Posts

WHEN MIRACLE STORIES COLLAPSE UNDER SCRUTINY (PART I)

Image
“Before We Start Printing Resurrection Certificates” By Akin Ojumu In the famous words of Samuel Johnson (1709–1784), the English writer and polymath: “When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” Or, as the saying is sometimes rendered in modern form: “Nothing so focuses the mind as the prospect of an impending hanging.” Extreme urgency has a remarkable way of concentrating the human mind. As I have grown older, I have become increasingly conscious of the brevity of life. I know that I do not have forever on this earth. Every morning I wake up still breathing, I count it as another blessing from God. And, to the best of my ability, I want to spend whatever time I have left concentrating on what I consider to be of ultimate importance: Our eternal destiny. That realization is what informs much of what I write. My desire is not only to live in a manner that pleases the One who saved and redeemed me, but also, within the small sphere of influ...

LUKE 6:38 IS NOT HEAVEN’S INVESTMENT SCHEME

Image
By Akin Ojumu Back in the day, when I was a member of the Christian Union Fellowship at the University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria, we had a chorus we regularly sang while the offering baskets were being passed around for people to drop their tithes and offerings: I give, it shall be given unto me I give, it shall be given unto me I give, it shall be given unto me Good measure, pressed down, and running over. Offering time was called “blessing time.” And the reason we sang that chorus was obvious. We were being encouraged—a fellowship made up largely of financially struggling university students living on modest stipends—to give generously with the expectation that, if we gave to God, God would give back to us in multiplied measure. The chorus, of course, came from our understanding of Luke 6:38: Luke 6:38 “Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete wit...

OLAKUNLE SORIYAN’S SECULARLY SPECTACULAR HIGH-SOUNDING NONSENSE

Image
“When “Social Significance” Becomes Another Gospel” By Akin Ojumu Like yesterday’s commentary, Olakunle Soriyan remains the subject of today’s examination. This time, we are looking at another clip from the more than hour-long message “Pastor” Olakunle Soriyan delivered at Femi Lazarus’s Beyond Church Walls International Ministers Conference 2026, on September 18, 2026. The full message is available on the Church’s YouTube channel. For those who may not be familiar with him, Olakunle Soriyan—popularly known as PK—is a highly sought-after tickler of itching ears. His Instagram profile describes him as an “Autodidact – (a rather fancy word for self-taught). Wall Street Journal & USA TODAY Best-Selling Author. Iconoclast. Global Thought Leader. Futurist. Manifestation Strategist. Investor.” Quite the résumé. And when you compare Soriyan’s own description of his expertise with the prevailing obsessions of much of contemporary Christianity, it is not difficult to understand why Churches...

JOHN TRAVOLTA OF SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER WANTS HIS BOOGIE SHOES BACK

Image
“Olakunle Soriyan and the Transformation of the Pulpit into a Motivational Stage ” By Akin Ojumu Dressed as he is—in what looks like a pair of 1970s John Travolta boogie shoes, gliding across the stage as though he took a wrong turn out of Saturday Night Fever and somehow ended up behind a pulpit—Olakunle Soriyan already looks less like a minister of the Gospel and more like a motivational speaker who wandered into Church by mistake. But the shoes are merely comic relief. The real catastrophe begins when he opens the Bible. Very few men who parade themselves as “preachers” display the kind of casual irreverence toward the Word of God that Olakunle Soriyan does. Scripture is not approached as the holy, authoritative revelation of God—to be reverently studied, carefully interpreted, and faithfully proclaimed. No. It is treated as raw material. A collection of religious phrases to be stretched, bent, repackaged, and conscripted into the service of whatever motivational philosophy Soriyan ...

THE BAPTISM OF THE ÒRÌṢÀ

Image
“How Indigenous Yorùbá Religion Found a New Home in the Nigerian Church” By Akin Ojumu Professor George Olusola Ajibade is a Nigerian scholar of Yorùbá language, folklore, literature, religion, and culture. He is a Professor in the Department of Linguistics and African Languages at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife. He earned his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D., completing his doctorate at OAU in 2003. In this video, which is an excerpt of an interview, Professor Ajibade explains why he believes traditional Yorùbá religion will continue to survive, even though open identification with it may no longer be fashionable in many circles. The basis for his confidence is simple: traditional Yorùbá religion has not disappeared. It has migrated. According to Ajibade, it has found new homes within both Christianity and Islam. Churches and mosques have absorbed, adapted, and repackaged elements of indigenous Yorùbá religious culture—its music, rhythms, chants, praise poetry, ritual language, cosmol...