A recent article “Lagos Ibadan Expressway Churches & Social Responsibility” and the responses of various villagers, published in the internet space of Nigeria Village Square written by Sean Akinrele of the ‘Fox catcher’ alias inspires me to explore a challenge set out for the Church in today’s Nigeria.  With the use and deployment of some experiential background from my end and ultimate reference on the scripture, I hope to engender the subtle but yet vital points that the title of this article raises.

I had the privileged experience and opportunity to see the ‘light’ and be ‘transformed’ (to be born again) by Jesus Christ at an early age in the late 1970s. This remarkable event also increased my interest and fervour for matters of the political variety as I assumed that a christian had a duty to impact everything and everywhere and to speak truth to power. 

At my college, blessed with a Student’s Council and a written constitution, I made strenuous and successful efforts to be elected each year into the Students’ Council. For many years I was a permanent fixture on and in the chambers of the council.  I alternated my preaching sessions at break time with political campaigns for office of councillor.

In the chambers of the council which also served as the college lecture theatre I learned civic responsibilities; imbibed the injunction that when the call is sounded all must answer here! Assimilated and accepted the act of playing up and striving to do my best and ultimately to be effective in service to the living whilst honouring the achievements and sacrifices of the dead.    Eventually I was elected the Assistant Secretary of the Council and later on Secretary of the King’s College Student’s Council with increasing majorities at each point in time.  My mantra was ‘Panafism’ and it seems it was a revolutionary and winning mantra.

At the risk of being accused of evading the subject matter in question, I return to the quest and matter at hand, ‘The Challenge of a Revolutionary Church ’.  It is a widely held assumption in many quarters that the mandate of the Church is: “Go into the world and preach the gospel to every creature".  Some commentators venture as far as to imply that such a mandate effects the exclusion of the church from a revolutionary transformative social agenda. It is therefore essential to clarify what exactly the mandate of the church is?  Is it simply ‘preaching the gospel’?

I refer back to the source of all Christian mandates, the bible.  In the book of St Matthew 28: 18-20 NRSV, it states:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, And teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.  And remember, I am with you always to the end of the world. ”

The mandate therefore is more revolutionary than simply ‘preaching the gospel’, it is more accurate to state that it is to make disciples of all nations.  In Nigeria there is no shortage of ministries that ‘preach the gospel’, but how much more than this do they actually do? However, accepting this mandate allows us to explore a more expansive and revolutionary mandate for the Church, one that goes beyond what we perceive as the spiritual and focuses on the whole man.  The  restriction of many of our Nigerian ministries and Churches to the ‘conversion’, ‘born again’ model places us in constant danger restricting evangelism to the transfer of a set of cognitive attitudes, placing an unscriptural emphasis on ‘conversion’ rather than ‘discipleship[1]’.  In practice what has tended to happen in some of the Nigerian Churches is that many have considered the ‘born again’ process to be accomplished once the new convert is able to assent to a certain prescribed list of doctrines and starts attending Church programmes.  But it has been suggested and I agree that such an approach is a travesty of the gospel, and certainly has nothing to do with the task laid upon us in the verses I quote above.   Donal Hagner writes:

“The word ‘disciple’ means above all ‘learner’ or ‘pupil’.  The emphasis in the commission thus falls not on the initial proclamation of the gospel but more on the arduous task of nurturing into experience of discipleship…”

In other to unpack the concept of a ‘ Revolutionary Church ’ I return back to Jesus Christ and the example he lays out.   Such a Church I believe does not deny that evangelism and social action are distinct activities – on occasions, they may be – but the nature of the integration of the two does not reside in the fact that we enact the two alongside each other, or that we find appropriate connections between them but rather that the integration that is relevant is that we respond as whole people to the whole person or persons before us.  The following paragraph examines Jesus Style[2].

“So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.  Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well.  It was about the sixth hour.  When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)  The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman.  How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans).  Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” (John 4:5-10)

The question here, is Jesus acting as an evangelist or social activist?   Vinoth Ramachandra suggests that “When….Jesus voluntarily engaged a social outcast like the Samaritan woman face-to-face conversation,…was he performing a ‘political action’ in challenging the political taboos of society?”  I believe almost certainly he was.  The person he was talking to had at least four factors counting against her engaging in conversation with Jesus.  She was a Samaritan, she was a woman, she was alone, and she was an adulteress who had led a less than virtuous lifestyle.  Jesus was challenging the socio-political stereotypes that would have existed amongst his followers, this was revolutionary (subsequent hearers of this story). For them, adulterous, Samaritan women were the least likely people with whom Jesus should converse, let alone offer eternal life.  Therefore, simply at the purely political level, the very fact that Jesus speaks with this woman says to his followers that these are people and socioeconomic objectives that you must no longer distance yourself from.  To place this in contemporary terms, it is the direct equivalent of a General Overseer inviting a convicted terrorist of the Al Qaeda variety to the Church house for dinner – and to do this makes a profound political statement.

