Saving Jesus

The only person I knew who could fit that bill was his brother, who was a pastor of a CAC – Christ Apostolic Church. That was the family church, even though people may stray here and there. Today, my family, like most Yoruba families, is full of pastors everywhere.  Sometimes I think it’s an overkill. My own brother is a pastor in one of the new generation churches. Ditto, some of my younger ones in the extended family.
But the Christianity we were used to was sedate, relaxed, non-confrontational, some may say, of the old school.
Then we all kept quiet as society was disemboweled and disfigured by the quest for money through any and every means; including deception in the name of the Lord.  It probably has always been a problem within all religions. But the boldness and the brazenness of our own brand is why we hit the global radar.  There have always been one or two people per country who call themselves Jesus Christ Incarnate, and somehow get millions to believe in them and worship them, and others who purportedly wrought great ‘miracles’ when in fact what they did was to have ‘shills’ among the crowd, or professional actors, paid to deceive the world.
And the world chose to be deceived.  
In Nigeria here we have had many come and gone. Remember Anwuzia of Zoe? Odukoya along Lekki Expressway. Reverend King who is cooling his heels in jail for what? Murder? How many more can one recall? Jesus(es) of Oyingbo, Agege, Ibadan and so on
What started in the USA – Charismatic Evangelical Christianity – has today become a Nigerian embarrassment, even though most Nigerian Christians will never agree. Even in the USA they had some spectacular frauds – Jim Jones, David Koresh, Jimmy Swaggart etc.  But should we wait for the world to view and treat all of us as criminals? What is the difference between Christianity as practiced by millions of Nigerians today, and as championed by thousands of ‘pastors’, and say, the 419 syndrome that Nigerians were well known and stereotyped for? Hint – both involve the conning of innocent, and many times, greedy people, by flamboyant actors who promise something that doesn’t exist to their hapless clientele. Is Christianity the new 419, attracting the fastest talkers and the most greedy like 419 did in the late 1980s and early 1990s?
Nigeria hit the radar a long time ago; a basket case, a people who will never do what is necessary to save their own lives, but will supplicate day and night, dancing, prancing and gyrating, genuflecting, contorting and speaking unknown gibberish, as the world forged on.  We have become an object of ridicule in the eyes of every right-thinking people of the world, including very good Christians. In everything in this world, how come it is only in matters of religion that we excel? Why not in science, the arts, sports, medicine, engineering, social sciences?  Why religion? Why did we end up having our best edifices become churches? Even the president – as Christian as he is and as much as a lot of these guys are his friends –echoed this tragedy just last Sunday. Hear him: “I grew up as a member of the Anglican Church. As at that time, it was only Anglican Church that was at my tiny village. But now, I don’t know the number of churches that are there. Almost all the classrooms are churches now.”
Most people – perhaps the speaker inclusive – did not know the sheer damning import of that statement.  It is a testimony, right at the president’s backyard, that we have substituted commonsense with voodooism, masquerading as piety. We have replaced the virtue of hard-work and keen verification of reality, with a quest for magic. We have produced buck-strapping young men and women, who should ordinarily add value to our productivity, but who have chosen instead, to lead the pack of millions who spend quality time looking to the skies while being robbed of the little they have by the same conveners of vainglorious self-worship plus an endless barrage of demands of the good things of life from God, for free.  Hardly are virtues of modesty, contentment, humility, chastity, and other ideals that Jesus stood for, mentioned.
I will mention names. The boss at Winners Chapel has been banned from entering the UK, pending when investigation into the management of the church’s finance at the London branch, will be concluded. UK Police have alleged misappropriation.  For the same reasons, Matthew Ashimolowo of KICC was kicked out several years ago. Recently when another ‘pastor’, Chris Oyakhilome started having marital issues, the UK Police waded in and is now investigating the finances of the church and its several fund transfers within the behemoth called Christ Embassy.  His neighbor’s ex-pianist revealed the ego war, the money-fight between him and Kris Okotie, the other man of god who goes around with heavily armed bodyguards.  Like his colleague in Abuja at COZA, Biodun Fatoyinbo, who was enmeshed in several sex scandals, Kris just took delivery of a Rolls Royce! Scandals are nothing to these guys.  At TB Joshua’s Synagogue Church of All Nations, the scandal is not that they decided to add three stories on top of two and had the whole thing tumbling down, killing dozens. It is that they FAKE miracles. Check out what they have on Emmanuel TV on Youtube and you will puke on yourself! But presidents believe him. Let us give the CAN chairman, Dr Oritsejafor a break this week, as he battles to clear his name from gunrunning and money laundering. Christ have Mercy!
One journalist, Seyi Rhodes came here to investigate a ‘pastor’ guy called Sign Fireman the other day. That was the first time I saw clearly that the miracles were faked. Sign Fireman’s personal secretary was among the actresses who were paid to start writhing on the floor of the church the previous Sunday deceiving people that they had evil spirits. In Fireman and Joshua’s churches, evil spirits speak English, sometimes pidgin. They obey the ‘pastors’’ commands to the letter.
Another smart Alec in South Africa, called Lesego Daniel, who runs Rabboni Christian Centre, in the name of Jesus Christ, got his followers to eat grass, kneeling in the field like goats. The next Sunday, he had them lying on the ground as he stumped on them, marching their bodies as if they were wood. On yet another Sunday, he actually got them to drink PETROL! And they were rushing forward to have a taste of the miracle ‘pineapple juice’.
I stopped attending Nigerian churches for a while now, choosing instead to go to Catholic Church with my wife, on a few occasions during the year.  The Catholic Chruch has its issues no doubt, but the new ‘pente-rascal’ churches seem to have signed on big-time to the worship of Mammon. Even Baba Adeboye’s RCCG has not helped Nigeria for it cultivates friendships with our oppressive rulers, granting them high chairs in the front and air time at the pulpit, instead of speaking truth to them to change their oppressive, unthinking, wasteful ways!
This is why it seems important to Save the name of Jesus from what Africans are doing with it at this moment – especially Nigerians. Like the American armed robber, George “Babyface” Nelson, they seem to be telling us, “Jesus Saves, but we the ‘pastors’, we withdraw, (we cheat, we spend and we preen like peacocks)!”
Can we save Jesus’ name somebody?