₦airaland Forum

I will without doubt AFTER warning him/her to desist.
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See how an honourable man denounced even his son:

Hrant Dink murder suspect caught
The main suspect in the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink has been arrested, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.
The governor of Istanbul said police captured Ogun Samast, aged 16 or 17, on a bus in the Black Sea city of Samsun.

Mr Samast was earlier named as the suspect pictured in security camera images near the scene of the killing.

Mr Dink, 53, was shot dead in broad daylight outside his newspaper offices in Istanbul on Friday.

He was well-known for writing controversial articles about the mass killing of Armenians by Turks during World War I.

'Tip off'

Istanbul governor Muammer Guler announced the details of the capture in a live television broadcast.

He said Mr Samast had been detained at Samsun bus station while apparently returning to his hometown of Trabzon from Istanbul.


The governor added that Mr Samast was carrying a gun at the time, and that six other suspects had been detained in Trabzon.

All seven will be brought to Istanbul for questioning on Sunday and police are investigating whether they were part of a group, Mr Guler said.

The governor emphasised that Ogun Samast - who he said was born in 1990 - had been detained after 32 hours.

The suspect was identified by his own father when he saw television images taken at the scene of Friday's killing.

A clear image taken from security camera footage showed a man apparently running from the scene, tucking what officials said was a gun into his belt.

Dink's secretary told investigators Mr Samast had asked to meet Mr Dink earlier on Friday, before the killing, Mr Guler said.

After the request was turned down, the secretary saw Mr Samast waiting on the street outside Mr Dink's office, he said.

Three suspects detained in Istanbul on Friday shortly after the killing have been released.

'Genocide'

Mr Dink's murder shocked Turkey and Prime Minister Erdogan vowed repeatedly that his killer would be caught.

Journalists and politicians in Turkey have expressed outrage at the killing, which many described as a political assassination, while the US, EU, France, and several human rights groups also voiced shock and condemnation.

“ Following the murder, Turkey should not even dream about joining the European Union ” Tigran Torosyan
Armenian parliament speaker

Mr Dink had received multiple death threats from nationalists because of his views on the mass killings of Armenians during the final days of the Ottoman Empire.
He was convicted in October 2005 for writing about the Armenian "genocide" in 1915, a claim denied by the authorities in Ankara.

The issue is a sensitive subject in both Armenia and Turkey. Many Armenians have campaigned for the killings to be recognised internationally as genocide.

The Armenian government condemned Mr Dink's murder.

Its president, Robert Kocharian, said the killing "raises numerous questions and deserves the strongest condemnation".

The speaker of Armenia's parliament, Tigran Torosyan went even further.

"Following the murder, Turkey should not even dream about joining the European Union," the Armenian news agency Arminfo quoted him as saying.

The two countries still have no official relations since Armenia gained independence after the break up of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Story from:
BBC NEWS

[quote author=~Sissy~ link=topic=267593.msg3807000#msg3807000 date=1241145296]odikwa serious oo, how can a pastor not have a car? what happens to all those Sunday church collections and deliverance offerings? [/quote]did you not hear?
that is daddy GO's jet purchase & maintenance fund.

Fhemmmy:
i am sure it will happen when we all really wanna see change, but to see the changes, we all have to get involved.
let us stand at the polling station and be willing to stand with the counting of the votes.

before we can stand at the polling stations, we must first register to vote and ask our relations, friends and acquaintances to do likewise.
thereafter we would have empowered ourselves to cast our vote.

Something to ponder about as we approach 2011.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Public enlightenment, not mega party
By Abba Kyari

THE current fad in the polity is the need to create a mega-party to challenge and defeat the PDP in the next set of elections in 2011.
This is a dangerous move. It will hand a propaganda coup to the PDP and its apologists, because this exercise is bound to fail. Most of the so-called parties are essentially shelf parties. The PDP will buy them and they will be its proxies in the talks. They will act as its fifth columnists to scuttle any such effort. If sitting governors elected on the platform of other parties will defect to the PDP, custodians of paper parties are unlikely to hold out. A second danger is that the proponents of this effort are also unwittingly making the following assumptions:

1. That the PDP is a popular party,
2. That the PDP did actually win popular vote in both the 2003 and 2007 elections.
3. That there will be free and fair elections.