Yet, at the same time we can interpret Jesus’ actions as those of an evangelist. For after all, Jesus immediately turns the conversation to the salvation that he has to offer (v10).  He then goes out to spell out the nature of that salvation (V14), whilst highlighting her need for repentance (v17ff).  He gives her some solid teaching (v21ff) before concluding with a declaration of his own messiahship (v.26).  Finally, his evangelistic actions on this occasion are clearly effective (v.39-42).  On every level, then, this is clearly Jesus the evangelist.   

Therefore for the Church to be revolutionary it must like Jesus did operate outside its comfort zone and it must set the pace.  With this comes social responsibility, taking on projects that perceived wisdom suggests is the responsibility of government and not the Church.  I have witnessed some social transformative programmes of the Church in Nigeria achieve much impact on the communities around them.  In concrete terms, I have heard about Churches like Daystar how they refurbished and equipped a local school around them.  There is a local Baptist Church in Victoria Island who made it a point of duty to make provisions of food,clothes and other provision for squatters and when the time arrived to take possession of their land, it was with their complete cooperation.  There are a few unsung missions in far corners of Nigeria providing schools for young unchurched children.  There is also the NIFES and the work being carried out through its HIV education programmes. The evident results has been 'conversions' and impacting of communities.

If we ignore this revolutionary agenda then I dare suggest that we are in danger of confusing the prophetic role of God's people which it has had across the centuries to speak into society and be the barometer and the agenda of/for change in the society it finds itself and where it is based (salt and light). 

It has been quoted and I agree that:

'Preaching the gospel' is in effect evangelism and social action parterning together. "They are like the two blades of a pair of scissors or the two wings of a bird...Jesus words explained his works, and his works dramatised his words. Both were expressions of his compassion for his people, and both should be ours"[3]

For the Church to be revolutionary it must articulate and effect the concept of "integral mission."   The moment one regards the Churches' mission as consisting of two separate components one has, in principle, conceded that each of the two has a life of its own. One is then by implication saying that it is possible to have evangelism without a social dimension and Christian involvement without an evangelistic dimension.  What is more, if one suggests that one component is primary or exclusive and the other secondary or subservient, one implies that one is essential, the other optional[4].

I therefore conclude that it would appear we deny the ability of the Church to be revolutionary and  narrow its parameters if we restrict its mandate to 'preaching the gospel' in the very limited sense.  The Evangelism and Social Responsibility article states:

“Seldom if ever should we have to choose between satisfying physical needs and hunger for infrastructure and body and spiritual hunger, or between healing bodies and saving souls, since an authentic love for our neighbour will lead us to serve him or her as a whole person. Nevertheless, if we must choose, then we have to say that the supreme and ultimate need of all mankind is the saving grace of Jesus Christ, and that therefore a person's eternal, spiritual salvation is of greater importance than his or her temporal and material well-being.”

We could simply imagine what would happen if the Nigerian Churches’ break taboo and drive the transformation of infrastructures in Nigeria as the missionaries of old did with  hospitals, schools, etc.

Nigeria is hungry for leadership and development and is imprisoned by greed, corruption and materialism, it is our duty to respond so that when Jesus comes with the question, that I was hungry, our response would be yes we fed you, for as many countless masses we assist we do it unto the Lord Jesus Christ.

The writer is a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria and resides in the United Kingdom . 

