The Failing of Transactional Religion(1)
By Moses Oludele Idowu
“Let me die lest I die, Only let me see thy Face.” – St. Augustine (355-430 AD) (Confessions )
Few men attained the greatness and spiritual eminence of Augustine, the great bishop of Hippo in his lifetime. Yet as Tozer has said it is doubtful whether “he himself could have realized how great he was in his lifetime.” He belongs to the class of people we call “universal Christians”- fathers of the Church who transcend beyond any tradition or denomination but belong to all. Both the Eastern Orthodox Christianity and the Western Christianity regard him as a father. Both Catholics and Protestants honour him and cherish his sweet memories claiming him as theirs and using his views to legitimate their beliefs. Everyone is a child of Augustine, if he is a Christian. His views, theology and brilliance continue to shape the Church till this day. He was one of the most influential fathers of the Early Church and a son of Africa too.His autobiographical *Confessions* is agreed by Western literary scholars as the beginning of classical autobiographical literature since the advent of Christ. In that book Augustine laid his life and actions bare before all. The *Confessions* is so deep, passionate, lucid and sincere; so forthright, spirit- inspired that the book has been a classic for more than a thousand years.This essay however is not about Augustine, the great bishop of Hippo, the son of Monica from Thagaste in present-day Algeria; it is about another bishop of the modern Nigerian church from Omu-Aran, Kwara State and about his “dangerous confessions.” In this essay I want to examine three of his confessions and how those confessions shape him and even a segment of the Pentecostal Church in Nigeria both for good and for ill.Perhaps I need a brief introduction.
I know bishop David Oyeniyi Oyedepo or should I say that I used to know him, at fairly close range.There used to be (and still is) a group known as Christian Life Club in Ilorin. This group was very active in the early 1980’s. I do not know when this group started and who started it. But it used to be the fellowship of young graduates and school leavers who could not fit into the normal traditional church setting after the vibrant and revolutionary campus fellowship of the university years. This group usually met on Wednesdays for Bible study, Saturday mornings for prayer and on Sunday afternoon for evangelism into the interiors of Ilorin. This was the club, later.named Fellowship where most of the well- known ministers of Kwara origin once belonged and from where they sprang forth. Emmanuel Osset, John Idowu, George Adegboye, Stephen Atoyebi, Joshua Odeyemi, Steve Metiboba, David Oyedepo, Sola Soladoye, Steve Adegoke, Yemi Ayodele, Sam Awodoye…. and a host of numerous names that I can’t remember. I was also a member of this Fellowship in the early 80’s and it was here, I first met the man called David Oyedepo in around 82/83. Then the meetings held at ECWA Youth Club center along Ahmadu Bello Way in Ilorin. A word of information here. There was real Christianity in this nation up to the early 80’s.
No one carried denomination on his head as it is now. Just as we met at ECWA Centre, it was there Oyedepo’s ministry too met when they started and the Gideons International also met there. Likewise when the Deeper Life Bible Church started in Ilorin it was in the Anglican Church that they conducted their Bible studies and even in Lagos they once used the headquarters of Redeemed Christian Church at Ebutte- meta. That was then. Love reigned. The sad thing is that it is doubtful whether any ministry just springing up today can use Winners Chapel facilities or Deeper Life facilities. Sometimes I think that even the Orthodox churches are more Christian and even committed to Christ than the Pentecostals with all their noises and arrogance. I digress.I understand Oyedepo was an active member of this group before he had the encounter that he claimed at Ilesha and this fellowship became a platform that aided his actualization when he began. Then he held a teaching program every Friday in the same Center and most of the members of the Club usually attended seeing him as one of them. It was around this same 1983 that he began his ministry then known as Faith Liberation Hour Ministry. I am talking of events of more than 40 years ago and I hope my memory, always sharp as ever, does not fail.To know Oyedepo at this time is to like him. Simple, bold, brutally frank and even very witty and humble. With his beetle car he shuttled between Ilorin and Kaduna, always full of zeal and stories some of which would make you laugh. You could observe him with his pen and jotter taking notes even while another person was speaking. You could also observe him as he would kneel publicly for prayers after ministration. That was then, before the Great Change.
His wife, a graduate of Economics from the then University of Ife, known then as Florence Oyedepo was teaching at the Queen School, Ilorin and carrying the pregnancy of the baby, David Jr – the young man now too tall for his age and waiting in the wings to step into his father shoes.So you can see I don’t know the Oyedepos too well but I do know them. Or, better stil, I used to know them.It was during these Friday meetings which he taught at ECWA Centre that I heard him make certain statements three of which I want to now examine in this essay and the others coming.Somehow, there is no accident in life and people’s actions are actually conditioned by their beliefs and confessions. Even at this early period and even at this beginning you could discern the cravings for success and desires for earthly riches and prosperity. Although he taught the Bible distinctly and read it voraciously some of his statements at this early time showed that he was a man on the wing. *The first confession* “I shall not pass this world unnoticed” One night I heard him in the course of his sermon declare: “I shall not leave this world unnoticed.” In the theology of Oyedepo and in his understanding of Faith personal success and dominion loomed large. He believed very much in prosperity and success even then. To him, personal ambition and desire for the good life are not antithetical to the pursuit of a spiritual calling.Unlike Augustine who sought to demystify self that he may reveal Christ, Oyedepo sought instead to fulfill self. One bishop worked for self-denial, another for self-realization.
