The ‘mammonisation’ of religion in Nigeria (1)

Many friends have asked me what my view on tithes and tithing is. Is it right to pay tithe or not? I am not sure my answer is Yes or No. But I will try to explain. Religion is a good thing. If you believe in God, then you know that it is right to worship God and to serve him by loving your neighbour. Love of God and love of neighbour is the fundamental hinge of the Christian religion. This is what Jesus says we should do. If you take away love from Christian, the whole foundation collapses. However, as I have observed elsewhere, the practise of Christianity in Nigeria is fraught with a lot of contradictions. Wait let me explain. Much of what passes for Christianity today in Nigeria borders on spiritual fraud. Everything seems to be about money as if that is all that Christianity is about. Poor people are exploited with spiritual doctrines that are tailored to hypnotise them.

According to the latest report of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), over 120 million Nigerians are living below the poverty line, that is, less than $1 a day. Just imagine what that means in your mind. More than half of the whole of Nigeria is in misery. These are not numbers; they are human beings like you and me who do not know where their next meal is going to come from. This is how they are likely to live year in, year out. Of this number, you have millions of unemployed, unemployable, hopeless, and jobless youth. You have people sleeping under bridges and motor parks because they have no place to call home. You need to travel round the country to see that Nigeria is more than Victoria Island in Lagos and Maitama and Asokoro in Abuja. There are hundreds of thousands of slums and ghettoes where human lives are decimated on a daily basis in Nigeria. Think of newborn children who do not survive more than a week in those slums because of illnesses that their parents cannot afford medical care. Think of millions of children who will never see a classroom all their lives because of poverty and misery of their parents. And we all live together in this same country.

In this hopelessly dispossessing social environment, religion has a duty to give hope to the poor, but also to challenge the structures of oppression and bad politics, which keep millions of people poor, discontented, depressed, and hopeless. Sadly, what we often find in Nigeria is that religion remains locked in cocoons of privilege and luxury, without giving a hoot about the misery of the poor. At other times, religion becomes an ally of power to the collective oppression of the poor. Is this what religion should be? If Jesus Christ were to be living in Nigeria today, do you think he will be silent about this kind of situation? Do you think he will remain locked up in a mansion in Asokoro and not bother about the lives of those in the slums of Kpaduma and Mpape? I’m sure he would have experienced revulsion in his intestines after visiting these Abuja slums. The point I am trying to drive at is that religion has a role to play in bettering the condition of the poor, especially by helping to hold political leaders accountable to their promises to the people. Any religion that cannot make the lives of the poor better should at least not make it worse. I am pained to say that much of Christianity in Nigeria is making the condition of the poor worse! As politicians today exploit the poor by stealing the resources of the nation that should better their welfare, so religion also exploits the poor by dispossessing them of what they have to live on in the name of God. It is almost like politicians and pastors are in a fierce competition for who can exploit the poor more. This offends God. This is not how God wants his children to live. He wants them to live happy and dignified lives. If you read the Old Testament prophets, especially Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah and Jeremiah, you will notice how much God frowned at those who exploited and oppressed the poor. God’s verdict of condemnation on these oppressors was always strongly worded.

Now, one of the ways in which modern day Christian pastors in Nigeria exploit the poor is through the erroneous doctrine of tithe. Many pastors who insist on their members paying tithe have just one or two Old Testament passages to quote in support of this. They never find anything in the New Testament to support the paying of tithe, not even on the lips of Jesus who is the foundation and centre of our Christian religion. There is nowhere in the New Testament where Jesus commanded his followers to pay tithe. The only time he mentioned tithe was when he was berating the Scribes and Pharisees for giving tithe on spices of “mint, dill and cummin” (Matt. 23:23) without focusing on the most important elements of religion: justice, mercy, righteousness. Jesus said these are the things the Scribes and Pharisees should have practised. On the basis of this, he called them “blind guides” (Matt 23:24). Notice that even the tithe that Jesus quarrelled with the Scribes and Pharisees about was not monetary payment, but tithe on spices.

Jesus never commanded anyone to pay or receive tithe. His apostles and disciples too did not mention it in their teaching in the New Testament. Jesus did not tell them that they would go to hell if they did not pay tithe. If Jesus could grant a repentant thief salvation at the last minute while hanging on the cross and if he could forgive a notorious public sinner like Zaccheus, a tax collector who extorted from a lot of people, how much more will he be kind to those Christians who make effort to live at right with God. For me, the payment of tithe as it is presented and practised today in Nigerian Christianity is a fraudulent system that deals in hypnotising poor and gullible Christians by making them believe that the cause of their misfortune is their non-payment of tithe. “If things are tight with you,” the pastor says, “check your tithe.” This is a play on words that reveal the insidious poison underneath the tithe doctrine. It is spiritual blackmail. In other words, those who are poor or suffering are given the impression and made to believe that God is punishing them for failing to pay tithe. I have always asked: Do these pastors ever bother to know that more than 120 million people in Nigeria today live on $1 a day? Where will they see money to pay tithe?

A few weeks ago, a young lady who has followed my social media campaign on this issue sent me an inbox message and this is what she said: “In my church, they have what they call tithing holy water. I used to feel left out when they call people forward to bring their tithe. Like I’ve missed out on God’s blessings for the month. Then I was naïve. I can gather my pocket money for tithe.” This lady says she has woken up to reality. “It is not my fault that I don’t have a job.” This is it. The craze for tithe is built on this foundation of hypnosis. When a pastor keeps telling people over and over again that it is because they don’t pay tithe that they are experiencing difficulties in life, it is spiritual exploitation. When a preacher tells his church members that the cause of their suffering or misfortune in life is their failure to pay tithe, it is spiritual enslavement. They begin to feel that God does not love them. When a preacher says that those who do not pay tithe will go to hell or will not go to heaven, he is arrogating to himself the place of God who alone can determine who will inherit eternal life. A pastor who says this should ask himself whether Jesus in his entire ministry ever told anybody whether they would go to heaven or hell on the basis of this?

Ojeifo is a Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Abuja.