We're Against Denominational Prostitutes

By

Newswatch Editors

Monday, April 26, 2004

Ola Makinde, methodist Archibishop of Lagos visited Newswatch recently. He spoke to Newswatch Editors on the state of the church in Nigeria and other national issues. Excerpts:

Newswatch: At the last count there were 1119 churches or religious organisations. Are established churches like yours not worried that the new wave churches are misrepresenting christianity and the bible?

Makinde:. This is the end time and it is the fulfillment of the scriptures. The bible says when the end of days shall come, false prophets will rise up to the extent that they will deceive the elect and say Jesus is here, or Jesus is there. They will deceive the elect with signs and miracles. So what is happening now is what the bible foretold. We would not say we are not worried. We want to live judgement to God. But what I believe is that it is a societal problem and the failure of the government.

You know, poverty is abundant in the land, unemployment is there, and people feel that the best way to hold body and mind together is to establish a church. If you want to be a cool millionaire today, establish a church in Ibadan or Enugu,or Aba, or Owerri, or Abuja or Kaduna. You will easily make it. And deceive people with miracles, signs and preach prosperity. But I am appealing to people, Christianity is more than prosperity and miracles. They say NBC is saying they should censor miracle. Nobody can censor miracle, it is the work of the Holy Spirit.

There is miracle in the established churches. There is miracle in the Orthodox churches. In the Catholic, there is a lot of miracle,but we don't publicise it we don't dramatise it.

Newswatch: Are you worried by the fact that they are advertising or are you doubting what they are doing because even Christ during his time. …

Makinde: Jesus never said it. No, no, no. He will even tell them 'go and tell no one" He only told the man "go and show yourself to the priest." and pay all necessary temple fees. When they are dramatising it, He will leave the place and go to another place. It has never been dramatised nor been publicised. I am not quarrelling with it That is the best process they know. A house that is divided against itself will fall. That is the signs of the endtime. Who am I to say one miracle is false or not. We leave that to the receipient, the beneficiary of the miracle and to God.

Newswatch: What about worshippers from Orthodox churches who go to the miracle centres. Are you not bothered by this exodus?

Makinde: We are not bothered. The road to salvation is very narrow, but to destruction is very wide. I know a preacher who once said if you give me N10,000 I will give you the blessing of N10,000, if you give me one car, I will give the blessing of one car. That is not the God I worship. Salvation of the soul first, Where do we go after here? Holy living, decent living. That's just it. If they are leaving let them leave.

Newswatch: We know these pastors are even adding education to it . The last time, we counted 19 degree awarding institutions and it can take only two years to obtain a PhD.

Makinde:To you, is that education? They are deceiving people. That is why Karl Marx, a great sociologist and political analyst said religion is the opium of the people. I know how many years it took me to get my doctorate degree both at home and abroad. By their fruits too, we will know them. It's a mockery. They can't come to my church and work with me. They can only use that to deceive the poor masses, the illiterate but they cannot do that with us. They cannot come here and mix with us where we want to meet. Because we know how to segregate and remove the chaff from the wheat.

Newswatch: Are you aware the NBC has imposed a ban on advertisement of miracles?

Makinde; They've not. It's hypocritical. Are they not the ones getting money from these group of people? They don't do it free of charge. Do they do it free of charge? They charge them heavily and they pay for it and they are now complaining. Let them go and do it free.

Newswatch: The NBC is the regulatory body which...

Makinde: Let's look at it, they have no right. What are they regulating? Did they not take money from them? Nobody can appear on television for one hour, for free. They know how much they pay, for 30 minutes. They know how much they pay. It is hypocritical. When they are ready, we will discuss it effectively. I am a member of the Christian Association of Nigeria, it has not come to us and it didn't even come to the Christian Association of Nigeria as a body. It didn't even come to the Christian Council of Nigeria, CCN, because what we preach on Radio and Television is Christ. Salvation, nothing more. Not prosperity, not miracle. Don't let me deceive you because Christian are not suppose to be poor. I am not supposed to be poor. Poverty is not my portion and I reject it in Jesus name. But we just have to be moderate about it. We have to be intelligent about it. We should not play on the intelligence of the poor masses and rape them because some people are using religion to oppress people. I am totally against that. They are using religion especially Christianity. If it is in Islam, they are copying Christians and I know where they are even doing vigil, which is outside their own religion. Those who are doing it are people who are out to exploit people. But the problem is that even we who are adherents of Christianity, should believe in salvation more than wealth. Those people who are running there is because they love wealth, they love prosperity, they love miracles and have forgotten that Jesus Christ paid for salvation for us with a crown of thorns. It is not easy. So if people are running there, they are running back. I am telling you when they exhaust their money they come back. I know most of them. They are not being converted.

We see them as denominational prostitutes, running from one church to another. When you see they are Christians before they go there. They are either Methodist, Catholic, Anglican or Baptist before they go there but they believe God is reached there. But rolling stones gather no moss.

Newswatch: The role of church in politics, in the fight against corruption and human rights is questionable. There are church leaders who support any government in power which even violates the rights of people.

Makinde: I disagree with you totally in the first aspects, the church and human . Those who cried most on the annulment of June 12, 80 percent of them are Christians in this land and are even religious leaders they cried not that it is wrong. We are in the forefront of that. Those who cried out for justice when Dele Giwa was murdered, 80 per cent of them are Christians and they are religious leaders. " Thus say the Lord, the voice of prophesy cannot be killed in Nigeria", and that is why I say you are wrong. And the military rule, it was when you are saying Christian leaders are supporting politicians. Those who are doing the right thing must be supported because we believe politics is a dirty game and Christians should not be a part to it. Who should go there to clean the place? Where they are doing right, we must credit them and when. This are doing wrong" we must tell them that "Thus says the lord, you are wrong" And you want us to condemn them only. We shouldn't do that.

