Christianity and national transformation (3)
While there is noticeable decline in religious fervour in many parts of the world, the religious enterprise appears to be thriving very much in Nigeria, as more and more company warehouses and private buildings are being converted to prayer houses, and our sports facilities all over the country are being used more for religious crusades than for sporting events. Streets within our towns and villages, as well as inter-state highways are often blocked these days by enthusiastic worshippers who flock to churches and camp meetings. In many of our urban areas, there are as many churches and mosques as there are streets! Within this religious firmament, priests, pastors and prophets, as well as sheikhs, imams and gurus of all sorts are swelling in number and having a field day. In the last few years, a new dimension has also been added to the thriving religious enterprise. It is the increased patronage of high ranking public officials who not only openly call for and sponsor regular prayer sessions in different prayer houses, but have themselves become born again Christians and prayer merchants, often appearing at church crusades and prayer vigils with all the paraphernalia of public office, and sometimes grabbing the microphone to deliver sanctimonious homilies and earthshaking prayers.
Yes, these days, prayers and preaching sessions are no longer limited to churches, mosques and homes. They are held at corporate
1. Commit to one another as much as we commit to Him.
If you Love The Brethren, it is Indisputable Evidence that you are Saved.
1 John 3:14, “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.”
If you Love God, then you will Automatically Love God’s People.
1 John 4:20, “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?”
Un-Saved people do Not Love Christians ..... They may Admire ...
1 John 4:7-8, “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” --- V. 11-13, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. 12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. 13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.”
Brotherly Love Tells The World that we are Saved.
John 13:35, “By this shall all men boardrooms, in government offices, in commercial buses and in open markets. Nigerians going about their daily business can be seen brandishing the Bible or the Quran, the Rosary or Islamic prayer beads. The largest billboards in our town and cities are those advertising upcoming religious events. Thus, from all outward indications, Nigerians are a chronically religious people. There is perhaps no other nation in the modern world with as much religiosity as contemporary Nigeria.
With all this show of religiosity or outward display of piety, one would have expected to see a very high degree of social morality in Nigeria, since all world religions generally promote truth, justice, honesty and probity. But this is not to be the case with us. There is an embarrassing contradiction between the high ethical demands of Christianity and the actual lives that many Christians are living. The number of fraudsters, thieves and rogues continues to increase geometrically, even as our environment is awash with prayers and ritual sacrifices to the God of truth, justice and righteousness. It doesn’t seem to be a matter of contradiction for many highly placed Nigerians that they embezzle or misappropriate stupendous amounts of public and company (or even church) funds, while at the same time struggling to occupy the front seats in their churches and mosques.
Many Nigerians often fraudulently procure medical certificates of fitness from hospitals when they have not undergone any medical tests. They also obtain
Some years ago a former American astronaut took over as head of a major airline, determined to make the Airline’s service the best in the industry. One day, as the new president walked through a particular department, he saw an employee resting his feet on a desk while the telephone on the desk rang incessantly.
“Aren’t you going to answer that phone?” the boss demanded.
“This isn’t my department,” answered the employee nonchalantly, apparently not recognizing his new boss. “I work in maintenance.”
“Not anymore you don’t!” sick leave permits from doctors, when they are hale and hearty. They sometimes falsify the age of their children and obtain fake birth certificates in order to get them into nursery or primary schools earlier than the stipulated age. Holding the Bible or Quran in court, they vow to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, only to tell a bundle of lies. They routinely swear to false affidavits in order to claim some underserved benefits, and make false age declarations when seeking employment or admission into institutions of learning. All these practices are so commonplace and so widespread that many young Nigerians are today unable to distinguish between good and evil or between right and wrong.
Rather than help to confront the myriad challenges facing us as a people and as a nation, religion has sometimes taken a backseat, and at other times a willing collaborator to the collective oppression of our people. The social environment in which many religious leaders live today is totally cut off and disconnected from the oppressive reality of the situation of millions of their followers, who continue to suffer untold hardship in order to survive. How is Christianity expected to respond to the many perplexing situations of gross social injustice in which we find ourselves? How can today’s Christianity develop a social consciousness where the worship of God is united with a corresponding social commitment?
