Bishop of Catholic Diocese of Oyo, Most Reverend (Dr) Emmanuel Adetoyese Badejo, has reacted to the position of Cardinal Anthony Olubunmi Okogie on comment by General Overseer, Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, that RCCG will have as many branches as possible.
Okogie had noted that there is no Godliness in the decision, saying “such churches in most cases are more like business houses”.
“For example, I heard that one of my colleagues, (Pastor Enoch) Adeboye, said that he would love to build churches everywhere so as to make it easy for worshipers to walk to them. “But for me, that is a useless statement. How can you say you will build churches everywhere?”
He added: “In order to bring us together and to get sanity back into this country, the fear of God must be number one. Nigerians of today don’t care a hoot about God.
Reacting, Badejo said Okogie was right, lamenting that the church has lost focus.
“One of our leaders, Anthony Olubunmi Cardinal Okogie, just addressed the issue (multiple branches). Many of these churches are business centres and shops”, he told Tribune. “Why do you need five churches on a street? Is it right or wrong? Your guess is as good as mine. “But we have not done enough research on this matter that has shifted the attention of Christians from working hard to achieve a goal that is Christian from that to just praying and seeing visions.
“The church has a role to play to make a positive difference. We must restate our commitment to getting our messages into the mainstream of public discourse, so that the Christian religion would not be rubbished in the mud as it is at the moment.”
Meanwhile, Badejo has given reason why Muslims have a right to Islamise Nigeria:
Bishop of Catholic Diocese of Oyo, Most Reverend (Dr) Emmanuel Adetoyese Badejo, has stated that Muslims have a right to Islamise Nigeria because one of them is in power.
He lambasted Christians crying foul, noting that they had the opportunity to ‘christainize’ Nigeria but failed to do so.
Badejo said Christians in high offices only know how to engage in bickering and fight for positions, leaving out policies that would favour them.
“I’ve always shared the view of one of our leaders, John Cardinal Onaiyekan. I believe that Muslims have an Islamisation agenda, and they have a right to have it”, he told Tribune. “Do Christians have a Christianisation agenda? Yes, I hope so and we have a right to have it. The Muslims are pursuing an agenda; why are we not pursuing ours?
“Nigeria, for many many years, had a larger number of Christians in power. We failed when we should have worked, and that even now, instead of trying to catch up on our lapses, we’re busy pointing fingers. “It’s part of Islam to Islamise; is it not part of our own programme too to evangelise? How much of it are we doing? The education curriculum, which caused so much row recently, was approved when a Christian was chair of the body. “Christians are not an insignificant population in Nigeria. The next question to ask is: what kind of Christians? A large part of Christians today are Christians in name, who pursue power, position, privileges. That’s not Christianity.
“And that’s where I come to the issue of the prosperity gospel. We have not yet done research on how much damage prosperity gospel has done to the psyche of Christianity in our country. “Prosperity gospel provides cheap solutions to complex realities of life and so many people have heard it. They believe that it is actually possible to have cancer and pray it away, when doctors are actually available; that it is possible to fail exams, and still become the director of a bank, if you pray enough.”
