AND NOW, THE UNITY QUESTION.

KINGDOM PERSPECTIVE
with Remi Akano; e-mail: remiakanosr@believeandrepent.com


For many weeks now, I had “threatened” to pose the Unity Question on this page as a follow-up to what turned out to be series: A Wake-Up Call to Church Leaders. Here at last is that “threat” being carried out! My apologies please, to one and all.

We had said at the onset of the “Wake-Up Call” series that one of the major reasons for the Church’s lack of influence is the disunity in the body. Yes the body of Christ is what the Bible calls the church. Anyone with a physical body, I believe, can confirm that any disconnect between any two organs automatically leads to dysfunction, at least, graduating to malfunction and, left unchecked, subsequently to systemic breakdown. Have you ever seen someone who suffers from Parkinson’s? That is, at its most basic explanation the result of a disconnect between the brain and the limbs. You see, it is that simple; so simple you need plenty of “education” to miss it!

Frankly, I am truly exasperated by the attitude of the various arms of the Church to this fundamental commandment of Jesus Christ as to dub it heresy, as in falling away from the truth! No, I am not exaggerating, the teachings and injunctions of the Bible on the oneness of the church, appear to my uneducated mind to be so clear and so direct that the choices we have are either to obey or rebel. Much of the church, not just in Nigeria, but in most parts of the world, seems to have chosen the path of rebellion. Again, I am not exaggerating.

If anything I have said gives you the impression that I am passionate about this subject, you are right. I am so passionate about it because uniting the Church has become one of my ministries. I like to count myself among those you might call church unity activists. Let me explain that; in fact let me explain how the I was tenderly, gingerly led me into an acute awareness of this critical issue.

Five years ago, I felt a leading to put my training and experience in the media and marketing communication to work for the propagation of the gospel. I had been a magazine editor and publisher for years and naturally, I felt the place to start was publish a magazine. After going about it my way by making the magazine a mere mini-mag in what I had styled a multi-mag monthly and it did not work, I went back to God to find out what I was supposed to be doing. Clearly, the instruction was publish a Christian magazine. That for me, as a Pentecostal meant just one thing: publish for the Pentecostal wing of the church. In fact, virtually everybody I interacted with took that fact for granted. But I kept having this check in my spirit that I might not have gotten my brief right. As I prayerfully tried to pursue the vision, the word “kingdom” continually leaped at me and the magazine eventually took the name KINGDOMPeople. Then it dawned on me! If it is a kingdom publication, it is meant for the entire church, not any wing of it!

As one of my pastors would say, please come with me, I am taking you somewhere. I eventually produced a pilot edition and then a maiden edition, about one year apart! The next edition is still being awaited! You know why? Many powerful members of my pentecostal family saw the magazine as a hybrid that cannot contribute much to the growth of the church; church obviously as in the Pentecostal and charismatic wing of it. And what did the “denominationals” think? For some, it was “ah, here comes another poaching tool of the Pentecostals!” For some others, we must protect our congregation from Pentecostal pollution. The result? No patronage of any kind; at least not the kind that sustain a colour gloss monthly. My protests to God after the failure elicited a strong impression in my spirit; I was being called to publish a magazine to propagate the unity of the church, not one to benefit from an existing well-knit readership! In other words, KINGDOMPeople has to be one of Christ’s tools for uniting his body.

In the event, I beat a retreat on the magazine project to await the fullness of time and became active in what I have since discovered is an emerging Church Unity movement. We have set up a One Church Campaign as a project of the magazine. I have written and published a mini-book on the subject which was presented to a multi-denominational audience at a One Church Luncheon over a year ago. The book circulated free. In the emerging movement in the Lagos area alone are Sonship Unity Foundation, One Spirit Club and One Body Ministries. Sonship Unity Foundation is God’s vision to Pastor Paul Adams, the famous actor and producer. The group, with which I have the privilege of being involved with has held a number of unity events and has plans for many pan-Church projects. One Spirit Club is anchored by Kunle Lagunju, a young man whose zeal for things of God is simply amazing. They are also hard at work propagating unity. One Body Ministries is run by Joseph Baiyekusi, whom I have not met but who is doing a great job through his Unity message in his free monthly newspaper format magazine “Ekklesia.”

Now I have said all of that first to explain how I got into the fray, as it were and why this is has become one of my life’s works; the men’s ministry being the other major one. I have also in the course of saying all of that pointed out that God has begun to move in the hearts of many people to take up the challenge of bringing the church back to the path of obedience, ion this very crucial subject.

In spite of this however, the task remains almost daunting. There is what Rev Ladi Thompson, Pastor of Living Waters Unlimited describes as Pentecostal arrogance to deal with. There is denominational holier-than-thou to confront. There is the worship by many top pastors at the altar of a certain kind of trinity known as”my self, my church and I”

Let me share a couple of insights with you from personal experience and observations. A couple of quotations from the mini-book I mentioned earlier should come in useful here. Writing in that book, one attempted a snapshot of the state of the Church in Nigeria today under the title, One Christ; Many Bodies? On distrust for instance, we have this passage: “The distrust is so strong that a respected member of the KINGDOMPeople Commission, a body of Christians from across the denominational divides who have agreed to serve as conduits of God’s wisdom to the vision (of KINGDOMPeople magazine of which this writer is Editor) told the inaugural session of the group that his particular denomination finds it easier to deal with Moslems than Pentecostals. This according to him was because Pentecostals were perceived as deriving pleasure in condemning the orthodox churches in order to poach away their members! Thank God for such forthrightness, which is the rock upon which unity can be built.”

The passage on doctrinal disagreements reads: “Closely related to the issue of distrust is that of disagreement on doctrine, mostly minor ones.

“Many a Pentecostal thinks that the Catholic confessing his/her sin to the priest is misapplying scripture and speaks derisively about it. Many an Anglican thinks speaking in tongue is akin to speaking gibberish and jumps at every opportunity to condemn it.

“Every Saturday morning, one brother from the Seventh Day Adventist Church goes around my neighbourhood proclaiming that day as the Sabbath and assuring all who work that day of dire repercussions. He also never misses the opportunity provided by Sundays to condemn as a waste of time all worship efforts that day.

“Among the Pentecostals there are differences of the pseudo-doctrinal type too. The deliverance minister is dismissed as preying on the people’s ignorance; undertaking long punitive fasting and prayer projects and seeing demons everywhere. The healing minister is a miracle-purveyor who heals at crusades but is unable to disciple the people because he doesn’t have the word-base to do so. He is therefore responsible for most cases of the clean house syndrome that Jesus spoke about in Luke11: 24-26. The teacher is laughed at as lacking in power; teaching the word with no signs and wonders following. The so-called prosperity preacher is branded an unholy filthy lucre-chasing congregation manipulator whose ministry cannot stand the test of scrutiny. And the holiness preacher is seen as hypocritical or ignorant or both.”
Flowing from this total lack of unity which is, at one level, the result of total denominational loyalty, a number of unfortunate manifestations are noteworthy. We’ll examine them together next week, if the Lord tarries.

First published in a Nigerian Daily, the Sunday Independent, published in Lagos Nigeria.