Pastor Chris Oyakhilome has made history
Published April 9, 2020

‌
Thursday with Abimbola Adelakun


In the past few days, I have watched several videos of my former pastor, Chris Oyakhilome, rehashing conspiracy theories that linked 5G technology with COVID-19. It has been a deeply embarrassing experience for me, watching him talk so confidently about what he has not even tried to understand. Oyakhilome’s church, Christ Embassy, has many upwardly mobile young people. Some of them work in the tech industry and could have put their pastor straight with some quick education on the different natures of technology and disease. How did they allow him to go on the pulpit and be asking people to pray against vaccines? How did it happen that he could pull up poorly designed charts on a large screen in the church and even share several videos that, although confirmed his paranoia, proved nothing substantial about the danger of 5G technology?

Pastor Chris is (or used to be) a modernist. I attended his church at some point partly because he was a skilled preacher of the Word with dazzling stagecraft, and partly because of their taste for tech stuff especially as it concerns modern gadgets. Part of Christ Embassy’s niche has been an unapologetic deployment of the aesthetic of the novel, their perspicacity to employ newer technologies before their counterparts. I do not think there is any church in Nigeria that has as many digital apps as Christ Embassy currently does. They invest in projects that concern using technology to further church experience on-ground and online. They also host frequent workshops where they brainstorm on how to advance churching with modern technology. Watching him now, I cannot reconcile Christ Embassy’s adaptive attitude to technological advancement with his newfound Luddism.

The advent of groundbreaking technology frequently gives rise to concerns and debates about how far humans should go in the bid to transcend existing limitations, but most of Pastor Chris’ assertions about 5G have been so atrocious that I facepalmed in shock. To think that there was a time that I took his sermons to be the very Word of God, and patterned my life based on his prophetic vision. If he could be so bold about what is clearly out of his range of competence, only God knows how much of what he taught us, his flock, were based on similarly poorly informed ideas

There is no point repeating Pastor Chris’ paranoia to offer a rebuttal. Trying to deploy facts to sway people who are already taken by conspiracy theories is usually counter-productive. I have not come across a single conspiracy theorist that can be convinced by facts. They will not only chalk down all your arguments to part of the conspiracy, but you will also end up strengthening their resolve. If Pastor Chris and his followers remain sceptical by the counterarguments offered by the Senior Pastor of Kingsway International Christian Centre, London, Matthew Ashimolowo, there is nothing else anyone can say that will move their needle. We cannot do anything about their beliefs, but we can put some ideas out there for the benefit of those who are not sure of what and how to believe.

Of course, Pastor Chris’ cant against 5G technology neatly folds into the history of human reactions against new technology. People have always been threatened by technological changes that change their relationship to time and space because, like it or not, it propels a new way of experiencing the self and the structures of existing relations. The invention of new things from writing to printing, bound books, photography, cars, the telephone, streetlights, the radio, cinema, film, and the Internet has been met with paranoia and moral panic. In the 19th Century, when Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, people thought it would destroy privacy and social relations. According to one writer, because of telephone communication, “we will soon be nothing but transparent heaps of jelly to each other.” Today, people say pretty much the same thing about mobile phones and social media. We now look back nostalgically at the time when the telephone, the same device they said would ruin social relationships, was a far less-threatening means of technologically-mediated communication.

In 1825, when the Stockton-Darlington Railway opened in North-east England, people expressed fears as Pastor Chris and his followers are doing today. They said the railway was unsafe, that people would fall out of the contraption because of the speed at which trains could travel. Some thought the human body would melt if people travelled as fast as they could do through the railway. Some concerned individuals forewarned that women’s uteruses would fly out of their bodies if trains reached a speed level of 50 miles per hour. Today, we know better than traffic in such ideas anymore. Again, when electricity was being introduced into homes in the USA, people also protested. They warned that if private homes were to be lit, women and children would be unsafe because they would be visible to potential assaulters.

