Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Kolawole Olukoya's Theology of Warfare and Poju Oyemade’s Theology of Knowledge : Studying Pentecostalism through its Pastors
Correction for note to fourth picture
Tonye Cole, co-founder of Sahara Group. Not Teju Cole.
"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
Some of the most influential and most controversial figures in Nigeria are Pentecostal pastors. They are the leaders of the dominant Christian expression of the most powerful ideological movement in Nigeria, religion. They command huge congregations within Nigeria and across the world. In a country marked by much individual poverty and inadequacy of public institutions and services, they run very efficient and complex social systems, managing huge monetary and other economic resources in the process. Their leadership scope and economic force is exemplified by their often being particularly prominent as leaders in that most expensive of educational ventures, private tertiary education.
Poju Oyemade,Poju Oyemade, founder and Senior Pastor of the Covenant Christian Centre, front, left, welcomes at front right of picture, Yemi Osinbajo, Vice-President of Nigeria, to the an edition of The Platform, a seminar series created by the ministry and designed to transform society through the sharing of knowledge on social management in politics, business and technology. The Vice-President spoke in the 2015 and 2018 editions. Image source: Platform website. Accessed 08/05/2018.
Critics of Pentecostalism in Nigeria point to the extravagant wealth of a good number of its most prominent pastors, a wealth even more paradoxical in contrast with both the personal culture of Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity, and the inadequacies of a country where individual poverty and paucity of public services are dominant.
A significant number of their faithful would argue against critiquing those they describe as Men of God, this level of church leadership being dominated by men, although female chief pastors are also visible, urging that such judgement should be left for God while the faithful perform their duty before the creator of the universe in churches run by these potent and controversial figures.
One recalls, however, that Jesus grounded his own ministry in a critical revision of the Hebrew religious tradition up to his time, part of that revision being a scathing critique of the Pharisees and Sadducees, the religious authorities of Judaism in his day.
D.K. Olukoya, founder and General Overseer of the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries,front, left, being received by people likely to be representatives of his church. Image source: MFM media website. Accessed 08/05/2018.
The Pentecostal movement provides succour and homes of different kinds, ideological and economic, for so many, its combination of the positive and the negative a demonstration of the perennial disjunction between the ideal and the actual that defines human existence, a split that is a major inspiration for religion as it tries to work out how this rupture between ideal and reality, aspiration and achievement, expectation and actualization, may be bridged.
In this essay, I very briefly explore Nigerian Pentecostalism through a focus on two contrastive but ultimately correlative pastors, Dr. Kolawole Olukoya, founder and General Overseer of the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries and Poju Oyemade, founder and Senior Pastor of the Covenant Christian Centre.
Collage showing a poster announcing the Power Must Change Hands program along with the cover of an Olukoya book, one of a number of his book covers described as designed by his wife, depicting a form of bondage the program is meant to break- unions with oppressive spiritual powers. Power Must Change hands poster from MFM Leyton, London branch website. Book image from Amazon. Accessed 08/05/2018.
I try to identify the distinctive character of their contrastive but ultimately cunjunctive theological visions, as well as the relationships between their theologies and the cultures represented by their respective ministries.
I am attracted to these two pastors on account of the exposure I have got to them through my relationships with some members of their churches, enabling me to see through their eyes and open my mind to what I would normally not have paid much attention to, Pentecostalism being a style of Christianity I have been wary of on account of its excesses, even though I have been inspired by Pentecostalism, having been one as a Born Again Christian, a person who has undergone the central ritual of surrender to God in Pentecostalism.
My practicing other forms of Christianity and other religions over the years has assisted my placing Pentecostalism in a context shaped by attitudes and insights reached through immersion within different religions and philosophies, in the global quest for ultimate meaning dramatized by the foundational character of religion and philosophy in human experience.
An announcement for a 2015 edition of The Platform, showing faces of the speakers. At the top of the pyramid is Nigeria's Vice-President, Yemi Osinbajo, at the centre, against a red background and wearing wearing a red tie, is Teju Cole, a billionaire co-founder of Sahara Oil, suggesting the balance of government and civil society, of politics and business, that defines The Platform. Image source: Event website. Accessed 08/05/2018.
