In my primary school days, some of us were made to embrace denominational Christian church worship by the virtue of the Christian denomination that established the primary school we attended. Even if your parents are members of the Anglican Church, Orthodox Catholic church, Baptist Church or the Roman Catholic Church, you must attend the one that is in charge of your school. And in most cases, parents prefer to send their children to schools that are closer to them. So if for proximity sake, you found yourself in a catholic school, and your parents are Baptists or Anglicans, then you must attend Catholic Church whether your parents liked it or not. They believe that their biblical doctrine will help build responsible children that would bring honour to their parents, the church and the society.
The primary school I attended was a Baptist Missionary school, and so, I automatically became a Baptist. What this entails is that you must attend the children’s Sunday school lesson/ service every Sunday. Failure to be present at Sunday school lessons on Sundays would earn you some strokes of the cane, unless you have cogent reasons why you were not able to make it.
In the Sunday school lessons, we were taught bible lessons and many bible narratives or chronicles geared towards preparing children for responsible adulthood. In every Sunday school, you were given memory verses of the bible to memorize and to be recited the next Sunday school. Again, failure to recite them correctly would also earn you some strokes of the cane. At that infancy stage, the memory verses were carefully selected for the purpose of a better upbringing of the children. The moral gain is that while the children were busy memorizing the bible verses in other not get some strokes of the cane, they would not have the time to think or engage in immoral activities. More so, when they are memorizing some verses that say, for example, ‘thou shall not steal, ‘thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor etcetera. Also in the village setting, even among the African traditional worshippers, the same lessons were taught in folk stories during moonlight gatherings. Everything points to the need to bring up children in the fear of God and for a better tomorrow and for a better society.
Christianity abhors negative life styles and so with the African traditional belief system. The punishment in the African traditional belief system is even more severe because it involves the use of deity, whose judgment is instant. Christianity gives a long rope for people to repent. That is why criminals go to court, swear with the Holy Bible, tell lies and go scot free in their deceptive minds, not knowing that greater judgment awaits them thereafter. In the African traditional setting and belief, no one swears with a deity and goes free if he is guilty.
In those good old days, Pastors were seen as demi-gods, and were highly respected in the society. Their words were golden and their actions were divine. They practiced what they preached and give divine and moral direction to their followers. No one wakes up and becomes a Pastor overnight in the Baptist, the Anglican, the Presbyterian, the Methodist, the Lutheran and the ECWA denominations. You must have passed through thorough divine and moral training with series of orientation and re-orientation.
In those days when a Pastor speaks in village matters, everybody would echo in the positive, because they believe he speaks according to God’s direction and instruction. In those days, people exchange foods during Christmas and New Year celebrations. We as children then would dress in our new clothes and move from house to house, visiting relations, where we were usually given rice and money. There were no visible evil suspicion among relations and friends. There was joy in those days and people lived in harmony. The evil ones were few and were also known in the society because they were usually caught and sanctioned through the African traditional law courts, which involves the use of their ancestral gods and native intelligence. In fact, people were contented with what they had.
There is no doubt that every church that references our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is Pentecostal in nature, but a new era came, where some group saw themselves as a distinct set of Christians. This is the Pentecostal era. The Pentecostal era brought another twist in the whole episode. While some came to genuinely further cement Christianity in the hearts of believers, through sustained prayer fire and bible expositions, others explore the vulnerability and gullibility of the people, to exploit them for their own financial aggrandizement. Some of these Pastors have ruined families because of fake prophesies and manipulated miracle testimonies. The cordial relationships between families and neighbours have been destroyed because of fake prophesies that have no solutions. Those that are mostly affected are ladies and women due to their gullibility. To the fake Pastors, all our problems; medical, marital issues, financial predicaments, are all caused by one of our relations or an unidentified witch or wizard. A friend of mine, who just visited from Canada told us that the moment some of our women have the opportunity to visit some Western countries that their prayer points would change. Some of the problems we are facing in some parts of Africa today are caused by governments, who have refused to provide good medical facilities and provide jobs for the unemployed youths. If government is able to provide some of these basic necessities of life, our people will realize that some of the diseases that some Pastors are casting out demons are medically curable and not caused by anybody. Some of these Pastors travel overseas to seek medical attention, but they keep innocent and gullible people in their various churches casting out imaginable demons for the same ailment they receive treatment in foreign lands.
They also sell stickers to members and those seeking protection, giving them the divine assurance that once you have the sticker, no armed robber or kidnapper would attack you. At the same time, they have bullet proof vehicles and carry heavily armed escort to avoid being killed by armed robbers and kidnappers. Where is our conscience?
What we see now is even more confusing. Some dubious elements have turned pastors overnight, bringing untold ridicule to the Christian faith. Many individuals have encountered problems for entering into business or associating with some of these new generation pastors, who sow seeds of discord anywhere they step their feet. Like the orthodox churches do, our new generation churches should watch and study anyone who desires to be a pastor carefully before he is ordained as a pastor to avoid making mockery of the Christian faith. As they do that, let our conscience be our Judge.