A Word for Bishop David Oyedepo
I have spent quality time reading the statement issued by Bishop David Oyedepo’s Living Faith Church in defence of the service held at the headquarters of the church in Ogun State, on March 22, contrary to government’s caution against large gathering following COVID-19 pandemic. I find the explanation for not complying with government’s instruction preposterous and silly.
Part of the church’s defence reads: “Information has to be strategically disseminated to the grassroots. The Church is a family and not an industry; it is for this reason that enlightenment and sensitisation from the Church platform is a most effective way of getting people involved in playing their part in terms of prayers and intercessions and not just staying away from Church without knowing what to do.
“As we all know, the Church is made up of both literate and illiterate congregants; many are not in touch with any of the modern platforms of communication and this is what we did yesterday. Indeed, the service was devoted entirely to sensitising and mobilising members of the Church regarding the danger of this deadly virus and the need to comply with government directives.”
Enlightenment and sensitisation from the Church platform? Haba! When did gathering a large number of people in Church become the only means of mass sensitisation? Illiterates can be educated in large number via radio. The service held last Sunday at the Living Faith Church was absolutely unnecessary. It was an affront they later discovered was no longer sustainable. But instead of simply apologising, the church was still trying to justify the irrationality.
Of course, the members of the church have been defending this illogicality. I’m not surprised. So many Nigerians, particularly in Pentecostal churches, have suspended their brains in the name of religion. Supposedly educated people behave strangely in the name of religion. What they are doing in most of these Pentecostal churches is hero-worshipping. “Our pastor has said this” and they go with these prosperity preachers blindly. Many of these followers have been hypnotised and weakened to the extent that they can no longer read their bibles. For these people, their pastor is god. They just follow them thoughtlessly. In these churches, religion has become a combination of opium, heroin and cocaine of the people.
Most Pentecostal pastors in Nigeria are fast becoming modern day Jim Jones. Remember him? He was an American preacher, faith healer and cult leader who conspired with his inner circle to direct a mass murder of his followers in his jungle commune at Jonestown, Guyana. The Jonestown Massacre occurred on November 18, 1978, when 909 members of the cult called the Peoples Temple died in a mass suicide under the direction of Jones. They died from cyanide poisoning, in an event termed “revolutionary suicide” chaired by the notorious Jones. The leader and four others died of gunshot wounds. Jones, the self-proclaimed messiah of the Peoples Temple, promised his followers heaven if they died with him. His Peoples Temple Agricultural Project located in the South American country of Guyana was his “promised land.” In 1977 almost 1,000 Americans had moved to Jonestown, as it was called, hoping to get to heaven.
We are getting dangerously close to the Jim
Jones scenario in Nigeria. Millions of followers are behaving strangely in the name of religion. Daily, I pray for God’s intervention.
On the flip side, what was Mathew Ashimolowo, Founder and Senior Pastor of Kingsway International Christian Centre (KICC), trying to achieve by asking his members to pay their offering online amid the coronavirus pandemic? In a video, the Pastor said his offices would still be open, and asked members to get online and see different ways they can send in their offering. All this man is thinking about is how to collect offering amid the pandemic. His muddled members will applaud and oblige.