On El Rufai’s NBA Invitation And The 2020 CAMA Laws: We Must Leave Religion Out Of The Equations

©A Malam in a Pastor’s embrace inside a Church is the picture of the Nigeria we need

This opinion is a Sunday message for, especially, Church leaders who are always quick to attempt to educate government about “spiritual things”, when they all know that there is no way government can understand “spiritual things”.

Government is operated by human laws, and the Church is operated by the Holy Spirit. Unless government can receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, no one should expect government to understamd spiritual things. The operations of both laws are different: they are equal but opposite – one rules the human natural order, and the other rules the supernatural order.

Now, the following are a few questions this opinion has generated, which are based, entirely, on the scriptural provisions our Church leaders profess to preach – Church leaders protesting the CAMA laws should examine themselves under the following light, in respect to their protests – references taken from the Holy Bible:

John 16:33

“These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”

Church leader – ARE YOU OF THE WORLD?

2 Peter 2:20

“For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.”

Church leader – ARE YOU ENTANGLED WITH THE WORLD?

1 John 4:4

“Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.”

Church leader – HAVE YOU OVERCOME THE WORLD?

1 John 5:4

“For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.”

Church leader – ARE YOU BEHAVING LIKE MEN OF FAITH?

In a human proverbial folktale, this opinion learnt of a story of how the hawk took the young of an owl for food, and while blessing it as meal, God came to the hawk and asked “come ooo, before you thank me for your food, what was the reaction of the mother-owl when you took her young?

The hawk replied “she only watched me…” And God ask the hawk to return the young owl to the mother, revealing that he “cannot bless the revenge that has been committed (to me) against you”.

Again, the hawk returned and took a chick from its gathering together under the hen, and while blessing the meal, God returned to the hawk and asked “how did the hen behave when you took her chick?”. The hawk replied “it attacked me…” And God said, you can have the chick because the hen has shown the capacity to personally deal with the matter.

Only Bishop David Oyedepo spotted the new CAMA laws, and raised his voice against it before the others, especially CAN, did. This opinion has no problem with that. He must protect his interests and investments against unnecessary hierarchichal seizures.

Unfortunately, the initial agreement in the business partnership between Church leaders and government, which allowed them to “make money” without producing anything tangible to help our “economic production index” – makes government see them as “charity takers”, and they are also not “taxed” for the money they “make”. Now government says we want to know how you use these “charities” and if you err, we will punish you.

What is wrong with that? Is anyone afraid of the consequence of flounting unmeasured wealth in the face of dying children in Africa, who die from hunger and diseases, yet you say you take “”charities”? And now the government wants to know who these “charities” are taken for. They are saying “it is for God”, who is a Spirit. How would government understand that in the face of their personal lifestyles? Are they God?

Many Nigerians do not know the cooperations, in terms of “waivers”, Church leaders enjoy from government. They use their spiritual fitness to “obtain” physical advantages over others. This is not what Jesus taught us.

Like I said, I do not have problems with Bishop David Oyedepo “fighting” a human law when he should be overlooking it. It has left no one in doubt that it is all about Government seeking to “cut off” some of the “goodies” the Church leaders initially enjoyed from them, in response to international best practice. President Buhari has never being a “Father Christmas”, though some “thieves” still work under him.

But this opinion excuses Bishop David Oyedepo for questioning the government for altering the initial agreement they had, which gave Church leaders so much room to use the Nigeria Naira, just for anything they wanted to buy in the name of God. Church leaders have tended to assume the seat of God on earth, taking and using what belongs to God for themselves – imagine the roguery!

They steal people’s spiritual liberties, and use them to amass personal wealth for themselves, by just speaking sweet radicalizing words to the love-hearing of those who enjoy to sit and hear them, in huge, heaven-looking buildings, and government says: “we will begin to look into that.”

That sitting down in buildings, and watching a man who smartly dishes out different emotions by his words, is actually the Christianity, traditionally specified to, and adopted by these practitioners. Christianity is nothing physicality of a human being, it is everything about the mentality of a human being. It is a personal mental development, no matter the instructions anyone receives outwardly.

My disappointment in Bishop David Oyedepo’s outburst – not his protest ooo, he has the right to protest “bad laws” – is from the words he used: “I cannot be alive to see…” Who is Bishop David Oyedepo really, to use such a language while claiming to represent Jesus Christ? “Of the abundance (character) of the heart, the mouth speaks”. You are your words, no pretence.

I think the Muslims would understand the analogy about why Jesus Christ is called “the Lamb of God” better than my Christian brothers and sisters, because they have observed the attitude of the ram, from the example of the atoning sacrifice exemplified on “Mount Moriah,” where a ram replaced a man upon the altar of God, after a man was already lain on it, but was substituted.

