By Chiedu Uche Okoye
Our Christian religious leaders have failed in the performance of their duties to our society. Their failures are evidenced in their bastardization and commercialization of the practice of Christianity in Nigeria.
But in Nigeria, before foreign religions like Islam and Christianity made inroads into Nigeria, the people of Nigeria were mainly atheist and practitioners of the African traditional religion. And till now, some aspects of the African traditional religion are the integral part of our African culture. Think about the worship of ancestors, pouring of libation to the gods, and the incantatory form of worship, which characterize the African traditional religion.
However, the British imperialists, who colonized us, introduced Christianity to us. Christianity, we all know, was a tool used by the colonialists to extract obedience from the natives. White people did this by instilling fear into Nigerians by telling Nigerians that they would rot in hell if they failed to obey God’s commands, as they’re written in the Bible. The biblical teachings, which Nigerians received then, made them malleable and amenable to abiding by laws by which Nigeria was governed then.
Though countless Nigerians, especially those who hailed from the southern part of the country proselytized to Christianity, their conversion to Christianity didn’t cause the obliteration of the African traditional religion. Till now, we have practitioners of African traditional religion, who take great pride in practising their religion.
But nowadays, people want to identify with the Christian religion in order to be perceived as modern people. These people belong to many different religious sects, which exist in today’s Nigeria. The Christian sects include, but are not limited to, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Pentecostal Church, the Anglican Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the Seven Day Adventist Church, and others.
These Christian sects have teachings, which are predicated on the doctrine of love. Jesus Christ, the Messiah and founder of Christianity, who lived on earth more than 2,000 years ago, propagated and spread the message of love to people then. Christ is reputed as the founder of Christianity.
But do our Christian clerics adhere to biblical and Christ’s teachings on love? The answer to this question is an emphatic no. Most Christian clerics in Nigeria distort biblical teachings to suit their purposes so as to achieve their materialistic goals. So, the practice of Christianity in Nigeria has been bastardized and commercialized.
In many churches, especially in the Pentecostal ones, their teachings and sermons centre on prosperity message rather than on salvation message. The ministers of God do not inculcate the virtues of holiness, faithfulness, forebearance, and truthfulness into members of their churches. Rather, they prioritize payment of tithes and offerings by members of their churches over participation in spiritual exercises by members of their churches.
I witnessed first hand an exemplification of the commercialization of Christianity when my mother died on January 4, 2022. The clergy man and his spouse, and leaders of the church groups to which my mother belonged insisted that the money my mother owed the church must be paid; otherwise, she would not be given a Christian funeral ceremony by the local Anglican Church she was attending during her lifetime.
All her life, my mother worked tirelessly in order that she would be given a Christian funeral ceremony when she died.
Her earnest wish was granted to her in death. But it came at a great cost. Her indebtedness to the local Anglican Church to which she belonged during her lifetime was offset. On the day of her interment, members of the Guild and Mothers’ Unions, who attended her funeral ceremony, paid their last respects to her in their customary way. They beat their drums energetically and loudly, sang lustily and soulfully, and danced sinuously. It was a bewitching and entrancing spectacle in an environment that had a funeral atmosphere.
But it is a known fact that it is our fulfilment of our financial obligations to the churches, which we attend that legitimize us as bonafide members of those churches. Sadly, our toiling regarding the propagation of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the vineyard of God cannot qualify us to receive befitting christian funeral ceremonies when we die.
But apart from their participation in the funeral ceremonies of their members,
what other roles do churches play for the betterment of our society? They play insignificant roles in the material and spiritual uplift of the people and the development of Nigeria. And they have failed in the reformation of people’s characters and the inculcation of spiritual virtues into them.
Now, a church can be described as a sole proprietorship, that is, a business establishment set up by one man for the sole purpose of making money. In
some churches, religious mountebanks utter gibberish and jabbering, which they mistake for glossolalia to beguile vulnerable and miracle-seeking women into parting with their hard-earned money. While the men of God dress gorgeously, own private jets, drive in posh cars, and own mansions in major cities of the world, a majority of members of their churches are the dirt poor, who live below the breadline, and suffer excruciating poverty.
In addition to distorting the biblical teachings and faking miracles to achieve their self interests and acquire money, some ministers of God do have illicit sexual relationships with female members of their churches. They are sexual perverts, who commit sundry sexual misbehaviours like sodomy, pederasty, paedophilia, and status rape. We are always outraged when some of their inappropriate sexual concupiscence and dalliances come out in the open. Those disclosures about their sexual misdeeds are the reason we distrust some Christian clerics today.
The churches, no doubt, are at the crossroads of moral crisis. They are no longer the beacons of hope for the oppressed people of the earth and bastion of positive morality and spirituality in our morally depraved and spiritually arid society. In other words, Christianity, as it is practised here, is no longer a force for good.
Gone are the days when Christianity was a tool for moral regeneration among the people. Can Christian clerics, who have moral deficits mould the personalities of young people, who are in their formative years? Can they lead the people to imbibe spiritual virtues? And can they help to lift impoverished Nigerians from the dungeon of poverty? These are rhetorical questions that need no answers.
May God help us to return to the true practice of Christianity in Nigeria.
*Okoye writes from Obosi,
Anambra State