I also see Poju Oyemade and Kolawole Olukoya's ministries as emblematising the scope of the Pentecostal movement in Nigeria, each of these ministries demonstrating a distinctive orientation focusing an aspect of one extreme of Pentecostalism, while combining within it, as complementary foci, other aspects not prominent in the primary focus.
The foci represented by these contrastive but ultimately complementary ministries may be seen as encapsulating the various possibilities actualised by Pentecostalism in Nigeria and perhaps by Pentecostalism in general.
A part of the majestic landscape of MFM's Mountain Top University. The men in the picture work for the company that manages the grounds. Picture by myself.
I understand Kolawole Olukoya's Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries as centred in spiritual warfare, combat with spiritual powers, in the spirit of the Biblical declaration that "we fight not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers and against evil and wickedness in high places". The universe is understood, in this context, as shaped by a perpetual war between God and the Devil, with the human being as the primary battle ground, and the earth a place of trial within which this war progresses.
I understand Poju Oyemade's Covenant Christian Centre ministry as focused in the development of knowledge, as exemplified by his declaration at a service to the effect that "there are no unsolvable problems, there are only problems without adequate understanding to address them". In a description of the rationale of the ministry's signature initiative, The Platform seminar series, he projects a Biblical vision of the Christian as the salt of the earth, an indispensable seasoning restraining the forces of moral decay, empowering the creative transformation of society. This goal may be seen as pursued though the triple cultivation of knowledge and character. Adding knowledge to faith, integrity to capacity, the believer develops a compass that enables them draw courage from their depths in a meteoric force that positively reshapes self and society, ideals summed up by Oyemade in his tweets of May 6, 2018 at the Twitter account of the Covenant Christian Centre.
A prominent feature of MFM is its Power Must Change Hands program, held on the first Saturday of every month to withdraw power over believer's lives from evil forces that may be holding that power and transfer it to those to whom it rightly belongs, the believers from whom it has been stolen, a theft leading to various inadequacies in believer's lives. According to one member, this program also seeks to empower believers with the power over the world that is rightfully theirs as children of God, dedicates of the creator and sustainer of the universe, as opposed to those who are not so dedicated and yet wield control over the earth that should be in the hands of God's children.
Poster for an edition of The Platform exploring how Nigeria can adapt within its own culture principles of success from other countries. Image and information source: Innovation Village website. Accessed 08/05/2018.
In contrast to MFM's Power Must Change Hands is the annual The Platform, started eleven years ago by Covenant Christian Centre, bringing speakers and any who care to attend from within and outside the ministry or even outside Christianity to the church's Lagos and Abuja branches, to present and listen to perspectives on Nigerian politics and other central affairs of the nation, suggesting the conviction that engaging with ideas about the state of the country will empower those so informed, contributing to the creation of a critical mass of enlightened people who could help progressively transform the country's fortunes.
Athletics at the Covenant Games, "an initiative of Covenant Christian Centre that seeks to promote sporting activities to foster unity,encourage fitness, discover leaders", quoting from the Games' Facebook page. Accessed 08/05/2018.
Olukoya's ministry, on the other hand, however, goes beyond spiritual warfare to what may be described as cognitive warfare, warfare through the development and application of knowledge, a vision befitting a man with a PhD in the sciences and one which he gained through a Commonwealth scholarship for study in England on the basis of a First Class in his BSc, as he describes his educational trajectory.
MFM has created and runs educational institutions at all levels, the most prominent being the Mountain Top University, founded in 2015 in Makogi Oba, Ogun State, Nigeria, an institution dedicated to the study of secular knowledge in the tradition of the modern university, in the understanding that such knowledge is vital for success in the world, success that validates one's vocation as a master of the world as empowered by one's dedication to God who owns the universe, an institution set in magnificent grounds in the church's sprawling estate, known as Prayer City, so named, I expect, because prayer goes on there constantly, as I have been told by a member.
Poster for April 12th 2014 Tech Edition of The Platform, focusing on providing technological information relevant for driving Nigeria's development.Image and information source: Zoe magazine. Accessed 08/05/2018.
