On Abel Damina’s Polemics

One of the developments that have created so much sensation on the social media space in recent months has been the exchange between the founder of Kingdom Life Network, Dr. Abel Damina, and some other prominent evangelical preachers over tithing and other forms of religious giving in Christianity. The Uyo-based Christian minister, who for many years had preached prosperity gospel with its emphasis on giving to the church as a condition for receiving divine blessing, has few years ago made a U-turn to become a fiery opposition to that very theology, which he now describes as transactional Christianity where one tries to bribe God through material gifts.

Damina’s colleagues in the pulpit have not taken this challenge kindly. In fact, they have responded with so much vile and vigour that can make one suspect that they are after something other than merely correcting what they genuinely believe to be a theological error. After all, there are many aspects of the Christian theology on which denominations and ministers disagree; the fact that these disagreements are not generating so much heated argument as the tithing debate (which has sometimes shamefully degenerated to name-calling and mudslinging) leads one to start believing that this is a case of a people bent on protecting their means of income which has come under attack from one of their own.

To be sure, what is being contested in this debate is not the true meaning of Christian virtue neither is it about how the individual and society may be made better. Rather it is about the money that comes to the church and the pastor. It’s about whether we’re bound to pay tithe and the earthly consequences of giving or not giving to the church.

It is always difficult to make approving or condemning judgment about what people uphold as a matter of faith. However, where such religious faith has a concrete social implication that transcends the private life of the believer, one may have some space to make an objective judgement on such. The phenomenon of tithing and religious giving is a matter of personal faith and devotion, and as such, one’s choices therein should be respected as per everyone’s inherent right to freedom of religion, thought and conscience. Nonetheless, where the manner in which religious leaders propagate that specific article of faith gives rise to suspicion of selfish manipulation, it becomes the moral duty of every person of goodwill to bring scrutiny upon it.

It is on the above premise that I cannot but take the side of Damina in his ongoing debate with his fellow evangelical preachers. I have taken this decision not based on whatever possible strengths or weaknesses of the theological arguments of either parties, but purely on philosophical and moral conviction. While I believe in the reality of the spiritual and its inevitable effect on how life on the material plane unfolds, I am convinced, through observation of everyday realities of the world, that we do not gain material wealth simply because we have paid our tithes or otherwise given to the church. The wealth of the earth has always been distributed among humans irrespective of faith. Thus, millionaires and billionaires are found among humans of various creedal persuasions – Christians, Moslems, Hindus, African Traditional Religionists, agnostics and atheists. For example, Africa’s richest man today is a Moslem while the billionaire owner of Meta is an atheist. Also, a casual look around us does not convince one that people’s level of financial security is certainly correlated with their level of Christian devotion. Even the Bible has it that God’s blessing is not discriminatory, that he causes sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain to fall for the righteous and the unrighteous (Matt. 5:45).

Based on the above, I agree with Damina that prosperity gospel, especially as anchored on tithing and religious giving, is tantamount to mere manipulation. It is fraudulent. Just as water, sun, air and food are gifts of God to humankind, every.other goods of the material plane comes from the divine. Therefore, if we did not pay tithe to have air, water, sun and food crops that come directly from God, why must we do so to have those ones (such as clothes, car, and house) that are finished products fashioned from the free gifts of God? Does God retain his free-giving disposition only when natural goods like air and water are concerned and suddenly become stingy and transactional when social goods are concerned? Projecting God in an image of a demanding entity that goes into the transactional rigmarole of “give-me-and-receive-from-me” with His creatures sounds to me ridiculous if not blasphemous.

To repeat my thesis, our everyday encounter with nature and society does not suggest that human access to natural and social goods is conditioned by their faith – including Christian faith. Access to these goods has always been with humans even before the advent of Christianity two millenia ago and advent of Christianity has evidently not changed the pattern of its distribution. Rather what conditions and changes this can be located largely in choices we humans make both as individuals and society. As individuals, we may succeed or fail to access these goods, for instance, for simply refusing to do enough work or the right work, or otherwise fail to make the right choices. An individual may also tick all the boxes but end up unfortunate, and of course such fortune, evidently, is never a matter of our faith. However, it is the choices we have collectively made as a race that have had the most effect on the availability and distribution of both natural and social goods. For instance, our pursuit of fossil energy sources is depriving us the nature’s goods of clement weather and stable sea as human-generated greenhouse gases increase earth’s temperature and cause melting of the polar ices. Similarly, our pursuit of capitalism with its inevitable legitimisation of unbridled acquisition has led to widespread inequality, poverty and deprivation. In developing countries like ours, the evil of capitalism is even much more obvious, no thanks to corruption and bad governance that render the state institutions incapable of performing their natural role of pursuing availability and just distribution of necessary goods of life.

Thus, in developed economies, people are reaping the fruit of years of effective governance that has created plenty of wealth and greater equal access to it, whereas in our own clime, people are relying on prayer and tithing to access what is not even available. Little wonder prosperity preachers would succeed more in this clime than in developed climes.

The danger this sort of economic evangelization poses to Christianity is grave and obvious. As once stated by Damina himself, when you tell people to pay tithe so they become rich and they do so and no wealth comes even as they can see their non-Christian neighbour revelling in so much wealth, you’re simply giving room for your followers to start questioning the truth of your teaching and even the genuineness of the gospel you purport to represent. This is already happening as many young people now mock this sort of religious teaching, especially through the cyberspace. I have encountered several social media pages dedicated to this sort of content, and many are quite popular with large followings.

The above scenario portends a serious danger to Christianity. When young people begin to see the faith, its.teachings and ministers as no more deserving of reverence, then the very soul of religion is under threat. Sociologist Emile Durkheim wrote that the soul of every religious community is the people’s recognition of the dividing line between the sacred and the profane (the earthly). Therefore, when a young Christian does no longer see any difference between publicly criticizing and mocking the speech of a President Tinubu and doing same to the Sunday sermon of a Pastor Oyedepo, then the consciousness of that dichotomy of the sacred and the mundane is petering out, and the religious community its losing its soul.

In effect, the Christian community, especially of the evangelical divide, should pay attention to the increasing schismatic disposition of its younger folks. In my view, nothing fuels this schism as much as those conducts of the church that lead to it being perceived as manipulative and money-minded. No matter how religious leaders may feel about Damina or whatever they believe his intentions are, they should view his message with an open mind and take what is obviously a vital lesson. I believe our Christianity requires such an internal censure to reclaim its dignity and acceptance.

Henry Chigozie Duru, PhD, teaches journalism and mass communication at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.