Nigerian Religious Junk!
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits... So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit…Thus you will recognize them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:15-20).
I
begin this blog by apologising to all my Nigerian brothers and sisters
for its title. At first sight it is rather offensive, but I hope that as
you read on you will see why I elected to still use it as a title. As
nations or tribes or social groupings we take on a certain
characteristic that is not true about each person in the group but which
we come to be identified with. Hence, Paul could write, “One of the
Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, ‘Cretans are always liars, evil
beasts, lazy gluttons.’ This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them
sharply, that they may be sound in the faith” (Titus 1:12-13). In the
same way, we tend to (rightly or wrongly) identify Americans with
arrogance, Kenyans with marathon running prowess, West Africans with
fraudulent activities, Afrikaners with racism, etc.
I have just
returned from a consultative meeting in South Africa where the first day
was spent surveying the spiritual state of the countries in the
southern African sub-region. Central to all this was the state of
evangelicalism in all these countries. Nation after nation reported on
the arrival of “Nigerian religious junk” that was changing the landscape
of what there once was of evangelicalism. One or two of the countries
were blessed exceptions. Evidently, this junk originated from
mega-churches in the USA and then found ready soil in West Africa, and
especially in Nigeria. Having given it an African flavour, it is now
being exported across Africa at a phenomenal rate.
I feel very
sad to write about this, but by “Nigerian religious junk” I mean the
phenomenon of churches that are personal-to-holder. They exalt the
personality of their founding father, who is still alive somewhere in
Nigeria (or elsewhere) and is treated with the aura of a state president
or paramount chief. It does not matter which country you go to, the
bill boards of these churches do not have the faces of the local pastors
of the congregations in those towns but of the founding father in
Nigeria—or wherever he has since relocated. It is all about image and
power. This “man of God” claims to hear the voice of God and proceeds to
minister to you accordingly. If you do not obey him you are resisting
the ministry of God into your life. So, the churches are often called
“ministries” rather than churches. And to make them even more
impressive, the term “international” is often added to their name.
The Africanisation
of this religious junk is primarily in the way it has been made to
appeal to African spirituality. The pastor is the modern witchdoctor
calling all and sundry to come to him for “deliverance”. Just as the
witchdoctor appealed to us by inviting us to see him for spiritual
protection or when we were struggling with bad luck, childlessness,
joblessness, illness, failure to attract a suitor for marriage or to
rise in a job or get a contract, etc., these pastors do precisely the
same thing. So-called prophetic utterances are made which explain why
all this is happening, holy water or oil is prayed over and dispensed,
and some money is extracted from the persons seeking help. Thus their
churches attract thousands of people who are there for purely selfish
reasons. The motivating factor is not reconciliation with God through
Christ but rather “deliverance” from perceived evil and to be blessed
through the supernatural powers that “the man of God” possesses. Let’s
face it: this is our African traditional religions coming into the
church through the back door.
The
self-centredness of all this is seen in the worship. Churches are being
turned into entertainment centres instead of edification centres. People
come to church to be entertained, healed and blessed. The fact that
professionals, who engage their brains when working with their hands
five to six days a week, stop thinking and just dance and laugh in
worship is extremely sad, in the light of the demand of God that we are
to love him with all our hearts, minds, souls and strength. It
has been the failure of Christians to think through the implications of
their Christian faith on the whole of life that has left Africa filled
with Christian churches and lack of development at the same time.
Surely, if these professionals were thinking they would have added up
one-plus-one by now and seen why their pastors have become stinking
rich. It is not their faith but the money of their congregants, whom
they cheat with promises, that makes them buy expensive cars and clothes
and put up mansions. If one thousand individuals are “sowing the seed”
every week to be blessed by the man of God, of course the man of God
will get very rich while they will get poorer. That is simple common
sense.
Yet another
characteristic of this phenomenon which is particularly African is the
craze for titles. We Africans love titles! Once upon a time, evangelical
pastors were content to simply be called pastors. Terms like “bishop”
were left to those who had an Episcopalian system of church government,
which was a formal structure that rose to national and global level.