Robot  Villager

# 1 A recent article “...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 27.07.2008 22:09

Agidimolaja  Villager

# 2 Your Lordship Sir, Having lectured us briefly in the way you just did and with accurate refrences,you left no one in doubt that you are an ardent student of the Bible in addition to your Judicial vocation. It is rather unfortunate though, that what you did in this case is mere cheap preaching and Biblical expositions. You knowingly or unknowingly failed to address the issue of the pains and hardships that Rev.Adeboye and other religious cohorts visited upon innocent citizens of this unfortunate nation every month when diehards converged along the nations most busy highway under the pretence of worshiping God. Evangelism?We already know what it is all about.Soulwinning?We already know what it is all about.All the Biblical rituals are not strange to most of us, therefore we actually are not in need of further explanations as to what is this and what is that Biblically,at least not in this instance. The article to which you wrote your rejoinder and the respondents that you refered to also are not really talking about mode of evangelism or the mandate of the called ones.Rather,the subject matter centred around how are people going to be delivered from the yokes and extra burdens forced upon them by Rev.Adeboye and other unpatriotic religious leaders along Ibadan-Lagos expressway. This is what you as a law official should help us to find immediate solution to, possibly by sponsoring an enactment that can put an end to the show of shame that characterizes the religious gatherings along Ibadan-Lagos espressway.. Where in the civilized world, Sir, {that I'm sure you had visited or lived} would religious activities be allowed to slowdown the flow of traffic not to talk of blocking it for several hours? I'm sure you've not come across anything like that in the West except in our primitive Nigeria. As a solicitor,would you not submit it that the monthly chaotic traffic along Ibadan expressway is a violation of other peoples' right? It appeared so to me,Your Lordship! Helpless Nigerians needed solicitors like you to help them out of the widerness into which religious groups have thrown them. Rev. Adeboye and others know about it but are doing nothing. So also are our various dilapidating unconcerned governments.Yet Rev.Adeboye and others are busy daily shouting the sacred name o Jesus Christ at the rooftop while at the same time they are directly oppressing several people. The Golden rule is;"love your neighbour as yourself". Jesus Christ says that "there is no any other law greater than this".Yet,the greatest law of Christ is what Preachers and christians found to be rather impossible to obey.While we are more concerned about the Biblical mandate of preaching the Gospel and the making of disciples;we unfortunately neglected to love the souls of the people. Biblical mandate is however not limited to soulwinning or the making of disciples.The fundamental Biblical mandate is to love others as ourselves.There is no any other Biblical mandate greater than that. I therefore admonished Rev.Adeboye and other wolves in sheep's clothing along Ibadan-Lagos expressway to love others as themselves by stop causing them such untold hardships while they are trying to go from point A to point B since the constitution of the land allows free movements. Hopefully someone in better position than I would ring the alarm much louder so that the absurd scene along Ibadan-Lagos expressway may soon end . Posted by Agidimolaja| 28.07.2008 01:26

employlawone  Villager

# 3 Dear Sir, Thank you for your contribution, if I have displayed absence of humility I do apologise wholeheartdly. I like you seek solutions and seek to speak truth to power. I have attempted to reflect further and amend my article, inserting the following paragraph: Therefore for the Church to be revolutionary it must like Jesus did operate outside its comfort zone and it must set the pace. With this comes social responsibility taking on projects that perceived wisdom suggests is the responsibility of the government and not the Church. I have witnessed some social transformative programmes of the Church in Nigeria achieve much impact on the communities around them. In concrete terms, I have heard about Churches like Daystar how they refurbished and equipped a local school around them. There is a local Church in Victoria Island who made it a point of duty to make provision of foods, clothes and other provision for squatters who had encroached on to their land. This strategy stood then in good stead with the squatters and when the time arrived to take possession of the land, it was with their complete cooperation and there are a few unsung missions in far corners of Nigeria providing schools for young unchurched children. The evident results has been ‘conversions’ and impacting of communities. Posted by employlawone| 28.07.2008 02:03

Jagunlabi  Villager

# 4 Thank you, sir, for your well thought out piece. I see Agidimolaja's point that the piece sort of deviate from the main text that brought the rejoinder, however i tend to see where you are coming from. The state of the church in Nigeria today is not one in which you say "being poor as the church rat", hence the economic power that is reflected in the church i think should be transfered to outside of it. Yes the main goal should be tha salvation of souls, however salvation could be encompassing to mean spiritual , physical, mental, behavioural transformation. On the last subject, i pick a hole with the transformative power that our conversion is suppose to usher into our lives. On Sunday, you have swell and swell of people in churches, come Monday it's seems all those thousand have simply vanished and we are all bolekaja people. You look around you and nobody seems to be manifesting all those virtues nicely espouse some few hours earlier, this may seems a bit divergent from your main theme but it's one in which the revolutionary church begin to take it's stand. An example of somewhere where i learnt what you are advocating takes place is the Embassy of God in Kiev, Pastored by Sunday Adelaja in the Ukraine. I was watching a programme recently in which members of his church set up charity institution whicn go on to provide various facility in different aspects of life. Note that this is not a church- financed project, rather the member having being equiped with tht Word, go out as disciples and a multiplying effect begins to that place, infact this particular programme is called, "the father institute", started by a young man, equipping men to be reponsible fathers. I hope the church in Nigeria would borrow some of these leave to speak truth to power(if you allow me to borrow your byline). Posted by Jagunlabi| 28.07.2008 08:38

