As scripture says, “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” This is what we are experiencing with many Christian denominations today, especially Pentecostals.  

The Pentecostals were the delight of the Gen – Y, they wanted action, the covet firebrand preachers, they asked and got the funky services and danced vigorously to musical gyrations indistinct from a risk jockey.

Church must be fun otherwise it is not for me, was their slogan. Pastors after pastors bought into the lie and gave the people what they wanted which was often not the gospel truth. Pastors raked in millions, they assumed celebrity status, rode in G-wagons, and travelled in style. 

Traditional titles were junked in favour of “Daddy” and “GO”. Eloquence was ranked higher than truthfulness and fidelity was measured in terms of how much was given by a member. This form for Christianity was all too good and was bound to crash, especially in the Gen – Z era.

Many years ago, the Pentecostals developed the penchant for attacking the Catholic Church and poaching her members. Catholics insisted that theirs was and is the purest form of Christianity but only few listened. Off they went following the doctrines of men, rather than the teaching of Christ. 

Today, Christianity is plagued by ceaseless internal wrangling among pastors. The crux of the matter is the legitimacy of the doctrines preached by pastors and Churches, doctrines which they had used to capture, and enslave their followers. Pastor Abel Damina typifies this new era of “Divided Pentecostalism”.

Now that he has seen the light, he has taken it upon himself to correct, may attack his fellow pastors who continue to preach false doctrines. Pastor Damina must be commended for owing up to his past heresies. He must be commended for the effort to teach the truth, what is not commendable is the fact that he seems to be interested in only attacking his fellow pastors. 

The Bible invites us to “speak the truth in love”. We must correct wrong doings and teachings charitably. And there are ways to do this – Call the attention of the person involved to it, share the correction with two or more elders, pray for the intervention of the Holy Spirit, then finally teach the public, so that they may not persist in the evil of wrong path. This is hardly the path being followed in this era of social media with the attendant desire to gain maximum publicity.

Once, it was the craze to be famous and appear powerful, so miracles were in vogue. The extraordinary were brazenly performed to attract crowds and with the crowd comes popularity and wealth.

How shameful it is for people to realize that they have been duped with fake miracles? We were still trying to fathom these when critique to tithe collection to the impoverishment of followers tend the air. Shepherds are secured, but sheep are in deep shit. Workers are in labour while pastors are drowning in pleasure. This definitely is not right.

In an era of persecution, Christians must unite to spread the faith and combat error. It is this imperative for pastors to be well trained. Being called is good, afterwards, those called must be properly formed for the task of kingdom building and salvation of souls. Many pastors are simply interested in building their kingdom on earth to the detriment of their souls and of those entrusted to their care.  

Just as God warned through the prophets of old, the shepherds have not been faithful, they have not taken care of the sheep and much will be demanded of them. They must repent and now is the time.

If they continue with business as usual and nothing changes, these pastors will bring the house of God down and put Christianity into disrepute as some social influencers are already doing by dragging some pastors online and challenging them to prove their authenticity.

 

Like Mohamed Ali once said “We are failing because we are willing to do everything for money but not willing to do anything for our people”. This must stop!

When all is said and done, the real solution is for pastors to be true to the Gospel and preach it without any adulteration. Pastors must work for the kingdom of God and not the earthly kingdom.

Pastors must see themselves as stewards of God’s mysteries and not allow material gains to becloud their judgment and lead them to do things contrary to the gospel values.  

In fact, the gospel is powerful of itself and does not need any embellishment that seems to be the order of the day today. The time has come for pastors to be servants of the gospel and put themselves at the service of God’s people and not work for sordid money.

Duelling ministers serve themselves not the gospel and when two elephants fight, the grass suffers, we must spare the Christian people further harm and despoliation. There’s still work to be done, and fighting one another is not one of them.