Newswatch: What is your position on the issue of gay bishop?

Makinde: Well, the primate of Anglican Church, Archbishop Jasper Akinola had said the minds of all Nigerian Christians and all Christian's leaders. Gay is never even discussed in African society. You don't talk about it. Gay or Lesbianism, so it is a pervasion of Christianity and Christian culture. So it is in Nigeria or Africa, it is not acceptable. We were are waiting for a time we will go to World Council of Churches because we have World Council of Churches where all the Christians in the world will meet. Anytime, we see a self confessed Gay bishop or reverend we'll withdraw. We will withdraw from World Council of Churches. It is incompatible with Christianity especially African Christianity and time has come now when we should go and re-christianise the white people. They brought Christianity here and they have perverted it. We must now go and re-christianise them. The leading church today is England, especially in London is established by a Nigerian. We must go there and re-christianise them.They need to be re-christianized. I am telling you. Christianity in Europe is gone and is secularised. It's secularised more than you can think of and we cannot accept that. So the ordination of gay bishop or reverend is not even discussed in African culture. In Nigerian culture. It's never mentioned and we don't even want to. We are assuring you that we will never take it. We wouldn't pervert Christianity at all.

Newswatch : But not getting married is also unAfrican too

Makinde : But it is biblical. Jesus was unmarried. Paul was not married and Paul said if you can remain single, you can remain single, its unAfrican but it is not compulsory that you should marry in Africa.

Newswatch : But, it is by choice

Makinde : Its by choice and that they don't force you into it, ( celibacy) which is good. You can go and you can come in and that is practised by Catholics. It is just for you to be more committed. I am married but I know certain cases family problems can give you some setbacks. We must face the reality, celibacy is ordained, it is biblical but homosexually is not biblical at all and our people never practised homosexuality.

Newswatch: When we say it is unAfrican, it shows the inability of the church to adapt itself to local culture to win the local followership.

Makinde: Eh, for the sake of winning even in Africa culture, I know people who either remain single parents or are not married and they were never ostracised in the society. I have seen them, I am more than 60. I am a senior citizen of Nigeria and I have never seen anybody being thrown away or being stigmatised because he has not married.

Newswatch: In my culture such a person will never have a place of authority. I am from Idoma.

Makinde: Yes, Idoma culture is like our own. But when you are a reverend father, that is a calling towards the holy ghost and they see you as a father figure to all the members of the church. The reverend sisters are seen as the mothers of the church but it doesn't mean that it is not biblical and it does not mean that its unAfrica. But you may not give unmarried people a position of authority, even in our church but you respect them. Don't you respect them? Don't you honour them? You respect their persons. But immediately you hear that this is a homosexual, a man having an affairs with a man), ah! it is repulsive. And in those days, when you want to appease the gods, you use those people to go and appease the gods in Africa traditional setting. Because there are certain things when you want to go to the gods, you must clean yourself for seven days.

Newswatch: Having come back to Lagos now, how do you intend to do to strengthen the Methodist church in Lagos?

Makinde : It's already strengthened anyway. Because before I left for Abuja, we had only one diocese and it has been broken into six now and the church is growing. What I intend to do is to increase the spirituality of the people. I believe that is my concern.

Newswatch: Especially a place that has heavy presence of Pentecostal churches?

Makinde : Let me even correct one impression. When you are saying Pentecostal, every church is Pentecostal. If you believe in the advent of the Holy spirit which came on the day of Pentecost, you are a Pentecostal. And then Christianity to me, I want a place where I will live and it would lead me to the kingdom of God at the end of the day. Pentecostal has never been a threat to my church. Some of us, are loosing our identity. The orthodox churches are imbibing cultures that are bad.

Newswatch: The church is spreading very fast in Nigeria and at the same time corruption and evil is spreading. Is it a failure of the religious leaders or society?

Makinde: Ok, that we are having more churches and mosque spreading? And then evil is multiplying in the land? It's a societal problem. The society and government have failed. The society and government have caused it. I have discussed it somewhere today. Do we teach moral and religious education in school any longer? Schools like Jesus College, Otukpo and several others. All our schools have been taken over from us by government. Bethsida in Igede, government took it over. Only the motherless babies home we have in Igede. The problem is, government took over the schools and hospitals from churches, they destroyed everything. They thought we were making money. Now thank God Tinubu, Lagos State governor has returned some of the schools to us to run and we are running them. But we are spending a lot of money to regulate the school. When there is unemployment in the system, people will go an extra way to find comfort and way of living. That is why they are establishing churches. I am telling you poverty has led them to it.

Newswatch: Anytime there is religious upheaval particularly in the northern parts of Nigeria, churches are burnt. Do you have any fear of any religious crisis tearing the country apart?

Makinde: I am a member of Nigerian Inter-Religious Council, NIREC. We are working hard. It has 25 Christians and 25 Moslems. Those mixing, politics with religion are politicians. Some are military stooges who want the army to come back so that it will be business as usual. Obasanjo has blocked every hole for people to chop money and that is why they wanted to impeach him. They couldn't because it was not business as usual. People are now using religion and that is why they introduced political Sharia. They have been operating spiritual sharia during the time of Ahmadu Bello. Did we fight?

Newswatch: Is it possible to separate religion from politics?

Makinde: It is very easy, especially for politicians. When Chief Obafemi Awolowo was premier in the West here, he never mixed politics with religion. He was the first premier to establish a Muslim pilgrims welfare board. That's a man with a large heart. We must understand each other. I am warning politicians to avoid mixing religion with politics. We must vote for leaders with large heart.