The character of a ram when the neck is placed on the slaughter, against the blade, is that of submission. It always submits itself to its killer. This was what Jesus did: he accepted to be “led to the slaughter” when he had every successful power to resist it. He is the example for our Christianity. He was notedly slaughtered as a “lamb”, the young of a ram.

This demonstrates the powerless submission of Jesus to his killers to fulfil an eternal purpose. Do Church leaders know the powers embedded in silence, and in submission? I dont think they have the humility needed to.

I am so sure that Bishop David Oyedepo is not defending Christianity in his recent outburst, otherwise he would show the example of Jesus. And for those who think that I am fighting the Church, I ask, that, just like I have quoted scriptures to support my point, let them also defend Bishop Oyedepo’s outburst by scriptures, and assess his use of words that sounds like “I will defend MY OWN CHURCH…” and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

He is right when he is talking about “The Living Faith Church” because I know that he has no business “dying” for the “Redeem Christian Church of God” – another man would need to die for that Church. And at the end of all the dying, we will be left with counting how many Church leaders died for their Churches, yet they claim that it was Jesus who died for the universal Church. Here they are, individually, saying they would also die…! Haba! Die for what naa?

Do we then need other saviours apart from him whom God has given, of his son? Who among them, the Church leaders, was born according to the virgins birth, and where in scriptures were their messiah-ship prophesied? It was the Jewish heritage.

All I know is that God gave his only son to die for a dying world. And Bishop Oyedepo is a self confessed beneficiary of that death, and if he must die, let him die to protect his wealth. He should not claim…he is fighting for “the Church”, which builder is Jesus Christ.

Bishop Oyedepo’s death is not needed by the Church, but this opinion calls him to respect constituted authority if he had, at any time, registered a name called “The Living Faith Church” with our Corporate Affairs Commission, to recognise him to do non-governmental businesses and to “take charities”.

The Corporate Affairs Commission was set up by the human laws of the ruling government, and regulates the activities of those registered with it. Why did Church leaders submit to the constituting law of the commission, but are now protesting its “new-improved” application?

This opinion prays that all “Church-goers” would appreciate how they must prepare very well at home first, before taking themselves to another man like them, whom they have believed represents God in the buildings they built for God. Are we not ashamed? Why should we not also represent God to other people, and nurture them? We are Christians, always in need of milk, like infants.

“They that wait (at home, not going about) upon the lord (bending down over their Bibles) shall renew (pls speak in tongues for me here pls) their strength (their capacity to rub minds with the Almighty God): who can instruct a man except he who knows the mind of the man; but we have the mind of Christ. We are all responsible to think like him if we are the ones to occupy till he comes.

Except for salvation, there is nothing about the kingdom of God that is personal to each Christian, and when this opinion says “Christians”, it only recognizes the believing ones, not the professing ones.

Those who profess Christianity own the physical Church, but those who believe in Jesus Christ own “the Church” mentally, by their renewed mindset. Christianity in not in our active visible runs, but it is in our characters that make us able to relate helpfully with our neighbours.

Just like this opinion condemned the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) for “Islamising” Governor El Rufai’s withdrawn NBA invitation, I strongly also condemn the rejection of an authorized law by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), all of them, for bringing religion into secular matters.

Let CAN print their own legal tender, and stop going to government for understandings. How did government come into controlling “a spiritual body” if the body was not “sold” to them?

That was what the Jewish religious leadership did, and they were respected by their Roman Colonialists – they accepted the Roman legal tender just to pay the Roman tax only. Not even Caesar attempted going into the “Holy of Holies”, for fear of dying.

What is wrong with our Church leadership today? Bishop Oyedepo would not need to die because of CAMA laws, if he knows who he actually is.

And MURIC should, first, ask the National Assembly to change Kaduna, from being a federating State in Nigeria, into becoming “an Islamic Caliphate”, then I would understand why a common secular invitation that was withdrawn from the holder of a secular office, would be their business, enough to attract the divisive, Jihadist initiatives of the leader.

Everything happens for good. God knows why the NBA has fallen into this kind of disrepute. This opinion thinks that the leadership of the NBA should resign, a caretaker committee set up, and the 2020 NBA Annual Conference should be suspended in the interim.

If you ask this opinion what its business is in the matter – it sees the outrageous bloodsheds, it sees the inhuman dishonesties, and all I am asking, is for our religious bodies to spare us their own calamities in our secular matters. I no send any of una any message.

Just leave religion out of our present predicaments, in the name of the ONE NIGERIA, we all lie to ourselves about. Allow us enjoy the lies of our unity in peace, or get ready to discuss our oneness, which our law forbids.

Truth has no borders. It is eternal, and this opinion cannot deny its source.

God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Amen!