OLAKUNLE SORIYAN’S SECULARLY SPECTACULAR HIGH-SOUNDING NONSENSE

“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 keep inviting him.

The modern Church has developed an insatiable appetite for words like leadership, influence, manifestation, transformation, relevance, innovation, culture, marketplace, strategy, and impact.

So, naturally, when someone arrives carrying a Bible in one hand and a corporate motivational seminar in the other, pulpits open. Church conferences come calling. Congregations sit ready to have their ears massaged with precisely the sort of things they already want to hear.

Romans 16:18 warns that such people “by smooth talk and flattery…deceive the hearts of the naive.”

It was almost exactly a year ago, on September 30, 2025, that I first wrote about Kunle Soriyan. That commentary was titled:

“IF THE GARDEN OF EDEN WERE PERFECT, SATAN WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN THERE.”

It was a response to Soriyan’s remarkable assertion that the Garden of Eden was somehow imperfect—and that its supposed imperfection explains Satan’s presence there and Eve’s subsequent deception.

He said:

“If the Garden of Eden was perfect, Satan will not be there…The Garden was good, the Lord did not say it was perfect…If Adam was perfect, Eve will have been unnecessary. The necessity of Eve underscores the imperfection of Adam…”

Yes. That was preached. Inside a Church. With a Bible presumably somewhere nearby.

What struck me then was not merely the mishandling of Scripture. It was the casual irreverence with which the whole enterprise was conducted. There stood a supposed Christian minister occupying a Christian pulpit, wearing what looked remarkably like a babalawo’s skullcap while confidently manufacturing theology from thin air.

This time around, the babalawo’s cap appears to have stayed home.

Progress, perhaps.

Unfortunately, the wardrobe department still seems to be experiencing theological difficulties.

Clad in a muscle-tight shirt, baggy trousers, and towering boogie shoes that appear to have escaped from John Travolta’s wardrobe sometime around 1977, Soriyan looks less like a minister of the Gospel than a motivational speaker who took a wrong turn out of Saturday Night Fever and accidentally wandered into a Church conference.

But the clothes are comic relief. The real problem begins when he starts teaching. 

My ears were particularly pricked when Soriyan declared:

“Let me tell you the meaning of secular. Secular is not the thing that doesn’t have the name of Jesus in it. That’s not secular. Secular is ideas, thoughts, property, language…anything. As long as religious ideas or religious thoughts or religious philosophy or religious anything does not have social significance, it is secular. Hello! Secular is not the absence of the name of Jesus. Secular is anywhere religious ideas have no social significance. So, if you are preaching in Church on Sunday morning in the name of Jesus and that message has no social significance, it is secular…”

Read that carefully.

According to Olakunle Soriyan, a sermon may be preached in the name of Jesus Christ, in a Christian Church, from the Christian Scriptures—and yet somehow become secular merely because Soriyan judges that it lacks sufficient “social significance.”

Yes, you heard him correctly.

A Gospel message without social significance is supposedly a secular message. The theological absurdity of such a claim is difficult to exaggerate. 

Soriyan has not merely stretched the meaning of the word secular. He has picked it up, turned it upside down, emptied out its contents, stuffed it with his own ideological assumptions, and then triumphantly announced that he has discovered its real meaning.

This is not biblical exegesis. It is theological banditry.

And here is the inconvenient truth Soriyan—and his fellow initiates of the Secularized Christianity Cult who have sold their soul to the project of secularizing Christianity in the name of making it “relevant”—must understand:

The Gospel does not become secular because it fails to address whatever social agenda happens to be fashionable in a particular generation. The Gospel is not defined by political usefulness. It is not defined by economic impact. It is not defined by cultural influence, national development, entrepreneurship, leadership, poverty reduction, social engineering, institutional reform, or societal transformation.

The Gospel is the saving announcement of what God has done in Jesus Christ.

Paul summarizes it plainly in:

1 Corinthians 15:1–4

“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the Gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.”

Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. He was buried. He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. Romans 1:16 calls this Gospel “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.”

That is the GOSPEL.

Sin. Judgment. Christ. Cross. Resurrection. Repentance. Faith. Forgiveness. Reconciliation with God. Eternal life.

Now, does the Gospel have social consequences?

Absolutely.

A man reconciled to God through Christ should not remain unchanged in his relationship with his neighbor. The Christian is called to care for the vulnerable, reject partiality, practice generosity, pursue what is good, love his neighbor, act justly, show mercy, and do good to all people—especially fellow believers.

James 2 teaches this. Galatians 6:10 teaches this. Ephesians 2:10 teaches this. The New Testament is filled with commands governing how redeemed people live in families, Churches, communities, workplaces, governments, and societies.

But here is the distinction Soriyan’s definition obliterates. The social consequences of the Gospel are not the definition of the Gospel.

Fruit is not the root. Effect is not cause. Christian ethics are not the atoning work of Christ. And social transformation is not justification by faith. Helping the poor is not the Resurrection. National development is not reconciliation with God. Entrepreneurship is not regeneration. Leadership training is not redemption. And “social significance” is not the standard by which the Gospel becomes Christian.

