Jihad, Islamization And The Problem Of The Church In Nigeria: Matters Arising – Engr Daniel David Kadzai, Youth CAN President
Loading ...As previously held, the so called Jihadists or instigators of coordinated attacks across churches in Nigeria, revealingly, do not constitute the main problem of the Church in Nigerian today.
The most menacing problem to the church in Nigeria today are some characters and personalities in the church called clerics and church elites.
The most ill-boding threat to the church are these greedy, full of pride hawks who have continued to use their recalcitrant and shameful display of self-centeredness, dishonesty, recklessness, corruption, insensitivity and their inability to uphold their cardinal calling of righteousness as priests. These constitute what can be considered as the most lethal threat to the church in Nigeria today and not the jihadists.
Worse still, every sunday these supposedly “men and women of God” put on their robes of pretense and fellowship with members who can hardly provide a meal per day for their families or even pay the outstanding fees of their forcefully thrown out of school children. The members of their churches wallow in abject poverty while these clerics celebrate their loot and prey. Among the ushers and associate pastors is a blatant show of specific poverty with hungry faces and then all wonder why the chorister sister seems to lose her voice during every praise and worship.
How wouldn’t she loose her voice when she has not eaten? Yet she sings and the whole congregation benefits, all in faithful submission to her calling and her God.
Acts 4:32-35 “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.”
But as the chorister sister gives her all in obedience to this truth, do the preachers understand to do the same? Do the preachers even read this verse? To be on the safe side, many of these clerics do not read this verse to themselves nor their flock anymore.
The church in Nigeria has become embattled from within that every Christian must focus on appealing to God through serious prayer and fasting for God to intervene and visit his Church with the deserved justice.
The shameful activities of these so-called men of God in the church of Nigeria have become intricately stealth and sophisticated that even the best acts of the known jihadists seem to now be a child’s play.
Today, attention is being shifted from how effective gathering of money can be made possible and how the pastors can get rewarding percentages.
Members sensing the whole malady now do not want to be left out as they too have resorted to high level recalcitrancy and indiscipline, of course, since their leaders in the church seem to show them this new form of rascality.
End time pastors now scavenge impatient members who run from churches where true disciplinary action have been put on them. The after stories of regret from members who have been duped by these end time pastors have become an embarrassment to both the church and Christians alike.
Beloved, it is pertinent to remind you that you do not be deceived, that the same God you hear of is still the same yesterday, today and forever.
In this context of being “the same God of yesterday and today” it is pertinent that we be reminded and understand that He is still same God of Justice we often read about in the scriptures and His judgement (His Word says) often begins from His house, the church (1 Peter 4:17).
The true Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ must be maintained while this new, extractive gospel in the church of Nigeria must change.
We must strive to serve God in TRUTH and SPIRIT.
Christ must be seen practically in our daily lives. We should be trustworthy, God-fearing and do away with rascality, remembering that our God will pass judgement on both leaders and the led.
(Engr. David Daniel Kadzai is the National President of the Youth Wing of the Christian Association of Nigeria, YOWICAN. He writes in from the CAN headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria) E-mail: Kadoptimist@gmail.com
