, there has been the emergence of other flamboyant preachers whose flashy lifestyles sometimes border on the obscene. There are now gospel ministers who ride in convoys move impressive and flashy then a state governor's. Until recently, a Nigerian-born pastor of a prayer ministry headquarters in Britain used to ride on Lagos streets in a fleet of cars serially licensed, not in conventional registration numbers but in the name of his prayer ministry.

In recent times, pastors are among the best and most fashionably dressed. Even fashion collectors would turn green with envy if they were to look in the wardrobes of trendy minister like Pastor Paul Adefarasin, Pastor Chris Oyakhilome of the Christ Embassy, or Pastor Chris Okotie of the Household of God. Pastor Patrick Anwuzia of the Zoe Ministries used to ride in a convoy with customised plate numbers like ZOE 1, ZOE 2, ZOE 3... before his ministry ran into some rough weather. The trendy appearance of many ministers under the new Pentecostal movement has changed the Christian persons from the drab and dull outfit in which the old Pentecostal were typically kitted.

Many purists decry this as "watered-down" Christianity.

New Outlook, New Message...

Following the drastically liberal outlook that the new Pentecostal movement has assumed, there has been a marked shift of the doctrinal emphasis from "holy living" to earthly mastery of the prosperity formula. Most programmes by many churches and messages from pulpits are now designed to teach the prosperity principle, without as much as teaching the stewardship principle by which prosperity can be channelled strictly to divinely ordained purposes. This, however, appears to have bred fortune hunters in the church, whose spiritual goal terminates at applying the prosperity doctrine to make their millions, without much concern for how to make heaven (the ultimate goal of the Christian faith) while making the millions. In effect, critics insist, much of the rat race in the secular world have rubbed off on the church. Indeed, if a census were to be taken perhaps, high as three quarters of the programmes and messages in most of the new wave churches are inspirational and material prosperity oriented.

One notable hallmark of the new Pentecostalism, for instance, is the prevailing culture of afluence, that seems to be putting some church members under pressure to meet up. Recently, there was the celebrated case of a member of the Christ Embassy who, though an ordinary cashier with the Sheraton Hotels, was said to have donated over N50 million to the church and nobody quieried him, neither was the money refunded when the scandal broke out. In the heat of that scandal, critics of the Penteostal movement insinuated that the prosperity doctrine, as was being taught by the senior pastor, was actually a veiled licence to some spiritually weak members to steal.

Miracles or Magic?

Another hallmark of the new Pentecostalism is unbridled emphasis on miracle ministrations, to the detriment of discipleship orientation of the adherents. The consequence of this is that many professing born-again Christians are in reality not disciples in the Christian life style, but are merely sign-seekers with ephemeral commitment to the faith they profess.

One of the most attractive marketing tricks being employed by Pentecostal churches nowadays is a promise of children to the barren. Taking advantage of the gullible state of the barren, posters and radio/TV commercial are usually targeted at this group of people. Many observers accuse the Pentecostal churches of playing on the desperatin of the women to lure them into the church.

Indeed, the decision of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to ban the broadcast of miracles on TV was said to have been targeted at the Christ Embassy which has over the years attracted a lot of devotees to the church. The NBC maintains that it had to take the decision to save the gullible public, but Pastor Chris Oyakhilome sees this as the handiwork of "jealous" Pentecostal pastors who openly supported the NBC move.

In Atmosphere of Miracles, Oyakhilome's TV programme, there are severy scenes of the lame walking, the blind receiving their sight and the sick being healed. Howver, his critics maintain that they are pre-arrange to attract more devotees, while some even chrge him with using magical powers allegedly acquired form Pastor TB Joshua of the Synagogue of All Nations. The controversies continue to reign among the Pentecostal churches over the veracity of the miracles performed by Oyakhilome and Joshua, and the amount of publicity given to these miracles on TV seem to further aggravate the negative disposition many of their opponents have to them.

A Pentecostal church, based in Benin, is said to be praying on pants and bras for commercial sex workers heading to Italy. They are called "annointed pants" or "anointed bras". The pastor is said to pray on those objects so that the women would have good returns in their sojourn. They usually pay a hefty sum of money for the anointing.

Is Church Family Business?

Another major rot of disquiet in Pentecostal churches is the nepotistic domination of churches. In known cases when general overseers have died, the families have always found a way of putting one of theirs as replacement. The succession intrigues that followed of Archbishop Benson Idahosa of the Church of God Mission eventually threw up his wife, Margeret, as the new head of the church, even though the Archbishop had an able assistant while he was alive. Ironicaaly, Margeret was not even in the top ten hierarchy of the church before Idahosa's death. One of the bishops quietly left the church to start his own. As things stand today, Idahosa's first son is gradually being prepared to take over from the mother in case of any eventuality.

A similar case was witnessed in the Victory Chapel when the founder, Anayo Iloputaife, died. According to some membersof the church, it was as if the pastor knew he was going to die. His assistant, a young man, was said to have been doing most of the preaching before Iloputaife was gunned down by unknown men. However, contrary to the expectations of the church members, the wife, Frances, immediately took over the reins of power. She is said to have adopted a son now who is expected to take over from her in the future. The young pastor angrily left the church to start his own.

Such is a common occurrence in the Pentecostal circle these days.

http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/board/showthread.php?t=1474

http://www.thisdayonline.com/saturday/20040717cov01.html Dateline: 17/07/2004

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