Some of the moral panic that seizes people who fear modern technology also happens because inventions make people see the world differently, and that affects how they relate to religious authority. Religious leaders particularly fear scientific advancement because it changes how people understand the Divine Will. We cannot narrate the history of the Protestant Reformation that changed the history of Europe without talking about the significant role that the invention of print technology played in that event. When Galileo started promoting his heliocentric theories in the 17th Century, the Church opposed the range of his vision because his radical claims challenged religious leaders’ interpretation of the Bible. They did not exactly put their anxieties in the apocalyptic language of the “anti-Christ,” as Pastor Chris is doing, but it was a similar threat of the restructuring of their familiar world. I concede that not every technology has been good for mankind, but one would expect someone of Pastor Chris’ calibre to at least do his homework before spewing 5G truthism and anti-vaccine conspiracy theories.

This 5G conspiracy theory and the link with COVID-19 will not be the end of the moral panic that will seize people. Every day, as science and technology advance its scope of possibilities, people will push back for fear of how it will take the bottom out of their world. They are not alone. There are bioethicists who also make important ethical arguments about human invention, and they challenge inventors to put a moral brake on their enthusiasm as they invent. They urge scientists to be responsible with their vision, and yes, we can be reassured they have our backs. What they do not do, is to ask people to pray against vaccines. That will be illiterate.

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: Coronavirus is from God

Finally, of this one thing I am now convinced: sometime in the future, when the COVID-19 vaccine has been developed and humans have overcome the disease; when the human race- including members of the future Christ Embassy who will inherit Pastor Chris’ church-are doing wonders with 10G technology, they will look back at this time in history and laugh at their founder in the same way we laugh at the wisdom of those who said if God wanted man to fly he would have given man wings. They will be amused at his claims the same way we are when we read historical accounts that tell us that people were once opposed to inventions like the eyeglasses because they thought disabilities were the will of God, and they were not meant to be corrected.

I do not know when that day will be and who will be around to witness it, but I do know that Pastor Chris will be remembered for being the face of 21st Century Luddism in this part of the world. He will be less remembered for the megachurch he built, the scores of young people like me that he nurtured, and even the various healing miracles that he performed. This crass display of ignorance is what will define his legacy. He will go down in history as a prophet, true, but one with a limited vision.

Copyright Punch newspaper
All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from PUNCH.

Your opinion might bot reflect the truth.
If the world truly knows what they are fighting against, why do the guidelines change everyday.
Today they ask you to use face mask, tomorrow they ask you not to use face mask except you are I'll.

Raysleek:
Your opinion might bot reflect the truth.
If the world truly knows what they are fighting against, why do the guidelines change everyday.
Today they ask you to use face mask, tomorrow they ask you not to use face mask except you are I'll.

Theres no point in time WHO has asked you to use face mask?

No one will be responsible for your ignorance if you refuse to get news from reliable sources.

We are watching

All of you supporting this will have your reward.

This is the simulation organized by Bill Gates, John Hopkins WHO and co, 6 weeks before actual Covid19 outbreak. They're so accurate you would think it is recent.

Pastors Mathew Ashimolowo, Sam Adeyemi and co must believe these devils are prophets to know exactly what's coming ...technology prophets. Kpash!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoLw-Q8X174

Covid19 rehearsals carried out 6 weeks before outbreak.

Not all of us are fools.

https://www.nairaland.com/5782860/covid19-pandemic-rehearsals-carried-out#88249385

donnie:
All of you supporting this will have your reward.

This is the simulation organized by Bill Gates, John Hopkins WHO and co, 6 months before actual Covid19 outbreak. They're so accurate you would think it is recent.

Pastors Mathew Ashimolowo, Sam Adeyemi and co must believe these devils are prophets to know exactly what's coming ....

It is not a curse and yeah, Amen

Pastor Chris is a liar and confused man....

If he's saying 5G is what's killing people not Coronavirus why in the world was he praying and dispatching Angels to cause the vaccine to be made available quickly....


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hz_JYHcK5BI

It's only a confused man that talks from both sides of his mouth ....

