Theologians Urge Church Leaders to Desist from Judging Others

Theologians Urge Church Leaders to Desist from Judging Others

Kayode Fasua

The National President of Association of Christian Theologians (ACTS), Prof. Olakunle Macaulay saturday urged church leaders in the country to desist from passing judgements on issues they never investigated, warning that this is against the scriptures.

Macaulay gave the advice in reaction to comments passed by the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) Pastor Enoch Adeboye, in which the latter kicked against the sale of key holders bearing his picture and that of his wife.

Adeboye, who spoke at the main vigil event of the annual Holy Ghost Congress of the Church, held at the Redemption Camp on Kilometre 46, Lagos-Ibadan expressway, condemned the production of the key holders with his picture.

Adeboye said the production of the key holders with his picture “is an attempt to equate me with God.”

But the cleric particularly frowned at a discovery of the picture of the Founder of Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN), Prophet TB Joshua on the flipside of a key holder’s leaflet, which a child playfully ripped out.

He then told the congregation, “And you know what that means.”

But objecting to Adeboye’s remarks on T.B. Joshua, Macaulay said the onus was to first prove if the key holder emanated from TB Joshua, “before passing comments against his personality.”

“First, you have to find out the source of the key holder before passing comments against Joshua’s personality. We must realise that because of the harsh economic situation in the country, people resort to various things to survive; including even kidnapping.

“People could decide to use the picture of TB Joshua on their own, maybe because of the miracles in his church, and decide to place it with that of Adeboye, for market value. So Pastor Adeboye should have investigated the source of the key holder before coming out to pass comments that tended to denigrate T.B. Joshua.

“Even, if the key holder had been traced to T.B Joshua, you have to find out his purpose for manufacturing it. Did he say it should be used for magical purpose? The scriptures told us to investigate thoroughly and hold on to the truth; not to pass judgment on feelings or hearsay.

“After all, people pray in the name of God of Oyedepo, God of Adeboye. Are these people not also idolising these men of God? That is, if that is the angle with which Adeboye wanted to view the key holder controversy,” Macaulay noted.

The ACTS president also criticised the General Overseer of the Living Faith Church, Bishop David Oyedepo, “for developing prayer points in his church on the alleged cloning of President Muhammadu Buhari.” According to him, “all these things are making our church leaders to become unreliable.”

“If Oyedepo has any axe to grind with Buhari, he should say it, rather than develop inflammatory prayer points over an issue which he had not made efforts to substantiate. Theologically, you investigate before you criticise,” Macaulay counselled.

Reacting to the controversy, however, a cleric of the Christ Apostolic Church, and General Secretary of the Campaign for Democracy (CD), Pastor Ifeanyi Odili, said Pastor Adeboye did the best thing by crying out publicly on “a subtle move to make him appear as comparing himself with God.”

Odili, who spoke to THISDAY from his Akure, Ondo State base, said, “If he ignored the key holders bearing his picture, God could decide to kill him or strike him down for attempting to equate himself with God; but happily, Papa Adeboye did the right thing.”

Odili, however, called for the probe of the controversial key holder, said to have borne within it, the picture of Prophet T.B Joshua along with that of Adeboye and his wife.

Nonetheless, Odili said his church, the CAC, frowned at the frequent declaration by Pastor Adebayo “that ‘God spoke to me’ almost every other minute, while preaching.”

“As for me, God has not spoken to me on more than two occasions this year. In CAC, we believe that God is not trivial of garrulous,” Odili posited

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