Our Reporter, New York
Nigeria–born Christian missionary Venerable Iye Chukuka, has accused pastors in the country of feeding their flocks with false hopes, thereby making them lazy.
The clergyman made this known during an exclusive interview with Rudolf Okonkwo on 90MinutesAfrica on Sunday.
Chukuka, a venerable in the Church of Nigeria, whose ministry supports hundreds of church planters across various countries, advised Nigerian church leaders to build more “Pauls than Peters.” He explained Paul was a tentmaker, and that’s how he supported himself and his gospel work.
“Jesus came so that Christians will have life to the fullest and that the works of their hands will be blessed. But we’ve been telling our people that they have to stay all night and pray, and in the morning, instead of going out to look for jobs, they are at home sleeping because they prayed all night.
“We have given people false hopes. You know that somebody needs a job and has not gone out to look for one, but you are telling him that God shall provide. That’s not the God of the Bible. We are not teaching what Jesus taught,” the clergyman said.
He went on to propose that pastors be made to work to sustain themselves like Paul did so that they can have a “firsthand experience of what their members are experiencing.”
The President of Emblaze Ministries also admonished Christians not to allow themselves to be deceived by the recent craze of the prosperity gospel, as not everyone will be materially prosperous in life. He said that even Jesus Christ acknowledged that the poor will always be among the congregation.
The Nigerian–Canadian preacher also described the teachings by the so-called prosperity preachers as the “gospel of the poor.” He explained that this kind of gospel is not receptive in Western societies, where people’s basic needs can be easily met.
“The reason most Nigerian churches in North America are mostly attended only by Nigerians is because the gospel that Nigerian pastors preach is the gospel of the poor man, to give them false hopes,” Venerable Chukuka said.
“But when you meet the average American who does not need to pray before he travels from New York to Florida because their roads are good, you can’t tell them that they need God to protect them from bad roads and kidnappers. They don’t need such. You can’t tell them to pray when they are sick. They simply call the ambulance, and they find themselves with the best doctors attending to them. In Canada, where healthcare is free, they don’t even have to worry about money to pay for it.”