[s]

zikter:
Pastor Chris Oyakhilome has made history
Published April 9, 2020

‌
Thursday with Abimbola Adelakun


In the past few days, I have watched several videos of my former pastor, Chris Oyakhilome, rehashing conspiracy theories that linked 5G technology with COVID-19. It has been a deeply embarrassing experience for me, watching him talk so confidently about what he has not even tried to understand. Oyakhilome’s church, Christ Embassy, has many upwardly mobile young people. Some of them work in the tech industry and could have put their pastor straight with some quick education on the different natures of technology and disease. How did they allow him to go on the pulpit and be asking people to pray against vaccines? How did it happen that he could pull up poorly designed charts on a large screen in the church and even share several videos that, although confirmed his paranoia, proved nothing substantial about the danger of 5G technology?

Pastor Chris is (or used to be) a modernist. I attended his church at some point partly because he was a skilled preacher of the Word with dazzling stagecraft, and partly because of their taste for tech stuff especially as it concerns modern gadgets. Part of Christ Embassy’s niche has been an unapologetic deployment of the aesthetic of the novel, their perspicacity to employ newer technologies before their counterparts. I do not think there is any church in Nigeria that has as many digital apps as Christ Embassy currently does. They invest in projects that concern using technology to further church experience on-ground and online. They also host frequent workshops where they brainstorm on how to advance churching with modern technology. Watching him now, I cannot reconcile Christ Embassy’s adaptive attitude to technological advancement with his newfound Luddism.

The advent of groundbreaking technology frequently gives rise to concerns and debates about how far humans should go in the bid to transcend existing limitations, but most of Pastor Chris’ assertions about 5G have been so atrocious that I facepalmed in shock. To think that there was a time that I took his sermons to be the very Word of God, and patterned my life based on his prophetic vision. If he could be so bold about what is clearly out of his range of competence, only God knows how much of what he taught us, his flock, were based on similarly poorly informed ideas

There is no point repeating Pastor Chris’ paranoia to offer a rebuttal. Trying to deploy facts to sway people who are already taken by conspiracy theories is usually counter-productive. I have not come across a single conspiracy theorist that can be convinced by facts. They will not only chalk down all your arguments to part of the conspiracy, but you will also end up strengthening their resolve. If Pastor Chris and his followers remain sceptical by the counterarguments offered by the Senior Pastor of Kingsway International Christian Centre, London, Matthew Ashimolowo, there is nothing else anyone can say that will move their needle. We cannot do anything about their beliefs, but we can put some ideas out there for the benefit of those who are not sure of what and how to believe.

Of course, Pastor Chris’ cant against 5G technology neatly folds into the history of human reactions against new technology. People have always been threatened by technological changes that change their relationship to time and space because, like it or not, it propels a new way of experiencing the self and the structures of existing relations. The invention of new things from writing to printing, bound books, photography, cars, the telephone, streetlights, the radio, cinema, film, and the Internet has been met with paranoia and moral panic. In the 19th Century, when Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, people thought it would destroy privacy and social relations. According to one writer, because of telephone communication, “we will soon be nothing but transparent heaps of jelly to each other.” Today, people say pretty much the same thing about mobile phones and social media. We now look back nostalgically at the time when the telephone, the same device they said would ruin social relationships, was a far less-threatening means of technologically-mediated communication.

In 1825, when the Stockton-Darlington Railway opened in North-east England, people expressed fears as Pastor Chris and his followers are doing today. They said the railway was unsafe, that people would fall out of the contraption because of the speed at which trains could travel. Some thought the human body would melt if people travelled as fast as they could do through the railway. Some concerned individuals forewarned that women’s uteruses would fly out of their bodies if trains reached a speed level of 50 miles per hour. Today, we know better than traffic in such ideas anymore. Again, when electricity was being introduced into homes in the USA, people also protested. They warned that if private homes were to be lit, women and children would be unsafe because they would be visible to potential assaulters.

Some of the moral panic that seizes people who fear modern technology also happens because inventions make people see the world differently, and that affects how they relate to religious authority. Religious leaders particularly fear scientific advancement because it changes how people understand the Divine Will. We cannot narrate the history of the Protestant Reformation that changed the history of Europe without talking about the significant role that the invention of print technology played in that event. When Galileo started promoting his heliocentric theories in the 17th Century, the Church opposed the range of his vision because his radical claims challenged religious leaders’ interpretation of the Bible. They did not exactly put their anxieties in the apocalyptic language of the “anti-Christ,” as Pastor Chris is doing, but it was a similar threat of the restructuring of their familiar world. I concede that not every technology has been good for mankind, but one would expect someone of Pastor Chris’ calibre to at least do his homework before spewing 5G truthism and anti-vaccine conspiracy theories.