bobokite  Villager

# 5 Sir, Which ever way you wish to view it, the truth cannot be covered. Black cannot be called Red and Orange cannot be called Mango. Those guys are causing a lot of problems for motorists plying that route. During December period, one can stay on that road for as long as 5hrs. You can imagine someone driving to the east or to the south-south and stays for five hrs on Lagos-Ibadan expressway, some cars before they get to Ore must have been doing over-heating or develop some funny faults and unlucky families who fall into the hands of dubious mechanic trying to repair their car will stay for two days on the road for a six hrs journey. Some other ones will be getting to Onitsha very late in the night and become easy prey for Dare-Devil robbers and in some cases, lives are lost. Sir I don’t think you have witnessed this traffic we are talking about before because if you have, you would have joined those calling on the government to remove those churches out of that place. Like AGIDIMOLAJA rightly said, the golden law is LOVE UR NEIGHBOUR AS YOURSELF and those overseers who have their church cum business centers along that express road are not showing Love to people at all. Posted by bobokite| 28.07.2008 10:32

FoxCatcher  Villager

# 6 Dear Jagunlabi, Thanks so much for your comments. You were spot on. Sunday Adelaja's example is salutory for our local churches. This is a Nigerian and a product of Nigerian evangelism and discipleship producing such a social impact in a 'western' nation. What he's motivating his church to do are manifestations of the kind of training Nigerian Christian disciples of the 70's and 80's received. We were taught that an effective Christian gospel must be 'relevant, effectual and fruitful'. It is very unfortunate that most of those who taught us these things are the ones leading the present insular position of the Christian community today. Any action of a Christian that provokes justifiable vituperations against the name of Jesus Christ (whether by deliberate mockers or the sincerely uninformed) is condemnable whether that 'Christian' is a 'Pope', 'Prelate', 'Patriach', '(Arc) Bishop' or General Overseer. Jesus' mandate was primarily an annointing to preach the good news to the poor. The mandate He gave His followers cannot be seen to actually compound the drudgery and misery of the same poor without serious consequences to the community's perceptions of the same gospel. A Christian's life paints his neighbours picture of Christ. What picture do our beautiful churches and state of the art equipments and members' cars paint to neighbours when the roads before the same churches are an eyesore or the community lacks portable water or a standard primary school? These are Govt responsibility???? Yes they are. But where is the govt???? Jesus' story of the good Samaritan would have been interesting if situated in modern Nigeria. A Nigerian Samaritan would likely argue that Security, and welfare and help were preserves of Govt. Security of lives and property IS the govt's responsibility; so is provision of welfare, health etc. However, history shows that social welfare and its benefits usually were NOT a product of formal govts. They were initiated by socially concerned citizenry mostly motivated by what they considered as divine principles of love to their neighbours. Govt welfare usually follow the general acceptance of such schemes or social actions by sections of its citizenry. The Nigerian churches cannot afford to be different. The anger, bitterness and outrage the Lagos/Ibadan Expressway churches are evoking from Nigerians does not mean people do not recognise Govt's underlying irresponsiblity. Its a manifestation of peoples' recognition of the disconnect between what the message being preached represents and the lifestyle and actions of it's apostles. The pre-Russian Revolution Orthodox Russian Church was a major victim of the purges that followed that revolution because of the similar perception by the 'masses' that it was a part and parcel of the oppressive ruling class. They were no longer in touch with the people to whom their Master had sent them. They paid dearly for that disconnect. I pray that Nigerian Pentecostal church leaders will learn from the lessons of history. Ciao Posted by FoxCatcher| 28.07.2008 11:39

