The doctrinal war tearing Nigerian churches apart has continued to cause much divisiveness in the body of Christ, thereby setting Christian leaders on a coalition course with one another.
The disagreement, for all it matters, is fueled mainly by the divergent interpretations propounded by men of God about some doctrines contained in the Bible.
Basically, a doctrine, especially as it applies to lifestyle application, is a belief held and taught by the Bible, which these men of God do everything in their power to explain or clarify for their members.
However, because of the varied explanations given to these controversial topics in the Bible, disputes have arisen among these highly renowned men of God over who could be right or wrong regarding sound doctrine.
And so the resultant verbal melee between the feuding men of God, which usually also trickle down to their members who lunge at one another with animosity because they want to show solidarity with their respective pastors, have compelled religious stakeholders to call for restraint.
For Nigerian Christians who are not living under a rock, the name, Abel Damina – a controversial preacher who is often in the eye of the storm of such wranglings that emanate from the pulpit – will ring a bell with them.
Damina is the founder and lead pastor of the Abel Damina Ministries, aka Power City International Church, Uyo in Akwa Ibom State, and many Nigerian Christians say that he courts controversy a lot through the sermons he delivers.
Damina is known to have tackled the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Enoch Adeboye, after the latter claimed that he drank tea with God.
Adeboye, while defending the unusual experience, said that the Bible teaches that God also ate in the house of Abraham’s nephew, Lot.
Damina however said that there was nowhere in the Bible where God drank or ate with men. He argued that those who ate with Lot in the book of Genesis were actually Angels.
On another occasion, Damina had also faulted Adeboye on tithing.
The RCCG General Overseer had told members of his church that the payment of tithe is a prerequisite for making heaven.
Damina, who disagreed, said that tithing is an Old Testament concept, which does not concern Christians. He added that believers are not under the Old Testament laws, which command tithing.
Many men of God, as if on cue, came to Adeboye’s defence, and chief among them was popular Edo State cleric, Johnson Suleman of the Omega Fire Ministry.
Suleman, who says that Adeboye is his spiritual father, blasted Damina, whom he called “short man from Uyo,” for questioning Adeboye’s exposition of God drinking tea with him.
In a fiery response delivered in one of the African countries he visited, Suleman said, “There is a man in my country who is attacking (spiritual) fathers. I call him the short man from Uyo.
“Papa Adeboye recently said that he drank tea with God. But this short man from Uyo was asking what the brand of tea was.
“Very soon, the short man will ask us whether the fish that swallowed Jonah (in the Bible) was Titus fish.
“What the short man from Uyo does not know is that spiritual matters are not naturally discerned. He has turned the Bible into a textbook.”
Damina also condemned the teachings of David Oyedepo, the founder of the Living Faith Church Worldwide, and Presiding Bishop of the Faith Tabernacle, on the same vexatious subject of tithing.
Oyedepo told his congregation that Job in the Bible was afflicted by the devil because he did not pay tithe. He said even though Job gave to the poor, his possessions and family were not protected by God because he did not pay tithe, a practice that Oyedepo says comes with God’s protection.
Damina objected to this. He said Job did not still pay tithe before God blessed him again and gave him twice as much as he had before.
Damina also controversially declared that any pastor who is still insisting on collecting tithe from his or her congregation is “scamming” them.
This time around, however, it was the founder and lead pastor of Dunamis International Gospel Centre, Abuja, Paul Enenche, who threw down the gauntlet to Damina.
Interestingly, Damina once said that Enenche used to be a member of his church and that he raised him (Enenche) in ministry.
There are men of God who also think that they are omniscient. They claim to know it all, but the truth is that we are all growing in grace
Enenche, who now professes to be Oyedepo’s spiritual son, has been careful not to mention Damina by his name having entered the fray. Even so, one of his messages suggested that Damina may be among the “culprits” being referred to.
Enenche said, “Some people, after they have seen a little of the help of God, suddenly become authorities that submit to nobody and that have the final say on all matters.
“Some of them are prefects over the body of Christ – head boys.
“You know, one man, a pastor, who was in ministry before we started, said many years ago that his assignment is to correct Papa Oyedepo.
“(But) the person he is called to correct is impacting the globe.
“The corrector, if I call his name, you will not know him, is nowhere to be found.”
Damina also stirred up a hornet’s nest when he said that it was the devil who answered Elijah’s prayer after the Old Testament prophet called fire from heaven to consume soldiers who came to arrest him.
Though he explained that the fire that consumed the soldiers was different from the fire Elijah called down when he confronted the prophets of Baal. According to Damina, that particular fire was from God and did not kill anyone.
Damina said that God does not kill and he used the story of the disciples of Jesus who asked that they also send fire from heaven to consume the inhabitants of Samaria who refused them passage through their city, a request Jesus turned down and rebuked them for.
Damina insisted that because Jesus is the same, yesterday, today and forever, He would have also rebuked Elijah, if He (Jesus) were with him, before the prophet called fire to destroy the soldiers.
Many men of God expectedly disagreed with Damina, saying that God can kill and that He is a consuming fire.
Some other men of God had even called for Damina’s banishment from Uyo for heresy and blasphemy, and it was the intervention of the leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria that prevented it.
Asked why he attacks men of God through his teachings, Damina said that he does not attack men of God, but the “erroneous” messages they preach.
He added that he only defends the integrity of the gospel of Christ, which Paul, the Apostle, calls all believers to do.
A pastor, Anthony Onuoha, told The Point, “It is unfortunate that men of God who are supposed to be role models are busy fighting themselves over doctrines.
“We just have to keep praying for them and hope that unity in the body of Christ becomes their priority.
“Be that as it may, I expect that these controversies will linger. It will continue until when Christ comes again to set the records straight.
“In the meantime, I will advise Christians to act like the Berean Christians, who always went back home to crosscheck in the Old Testament scriptures whatever Paul preached to them.
“Our people must also learn to study the Bible for themselves.”
Another Nigerian, Alex Nwadike, said, “It is the followers of these men of God that I feel sorry for. They are at a doctrinal crossroads.
“And if you ask me, I think some pastors are egotistical. Even when they realise that they are wrong about doctrines, they will never own up to their mistakes.
“There are men of God who also think that they are omniscient. They claim to know it all, but the truth is that we are all growing in grace.
Whether there is any end in sight to the doctrinal controversies, Nwadike said, “I don’t think so. There is no sign that it will stop anytime soon.
“So, watch out: a pastor somewhere will soon teach something and another pastor elsewhere will join the issue with him. It is bound to happen.”