That is the difference and the difference between the Early Apostolic Christianity and modern- day Christianity – a difference as wide as the world. It is all about beliefs and Oyedepo is one of the prominent men who brought this about in this generation. True, his confession has come to pass. He can no longer leave this world unnoticed. Who doesn’t know Oyedepo today? But known for what actually? Augustine is known as one of those who saved Christianity from heresies and confine it to the pure religion of Apostolic times; what specifically is Oyedepo known for? What comes to the mind of an average Nigerian when the name is mentioned? Prosperity, success, fame, riches, jets, university ( that children of members cannot afford)…? Are these the laurels, the magnifying commendations of a minister of Jesus Christ and of the votaries of Historic Christianity? We thank God for success, fame and prosperity and even riches if and when they do come.
They are good but they are not what validate a spiritual calling or exemplify a minister of Jesus Christ. *The Second Confession* “My wife shall not go to the market again for anything.”Again I heard him one night declare that soon his wife won’t go to the market again to buy things because his faith would command the things he needed to come. This sounds like fairy tale in 1983-84 if you can understand that period. This was the period of “essential commodities” and the first widespread suffering occasioned by the duo of brutish Muhammadu Buhari and his stone- faced counterpart Tunde Idiagbon. It was that era when even milk was an essential commodity. [ Buhari has been dealing with this nation for too long ] Today that Confession strange as it was then has also happened. Pastor Faith Oyedepo won’t go to the market for anything. What for? With hundreds of assistants and minions at her beck and call she had merely need to sigh not even talk and the things would be supplied.
Again Oyedepo’s confession has materialized.One thing is he was an orator and gifted in Bible recitation and quotation. Possibly because of his Muslim background noted for extensive memorization and Quranic recitation of long sentences. He would always send you back to the Bible after his preaching at these early periods. I can’t say much for now, it’s a long time I heard him or read any of his numerous books. I just lost interest. Soon you will know why. *The Third Confession* “I am born to reign”It was here that I also heard him declare one day that he was born to reign. “Born to Reign.’ This became one of his seminar titles and even one of his books. I do understand that we are to reign in life through Christ based on His Finished Works on the Cross as carefully enunciated in the Petrine and Pauline Revelations. But the idea of individual reign in the materialistic sin – filled world confounds my imagination, both then and even now.
Not.just reign over Satan, forces of darkness, diseases and sins but reigning with splendour and material accumulations and abundance of resources.Since there can only be one king in a palace, if someone is born to reign then some others must be born to serve. Not me. I foresaw a master- servant relationship. One thing with the Bible is as I often say, you can make it to say anything you want it to say.. I am a servant of Christ, I shall not be a servant of any man. I am bought with a price, the very Precious Price of Christ’s Blood, need i be a servant of men? Not me. Seeing several young able- bodied men running before Oyedepo’s Rolls Royce on his 70th birthday and hundreds of others waving in complete adoration and submission to the majestic splendour like the captured citizens of a Roman colony before Caesar’s chariot and Legion I understood that indeed this man was.born to reign.
It was then I understood. In the Church that Christ founded appointment is by service, humility and by divine calling; in the modern system it is by blood. I am told that after Oyedepo’s exit, the next in line to the throne is his son and all members know this and content with it. It is not about age, or service or divine calling but about blood, just like in the natural succession order of kingship and royalty. “Born to Reign” then, may not be about Christ or His Finished Works but about one man’s or family’s quest for hegemony over a budding religious empire.
With an empire of wealth built largely from the Church warehoused both here and in a safe offshore account in the family’s name according to Pandora papers exposed by International Consortium of Investigative Journalists it is now clear who was “born to reign” and wbo were born to serve. We could not discern this in 1983.So far we have seen at least three proclamations from the mouth of the “man of faith” even as early as then right from the pulpit. At least we can still situate these confessions within the compass of Scripture to some degrees.
And in a sense they have come to pass in his life. Obviously he knew something the rest of us didn’t know even as early as that time. And to be sure and also fair Oyedepo was not just a pauper. He did mention it even then that his father bought the first lorry in the town and built the first story building – a town that is not so obscure and even produced the first military governor of Kwara State. I even heard him once saying that a military governor once asked him to come and see him for anything he needed but he did not go there even once.
So really we must concede to him that there is at least some measure of wealth in his roots which has now burgeoned through the use of applied psychology and social engineering tinctured with religious dynamics. The next and the final confession is what troubled me then and still astounds me even now. I will continue from there in the second part. Keep a date.[ In the meantime I wish the bishop, a prominent Igbomina son just like myself, a happy birthday.] [ Wait for the Second and Third Part of this Essay]
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October 5, 2024
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