Alas, that has now changed! With the advent of this Nigerian religious
junk, it is titles galore! You now have bishops, arch-bishops, prophets,
apostles, chief apostles, etc. Some are not even content with that and
so have combinations like, “chief apostle prophet doctor so-and-so.”
This is certainly very different from the teaching and personal
lifestyle of the Lord Jesus Christ whom they claim to serve.
Many of these
churches have since been discovered to be nothing more than fund-raising
outfits, with sole proprietorship maintained by the pastor and his
wife. The pattern seems to be: start a church and then milk the
congregation. The pastors basically prey on the vulnerable and gullible.
They are crooks and conmen. In a number of the southern African
countries represented at the consultation, governments have sent these
pastors packing upon finding undeniable proof that large stashes of
money were being milked out of their citizens and being shipped to West
Africa. This has made these governments very suspicious of anyone coming
from any other African country as a missionary into their country. They
now think that all African missionaries are just mercenaries.
Yet, the
saddest part of all this has been the loss of the gospel. Once upon a
time, you could go to any church that purported to be evangelical and
once you survived what was called worship, you would hear a sermon that
finally pointed you to Christ and him crucified for pardon from sin.
That is now largely an exception, and is as rare as my great
grandfather’s teeth. What you hear now are calls for “deliverance”, and
you experience this by coming forward to be prayed for. Inevitably, once
you lose the gospel, you lose true spirituality and morality.
Christianity becomes a thin veneer of respectability but inside there is
total corruption and decay. The church becomes a wardrobe full of
skeletons. Or, to borrow a more biblical expression, the church is
filled with white-washed tombs.
This explains
why, although Nigeria is packed with such mega-churches (and is now
exporting them across the continent), it is still the most corrupt
nation on the continent. If church leaders are milking the people like
this, what hope is there to correct things among the politicians and the
civil servants? It is impossible! You cannot grow true spirituality
where the cross of Christ and the Christ of the cross is absent. We must
insist that the Spirit of God is the Holy Spirit. Where holiness
is conspicuous by its absence, we should never attribute what is
happening there to God’s Spirit because he is a spirit of holiness.
Crowds and people falling backwards upon being touched prove nothing if
holiness of life is missing. Jesus said, “You will recognise them by
their fruits.”
In
this blog I have avoided naming names. This is because the consultation
I have just come from did not name names. However, all I can say is,
“If the hat fits you, put it on!” Anyone who has eyes to see and ears to
hear knows what I am talking about. Let me end by once again
apologising to any genuine and sincere Nigerian pastors who distance
themselves from all this junk. Just as I know a number of sweet American
folks who are very humble, Kenyans who cannot run halfway around a
football ground, and Afrikaners who are colour blind, I am sure there
must be many West African pastors—and Nigerians for that matter—who will
have nothing to do with this spiritual corruption. I only wish they
were more vocal in condemning this religious junk being exported from
their country!
Our Criminal Evangelical Silence
We all know that the dark ages are upon us again
here in Africa. It is almost like a dark blanket that is slowly surrounding the
land. People who know absolutely nothing of the core values of evangelical
Christianity—the new birth, repentance and saving faith, justification and
holiness, etc.—have hijacked evangelical Christianity in Africa. Even the term
"born again" is being peddled without an iota of the meaning that
Jesus had in mind when he used the phrase in his talk with Nicodemus. These are
dark days indeed.
Once upon a time in Zambia, in the 1970s and early
1980s, you could go to very much any English-speaking evangelical church on
Sunday and expect to attend a Bible study and hear faithful preaching of God's
word. You may have been a little uncomfortable with some aspects of their
worship. You may have also disagreed with some doctrinal assumptions during the
preaching. However, you could not miss the fact that here was a sincere effort
at arriving at the meaning of the text of Scripture and applying it to the
hearers—both in the Bible studies and the sermons. You also heard an appeal for
repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. They may not have
dotted your "i"s and crossed your "t"s as you do, but you
still went home edified.
