Written by Douglas Anele   
Sunday, 14 December 2008

Taken from Vanguard

RECENTLY, in an interview with Sunday Vanguard’s Sam Eyoboka, the general overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch A. Adeboye, made some assertions which have generated debate in the media.

Adeboye responded to issues ranging from the perennial traffic logjam along Lagos-Ibadan expressway whenever his church is having a programme at the Redemption Camp, the problem of immorality and corruption in Nigeria, to the question of deregulation of churches in the country.

My overriding purpose in this essay is to draw attention to some weaknesses in the responses of Pastor Adeboye to the issues raised by Mr. Eyoboka. At the outset, I completely agree with Adeboye on the ultimate futility of amassing wealth one does not really need by stealing from the public.

In my view, it shows that those who do this are intellectually, morally and spiritually very immature. But Adeboye is wrong when he says that “the only way we could eradicate corruption is to bring everybody to the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that the fear of God will dwell in them…”

I also disagree with his view that “there’s no way you could trace the money to them (corrupt public officers) except the Almighty God exposes them”. Nigerians have good reasons to believe that top government functionaries nationwide stole billions of naira between 1970 and 2007.

These corrupt big men and thick madams are either in Nigeria or abroad enjoying their loot. In well organized countries, such criminals are imprisoned and their properties, including cash, confiscated by government. Moreover, it does not require superhuman intervention for a serious-minded government and relevant law enforcement agencies to track the bulk of the stolen funds and assets.

In Europe, Asia and North America, for example, intelligence agencies and the police regularly succeed in tracking down monies illicitly acquired both by public office holders and private individuals, sometimes many years after the crimes had been committed. The United States and her allies in the war on terrorism have, to a large extent, blocked the financial arteries of some well-known terrorist groups.

Therefore, although the sophisticated methods used by corrupt public officials to steal money make it difficult to identify the looters and their loot, as Adeboye correctly proclaims, it is grossly misleading to suggest, as he does, that only divine intervention would expose looters or that only the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ can eradicate corruption in Nigeria. The notion of “saving knowledge of Jesus Christ” is very ambiguous theoretically, and it is difficult to see how such a vague notion can be effectively applied practically.

Corruption can never be completely eradicated in any human society because it is based on some ineradicable existential conditions of human existence here on earth, especially greed and desire to benefit maximally from available opportunities. What countries serious about reducing corruption to a level where it does not impede development have done is to create traditions, institutions and laws which make it extremely difficult for people to steal public funds and get away with it, no matter how highly placed such criminals might be.

At any rate, the over emphasis on financial breakthroughs, sowing of seeds and tithes by the new Pentecostal churches encourages corruption, because it indirectly compels church members to struggle to impress the general overseers and win admiration, respect and special praises from everyone due to the size of their “gifts” to the church.

For the “bible believing” churches, the most important thing in the life of a Christian is not spiritual enlightenment and growth, but willingness to pay tithe and give donations - the bigger the better - to the church. In fact, since clergymen and clergywomen started amassing wealth, the level of corruption, even in the various churches, escalated to the extent that the churches themselves are now run like family ventures.

The high level of greed and materialism exhibited by church leaders is a complete departure from the main thrust of the teachings of Jesus contained in the gospels.

Another fallacy committed by Pastor Adeboye is his argument that the increasing number of Nigerians who embrace Christianity, and the exploits of Nigerian pastors overseas, imply that the rest of the world see Africa as the hope of the world. He even unwittingly created the impression that idol worship, witchcraft and human sacrifice existed in Africa alone until the West brought the light of the gospel to us.

One should not be surprised if Adeboye is exultant about his claim that churches brought to Britain by Nigerians are packed full every Sunday, whereas the older more traditional and orthodox churches are “slowing down”. Adeboye is happy that the churches headed by Africans are bubbling with life every Sunday.

As a leader of one of the popular churches in Nigeria, it is definitely in his interest that Pentecostalism is expanding, because the more RCCG members there are, the larger the tithes, offerings, gifts etc. that would accrue to the church.

A visit to any of the Holy Ghost congresses organized by Adeboye’s church, and a quick mental calculation of the amount that would be realized from the “multitude”, would give one a fair idea of how smart and ingenious Nigerian pastors are as businessmen and businesswomen.

I am surprised that a man who has a background in science would suggest that Africa is becoming “the lighting continent” for other parts of the world, that when you look at the other side of the world, “we are doing better”, simply because Africans are exporting Christianity back to the West.

