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The Christian outrage over Benue massacre

Our so-called Christian leaders continue to show that they are not servants or prophets of God but mostly misguided businessmen and women using the religious…

Our so-called Christian leaders continue to show that they are not servants or prophets of God but mostly misguided businessmen and women using the religious route to unquestioned wealth. While the rest of us recommended Buhari based on his fake attributes of honesty, integrity and patriotism, pastorpreneur David Oyedepo threatened to open the gates of hell on those who would oppose Jonathan. He later recanted. Enoch Adeboye prayed for Buhari’s success in the same way he had backed clueless Jonathan as God’s elect.

Father Mbaka blew hot and cold. Before Patience Jonathan he was full of praise and prediction. Months later, he was routing for Buhari as God-sent. Tunde Bakare once Buhari’s running mate, now claims that God has asked him to run Nigeria, although not via the polls. Such claims leaves’ the other pastor, Yemi Osinbajo in the lurch. Bakare would not be the first divine candidate, Kris Okotie once announced that God has asked Obasanjo to hand over to him. 

But since the Benue massacre, other pastors have been using their otherwise exalted altars to play ruinous politics. The so-called islamization agenda, once used against Buhari is burning across the Christian hemisphere, sending choking smells of pogrom and annihilation wafting through the nation. 

Paul Enenche is raining curses and invectives at the failure of political leadership and on herdsmen, their born and unborn babies and supporters. I am personally shocked at the distemper in the voice of this man. He is not calling for justice on the perpetrators of the heinous crimes in Benue, Taraba, Adamawa but untold suffering of pain and displeasure on their innocent children and unborn grandchildren. A motley crowd of frenetic followers are chorusing ‘amen’ to his curses. Before him, was another pastor making the acquisition of the PVC a ticket to the haven of his church. There is a sad misrepresentation of geography here – all Fulani are not Muslims and sad as it is, what Nigeria is going through is not peculiar. It’s happening in Mali, Senegal, Niger, Chad and as far away as Uganda, Rwanda, and Kenya. Does it excuse that it happens in our shores – absolutely not.

So, how Godly is fire and brimstone spewing from the throne of grace from supposed sinners redeemed by grace? Jesus’ charge to love those who hate, persecute and despise suddenly has no place in our righteous anger, nor his charge to love our enemies. 

The carnage in Benue is a horrendous crime that defies logic or reason. Government’s silence, especially Buhari who vilified Jonathan for allowing Boko Haram to fester is criminally complicit, but is the pastoral reaction what Jesus would do? Benue is not the first, and unfortunately would not be the last. Zamfara has borne the brunt of these slayings for over ten years. Was this how Jesus reacted to those who seized him, wrongfully charged, imprisoned and whipped him, before crucifying him? Is this our reaction right? Are we acting like our number one mentor and role model? 

Have we as Christians explored all the avenues for peace and entente? Do we suppose that we would have states in which only Christians would live separately or vice versa? Has the church and its new militant leaders deployed the resources at its disposal for dialogue, peace building and reconciliation? Have we helped victims rebuild their lives with the tithes and offerings that have now made the church richer than the state? Are these vituperations Godly or borne out of a desire to even up? What would be the consequences of our call to arms on the rest of society, on the nation and even the survival of our faith? 

If God were to rubberstamp these prayers and wishes on this issue, what would be its implications to generations unborn, including those from our loins who would suffer the miscarriages, misfortunes and deaths to which we now chorus ‘amen’. In the age where children travel freely, love wantonly and live recklessly unfazed by race, ethnicity and religious persuasions, are we conscious of the future we’re asking for? Not that I believe that God is a rubberstamp who endorses the whim of his followers; in fact, I believe that if there is a God out there, he is clairvoyant enough not to grant most of our wishes. For many of us do not know what is good for us. 

Apparently the God of the Nigerian pulpit is different. Often shouted upon and invoked to vengeance on the recommendation of his servant/advisors, this God sounds like the vengeful Ogun and Amadioha that he deposed. He would unleash on anyone that questions the rationality of the wishes of his servant/advisor’s. Definitely, this God is not the God of the Bible full of mercy and sending rain on the believer and the unbeliever alike. He is the God that curses the works of his followers for failing to drop their children’s school fees in the offering plates and blight the crops for failure to pay tithes.

He is not the God who propelled missionaries to build schools, roads, clinics and orphanages free for all. He is the businessman who buys planes for his servants and implores them to build institutions that their members are excluded from. The God of our bling bling preachers sells salvation and healing in anointing oils and handkerchiefs in lieu of Christ’s supreme sacrifice. These pentarascal preachers loathe the Catholic indulgences, but they are selling worse things on their altars. They invoke God to unleash mass poverty on those who fail to throw their window’s mite and encourage those who loot our treasuries with choice seats on the pew. They invoke death and incurable diseases on those who question tithing where grace and Christ’s resurrection is supposed to have paid eternal price of redemption from the curses of the law. 

They invoke ignominious calamity on unborn generations for the sins of their forbears to the fourth generation and the ‘redeemed’ are not crying for his mercy for our collective sins but ululating in frenzy and chanting amen. For the idiot that I am with very little knowledge of scripture, I am left wondering if our pastors truly understand the God brought they preach. Are we preaching love or simply using the altar to encourage a return to the Hobbesian state of an eye for an eye?

 

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