Indicating his sensitivity to the spiritually combative dimension of Christian ministry as inaugurated by Jesus Christ, however, I have heard Oyemade at one of the few services of his I have attended referring to the need of the Christian to employ spiritual tools in fighting spiritual powers, a complement to the use of the intellect as enriched by personal effort and inspired by God. In a post of 3rd May 2018 at 08:34 on his Facebook page, he projects a related perspective:
"The fear of man is the thief of destiny. You must not be bullied into silence. Witchcraft which is the manipulation of your internal thought process must be confronted. You cannot allow the loudest voices to control your thought process. Boldly follow the small still voice in you and the events that will follow will silence the 'wizards' and 'witches'."
His use of quotation marks suggests a qualification of the conceptions of witches and wizards although I am yet to learn what that qualification entails.
Guests arrive for the March 2018 Governance and Democracy conference organized by the Covenant Christian Centre in Lagos. The program was created to encourage people, particularly Christians, to take part in politics, as voters and candidates for political office, that being a major thrust of the vision of this church for society. Picture by me.
Correlative with Olukoya's radical understanding of the world as a battlefield in which spiritual evil is ever active, his church runs an austere dress code for men and particularly for women, grooming and dress being understood as central to the armour of the Christian warrior. Positive or negative spiritual agents are believed by this world view to be drawn by the adoption of particular styles of grooming and dress, hence the way the body is cultivated or clothed becomes central to aligning oneself with the network of spiritual powers that define the character of the cosmos, facilitating the creation of bonds that may assist or block the spiritual or material well-being, or both, of the Christian.
MFM FC, the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministry football club, in blue jerseys, in action on the football pitch against Kwara United. D.K. Olukoya, G.O. of MFM, is passionate about football as a creative focus for the mind in a world rife with unholy passions, to adopt the coinage of St. Augustine of Hippo. Photo by Ganniyu Yusuf. Image and information source : Complete Sports website. Accessed 08/05/2018.
Each thought, each action, how one behaves and how one dresses, can signal an initiative in this war in support of one side or the other, the urgency of the war underscored by the belief that the state of the human soul at death, as determined by the constantly precarious conditions of the self on account of shifting allegiances in this perpetual warfare, will determine the eternal damnation or eternal divine elevation of the individual.
Hence, vigilance is a primary necessity, since eternity and even the quality of one's life on earth as it may be positively or negatively affected by other forces, are at stake in this war, a war in which the soldier for Christ must wear the right armour that will repel rather than draw the enemy.
Oyemade's theology, however, being more focused in an understanding of spirituality as centred in a complexity of mental engagement between the Christian and the world, in the development and application of a breadth of knowledge through which the agent of Christ meets the world from a position of strength gained from a deep grounding in the world's own knowledge and skills, yet approaching them through the spiritually centred insight of a person whose awareness is open to enlightenment by a supernatural source that is divine grace, a source encompassing and transcending the secular universe, members of the church are among the more fashionable members of society, their grooming and clothing a refined employment of Western style, turning out on Sundays in striking appearance, couples with children as well as singles.
Security and style, two women, separate roles, different styling in accordance with those roles, at the March 2018 Covenant Christian Centre March 2018 Governance and Democracy conference. Picture by me.
The Church, in general, and the Pentecostal church, in particular, is the most powerful force in Southern Nigeria, after politics. The same role is held, even more powerfully most likely, by Islam in Northern Nigeria. This phenomenon has to be understood in order to better appreciate its shaping force on the future of a country in which there are few competing ideologies. Neither identification with the church nor criticism of its inadequacies is adequate to respond to its undeniable power. It has to be understood in its totality and one approach to that is through the lens of its major figures, an effort I am making a contribution to through this brief comparison of the theologies and ministries of MFM'S Kolawole Olukoya and Covenant Christian Centre's Poju Oyemade.
Elegantly frenzied action as Praise Ajeleti & the Zion Praise Singers do – 'Ide Mi Ja' at the February 18, 2018 MFM Mountaintop Mega Concert at Eko Hotel, Lagos. Their music ministry is described by members and observers as one of the central achievements of MFM. Image and information source: MTCM - Mountaintop Conservatory of Music "Mountaintop Mega Concert Photo Splash" Facebook album. Accessed 08/05/2018.
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