This is sad. It suggests that our religious leaders, unlike their colleagues in Europe and America, are yet to wake up from their dogmatic slumbers. In recent years, all the parameters used to evaluate different aspects of human development point to the disturbing conclusion that Africa is stagnating.

With the arguable exception of South Africa, there is no genuinely technologically advanced or industrialized country in Africa. Africa’s contribution to the world economy is below ten percent.

Most African countries receive one form of assistance or another from countries outside Africa. The continent is currently ravaged by poverty, disease and internecine conflicts and wars.

Thus, given this scenario, no objective observer can honestly affirm that Africa is doing better, in any positive sense, than the West. The fact that warehouses originally built for manufactured products have been converted to churches proves beyond reasonable doubt that Nigeria’s economy is asphixiating.

Are Adeboye and his colleagues unperturbed by the deepening economic problems of Nigeria, by the fact that explosion in the number of Pentecostal Christians is directly proportional to the economic hardships facing Nigerians?

Why is it a good thing that instead of exporting manufactured products and technological know-how to the West we are exporting religion, foreign religion at that, to Europe? Indeed, if Africa is doing better in any meaningful sense, why is the continent experiencing brain drain continuously?

What Pastor Adeboye and those who reason like him on this matter fail to realize is that the West had tried religion during the Dark and Middle Ages, and discovered that it led to a dead end. Hence, since the scientific revolution of the 17th century, and the industrial revolution of the 18th, the West has directed its productive forces to the acquisition of scientific knowledge and its technological and industrial applications.

The long term consequence of this paradigm-shift is that Western countries now enjoy some of the highest standards of living known in human history. Pastor Adeoye is wrong in claiming that we are doing better than the West, simply because of the wave of new Pentecostalism sweeping across Africa.

Adeboye and other rich pastors can afford to downplay the negative consequences of exporting Christianity rather than manufactured products and hi-tech services to the West. After all, they and their families have escaped from the gravitational pull of poverty.

Even, the immoral activities in Western countries which Adeboye referred to in the interview, and worse, exist here in Africa as well. The recent documentary on Africa’s witch children is a case in point. Adeboye makes the usual ecclesiastical mistake of denigrating aspects of our traditional culture uncritically.

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http://www.vanguardngr.com/content/view/24493/71/


FOR example, he talked about idol worship, human sacrifice and witchcraft. But these  practices are not peculiar to African villages; in fact they are still practiced all over the world, although human sacrifice is outlawed in all countries.

When Adeboye says that Africans worship idols, it appears that he does not understand the fundamentals of African ontology and religious worship, and the role the effigies and figurines play in the religious consciousness of the traditionalist.

For the African, the supreme being, what the Igbo call Chi-Ukwu, is too big, too powerful and remote to be worshipped directly.

Therefore, the physical embodiments of lower deities are used as means to channel the prayers and psychic energy generated during religious worship to the Supreme Being. The African does not worship the effigies and figurines per se.

Rather, just like the Christian uses rosaries and the crucifixes, the traditionalist employs the physical objects of his religion to help him concentrate and focus his attention on the major task at hand, namely, the propitiation of the God of his people, usually accompanied by requests.

The first Europeans to visit autochthonous African communities were ignorant of African religion. As usual, what they did not understand they denigrated.

The same colonial mentality makes Africans to denounce traditional African religions without genuine attempt to grasp the philosophical underpinnings of those religions. Logically speaking, the rosaries, crucifixes and other physical aids to Christian worship have the same ontological status as the so-called idols of traditional African religion.

Therefore, when Adeboye says that “things are different now”, he simply means that one set of physical aids to religious worship developed by Africans has been supplanted by the one he prefers, that is the set imposed on Africans by European missionaries and colonialists.

Pastor Adeboye actually missed the point when he dismissed off-handedly the question of the true birthday of Jesus of Nazareth. For him what is important is the belief that Jesus came as a saviour; the date of his birth is immaterial.

One of the most controversial topics in biblical scholarship is the identification of when Jesus was born. This question has direct relevance to the lingering doubt about whether the individual presented in the gospels as Jesus actually existed or whether the character in question is the product of accretion of legends and myths around an obscure deviant Jew.

Adeboye’s response is typical among believers who are satisfied with dogmatic uncritical acceptance of religious doctrines.

Such people are not interested in the truth or falsity of what they believe. Adeboye’s anti-intellectualistic attitude to religion is expressed by his assertion that discussion of, and arguing about, religious doctrines is an academic exercise, which will merely make us “feel that at least we have exercised our brains.”

