A famous Nigerian clergyman and televangelist, Abel Damina has become the man of the moment in Nigeria, Africa, and around the world. The preacher openly and remorsefully admitted to having practised manipulative and fraudulent preaching over the years for pecuniary and egoistic benefits from the vulnerable congregation, which he called the transactional gospel. This has been shaking the Christendom to which he belongs. His boldness is unprecedented and distinctive, as over the years, preachers always hide under a scripture in 1 Chronicles 16:22 to engage in all manner of immoralities and iniquities and manipulatively put the congregation into fear of God’s wrath if they question the atrocities of their pastors or general overseers. The scripture says, “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophet no harm.” As expected, his actions have subjected him to hate and personal attacks from his fellow preachers, including accusations of heresies, as they see his new teachings as a titanic blow to their livelihoods, puncturing their protracted fraudulent practices in the pulpit.
Among his new teachings that are intensely shaking Christendom is the doctrine that mandates the congregation to part ten percent of their earnings to the pastor and his church as a tithe. The other one is against ‘First- Fruits’ that began a few years ago, which demands total earnings in January every year to be surrendered to the pastor and his church. Another one is on ‘Widows Mite’ which requires a congregation member to give all in his possession, as a poor widow in the Bible gave all she possessed. Another is a sacrificial offering that requires giving something very valuable in worth and painful enough to attract heavenly blessings. Next is the seeds-sowing, which requires congregations to sow as expected in return (he who sows sparingly will reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will reap bountifully). After the seed-sowing comes the ‘Seed-watering’ (in perpetuity) to water the seeds to germinate for the expected harvests. For every member’s needs: marriage, job, healing, car, promotion at work, et cetera, there is a seed to follow. And even when there is no need,’sowing in and out of season follows, alongside the prophet’s multidimensional offerings. Outside the above fund-raising schemes, the partnership arms in most of these ‘prosperity’ churches are countless, all for Machiavellian fund-raisings using all manner of tactics and nomenclatures.
The most agonising thing is that even facilities such as schools, universities, bakeries, and others established with the members’ raised funds are not available for the benefit of the congregations that contributed the funds but for outsiders, politicians, and non-members who can afford the outrageous prices. Even the poor members who may not have money to contribute to the buildings may be tasked to render physical services such as carrying sand, cement, planks, and other building materials as their seed for a heavenly reward. In the olden days before the prosperity preaching and tithe-mongering era, all schools, assets, and properties owned by churches were for congregations and society at large, unlike these present days, when those things are for the edification of the founding pastors, whose ultimate target is to upgrade their lives, live big, have the best of everything, and acquire private jets at the detriment of the poor, vulnerable members that enrich them out of pain and naivety. Still, these flamboyant pastors will gang up against the government for exemption from paying taxes to the government like other business organisations and non-government organisations. All over the world, religious organisations pay taxes except in Nigeria, where churches and mosques will kick against taxes even when they use public facilities such as roads, electricity, and other amenities in the society put in place through public funds. All these prodigies affect Nigeria’s economic development. For instance, compare South Africa with Nigeria. The former establishes giant companies and exports them outside their shores and repatriates profits home, including from Nigeria, while Nigeria only builds churches everywhere with large congregations and auditoriums and exports them abroad for personal fortune.
Recently, an American televangelist, Pastor Benny Hinn, apologised for engaging in manipulative preaching, saying that he has manipulated many to part with their hard-earned money in the guise of giving to receive heavenly blessings. Pastor Benny Hinn has anchored many programs and urged many vulnerable congregations to give dollars and naira, among other currencies that God instructed him to do so. In his sober regret, he said he didn’t hear or get any such instructions from God but a mere deceit. Similarly, an American preacher, Cleflo Dollar, who has been an advocate of tithing, apologised and urged his congregation to stop paying tithes in his church and to discard all his teachings about tithing, saying that it is a wrong message because of Romans 6:14 in the New Testament, which has enthroned grace against the law. The Book of Malachi 3:10 says, “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Host, if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”.
Dr Damina, the revivalist preacher who is outstandingly sound in bible teachings and also had used the tithing scheme in the past to manipulate vulnerable congregations and make them part with their money and other values, said it is a fraud, that giving to God should be from a cheerful heart of whatever led to support the ministry, and argued that giving must be out of gratitude as God is proactive and not reactive. Less I forget, apart from the fact that the admonition on tithing is an Old Testament doctrine, how does a storehouse and ‘the pastor or his church’ connect that makes pastors to aggressively demand tithing from congregation as of right? Is a pastor or his church God’s storehouse? Recently, a Nigerian preacher warned his congregations that hellfire awaits anyone who doesn’t pay tithe. As if that is not enough, the preacher claimed that he drank tea with God in his dining room. This seriously suggests that the federal government should now stop funding religious pilgrimages as the same supernatural being that the Christians and Muslims visit Jerusalem and Mecca respectively to seek now visits and feasts in Nigeria. Another preacher urged his congregation to give in obedience to their pastor rather than the ‘holy spirit’ in them, which implies giving and sowing as the pastor commands, irrespective of what your spirit tells you. The question is, is there more than one Holy Spirit?
Arguably, Dr Damina is a revivalist preacher and God-sent to liberate vulnerable people from protracted religious bondages against manipulative and fraudulent preachings. Women are in the majority of victims. People have for years been living in silence and fear of speaking out to avoid attracting God’s wrath, as they were made to believe until Damina, an anointed man of God like them, stepped in to address the nuisances having been part of it in the pulpits. With the new move through Damina, Cleflo Dollar, and others, hopefully, the true message of salvation and redemption will triumph and gradually sink deep into the ears and hearts of general overseers and pastors who misconstrue the gospel as a means of exploitation and fraud against the people. This revival, without a doubt, will change the face of Christendom in no distant time.
Umegboro is a lawyer and social policy analyst, and writes from Abuja.