How did the opposition elements entrap themselves to this mind set? Otherwise, they should know that you do not need a mega-party to defeat the PDP in any election properly conducted. Just consider this. This is a party that has been in government both in the centre and almost all of the states for the last ten consecutive years. A decade that saw the country blessed with unprecedented revenues accruing to the treasury, not due to any effort of the government, but from proceeds of the sale of oil which happens to be under our land and sovereign waters, explored and exploited neither by our technology nor expertise. This is the same period when Nigerians have never had it so very bad. Every index of human development has gone down. Our people are dirt poor. All indices of criminality have shot up in both the public and private sectors.
In terms of policy, what has passed off as reform is essentially asset stripping of public institutions that created instant billionaires with two places in the Forbes List. Transcrop has been reduced to barely managing a hotel with a monopoly of public sector market. No effort is required. They have failed to manage NITEL. The result is an unproductive and uncreative crony capitalism.
The most important aspect of our economic policy is the monthly sharing of oil revenues among the three tiers of government, which are promptly stolen at the state and local government levels, without any fear. Although there are some refreshing green shoots in Lagos. At the Federal level relate the expenditure to the state of our roads and power, except for Abuja where there was transformational impact, regrettably even this is fading. At the level of public service, all that matters is the distribution of offices on ethnic, religious and regional basis. Public office is dispensation of patronage, not a call to duty. Competence and professionalism have no place. Ask Bello Suleiman.
In the last ten years, the government has only been serving the interest of some charming rogues in the private sector and public office holders in the executive and legislative arms, with the civil servants facilitating the scam and, in the process, more than helping themselves. INEC, the security services and the judiciary are handsomely rewarded for rigging elections, facilitating the rape of the electoral process and suppressing the people and conferring 'legitimacy on fraud'. People don't matter. The government is in power not as a result of their will or consent. The whole world has borne testimony to this, except the legendary insular Kutigi. Votes don't and won't count.
So what will a mega-party do? Are the proponents of such a party assuming that[b] the President, having rejected the recommendations of a committee he set himself, appoint an independent person to chair INEC?[/b] It is safe to assume that he is likely to appoint somebody who will announce the results while voting is still going on or results being collated, declaring him a winner. Once this is done, the security services are at hand to clamp down on any form of agitation.
The job of the security services is made easy because emirs and bearded Mallams are at hand to decree that it is un-Islamic to challenge the will of Allah. The judiciary will once again confirm the result. The super-rich will provide the funds for spin and the art of lying that goes on as propaganda in a complicit media. The European Union, British Foreign and Commonwealth office and the US State Department will make the statutory declaratory statements of displeasure and promptly increase the search for oil in the Niger-Delta. The Chinese make no pretentions about democracy, they will buy oil and dump sub-standard goods on us.
The Economist and the Financial Times will make some typically British cynical and sarcastic comments and promptly come to organise international conference in Nigeria to underline the confidence of the international business community in the country, which will be interpreted to mean sanctioning the fraud. Meanwhile in the Weekly Economic and Financial indicators published by the Economist newspaper, Nigeria only features when the measurement is on poverty and corruption. The Financial Times also promptly sends a team to produce a special report on Nigeria. For most countries these reports are just about 4-6 pages. In our case, it will be up to 24 pages, more than three-quarters is advertisement. The oligarchs are at hand to underwrite the expenses and place advertisements. The Pearson Group will make a handsome profit, they know how to make fools part with their money.
Against this background, is it not, as they say, like a second wife, to wish for a triumph of hope over experience, to expect that there will be free and fair elections, which is the only basis for electoral contest. A party that is not willing to have internal democracy, is not about to allow a free or fair context. At their next meeting, let the opposition consider the following five - point agenda two short of the government's 7-point agenda:

i. Is the President likely to appoint an independent person to chair INEC, a person who will insist the elections will be conducted in accordance with the law?
ii. That the Emirs and Mallams will not engage in satanic interpretation of the Holy Quran, that fraud, poverty, injustice and inequity are not from God.
iii. The security services will remain neutral and professional
iv. The international business and political community will pay more than lip-service
v. In the event of a disputed election there will be good and courageous judges at the Supreme Court who will over-rule themselves and pronounce that a candidate cannot be declared a winner without INEC producing the election results as was held in 2003 or as in 2007, and that elections could not be said to have taken place without legal ballot papers.
If they can answer all the above in the affirmative, then it will be for the opposition to lose the next election. If they affirm their faith in the system, they should go ahead with the meetings in Abuja, Lagos and Kaduna and prepare a common platform for the 2011 elections.

If they don't believe that it is likely to have an independent and incorruptible INEC, neutral and uncompromised security services and judiciary, they are best advised to have faith in the people and not to waste time on the formation of a mega-party. They should rather engage in mass campaign of public enlightenment and organisation to secure popular base to create a mass movement, that will be ready to reject imposition of unelected governments and revolt against poverty, injustice and oppression. BBC Karkara has provided the awareness and opportunity to embark on such exercise. To educate them that contrary to what the Emirs and Mallams tell them, the mass misery afflicting them is not from God, but is as a direct result of the incompetence and corruption of their so called leaders.
This exercise, contrary to meetings in cosy homes and offices, requires hard work, effort, commitment and above all faith in the people. There is no royal ride to success. The people properly enlightened, educated, mobilised and adequately led will reject and revolt against a situation that has all but enslaved them and condemned them to poverty. Sardines do not applaud their can.