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| George Whitefield preached "You must be born again" during the Great Evangelical Awakening of the 18th Century |
I liken this delusion to the days prior to the
Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. People flooded the churches but it
was all for the wrong reasons. They were deceived and spellbound by a priest
craft that claimed abilities they did not have but which the people craved
after. Superstition reigned supreme in the church. The people were poor but
they were promised various blessings if they could only give their remaining
money to the church. Out of these funds majestic church edifices were built and
the church's top leadership lived like kings and princes. Is this not what is
happening in the name of evangelical Christianity today? Or am I the only one
who is seeing these things?
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| Such "dancing queens" are now the height of "worship" in churches |
Come on; let us be honest. We all know that the
so-called prosperity gospel, which is in vogue in evangelicalism today, is
heresy. We all know that the only guys becoming stinking rich are the preachers
to whom the blind followers are giving their money. The followers themselves
are still in abject poverty. It is nothing but religious fraud. We also all
know that 99% of the claims to physical healing by our faith healers are false.
We all have relatives who would be alive today if they had not been told they
were cured and so should not take medication for their sickness. These men are
murderers. This is not Conrad Mbewe being malicious and making up stories.
These are all well-known facts.
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| Zambian "bishop" (of Restoration Deliverance Church) with Nigerian accent recently accused of impregnating 10 women in his church |
The problem with this current silence is that the
younger generation who are coming into evangelical circles now think that what
they are seeing is a viable and alternative form of evangelical Christianity
when it is not. They have no clue that only recently believers got together in
church for serious Bible study, that worship had dignity and awe, and that
sermons were Bible-based, Christ-centred, and aimed at spiritual conversion.
Due to our silence, our upcoming preachers are seeing filling your church
membership roll with goats rather than sheep and driving expensive cars at the
expense of poor parishioners as the sign of pastoral success. They have no clue
that it was only recently when pastors stood out in society for their true
godly servanthood. Today’s evangelical leaders are misleading a whole
generation of innocent souls by their silence.
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| Martin Luther who said, "Enough is enough" in the 16th Century |
Once upon a time, a generation of God's people saw spiritual decay and said, "Enough is enough!" and out of this protest was born the Protestant Reformation. In yet another generation, when liberalism had invaded the Protestant church and was killing its very life, a generation of God's people again said, "Enough is enough!" and out of that protest was born the Evangelical movement of the 18th century. In the light of the darkness that is once again upon us, with churches becoming no more than witchdoctors' dens, is it not time for today's evangelicals to say, "Enough is enough"? How can we be silent in the light of this engulfing darkness? Surely, our evangelical silence must be criminal.
The Nonsense Of Spiritual Husbands And Wives
My wife and I were driving from visiting a home in the evening when I turned on the car radio and tuned to a local radio station. There was a preacher speaking on a live radio programme. He was evidently campaigning for an overnight prayer meeting that was scheduled to take place at his church the next day.
What I found absurd was that his panacea for everyone who called in was, “Come to the overnight prayer meeting tomorrow and receive your deliverance.” However, as absurd as this was, it was not the most shocking. It was when he began to tell all the women who were calling in to share their marital problems that they had spiritual husbands who were behind their domestic woes. I had never heard of this and thought the guy was just crazy.
Well, I am the one who was in for a shock. The following day, while talking to some theological students from our densely populated townships in Lusaka, they were surprised that I had never heard about this phenomenon. It was common talk where they lived and ministered. So, they took time to explain it to me.
The belief is that when your marriage is breaking up due to a husband who seems to have lost interest in you, or you have serious gynaecological problems, or you are having miscarriages, then it is because you have a spirit called a spiritual husband causing all this in the spiritual realm. It is also the case if you are getting on in years and no man is seriously approaching you for marriage. It means you have a spiritual husband blocking other men. You need deliverance in order to have a wholesome marriage or for your body to function normally.