That is why Olakunle Soriyan’s claim that “a Gospel message without social significance is a secular message” is theologically preposterous.

A sermon could say absolutely nothing about contemporary politics, economics, entrepreneurship, cultural transformation, public policy, national development, or social activism and still be profoundly Christian if it faithfully proclaims Christ crucified and risen.

A preacher could stand before his congregation and preach for forty-five minutes on human sin, God’s wrath, divine holiness, substitutionary atonement, justification by faith, repentance, regeneration, resurrection, eternal life, and reconciliation with God without mentioning a single government policy or social program.

Nothing about that sermon would be secular. Nothing.

Conversely—and here lies the delicious irony—a preacher can spend an entire hour talking about societal transformation, leadership, innovation, cultural influence, entrepreneurship, poverty reduction, political engagement, marketplace dominance, wealth creation, national development, and human flourishing and still deliver an essentially secular message.

All he has to do is remove Christ. Remove sin. Remove the Cross. Remove the Resurrection. Remove repentance. Remove justification. Remove reconciliation with God. Remove eternal life. Then sprinkle three Bible verses over the presentation like parsley on a plate.

Voilà.

Modern “Christian” relevance.

The presence of Christian vocabulary does not baptize secular philosophy. And the presence of social concerns does not transform a motivational seminar into Gospel proclamation.

That is precisely the confusion plaguing much of contemporary Christianity.

We have become so obsessed with proving that Christianity is “relevant” to society that we are increasingly embarrassed by the very message Christ commissioned His Church to proclaim.

Sin sounds too negative. Judgment sounds too judgmental. Repentance sounds too confrontational. Hell sounds socially awkward. The Cross sounds insufficiently sophisticated.

So, we replace them.

Leadership. Purpose. Influence. Possibility. Manifestation. Transformation. Human potential. Marketplace impact. National development.

Then, after forty-five minutes of TED Talk theology, somebody reads a Bible verse and the congregation erupts: “Deep!”

No. It is not deep. It is Christianity emptied of its Christian content and repackaged as motivational philosophy.

Again, to be clear, the Gospel certainly produces transformed lives. Transformed lives can affect families. Transformed families can influence communities. Faithful Christians can contribute enormously to society. They can build businesses, serve governments, care for the poor, reform institutions, educate children, practice medicine, create art, pursue justice, and serve their neighbors.

But none of those outcomes changes what the Gospel fundamentally is. 

And this is the irony Soriyan’s definition completely misses. Social relevance does not make a message Christian. Christ does.

God did not enter the world in human flesh in order to acquire “social significance.” The eternal Son did not take upon Himself our humanity so that He could become culturally relevant, socially influential, prominent in the marketplace, or useful to somebody’s leadership framework.

That is not the Gospel. Scripture tells us plainly why Jesus Christ came into the world.

He came to save sinners. He came to redeem His people from their sins. He came to bear the judgment our sins deserved. He came to reconcile sinful human beings to a holy God. He came to lay down His life as a sacrifice for sinners.

John 3:16–18 declares that God gave His Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. Hebrews 9:26 says Christ “appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”

That is the biblical explanation for the coming of Christ.

Sin. Sacrifice. Redemption. Salvation. Eternal life.

Not social significance.

Calvary was not God’s strategy for gaining cultural relevance. The Incarnation was not a divine leadership seminar. Bethlehem was not the launching pad for a philosophy of human influence. Golgotha was certainly not God demonstrating how Christians can become socially significant.

So, if Olakunle Soriyan is teaching something about the purpose of Christ’s coming that the Apostles themselves—the real Apostles—did not teach, then the obvious question must be asked:

Where did he get it from?

Where in Scripture are we told that God became flesh in order to pursue “social significance”? Where did Jesus teach it? Where did Peter preach it? Where did Paul explain it? Where did any Apostle proclaim it?

If the doctrine cannot be found in the text, attaching a Bible verse to it does not suddenly make it biblical. 

And that is precisely the problem with motivational preaching dressed in Christian vocabulary.

The preacher begins with an idea imported from somewhere else—leadership theory, personal-development philosophy, corporate culture, sociology, marketplace ideology—and then goes rummaging through Scripture looking for a verse that can be made to carry it.

The Bible is no longer allowed to speak. It is recruited. Scripture becomes a theological costume draped over an idea that existed before the Bible was ever opened.

That is not exegesis. That is conscription. The text is not governing the message; the message is governing the text.

And once that method becomes normal, practically anything can be preached from practically anything. A verse becomes a launchpad. A biblical character becomes a leadership case study. A miracle becomes a prosperity principle. The Cross becomes a metaphor for personal transformation. Jesus becomes a life coach with supernatural credentials.

And everybody goes home impressed by how “deep” the preacher was. But depth is not measured by how novel an interpretation sounds. Faithfulness is measured by whether the preacher has actually said what God has said.

So, the question for Soriyan remains painfully simple:

If Scripture did not give you this doctrine, who did?