Spending God’s Money, God’s Own Way
AFRICA’S RICHEST PASTORS IN THE PEOPLE’S COURT AS…
Nigerians vote pastors who spend God’s money for God’s purpose
It was Kwuanguli Wewe’s two-minutes video for eNCA.com, currently rocking the social media that revealed Africa’s top five richest pastors are all Nigerians, with a combined net worth of over 235 million US dollars. Our features editor, GBUBEMI GOD’S COVENANT SNR felt the pulse of the public and presents the people’s verdict on pastors who spend God’s money for God’s purpose – and those whose church is their belly. His report:
First, the eNCA.com report:
In a typical Sunday in Nigeria, Pentecostal churches fill to capacity. Some services here accommodate up to 50,000 people, and (but for a few), the message on most Sundays is about wealth and prosperity.
Africa’s richest pastors are all Nigerians. To many here, it’s difficult to convince them that these men are not running a profit-driven organisation.
Winners Chapel’s David Oyedepo is said to be worth 150 million US Dollars; Mathew Ashimolowo ($10 million), Chris Oyakhilome ($50 million), T.B. Joshua (N15 million) and Chris Okotie ($10 million).
With a net worth of some $235m, Nigeria’s top five richest pastors have shown that the gospel of prosperity is truly working in their lives.
Those super rich pastors are not sincere because most of their members live in abject poverty and can barely afford a decent meal a day.
Reactions:
The Presidency, the clergy
A disappointed former President, General Olusegun Obasanjo (rtd), towards the end of his 2nd tenure, concluded top men of God that daily visited Aso Rock as “business men”. “I thought they were men of God, I didn’t know they are just business men,” he told the press.
The Latter Rain Assembly’s Serving Overseer, Pastor Tunde Bakare:
“There’s still a lot going on in our churches that are extra biblical devices employed and deployed by men to attract crowd to themselves. Of course, Satan can pastor a church because he can transform himself, according to the Bible, to an angel of light.”
“May be they need prison, may be they need to be locked up for them to know it, but God has a way of throwing a Jonah into the sea…”
Catholic priest, The Very Reverend Monsignor Livinus Ukah:
Whether a pastor, individual or corporate organisation, being rich is no longer fashionable if it cannot be used for human development. I like the T.B. Joshua initiative; he pours out his soul and resources to help the poor: that is how to use God’s money for God’s purpose
The People’s Verdict:
Three out of every five respondents indicted the billionaire pastors. A former teacher of Word of Faith Bible Institute, (WOFBI), the bible college arm of Winners Chapel confided in The Daily Times that every church built up its estate from the earnings of their poor and vulnerable members.
“It has become a trend for pastors to collect tithes and offerings, including “special offerings” from members, most of whom are impoverished, and they invest the liquid cash in building schools – from crèche, nursery, primary, college and even university. Only the super rich can afford to send their children there. That is not the pattern Jesus set for us as example to run with.”
Lawyer and cleric, Barrister G.P. James settled the controversy with a reading from Matthew 25 from verse 32 to 46 and concluded that, “Then shall He say unto them on the left hand, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
“For I was hungry and you gave me no meat, I was thirsty and ye gave me no drink. I was a stranger and ye took me not in, I was sick, in prison and ye visited me not”
Then all these pastors will say, “Lord, when did we see thee in these conditions and we did not minister unto thee?” Then shall He answer them, “Verily I say unto you. Inasmuch as ye did it not one of the least of these, ye did it not to Me.”
So, if you keep prophesying and quoting the Bible and you are getting richer and God’s people under you are poor, God has not sent you, and your Church is your belly. Period.”
Weighing the top five pastors indicted in the video, the lawyer said it was wrong to bring T.B. Joshua into that group.
“Look deep into history of churches in Nigeria, even worldwide for that matter: there had never been a church, nor a pastor, founder or general overseer that had seen their wealth as God’s money or spent it to give lasting solution and relief to the poor in times of dire need as T.B. Joshua has been doing.”
A Professor at the Institute of Foundation Studies, Rivers State University, Port Harcourt who spoke in confidence said Churches of today have no part with the poor though they make their money from the poor.
