Publisher's Synopsis
This book seeks to solve two major problems.The first one has to do with this story: A young pastor went to an Embassy for visa and he presented documents that identified him as a pastor. He had all relevant papers and there was nothing in that direction to be faulted.However, in the course of interaction with the consular officials, he was asked to what denomination of Christianity his church belongs. Without hesitation, he replied""PENTECOSTALISM"'Please tell us three differences between Pentecostalism and other Christian denominations.'He could not.Another pastor had a similar problem. He wanted to hold a city wide conference and evening crusade with the local branch of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria. As a precaution, he was rightly asked the tenets of faith of his ministry."We believe in the Apostles Creed," he replied.'Can you recite and explain it to us?'He could not. The pastors in both stories cited here have: ..".....BIBLE CHURCH" in the names of their ministry.The first problem therefore, is that we have too many people who claim to be Pentecostals but cannot tell what Pentecostalism is. The only claim they have to Pentecostalism are the documents they carry about.The second problem has to do with this third story.A well known Nigerian pastor who is also a lawyer but who likes jaw breaking words more than food was asked: "Sir, what is the problem with Christianity in Nigeria?" His reply was simple, short and straight forward: "The problem is religious syncretism and religious shamanism"Google defines syncretism as: "The amalgamation or attempted amalgamation of different religions, cultures, or schools of thought."On the other hand, the Merriam Webster dictionary defines shamanism as: "A religion practiced by indigenous peoples of far northern Europe and Siberia that is characterized by belief in an unseen world of gods, demons, and ancestral spirits responsive only to the shamans"We further searched for the definition of the word "shamans" and this is what we got from Urban Dictionary: "One who can interact and mediate with the spirit world on behalf of their community, usually by ecstatic trance techniques (That is their spirit/soul leaves their physical body in order to travel to a world of pure spirit rather than physical matter) for the purposes of divination, information gathering, healing and to receive wisdom. Believed to come from the Tungus word "shama" meaning (very roughly) holder of knowledge. Some anthropologists maintain that shaman are the basis of most magician/sorcerer archetypes in folklore. Taking these two definitions into cognizance, we can safely say that the problem with Christianity in Nigeria and indeed the whole Africa, if not the globe, people are knowingly or unknowingly:1.Taking what belongs to another religion and merging it with another.2.While some magicians are dancing on some altars that look Christian.Consider these two real life stories: Not quite long, a man who set up and ran a "church" in one of the mega cities was apprehended for dating a soldier's wife. When his "church" was searched, though the signboard had .."..BIBLE CHURCH" as part of its name, all the things normally found in the shrine of a native doctor, were found in the place!A fourth story goes like this: One day, a female foreigner came into our country and visited a "man of God." He said the girl would undergo three days deliverance. However, at the end of the first day, the girl packed her bag and left. When outsiders asked her why she was no longer undergoing the deliverance as pre-arranged, she said: "What the man asked me to do is the same thing native doctors in my country asked me to do."Just look at that!So the second challenge that necessitated this research is that, there are now so many lizards with their bellies on the ground and as a result, we really do not easily know which one has bellyache except we listen and analyse them.