Kyari lives in Kaduna

[url=http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/editorial_opinion/article02/indexn3_html?pdate=150409&ptitle=Public%20enlightenment,%20not%20mega%20party&cpdate=150409]Guardian[/url]

Pastors who request tithes from their congregation are also required by their dispensation to also offer tithes as per Malachi 1:

6 A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the Lord of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name?
7 Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of the Lord is contemptible.
8 And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the Lord of hosts.
9 And now, I pray you, beseech God that he will be gracious unto us: this hath been by your means: will he regard your persons? saith the Lord of hosts.
10 Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for nought? neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nought. I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand.

This also should help put  the over-quoted Malachi 3:8 in proper context.

Before we can solve electoral problems in Nigeria, we need to solve the Nigerian problem first. The Nigerian psyche needs to fixed. Corruption and the adulation of ill gotten wealth will need to change.

Jazzsoul's post #3 above summarises the core issue. It is you and I that know our corrupt relations and friends with whom we sometimes join their praise-wagons and only we can stop the corruprion train from dragging us downhill where kidnappers have joined the long list of resulting woes.
We need to educate and reorientate ourselves and take our destiny in our hands,

[quote author=Aloy.Emeka link=topic=261892.msg3746927#msg3746927 date=1240055045]No, pastors pay tithes too.[/quote]To who please?

EloSela:
I clearly remember attending KICC in Hackney as a student. Mr Ash in his Italian suits and snake skin shoes would ask the congregation for £200. He asked for those who could give £200 to stand up and raise their hands and people started holding up their credit cards and cheque books. Mr Ash then proceeded to pray for those people only. That more or less told me that if I didn’t have £200 to spare then I couldn’t receive prayer and neither was I worthy to be in Church.

I am glad he was investigated and I hope they continue to monitor him because questions need to be asked.

Can anyone else confirms this happens in Ashi's church?
Any Biblical basis for this practice?

rotee:
Ofcourse i have to love my country nija because that is the geograhical position where Baba God has placed me!

just like Baba God asked Abraham to move from his place of birth to Canaan-today's Israel- where his descedants are claiming as their land. Meanwhile they are mere settlers. just like
* whites in the US
* Uthman dan Fodio's descendants (Fulanis) in Nigeria
* Oduduwa's descendants (Yorubas) in Nigeria
Etc! Etc!! Etc!!!

Dust your history books and get some vital knowledge.

agborodun:
Adeboye's jet: Missing answers
By Pius Isiekwene

(Skip)

To be sure Adeboye loathes poverty but deeply loves the poor who constitute the bulk of his target messages on how to conquer poverty. Under his leadership, The RCCG has numerous welfare programmes aimed at helping and empowering the poor. He regards the mass media with equal love as journalists who have interacted with him would testify.

The debate may not be yet over but a healthy quest and respect for facts are imperative for the Fourth Estate of the Realm - whether the subject matter is a private jet, a murder, fraud or bill. All the pertinent questions demand answers. And so do the readers.

Isiekwene lives in Lagos


SOURCE:GUARDIAN 16TH APRIL,2009

It seems only the writer knows of these "numerous welfare programmes" as even vanity on the other thread could not provide a list.
we know what the catholics, baptists, anglicans, seventh day etc have done and continue to do for subsidised & quality education, healthcare etc. can we say the same of redeemed?

Susan Wenger's tribute revisited
By Bayo Jinmi

AFTER reading Damola Awoyokun's article 'The Sanctity of Nothing' (The Guardian, March 5, 2009) it took me sometime before I could bring myself to write this piece. This is because, although he crafted his piece in a beautiful prose, to my mind, most of the points raised in the article left much to be desired. I hail from Osogbo District and at the time Susan Wenger started her mission, I was not too young not to understand what was going on around me. In fact, when I read Prof. Wole Soyinka's tribute, I thought that she deserved more than the encomium the Professor poured on her. But Prof. Niyi Akinnaso's 'The Sanctity of Tributes' (The Guardian, February 18, 2009) made me be at peace with myself.

I cannot say why Susan Wenger first settled in Ede where she was initiated into the Yoruba Esoteric Cult. My guess is that she must have been fascinated by Oba Laoye, the Timi of Ede of the time's cultural awareness. If I was rightly informed, his dexterity on the 'talking drum' was displayed in his recording of "This is the Nigerian Broadcasting Service," which served as he Signature Tune of Radio Nigeria for several years.

