Nigeria Archbishop warns of corruption threat
Spiritual and material corr uption is eating away at the hearts of the Christian Churches of Nigeria, Archbishop Nicholas Okoh said last week, warning that the failure of Church leaders to live up to their callings was emblematic of the failure of Nigerian civil society.
In his eulogy for the late Primate of Nigeria, Archbishop Joseph Adetiloye on 25 January at St Paul’s Church in Odo-Owa in Ekiti State, Archbishop Okoh told the mourners: “We are not here to help Archbishop Adetiloye but to help ourselves to see if we can realign with God and make a meaning of our life.”
Taking as his text 2 Timothy 4:7-8, the Archbishop lambasted Prosperity Gospel preachers who taught false doctrine and used their ministries to enrich themselves. “The church today is highly criticised because many of us who profess Christ are very poor images of Christ,” the Archbishop said.
“It is a pity that we have become slaves to money; we have lost our dear moral values in the name of getting money,” he said, noting “teaching now centres around quick money, quick riches, and selfishness in the service of God. People don’t want to serve, but to get reach quick through miracles,” he said.
The Archbishop added that “rather than worshipping God, today most Christians worship money, and some other gods that are of no benefit to the growing of the Gospel and the spread of evangelism.”
The pursuit of wealth had even led to some Christians to “idol worshipping in the name of cultural reawakening,” he said.
The late Archbishop Adetiloye had lived an exemplary private life, Archbishop Okoh said, and had dedicated his ministry to growing the church and combating the infusion of pagan practices and secret societies into the life of the church. Archbishop Adetiloye “waged war against augmenting the power of God with some other powers.”
Nigeria needed more men like Archbishop Adetiloye — a “courageous prophet of the church who was not afraid to speak the truth to the authorities and stood firm in it,” Archbishop Okoh said.