Usually, the diagnosis involves being asked about your dreams. If you have either seen yourself swimming (for the most stubborn ones are marine spirits), or missing your menstrual period, or becoming pregnant, or breastfeeding, or vomiting, or going shopping or having sex with a man who is not your husband, or having a miscarriage, or getting married, or about to get killed in a dream, then this is sure evidence that a spiritual husband has entered into your life. You need deliverance. If the “man of God” tells you that you are having dreams in which you are having sex with someone and you deny it, he then tells you that your spiritual husband wipes it off your memory through demonic manipulation.
As usual, there are many benighted souls who are ready to testify that they went for such deliverance meetings where the “man of God” prayed for them to be delivered from their spiritual husbands and since then their dreams have returned to normal and their marriages are supposedly back on track. For those who were not being proposed, after the deliverance sessions they have found spouses and are now married and are living happily ever after! Sadly, there are many, many more whose marriages would have been salvaged if they had gone through proper Christian marriage counselling. These are the ones who suffer quietly and are told that they lacked faith or they did not have a breakthrough.
Of course, this teaching is gender neutral. Men having marital problems are also being taught about spiritual wives who are affecting their marriages. The only difference is that often it is women who fall prey to such nonsense—as was the case that evening when so many of them called during that live radio programme that my wife and I listened to as we drove home.
What shall I call this teaching about spiritual husbands (and wives), which is in vogue today here in Africa? It is nonsense! Here are at least four reasons why:
1. All this is not in the Bible. We have gone right back to the dark ages where we believe everything that “priests” say without checking it with what the Bible says. As in the dark ages, stories doing their rounds are becoming larger than life. Spiritual husbands are changing shape and showing up in all kinds of places at night. Even when these false teachers use the Bible, they wrest it out of its context. One such teacher used Matthew 13:25, which says, “But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away,” to teach that spiritual husbands come at night to sleep with women!
2. There is a superstitious view of dreams that is totally unhealthy. If I am lusting after someone I am likely to dream romantically about him or her. If I am having problems to conceive, I am likely to dream that one day I am pregnant. If I am longing for a job, I am likely to dream that one day I land myself the job of my dreams. If I have longed to meet President Obama, I am likely to dream that I am having a meal with him and his wife, Michelle, at the White House. It is sheer common sense. Dreams simply live out the wishes and fears of our lives.
3. There is a failure to handle moral issues the way the Bible handles them. Those involved in sexual sin are being told that the blame is on spiritual husbands or wives and all they need is deliverance. Responsibility is shifted from them to some powerful forces. The Bible calls people guilty of sin to repentance, urging them to find forgiveness from God through faith in Christ. Many of these women (and the men!) being counselled to be delivered from spiritual husbands (and wives) are unregenerate. They need to be saved by the power of the gospel. Yet, there is no effort to show them that it is sin in their lives that is destroying their marriages. If the Lord were to save them, he would give them a new power to enable them to joyfully live in honour of their marriage vows and obligations.
4. There is a failure to counsel people with biblical principles of marriage. Women who were calling in to that radio programme, talking about constant fights with their husbands, were not being asked whether they were observing the biblical blueprint for healthy marriage relationships. Husbands ought to love their wives as Christ loved the church. Wives ought to submit to their husbands as the church submits to Christ. No, the “man of God” would go straight into telling the women that they had spiritual husbands and needed deliverance.
Let me say it again, this teaching about spiritual husbands and wives is sheer nonsense! It is yet another lie of the devil that is being peddled by deluded souls masquerading as spiritual teachers and preachers. They are blind and they are leading others who are blind into spiritual and moral ditches. Any teaching that is not based squarely on the Bible is not worth listening to. It is nonsense!
The Curse Of Motivational Speaking
I asked him
whether he was a Christian. His answer was, “Do I really need to be a Christian
in order to be successful? Are you telling me that all those successful people
out there are Christians? Aren’t there general principles that I can apply to
my life—whether I am a Christian or not—that can catapult me to success?” I
challenged him to answer that question himself. After all, I was sure he had
done enough rounds among motivational speakers to have the answer.
“That is the problem,”
he said, “I have been told that such principles exist and I have tried them.
