NIGERIA HOUSES OF HORROR (PART XIV)

“The State of Our Union is Dire”

By Akin Ojumu

At the beginning of every calendar year, the President of the United States (POTUS), in fulfilment of his constitutional obligations, addresses a joint session of Congress. During the address, the POTUS gives a report on the current condition of the United States and provides policy proposals for the upcoming legislative year. This is what Americans call the State of the Union (SOTU).

Regardless of the true condition of the citizens and their actual daily lived experiences, US Presidents have almost universally characterized the state of the union as “strong” in their SOTU addresses.

Till date, the only exception to this rosy and optimistic portrayer of the condition of the nation has been President Gerald Ford. In his 1975 SOTU address, President Ford bluntly told Congress, “The State of the Union is not good.”

President Ford gave a brutally honest assessment of the nation under his watch. The country had just struggled through the Watergate scandal of Richard Nixon, who had then only recently resigned as POTUS in shame and disgrace. Humbled and defeated, America was ending the Vietnam War. The US economy was on the verge of collapse. It would be the first and only time a US President so bluntly and honestly diagnosed a poor state of health for the country.

In a sense, this commentary series is sort of a State of the Union address. It is an assessment of the current state of the Christian Church in Nigeria. And sadly, like President Gerald Ford did in his 1975 SOTU address, all I can say is, “the State of the Church is not good.”

In fact, “not good” is a gross understatement. It does not even begin to capture the true state of things. The Church in Nigeria is in dire state. You cannot look at the current situation of Christianity in Nigeria and, in all honesty, conclude that the Church in Nigeria is anything but rotten to the core.

“A fish rots from the head” is a metaphor commonly used to express the fact that the root cause of problems in all organizations is leadership. Be it secular or spiritual, national or familial, when the head is sick, the rest of the body tends to follow suit. This is especially true for the Christian Church. A deformed clergy will always produce a congenitally abnormal laity. 

Of all the various things that lend themselves to the growth and vitality of the Christian Church, the choice of leadership is at the very top. In all cases, a spiritually healthy Church is a Church governed by good leaders. When a Christian assembly is overseen by qualified leaders, it thrives. This is what we read in Scripture.

“When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan.” (Proverbs 29:2).

The Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ and the founding fathers of the Christian faith are known for the extraordinary care with which they chose Church leaders. This is evident in their Epistles, most especially Apostle Paul.

Writing to his spiritual son, Timothy, Paul reminded him to exercise extreme caution and utmost patience when it comes to appointing Church leaders.

“Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, nor take part in the sins of others; keep yourself pure.” (1 Timothy 5:22).

You do not ordain anyone as a leader in the Church without conducting a thorough investigation about the person’s past and antecedents. There should never be a laying on of hand on an individual without an exhaustive period of ascertaining whether the person has the requisite qualifications to be so ordained.

“He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.” (1 Timothy 3:6-7).

Failure to comply with this explicit instruction always leads to disaster, and not just for the person hastily ordained but for the congregation as a whole. In nearly all cases where unqualified individuals have been ordained as Church leaders, the outcome has been calamitous. Unqualified pastors always leave in their wake unqualified catastrophe of scandal upon scandal and all manners of impropriety.

What is being witnessed across the Church landscape in Nigeria today are the consequences of having unqualified men and women at the helm of affair in the Church. The widespread false teachings, gross immorality, perennial materialism, festering mammonism, rampant exploitations, unabashed greed, and blatant cruelty are the repercussions of hasty ordinations of unqualified leaders.

Beware! Anyone who hastily ordains an unqualified person as a leader in God’s House is culpable in whatever sin the unqualified person eventually commits. If you appoint a novice to lead God’s people God will hold you liable for that person’s sins.

If God wills, we’ll conclude the series next time.