This 5G conspiracy theory and the link with COVID-19 will not be the end of the moral panic that will seize people. Every day, as science and technology advance its scope of possibilities, people will push back for fear of how it will take the bottom out of their world. They are not alone. There are bioethicists who also make important ethical arguments about human invention, and they challenge inventors to put a moral brake on their enthusiasm as they invent. They urge scientists to be responsible with their vision, and yes, we can be reassured they have our backs. What they do not do, is to ask people to pray against vaccines. That will be illiterate.

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: Coronavirus is from God

Finally, of this one thing I am now convinced: sometime in the future, when the COVID-19 vaccine has been developed and humans have overcome the disease; when the human race- including members of the future Christ Embassy who will inherit Pastor Chris’ church-are doing wonders with 10G technology, they will look back at this time in history and laugh at their founder in the same way we laugh at the wisdom of those who said if God wanted man to fly he would have given man wings. They will be amused at his claims the same way we are when we read historical accounts that tell us that people were once opposed to inventions like the eyeglasses because they thought disabilities were the will of God, and they were not meant to be corrected.

I do not know when that day will be and who will be around to witness it, but I do know that Pastor Chris will be remembered for being the face of 21st Century Luddism in this part of the world. He will be less remembered for the megachurch he built, the scores of young people like me that he nurtured, and even the various healing miracles that he performed. This crass display of ignorance is what will define his legacy. He will go down in history as a prophet, true, but one with a limited vision.

Copyright Punch newspaper
All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from PUNCH.

[/s]


The post of a sense-ruled and pained man

MuttleyLaff:
It is not a curse and yeah, Amen

Let it be so

The video below explains it all


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxWiGClaFh0

Hmmm

petra1:

The video below explains it all


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxWiGClaFh0

Lol. You want us to listen to a Bollywood actor on a matter concerning health and stuff. Why these Chris followers no dey reason at all? lol

Goshen360:
Pastor Chris is a liar and confused man....

If he's saying 5G is what's killing people not Coronavirus why in the world was he praying and dispatching Angels to cause the vaccine to be made available quickly....


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hz_JYHcK5BI

It's only a confused man that talks from both sides of his mouth ....

Not 2weeks ago I was hailing him as a pragmatic person when he prayed for a fast discovery of the vaccine. Now this same guy is say vaccine is gonna be Mark of the beast. What a reversal. I don't want to but I can't help but wonder about his mental state.

Buliwyf:


Lol. You want us to listen to a Bollywood actor on a matter concerning health and stuff. Why these Chris followers no dey reason at all? lol

Watch first .

petra1:


Watch first .

Watch what? The same guy that was claiming that Denmark wants to force everyone to accept Coronavirus vaccine about 2 weeks ago? There's no vaccine yet but that clown was claiming nonsense online. He didn't even provide any credible evidence for it.

I don't watch dumb people spouting rubbish in order to get views online. Show me a video of an expert and I will take it seriously.

LordReed:


Not 2weeks ago I was hailing him as a pragmatic person when he prayed for a fast discovery of the vaccine. Now this same guy is say vaccine is gonna be Mark of the beast. What a reversal. I don't want to but I can't help but wonder about his mental state.

Firstly he didn't say vaccine is mark of the beast. He has always said the mark of the beast can only be operational after the church has been raptured . It's not the time yet. I dont know why you guys just lie and pass lie to others and they add theirs and pass it on.

Praying for cure and vaccine was based on general understanding until he made findings that there's agenda behind the project and the so called vaccine is not a vaccine.

.

]

Buliwyf:


Watch what? The same guy that was claiming that Denmark wants to force everyone to accept Coronavirus vaccine about 2 weeks ago? There's no vaccine yet but that clown was claiming nonsense online. He didn't even provide any credible evidence for it.

I don't watch dumb people spouting rubbish in order to get views online. Show me a video of an expert and I will take it seriously.