They seem to work for a while and then I am back to my old self again. I want
you to help me find that formula that will help me go forward and never slide
back to the place where I do not believe in myself.” To cut the long story
short, I finally persuaded him of the need for reconciliation with God before
anyone can break free from the frustrating rut that God locks unreconciled
sinners in.
I gave him a
booklet to read, entitled, What is a
Biblical Christian? When we met the following day, he was honest enough to
tell me that he was disappointed with what he read because it was not telling
him what he wanted to hear. “What I want to know is how I can be successful.
This booklet did not say anything about that.” I repeated what I told him
earlier. What he needed was not belief in himself but belief in a Saviour sent
from heaven. He needed forgiveness as a foundation for his life.
Yesterday, a
church member told me that he met the young man in the local market. He had two
booklets in his hands. The first was the one I had given him and the second one
was by Joel Osteen. He told our member, “Pastor Mbewe gave me this book but I
don’t like it because it makes me feel guilty. I prefer this one by Joel Osteen
because it lifts me up. It motivates me.” I am very concerned about this and so
I decided to put some thoughts together about the curse of motivational
speaking.
Sadly,
motivational speaking has become the staple diet of many evangelical pulpits.
The message being heard is, “God has put the potential in you and all you need
to do is believe in yourself to unlock that potential. Have a grand vision and
live out that vision. You must be a man or woman of destiny and the sky will be
the limit for you. Don’t let your past failures get in your way of success.
Look beyond them, as Jesus looked beyond the cross and thus overcame it. You
are the head and not the tail. ”
In the light of the
plethora of motivational speaking, it begs the question, “Is this how Old
Testament and New Testament preachers preached?” If I summarise the preaching
of Noah, Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Jonah, Paul, Peter, etc., in the Bible, is this
the kind of message that I will find there? I do not think so. Granted,
motivational speakers borrow words from these men, but borrowing someone’s
words is not the same thing as saying what he is saying. “A text without a
context is a pretext.”
My chief quarrel
with motivational speaking is that it reduces God to a means rather than an
end. Men and women are not made to see that the nature of SIN lies in the
letter “I” in the middle of the word. Instead, motivational speaking feeds that
same ego and points to God as the one who can spoil it to the point of
intoxication. That is a lie! It is God alone who must be at the centre of our
lives. Christianity demands a dying to self, a taking up of one’s cross, and a
following after a suffering Saviour.
Whenever I listen
to motivational speaking, I seem to hear the message, “Peace, peace,” where
there is no peace. It sounds to me like a doctor assuring a patient who has
terminal cancer in its final stages that he should not worry because all will
be okay if he only believes in himself. The guy is dying, man, for crying out
loud! It is the height of insincerity if a preacher knows that the wages of sin
is death (Romans 6:23) and instead makes those heading for the slaughterhouse
feel nice.
Motivational
speaking makes people feel good, whereas the gospel first makes people feel
bad—until they find their all in Christ. True preaching must make people face
the fact that they are living in rebellion against God and that they need to
repent or they will perish. It is only as people recognise this and cry out,
“What shall we do to be saved?” (Acts 2:37, 16:30) that true preaching gives
them the good news, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved”
(Romans 10:13).
Motivational
speaking is an attempt at trying to kill a charging lion with a pea-gun, using
freshly cooked peas, spiced with the most aromatic seasonings. The aroma may be
tantalizing to the taste buds, but it is totally useless in bringing down that
ferocious beast. Men and women outside Christ are DEAD in trespasses and sins.
Exciting their senses with nice-sounding platitudes will not give them life.
They need the law to kill their fallen egos and the gospel of Jesus Christ to give
them life.
I know that
motivational speaking is filling up our church buildings until they look like
football stadiums. In this world of misery and gloom, we can all do with some
encouragement. But is that all that we were called to do as preachers? What
good is it if men feel inspired and motivated, and then go back home to live a
life of sin and selfishness? Sadly this is the norm in so many evangelical
churches. The churches are filled to capacity with people determined to drink
sin like water the whole week.
