WHEN A CHURCH BECOMES A CULT

By Akin Ojumu

Pastors are God’s undershepherds. Their job is to feed and protect the sheep of God whom God has sovereignly placed under their care. As undershepherds, Pastors nourish the sheep by leading them to the green pastures of the Word of God. 

Being keenly attuned to the wellbeing and welfare of the sheep, the undershepherd nurtures any wounded sheep back to health by tending to their wounds and hurts. The Pastor-shepherd protects the sheep by fending off dangers and perils of false teachings and erroneous doctrines. 

Nowhere in Scripture is this role of the Pastor as God’s undershepherds more vividly painted than in Psalm 23, a passage which is contextually and primarily a Psalm about our great and ultimate Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Psalms 23:1-6

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters. 

He restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness

for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil,

for you are with me;

your rod and your staff,

they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies;

you anoint my head with oil;

my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me

all the days of my life,

and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord

forever.

To prevent the sheep from going astray and expose themselves to harm, the pastor builds a Scriptural guardrail of protection around the sheep by teaching, reproving, correcting, and training them on righteousness.

2 Timothy 3:16-17

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

It’s with that backdrop we now examine what Dr William Kumuyi says in this video clip.

“We were having meeting at Gbagada. A weekend meeting. And I heard that my church…former church…came to distribute literature without my knowledge. So, I made announcement. “If you got any Gospel paper distributed to you that we have not distributed from the pulpit, raise them up.” We gathered them together. I sent two of our leaders here in Lagos. I said, “Go, help me give them back to the overseer.” 

Now, I can understand a Pastor’s protective instincts. That an undershepherd wants to shield the flock of God under his care from consuming poison is not only appreciable, it is, in fact, laudable. A Pastor who loves his flock will critically examine the material his members feed on to make sure they are doctrinally sound. Ensuring that the sheep consume spiritually healthy food is the duty of the Pastor.

If those were Dr Kumuyi’s motives for confiscating Gospel literature distributed to his congregation by people from his former church, I would be the first to hail him. But that’s not the case. If you listen to what he says in the video carefully, you’ll quickly realize that he did not seize the Gospel tracts because of paternal instincts or a desire to protect his church members from consuming spiritually harmful material.

Dr Kumuyi did not express any concern about the content of the Gospel literature that was being distributed to his church members. His didn’t prevent his congregation from reading the Gospel literature because he feared they may come to harm. On the contrary, he acknowledged that the literature being distributed was Gospel paper. 

And it makes sense that Dr Kumuyi didn’t have issues with the content of the Gospel literature distributed by his former church. It was in that denomination, the Apostolic Faith Church, that he heard the Gospel preached, accepted Christ as his Lord and Savior, and became a Christian. To a large extent, the church shaped his doctrinal worldview. It was from there that Dr Kumuyi got his interpretation of holiness. Many of the doctrines of the Deeper Life Church were copied and pasted from Dr Kumuyi’s former church. In short, the Apostolic Faith Church couldn’t have spun a better offspring than Dr Kumuyi.

Nevertheless, Dr Kumuyi barred his congregation from reading Gospel tracts distributed by the Apostolic Faith Church anyways. He was so offended by the audacity of his former church that he was tempted to burn the Gospel literature. The reason he didn’t make a bonfire out of the Word of God in the Gospel tract was because of the little residue of respect he still had for the overseer of his former church.

“When he saw me the following time, he said, “Kumuyi!” I said, “Sir!” “We distributed Gospel literature in your Deeper Life, and you gathered everything, and sent back to us.” I said, “Sir, I sent them back because I respected you. If it were not your literature, I would have burnt them. But for the respect I have for you, that’s why I sent them back.”

So, why did Dr Kumuyi get so offended by the distribution of Gospel literature to his congregation by his former church that he felt compelled to confiscate and return them to the sender? 

“I sent them back because, if you are having your meeting, I cannot send my people to go and distribute a Deeper Life literature.” I said, “What I won’t do to you, I don’t expect you to do it to me.”

You read that right. He got offended because another church dared to distribute Gospel tracts to his congregation in the premises of his own church without his prior knowledge. Such a dirty slap in his holy face was too much for him to accept.

If I have to speculate, I’d say Dr Kumuyi’s action was informed by bitterness. You can even tell from the decibel of his voice that the man was consumed with loathing. I think he confiscated the Gospel tracts distributed by his former church because of a deep-seated resentment he still harbors for that church and its overseer. Dr Kumuyi seethes from the embarrassment of being ex-communicated by his former church. It seems to me that the man hasn’t gotten over the fact that the overseer of the Apostolic Faith Church expelled him from the church for being rebellious against the denomination’s directives.

Don’t take my word for it. Watch the video yourself and make up your own mind on what you think propelled Dr W.F. Kumuyi to seize a bunch of Gospel tracts from his congregation and ship them back to the sender. 

When the leader of an organization censors the information its members consume or restricts their access to certain information, it’s called Mind/Thought Control. This is a method autocrats and despots in totalitarian regimes use to manipulate and indoctrinate their citizens. 

Religious organizations that employ mind/thought control technique over its members are known as cults. A pastor who exercises control over the mind and thought of his congregation is nothing but a cult leader. If there’s anything universal about cults and cult leaders, it’s the fact that they ruin people’s lives.