It's TRUE Denmark passed a law to force everyone to take vaccine. And jail those who refuse . You the one who Is ignorant of that fact . Watch the video and Stop criticizing what you dont know about .
Besides he has videos of experts included .

petra1:


Firstly he didn't say vaccine is mark of the beast. He has always said the mark of the beast can only be operational after the church has been raptured . It's not the time yet. I dont know why you guys just lie and pass lie to others and they add theirs and pass it on.

Praying for cure and vaccine was based on general understanding until he made findings that there's agenda behind the project and the so called vaccine is not a vaccine.

Don't be a patsy. Was it not him that said:

"So since they can’t vaccinate everyone, they started vaccinating children and raising them that way. You wanna know what’s going on in the world? There’s a movie called “Divergent” from 2014. That’s what the groups that are interested in the new world order are up to, to put vaccine in your body containing a digital ID, by which you as a human being can be controlled, you cease to be yourself."

Unless you are dummy you'll know he was referring to the mark of the beast.

People are acting surprised that most of these pastors are morons?

LordReed:


Don't be a patsy. Was it not him that said:

"So since they can’t vaccinate everyone, they started vaccinating children and raising them that way. You wanna know what’s going on in the world?

I know Bill Gate has been pushing his vaccine idea since last year . They created a problem so that they can force the world into their vaccine microchip. Kindly watch the video below

VIDEO 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvMn6NlzkYQ

VIDEO 2
THE SIMULATION REHEARSAL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoLw-Q8X174

petra1:


I know Bill Gate has been pushing his vaccine idea since last year . They created a problem so that they can force the world into their vaccine microchip. Kindly watch the video below

VIDEO 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvMn6NlzkYQ

VIDEO 2
THE SIMULATION REHEARSAL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoLw-Q8X174

Ok so now you've pivoted to something else. Nonsense.

Buliwyf:


Lol. You want us to listen to a Bollywood actor on a matter concerning health and stuff. Why these Chris followers no dey reason at all? lol

Is Bill Gates a medical personal? Someone who is the second largest donor to WHO among nations and corporations such as the US, UK etc is ready to put his chip in all of the world's population and you say we should accept?

You and your mad pastors should go and collect vaccine.

donnie:


Is Bill Gates a medical personal? Someone who is the second largest donor to WHO among nations and corporations such as the US, UK etc is ready to put his chip in all of the world's population and you say we should accept?

You and your mad pastors should go and collect vaccine.

Who is listening to Bill Gates you paranoid man in a tin-foil hat? We are talking about experts. And we haven't seen any credible proof Bill Gates wants to put any chip in anybody lol.

LordReed:


Ok so now you've pivoted to something else. Nonsense.

You this drunkard... I'm sure you've realized by now that there are many others who aren't stupid.

Buliwyf:


Who is listening to Bill Gates you paranoid man in a tin-foil hat? We are talking about experts. And we haven't seen any credible proof Bill Gates wants to put any chip in anybody lol.

You are one of the puppets around the world he expects to take his chip.

You will all become robbots. You haven't even collected you're already acting robbotic.

donnie:


You are one of the puppets around the world he expects to take his chip.

You will all become robbots. You haven't even collected you're already acting robbotic.

Dude I really want to ask you something. Do you really believe these your claims or you are just trolling?

Buliwyf:


Dude I really want to ask you something. Do you really believe these your claims or you are just trolling?

I will resist that vaccine with my life. I even plan to contact my folks overseas. Any pim, let them flee. We can manage here together. We go enter farm

donnie:


I will resist that vaccine with my life. I even plan to contact my folks overseas. Any pim, let them flee. We can manage here together. We go enter farm

Your matter don pass be careful lol.

donnie:


I will resist that vaccine with my life. I even plan to contact my folks overseas. Any pim, let them flee. We can manage here together. We go enter farm

farming loading...

Buliwyf:



Your matter don pass be careful lol.

Yes o, wetin I don see for bible finish. The bible didn't say if you're righteous and you take it you will be fine. No, you will cease to be yourself. I believe the scriptures... No apologies.

I just pity those pastors who because of jealousy spoke against what Pastor Chris said. In thier own best interest, they should come to the same public and REPENT openly or else...

Time for church politics don pass, but they don't know, they hope to resume soon and go back to their story telling.