In the history of Christianity, our faith has never been lacking in great reformers and courageous snapped the president.
Today in the Word, MBI, December, 1989, p. 35.
3. We are to work as a team. We are to fight together, pray together, eat together, rejoice with one another and bear one another’s burden.
There’s a wonderful story about Jimmy Durante, one of the great entertainers of a generation ago. He was asked to be a part of a show for World War II veterans. He told them his schedule was very busy and he could afford only a few minutes, but if they wouldn’t mind his doing one short monologue and immediately leaving for his next appointment, he would come. Of course, the show’s director agreed happily. But when Jimmy got on stage, something interesting happened. He went through the short monologue and then stayed. The applause grew louder and louder and he kept staying. Pretty soon, he had been on fifteen, twenty, then thirty minutes. Finally he took a last bow and left the stage. Backstage someone stopped him and said, “I thought you had to go after a few minutes. What happened?”
Jimmy answered, “I did have to go, but I can show you the reason I stayed. You can see for yourself if you’ll look down on the front row.” In the front row were two men, each of whom had lost an arm in the war. One had lost his right arm and the other had lost his left. Together, they were able to clap, and that’s exactly what they were doing, loudly and cheerfully. (Tim Hansel, Holy Sweat, 1987, Word Books Publisher, p. 104105.) prophets, who have brought remarkable improvement to the human condition.
In every generation, God never tires of raising men and women who abandon the luxury of personal comfort in order to carry on their shoulders the yoke of championing the cause of justice for the poor and defenceless members of society. At the height of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi madness, the Lord Jesus raised Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), a German Lutheran pastor, to challenge the status quo. Although he was martyred in 1945, he became a powerful symbol of the resistance of the church against the Holocaust. His book, The Cost of Discipleship reminds us that following Jesus is costly; that it demands everything from us. I have always been touched by a stirring quotation from Bonhoeffer’sbook, where he said: “When Christ calls a man to follow Him, He bids him come and die.
The cross is laid on every Christian. It begins with the call to abandon the attachments of this world.”
Martin Niemöller (1892-1984) was another German anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor. At a time when the German intellectuals and leaders of the protestant churches chose to remain silent in the face of Hitler’s mad purgation of the Jews, Pastor Niemöller emerged as an outspoken foe of Hitler, and on account of this, he spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in a concentration camp. In his famous but provocative poem, “First they came,” he spells out clearly the price we pay for our indifference in a period of great crisis.
4. We are expected to protect one another, love one another and assist one another.
Ministry that costs nothing, accomplishes nothing.
John Henry Jowett said, “Your candle loses nothing when it lights another.”
5. We are to commit to the growth of the Church through witnessing, financial sacrifice and the use of our gifts and natural talents. The same thing can be said for the nation. We must contribute our own quota towards building a strong nation.
A preacher said recently that one of the causes of poverty and failure among Christians is gossip and lack of love for one another. He declared that this is one of the things that bring curses on believers. This curse is the devil’s number one weapon against the Church today. Love sets us apart. As Nigerians, we should stop slandering one another; we should accept one another, regardless of tribe or religion. We should do everything to avoid hate speech and promote all those things which promote unity and togetherness. Let us all join hands together and build a strong and prosperous nation we can all be proud to belong to.
God bless our nation Nigeria!
First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak outBecause I was not a Communist. First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak outBecause I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak outBecause I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak outBecause I was not a Jew. First they came for the Catholics, and I did not speak outBecause I was a Protestant. Then they came for me-and there was no one left to speak for me.
Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero (1917-1980) of El Salvador was a man who stood for the poor and defenceless people of his country, at a time when the military government, which overthrew the Carlos Romero, trampled on the rights of the poor. A newspaper reporter once asked Archbishop Romero if he was aware that soldiers wanted to kill him and he replied, “You can tell them they are wasting their time. They can kill a bishop but they cannot kill the people of God, the Church. If I am killed I will rise again in the Salvadoran people.” He became a thorn in the flesh of the regime and ultimately paid the price of martyrdom. While he was celebrating Mass on June 24 1980, as he raised the Chalice, a soldier walked into the Church and fired straight at him and killed him. Thus, Romero made a covenant with his people and sealed it with his blood.