This cavalier attitude to the veridicality of religious doctrines, coming from a former academic with a doctorate in mathematics, is rather disappointing. Truth is usually the first casualty when probing questions tend to unsettle convenient religious dogma.

I am convinced that truth, in terms of the correspondence of our ideas, theories and doctrines to reality ought to be the basic regulative principle of human transactions. It may be convenient for a believer like Adeboye to concentrate his energies on “making heaven”.

But for millions of people all over the world, the question of the historicity of Jesus is of critical importance, and rightly so, in defining their attitude to Christianity. 

The writings of scholars such as Albert Schweitzer, Arnold Toynbee, Alfred Reynolds, Barbara, Thierring, David Tabor and many others demonstrate that the question concerning the actual existence of Jesus of the gospels is far from settled.

Ascertaining the truth about Jesus is fundamental to establishing the authenticity of Christianity as a reliable path to spiritual development.

This implies that an honest Christian must be interested in questions relating to the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth, unless he or she is subconsciously aware that unearthing the truth would shake his or her belief to its very foundations.

Adeboye’s analogy with his own birthday is misplaced, because there is no doubt or controversy about his actual existence, or supernatural powers  and  occurrences associated with his life  whereas, as I stated earlier, there are reasons to doubt whether an individual described in the gospels as Jesus of Nazareth existed.

Also December 25, which is officially accepted by a vast majority of Christian denominations as the birthday of Jesus, is known to have originated from the ancient festival commemorating the birth of the sun-god. Some Christian sects, for example the Jehovah’s Witnesses, believe that Jesus was born in October, not December.

Thus, it does not help Christianity if church leaders dismiss cavalierly questions relating to certain key historical episodes of their religion, as Adeboye

On the controversial issue of whether the practice of monogamy was divinely founded and decreed, Pastor Adeboye manifested the usual Christianity-induced narrowness of vision characteristic of most Christian clergy in Nigeria. He referred those interested in the matter to the book of Genesis which narrated how Yaweh created only Eve for Adam!

It is really amazing the level of ignorance which our pastors display on matters one can easily investigate to ascertain the real facts.

The literature on marriage is huge. I suggest that Adeboye and other die-hard monogamists should read Friedrick Engel’s The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Bertrand Russell’s Marriage and Morals, Havelock Ellis’ Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Albert Ellis’ Sex Without Guilt, Clorinda and Joseph Margolis “Alternative Lifestyles and Sexual Tolerance”. Throughout history, human beings have tried all sorts of combinations in marriage, as determined by socio-cultural, economic, political and psychological factors.

Therefore, any suggestion that the institution of marriage, or that a particular form of marriage relationship is decreed or favoured by a certain deity, betrays a disappointing and unacceptable devaluation of man’s capacity to create relationships suitable to his needs.

Is the marriage institution so sophisticated, beyond the inventive capacity of human beings, that a divine origin has to be postulated in order to explain it?

Of course, it is not. Marriage is well within the productive powers of humans to forge relationships among themselves. Polygamy, monogamy, polyandry, communal marriages, etc. are some of the possible modes of marital relationship, which have prevailed in human societies at various times.

I am completely convinced that marriage is better understood and practiced when looked at as a purely human invention meant to satisfy some basic human needs.

If, as Pastor Adeboye argued, monogamy is divinely ordained, how can one account for the incredible variety of marriage types which had been practiced in various cultures of the world? Why should God prefer monogamy to all the rest?

The truth is that monogamy is the cultural product of a strand in the intersection of Hellenic and Jewish cultures, supported by St. Paul and the Church Fathers who were motivated by the desire to maintain mathematical equivalence of gender in marriage.

I am persuaded that no one acquainted with the history of marriage throughout the ages, and its intimate connections with socio-cultural, economic, environmental and psychological factors, would postulate a divine origin for marriage or insist that monogamy was decreed by God. On this issue, therefore, Pastor Adeboye committed the fallacy of non causa pro causa.

To the question of whether the churches should pay tax, Pastor Adeboye, naturally, believes that they should not. But the reasons he gave are superficial, unconvincing and unsatisfactory.

He argues that the income of the churches come from the members who, he believes, had already paid taxes.

Thus, to tax the church “is to double tax the members, and that will be illegal”. For Adeboye, then, taxing the churches means an unjust double taxation of the members!

Why all these epistle now,,,