NOTE: This blog was only recently uploaded here because this is a new site. However, it was first published in 2016.
Greetings, folks!
I am Harry Agina, and this is No Bullshitting Social Critic of Africa. My topic today is my marvel at the mentality of many Christians that I spoke with, who believe that a faithful Christian must continue to tithe even if the pastor that he or she is tithing to is evidently un-Christ-like, or evil, who uses the tithe money for self-aggrandizement. Now, this is one of the areas of Nigeria’s fucked up Christianity that I express my strongest disappointment with the ignorance of some Christians.
It is one thing that a Christian pays tithe to a pastor without the knowledge of the pastor’s unrighteous use of the funds; and completely a whole different kettle of fish of stupidity when the Christian actually knows that the pastor is evil, and still pays tithe to him. I insist that any Christian, who believes that we must tithe to a pastor, even when it is very obvious that the pastor is a fraudster, is clearly a confused! I offer no apologies to say that the person is either extremely an ignorant idiot, or under a hypnotic spell. If we are unaware of the pastor’s bad character, then I would agree that judgment belongs to the Almighty God who sees and knows what we are unable to see.
God has given us the mind to discern what is good from what is wrong or bad, and we owe Him the responsibility to make good decisions or judgments and challenge whatever is wrong around us. I had to employ an extreme analogy in effort to drive my point on this subject all the way home into the consciousness of a deluded born-again Christian tither—a lady friend actually.
“You have a daughter, right?” I asked her. Mind you, I already knew the answer to my question.
“You know that I do. Why do you ask?”
“How old is she now?”
“What is your point? You know that my daughter is eight years.”
“If you find out one day that your pastor has been taking advantage of your trust in him and has been sexually molesting your eight-year old daughter in your absence, what would you do? What would be your reaction?”
“God forbid!”
“There you go again; that is my point! Will you forget about God forbidding it and be practical. We overly depend on God for every little thing without doing our own part. It is a fact that God does not forbid everything; otherwise there would not be any crime or sin in the world. It is a very common reality out there in this society that some evil pastors molest little children. It happens probably a hundred or thousand times every day in Nigeria; maybe there is one happening right now somewhere near us even as we speak. You are not necessarily more Godly or better than the other parents whose little daughters get molested by so-called pastors. So, I ask again—what would you do if you happen to find out that it has happened to your daughter?”
My deluded friend then responded, “I would kill him!”
“No, maybe you should not go that far. But you definitely would make sure that the pastor never gets close to your daughter again; right?”
“Of course!”
“Good. So why don’t you let the pastor continue to molest your daughter, and tell God to judge and punish him on the Judgment Day?”
She hesitated for some moments, looking rather flabbergasted, before she finally said, “That one is a different matter.”
“Why? What makes it so different? We are talking about bad pastors and all the bad things that they do, including tithe scam and raping children! If it is alright to let them continue their tithe scam, then it should also be alright to let them continue raping children, including, possibly yours.”
“Well…well…I just know that it is different.”
“My dear sister, there is no difference, that is why you cannot even explain it to yourself why you think it is different. When somebody is doing something that you know is wrong—pastor or not—you perform your God-given responsibility to try to stop it. And, if you cannot completely stop it, you at least make sure that it does not continue to affect you personally.”
The tithe message actually hit home with that analogy, and I had me a convert that day. The lady seemed to finally agree with my viewpoint to take the responsibility to challenge what is wrong, and not leave it all to God.
Knowing what I know, I made her to realize how dangerous it can be to trust any pastor with her 8-year old daughter without proper caution, merely based on her ignorant belief that every “man of God” is righteous. I gave her true-story instances of molestation of little girls by very trusted pastors and other “men of God” in high places, including bishops. She suddenly realized that she had been making a dangerous mistake of placing too much trust in “men of God.”
Very often, what we do in Nigeria is to throw back to God the responsibilities that He has placed on us. We erroneously believe that every single one of our problems can be solved through prayers, and nothing else.
No wonder we all sit back as a nation and allow a few rulers to ravage our common economic heritage for their own personal greedy aggrandizement. We are too weak to come together and challenge our so-called leaders to stop their evil deeds. Rather, we hide under religion and throw the responsibility to God in prayers.
We fail to reason that there are prayers that God would never answer because they are simply stupid. It is stupid to continue paying tithes to a clearly debased pastor, or to allow him to continue to rape our children, just as it is stupid and cowardly not to challenge our leaders for our rights, because we believe that God will come down from heaven and do the fighting for us. Remember that my key phrase in this argument is—if you know about the wrong-doing. Now, if we are not aware of the wrong-doing, then that is different, and in that case we can rightly leave the judgment to God.
Anybody that truly studies the bible that we often misinterpret to justify our weaknesses in this regard can see that God did not always send down His angels to come down and physically engage the armies of the enemies of Israel in battles. Contrary to what we always request of Him in Nigeria, He did not always send Holy Ghost fire, either. The Israelites had to pick up arms, and went to the battlefields, and then God supported them with the divine power to overwhelm their enemies. Mind you, the Israelites actually lost many lives in some of those battles!
I do find it highly disappointing therefore, when Christians believe that we have no right to challenge the activities of so-called pastors who are obviously not living according to the dictates of the Christ that they claim to represent. I find it very disappointing when Christians argue that we must pay tithe to bad pastors and wait for the judgment of God upon them. I actually believe that God is probably disappointed at our stupidity, and may not bless us for such tithes.
In spite of the abuse by funky pastors, however, and in affirmation of my position not to discourage tithing in totality, I must conclude this by saying that I have heard tons of testimonies in the Christendom by individuals who believe that they have received tremendous blessing from God due to their compliance with His command to pay tithes. Trust me when I say that those who give to the needy in the society have equal or better testimonies. And, of course, it is also important to constantly remind ourselves that tithing alone is not enough to open the windows of heaven for anybody. We must continue to remind ourselves that there are other requirements, all of which are summed up as Christ-like or Christian behaviors. We must always remember that God cannot be bribed with tithes to ignore our sins; therefore, we must strive to live in accordance with His other commandments in order to receive His tithe-related promised blessings.
“How horrible it will be for you, you scribes and Pharisees!” said Jesus Christ, as written in the Book of Mathew chapter 23, verse 23. “You hypocrites! You give God one tenth of your mint, spices and every garden herb. But you have ignored justice, mercy and faithfulness…the most important things in Moses’ Teachings.”
Now, if you are truly a Christian, indeed, not necessarily a Christian but a Godly person as a Muslim, Buddhist, or what have you, then you know that I ain’t bullshitting ya, meeeeeeeeeeem!!!