NIGERIANS are in dire need of salvation from endemic corruption. Religion cannot transform our nation because, as our devotions have increased, so have our corrupt ways. If you want incontrovertible evidence that religion cannot reform the world, then consider the degree of theft, corruption and the craze for instant gratification of our youths in Nigeria.
These problems have become endemic even though practically many Nigerians are either a practising Muslim or a Christian. In our country, pastors are marriage counsellors, psychotherapists, psychiatrists and financial advisers all at once, even though they are not appropriately trained for these roles.
And the most excruciating one that has continued to move believers from church to church, city to city and state to state in search of solutions to their problems is the performance of miracles and breakthroughs by the so-called “Men of God”.
The manifestation of fake or ‘stage-managed’ miracles and breakthroughs by today’s men of God has become so alarming that a ministry or church without miraculous antecedents is not considered a living church. This, to say the least, has led to a very high standard of corruption in the country. Thus, my father’s house of worship has now become a den of thieves.
The society is now a renegade of churches whose activities are a crusade of stage-managed miracles, thereby milking the worshippers dry of their money while the pastors fly in jets from country to country. It is now reported daily, cases of syndicates that collaborate with church owners to confirm fake prophecies, by dishing out forged testimonies in order to increase patronage and membership.
In our clamour towards building a better Nigeria, a new Christianity, a new way of life, then our pulpits must stop talking about miracles and breakthroughs, because the messages the youths of this generation are hearing are that, through miracles and breakthroughs, one can get something out of nothing.
Hmmm! You can never get something out of nothing, it negates the principle of spiritual will, natural phenomenon and creative consciousness. What we keep on hearing today from our pulpits is that it is possible to reap where you have not sown.
Because we do not currently have an adequate explanation for a phenomenon does not mean that it is forever unexplainable, or that it therefore defies the laws of nature or requires a paranormal explanation. An example of this is the “God of the Gaps” strategy of creationists, whatever we cannot currently explain is unexplainable and was therefore an act of god.
The national psyche of Nigerians today is more like, if it is good for me now, it does not matter what happens later. If truth be told, our churches have largely contributed to this; the messages of instant gratification have indoctrinated a whole generation of people who only want to see instant results, immediate relief and painless profits. Sadly, this is not the natural course of nature.
According to Alan Paton in his book, Cry The Beloved Country: “The church has a fine voice but has no deed, what God cannot do for South Africa, man must do”. The import of this axiom is that certain situations require a dogmatic approach, and in a defining moment, because God has created the required platform, you must take your destiny into your hands to complete the process.
For God sake, you cannot be an illiterate, a man with no job, no certified educational qualification of any kind, then you go to church on Sunday, and the pastor says to you, ‘Brother, by this time next year, you will become the Commissioner of Police in Delta State, or the chief judge of the federation, just believe and sow a seed of faith’. Then you shout Hallelujah and Amen, saying you receive it and give out your N200 as a seed offering. Boy! It means your level of incoherent reasoning speaks volumes. If it is practically impossible, then juxtapose it with the messages we hear from the pulpits today, and it will amaze you to know how delusional we have become as a people because of instant gratification.
For our youths to change, and for this generation to change for the better, our messages must also change. For our nation to change, our pulpits must also change, we must begin to deliver deliverance homilies, and we must deliver messages which are capable of building a healthy nation for the future. Instead of messages that are promising blessings, miracles, breakthroughs and wonders, we must replace these messages with preaching on virtues such as hard work, creativity, dedication, commitment, perseverance, diligence, responsibility, etc.
We need to stop glorifying people who became wealthy from unexplainable sources, the brother who became a millionaire because he simply sowed seed either to the pastor or to the church, should no longer be those who are testifying in our churches, rather, we should be giving the microphone to the hard workers who have through a lifetime of perseverance, suffering, diligence, dignity of labour and attained true success.
Until we do this, our churches and nation will continue to celebrate symbols of instant success like yahoo-yahoo boys, the scammers, 419 boys, bank thieves, which, unfortunately, as of today, are the only type of success stories our messages from the pulpits are capable of producing. Yes, the prosperity messages without recourse to hard work!
Bonano will contend here that, if we are to produce quality youths and future leaders, we must begin to invite to our pulpits people who attain their success and wealth through hard work, faithfulness and diligence. We have to downplay the role of sowing and reaping for prosperity and introduce or re-emphasise the gospel of suffering. If you do not suffer, you will not succeed.
It is time to begin to emphasise the principle of wealth creation and production of goods and services. Instead of teaching in our churches every Sunday, ‘give and it shall be given to you’, our messages must change to teaching principles like planning, critical thinking analysis, strategy, visibility plan and system building, market and customers analysis, production of goods and services, this is how noble people are produced and not by what is being propagated by our pulpits today.
With the messages we have today in our churches and society at large, it’s little wonder that the young people of this generation now act as if God is a rewarder of laziness and mediocrity. With all modesty, the pastors and priests should stop the pseudo gospel and preach the real gospel of the kingdom. Our people must be told that Christianity is not magic. We must tell them the whole truth that just because somebody is making pronunciations does not mean that those pronunciations are godly.
Listen! A false proclamation is a pronouncement based upon an assumed similarity between two things, people, or situations when, in fact, the two things being compared are not similar in the manner invoked. Saying that the probability of a complex organism evolving by chance is the same as a tornado ripping through a junkyard and creating a 747 by chance is a false proclamation. Evolution does not work by chance, but is the non-random accumulation of favourable changes.
We must let the people know that they do not need a pastor’s blessing to make it in life; we must let our young people know that the shout of ‘I receive it’ alone is not enough to be blessed for that week. We must open their eyes, open their ears to realise that the shout of ‘Amen’, no matter how loud, does not make God fill all their wishes. Our nation needs to be delivered from religious bigotry, and our real Christianity must produce fresh youths for this generation if the churches and nation are to move forward. QED.
