Nigerian Church Needs Censors Board; Faith Fathers Should Act Now – Dr. Olumuyiwa Onabanjo
Dr. Olumuyiwa Stephen Onabanjo, the Senior Pastor/Presiding Overseer of House of Praise Christian Centre, Ikeja, Lagos, has called on the Church leaders and fathers of faith in Nigeria to rise and set up a Censors Board that will checkmate the trend of gross misconduct among gospel ministers and the preaching of errors and heresies in the country.
“Today, everyone is claiming God spoke to them, even when it is clear their belly called them. There’s so much pressure for survival, and a revival in a failed state like Nigeria is a tremendous burden on the church”.
Speaking with Providence News in Lagos, Pastor Onabanjo, a medical practitioner and Medical Director of Genesis Specialist Hospital (GSH), GRA, Ikeja, maintained that there are too many ongoing gross indisciplines, errors being preached, and heresies among pastors that are unchecked in Nigeria.
“There are bound to be errors because our walk with God is developmental. Just like in scientific journals, somebody will publish something ten years ago. A newer research will come and cancel what the person has said”, he said.
Pastor Onabanjo said the solution to the errors in the church is what he termed the Jerusalem Initiative. “There should be a censorship board, where if a young pastor preaches errors, he will be invited to meet the fathers, and the fathers will correct him because they are more knowledgeable”.
He added that if the pastor disobeys and refuses to take correction, the Church Fathers will declare him an outcast.
However, Dr. Onabanjo lamented that the Nigerian Church has yet to build that internal system in the body of Christ, where there will be a censorship board.
He stated: “In Acts 15, Paul and Barnabas were faced with a challenge because the older believer says that even when you are born again, you need to be circumcised, and if you are circumcised, you are not a believer.
“It became a big argument, and the Gentile church then sent Paul and Barnabas to go to Jerusalem and meet the elders.
“Who are the elders? James, Sephard that is Peter. So, James, Peter and some older men were there. “After they heard from both sides, they were the ones that now wrote a letter and said from today, leave the Gentile Christians alone.
“Once they have repented from their sin and they are born again, they do not need to be circumcised. Only tell them to abstain from sexual immorality and from blood, which some people have misunderstood.
Paul said that once they are born again, they should abstain from eating blood, for the life of the flesh is in the blood.
“He said to them abstain from blood, abstain from strangling animals and sexual immorality. After they have done this, they should leave them.
“And after that, they now send the letter to all the Gentile churches. Do you know after that, it settled the matter? Nobody could ever come out against that after the Jerusalem initiative. If you go and preach it, they will declare you as a heretic.
“We lack a censorship board in Nigeria. Our father in the faith should constitute an Apostolic Coliseum, something like an apostolic coalition to deal with this problem. They will have offices in every state of Nigeria and will even be legitimized by the government of the day”.
“If, for example, a madman or a man who has a psychiatric problem stands up and starts a church, he will be discovered and stopped.
“As doctors, we discover that there are people with bipolar disorders who have psychiatric problems from their generation.
“A man stands up, and because he cannot talk, he has a pressure of speech. He has hallucinations, and he is hearing voices. He says his god is speaking to him, and people start following him.”
Pastor Onabanjo cited a particular pastor in Nigeria (convicted), who said before they served him food, the woman must be naked, and he burnt people with fire. That man is a psychiatric patient.
“He has a psychological problem and was able to operate, like many others after him, because there was no censorship board to censor him and his ministry activities.
“If we had a board that the government constitutionally constituted, they would ask him: who is your spiritual father or the mentor that commissioned you?
“Where are you coming from? Where is your letter of discharge and recommendation? All these will form the basis of recognition, even before the CAC recognizes to register the ministry.”
He says, “Our spiritual fathers and the church leaders in Nigeria have much to do. They need to call people preaching error into order and tell them, ‘ What you are preaching is not in the Bible. ‘ Prove to us the veracity and authenticity of what you are teaching.
“When the Father listened, they would advise and say, ‘Young man, leave this thing. Go and preach the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Go and preach salvation. Go and win souls, baptize them, cast out demons, heal the sick, and prepare them for heaven in the name of Jesus Christ.
“That is your primary assignment. Don’t preach heresy; else we will declare you an outcast. The government will take up your matter and close down your church.’
“This is not a threat or harassment, but a warning to preach the right gospel.”
The fathers of faith in Nigeria should act now and constitute the censorship board; if the fathers of faith and the church do not do it, a leader will come in this country that will shut down churches, just as it happened in Rwanda, where the government of President Kagame closed down about 6,000 churches, and asked the pastors to go to school. Now, in Rwanda, if you are not a theology graduate and a university graduate, and you don’t have a degree, you cannot start a church”.