His words:
“Churches of today are too busy, extremely busy making money via prosperity teachings and wealth creation to bother with healing the sick or setting the captives free. In the early days of the Apostles, the church didn’t have silver or gold; they didn’t thirst for them either, but they had power in the Name of Jesus – as the Beautiful Gate example.
“So, comparing him with pastors running businesses and educational institutions that are not priority in the Apostles’ Creed, (one of them own and operates an airline), T.B. Joshua stands far out.
“He has written fewer books than mega church overseers; his anointed Morning Water, stickers and flags are not profit-driven: they are for signs and wonders as testimonies abound across the globe Soave proven.
“His teachings are simple and prudent and focus majorly on faith, forgiveness, purity, service to one another and love, the altruist kind of love which are very much in evidence in all Scoan’s activities globally.”
Monsignor Ukah again pointed to the vast investments of pastors who are supposed to be servants of God: “By their fruits we have known them. With TBJ, both stakeholders and critics of the pastorate are yet to see or hear of a Scoan College or University and, even though records show that The SCOAN’s multinational status has the propensity and capacity to generate enough international passenger fleet to profit a private airline, this humble pastor did not take that advantage.
Our investigation revealed that Scoan’s Emmanuel.TV team are on ground all over the world, doing good not only to the afflicted, the bound, the sick, but the impoverished, people pushed out of circulation from the glare of public view, victims of natural disasters, strife or conflict.
Numbering about 72 (or more), Emmanuel. TV team is drawn from many nations of the world – including seven couples drawn from South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Bahamas – and their mission spans cultures, individuals, communities, nations and continents, reaching out with Christ’s love to a troubled world through diverse humanitarian projects and interventions: they are committed to Christ’s mission of bringing bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, hope to the broken-hearted and a roadmap to the lost.
A glance at their track record shows T.B. Joshua’s $100,000 US dollars donated to the Colombian National Metropolitan Police Force to support their widows, orphans or wounded.
The team also located the Naha community, an indigenous and isolated tribe who live in the Lacandon jungle in Chiapas, Mexico and gave them life changing materials ranging from staple foodstuffs to essential utensils and tools to improve quality of life in the jungle.
From building and equipping school in the heart of Pakistan to provide free quality education aimed at creating a bright future for the less privileged children of all religions in Lahore, Pakistan – to providing hundreds of pairs of winter gear, essential foodstuffs and supplies of firewood to help protect the homeless from hash winter conditions in Haborovski region in far eastern Russia through his Open Heart Homeless Project where more than 150 men and women are fed and housed every day.
There simply is no space in any publication to chronicle the philanthropic outreach of TBJ’s Emmanuel.TV outreach across the globe.
Above all that, an early beneficiary of T.B. Joshua’s healing miracle, Pa James Adelakun who was part of TBJ’s birthday feast in June, reveals a deeper outreach beyond cash and foods to the poor:
“I was blind in August of 1995 when Synagogue was still new. It was there I gained my sight back for free. Now, if you have not been blind before, lame, demon-possessed or locked out of every door or opportunity, favour and denied good health, etc, by witches and wizards, you may never appreciate what it means to be free – without the kind of money one would spend seeking for solution in hospitals and yet not healed or set free.
“T.B. Joshua is not exploiting the people; it is the people who are exploiting him and he has shown that is what God sent him to do.”
Corporate social responsibilities
A top member of the RCCG in charge of CRS in his parish acknowledged that TBJ’s ministry excels far above corporate organisations, NGOs, Churches in sustained corporate social responsibilities.
“In fact, Scoan is unarguably the Centre for Social, Human and Spiritual Responsibilities. Note that the emphasis is on “sustained” and it is important to note also that it is a centre where citizens from all the nations of the world can walk in and receive attention, hospitality and succour.
“So, the man (T.B. Joshua) is simply a phenomenon. In recorded cases, TBJ would heal in the name of Jesus and give cash to resettle distraught people, not only in his home country Nigeria, but across the nations of the world, even to governments, so you cannot equate him with those prosperity seeking pastors people talk about. It is rare to find two of such people in many generations.”