lumumba  Villager

# 7 Thank you for your challenging piece. I think our first duty is to transform the material basis we find ourselves as a mark of our discipleship of Christ. Our mega churches draw their resources from the tithes, offerings, gifts, etc that their members provide; these members, to a large extent, derive their own income from the society they live in. There are wage earners, contractors, traders of "fairly used" items (original or fake) etc. By the way the economy is structured and operates, with an almost absolute involvement of the government in the economy, the excess wealth "trickles down" to the church purse. In effect, the church is a direct beneficiary of the rottenness in the society and the chaos on the expressway. By implication, transformation of the society has to be a function of, and in, the church. The exact opposite is what we now have; for example, there are those who pray for the "success" of those in power. How can a prayer for the success of a Vagabond In Power be answered? This is why the more they pray, the less the solution. In your example, you rightly pointed out the duality of Jesus' action. Jesus Christ, as the example showed, had the means to offer eternal life. Evangelists of today cannot simply offer that etrnal life but can preach and teach the gospel and obey God's commandments, which will lead us to it. Because Jesus is the life, for Him, there is no need for a "connector". For us, He is our connector, and our first test of discipleship is to determine what is "good" and strive towards it. In Romans 13:3-4; while Paul was admonishing obedience to those in authority, he made a fundamental assumption on those in authority, that is, "for he is there to do you good." Are those in authority doing us any good? When the church defines itself outside of this context, social morality suffers and we will be left carrying the bag via "charitable works." Assuming, say in the Western areas of Nigeria, a church builds a borehole for a community. The church may feel satified with itself, but then, that community, 50 years ago, had potable, pipe borne water. In this case, is the church promoting "good works" or reinforcing brigandage in governance? In the West, that is Europe/USA, among their diverse peoples, the church played a significant role, both in the transformation as well as reorganising society to approximate what they perceive to be the "kingdom of heaven on earth" and which is why we strive to emigrate to those places. Posted by lumumba| 28.07.2008 13:10

BOE  Villager

# 8 Nigeria is hungry for leadership and development and is imprisoned by greed, corruption and materialism, it is our duty to respond so that when Jesus comes with the question, that I was hungry, our response would be yes we fed you, for as many countless masses we assist we do it unto the Lord Jesus Christ. The whole world is imprisoned by greed, corruption and materialism but in Nigeria, we have outsourced our problems to God. That is the problem. The discipline to complete or create any lasting projects where God will provide is the common denominator is my point. When are people going to stop coming up with this type of incredible ignorance? This write up for example about Jesus should remain personal and private to the writer. Leadership and development has zero to do with faith, it is about doing things, today! The Lord's prayer (in the bible) was in response to the way hypocrites prayed? What is Revolutionary about the Church? Posted by BOE| 29.07.2008 06:04

employlawone  Villager

# 9 =BOE;4295076757>The whole world is imprisoned by greed, corruption and materialism but in Nigeria, we have outsourced our problems to God. That is the problem. The discipline to complete or create any lasting projects where God will provide is the common denominator is my point. When are people going to stop coming up with this type of incredible ignorance? This write up for example about Jesus should remain personal and private to the writer. Leadership and development has zero to do with faith, it is about doing things, today! The Lord's prayer (in the bible) was in response to the way hypocrites prayed? What is Revolutionary about the Church? My Dear Ma, Thank you for your kind attempt at contributing some response, it is personally noted. You are perfectly entitled to disagree with my belief(s), approach, and worldview. However, I am in some doubt about your capacity to question my motives for speaking. Secondly, I am not sure you are in a position to censor my views or others on/in this space. I also am not convinced that you have attained the right to determine what I decide to articulate or keep private. As far as am aware the Nigeria Village Square remains a free space accommodating all and varied shades of opinions. For we speak the truth to power in different ways and no one should expect us to be in a straight jacket. A better reading of my article would indicate that this piece is a call to the Church to arise from slumber, emulate the Church in England that gave rise to the National Health Service, Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Durham, social housing through Shaftsbury and in the end came round to leading the abolition of slave trade. Whether it causes discomfort or cringing, the call made to the Nigerian Church is clear and unambigious, and you cannot silence me and millions of others for he has anointed us: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me(us), because the Lord has anointed me (us) to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me (us) to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound....” Everyone, including me reserves the right to determine how to respond to the Nigerian Challenge. _________________________ _________________________ I am sorry Boe, I just realised its Ma not Sir. Posted by employlawone| 29.07.2008 13:28

BOE  Villager

# 10 I will defend your right to publish, well, anything, and my point is not a personal one. It is about education. The same church that created all those great UK institutions you mentioned also created slavery and most of the wars were in the name of god. But the God I serve did not allow the plans of the enemies of progress to pull through. by Orji Kalu is a cynical example of mixing God and state. A flavor of the mess that goes on in Nigeria is always attributed to God. Just see our poor media. Innovation and a move away from the status quo is the only way forward. The issues are clearly with regards to using the church and managing a country in one breath. Your UK example that people got on with their jobs and are thankful for it via their gods, afterwards. The do not stick into your face at every opportunity. That is the progress that may yet save us from building sub standard shopping malls while the churches and mosques remain standing. Posted by BOE| 30.07.2008 04:42

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