Another point that gave support to this guess was that Oba Laoye and Susan Wenger held a joint Exhibition of Yoruba Traditional Religion and Culture in Darmstadt, West Germany in 1962. I visited the Exhibition with some German friends. I was a Medical Student in that country at the time. And as to why he did not do much at Ede, again my guess is that it must be because Ede is a Muslim town. Apart from a small shrine of Sango kept in the Oba's palace, there was no traditional celebrations of importance taking place in that town, unlike Osogbo where River Osun was actively worshipped.

Her first move to save the Grove was to hire some people to build a mud wall to mark out the Grove. And when this did not prevent encroachment by those who wanted to fell the ancient trees for timber, she began another campaign by sending telegraphic SOS messages to the appropriate authority in Lagos to save the Grove. She did not stop until the Federal Government declared the Grove a 'National Monument' and took measures to prevent further encroachment. This perhaps answers the question raised by Awoyokun; whether the grove was dead or dying before Susan Wenger arrived in the country. My view is if it was not already totally dead, it was fast dying. For when I arrived back home in 1978 after about seventeen years abroad, the sacred Grove of my town which as children we were prevented from going near had been swallowed by the town!

Another point that greatly amused me in Awoyokun's article was his comment on traditional religion which he described as 'nothing but superstition that was invented in the primitive age'. I don't think that there is any religion in the world which is more traditional than the Hindu Religion which caters for the souls of over one billion people. In fact, it is so traditional that unlike other religion but very much like our 'Esin Ibile; Esin awon Baba wa,' it has neither prophet nor founder. And as a famous Hindu Philosopher Ramaswami Aiyar put it: "Hinduism is simultaneously monotheistic and idolatrous. The monotheists tolerated idols and the idolaters dance before graven images."

Generally, Hinduism abhors the taking of life. And when Mahatma Gandhi, an apostle of non-violence read in the "Gita" (The Hindi Holy Book) for the first time how "Krishna" (Hindu God) was persuading Arjuna who was a member of the warrior caste but who did not want to fight, that he should not shrink from it, 'for there is no higher good for a warrior than a righteous war,' Gandhi did not condemn the Gita which had served his people for centuries because he found some contradictions in it as intellectuals like Awoyokun and company would have done. What the great Soul did was to propound a different interpretation different from what the people were used to, "The Gita is an allegory"; he asserted. "The Gita described the duel that perpetually went on in the minds of mankind. Physical warfare was brought in merely to make the description of the internal duel more alluring". Needless to say that the Indian community with their idol worshipping are more respected in Britain where Awoyokun lives than even intellectuals of his own race.

Greater minds like Lenin, Karl Marx, Nietzsche just to name a few had criticised religion before Mr. Awoyokun. Between 1970 and 1973 at the height of the Cold War, I was practising in West Berlin and I had the opportunity to travel to many countries in Eastern Europe. My observations were that in spite of desperate attempts made by the Communist regime to suppress religion, Poland remained solidly Catholic. Other countries also retained their Churches and Mosques. This experience made me devote some time to the study of Religion. The first question I put to myself was: What is the origin of religion which a vocal minority criticises but the majority of mankind still practise in one form or the other?

Some authority claimed that the origin of religion could be traced to 'the fear of the unknown' or what happens in the nether world! This perhaps explains why all the world's religions have the same reference point in moral conduct. For instance, Christianity teaches; "Always treat others as you would like them to treat you". In Hinduism it is: "Do not do to others what would cause you pain if done to you". Islam teaches: "None of you is a true believer until he loves for his brother that which he loves for himself". Buddhism puts it this way: "Hurt no others in ways that you would find hurtful". And according to the African Traditional Religion: "what you do to others, these will be done to you in return".

Something else caught my attention. I observed that all religions have esoteric sections where genuine seekers meet. Some of these men and women have accomplished the end of evolution in intellectual order and are deriving illumination from the central source of light. In plain language, they have developed their sixth senses and got their third eyes opened. Consequently, they see beyond the common sight and observe beyond the common field of vision. If Mr. Awoyokun decided to be a genuine seeker and joins one of the esoteric schools in Britain, he may one day experience what he termed "vague clich�" in Professor Soyinka's tribute.

It will be a pity if Mr. Awoyokun believes that every human behaviour can be subjected to objective investigations. For instance in medicine, there are organic diseases, most of which can be subjected to objective tests. On the other hand, there are those diseases which manifest in the body but have no organic origin. Consequently, they can neither be investigated with modern equipments nor subjected to Laboratory investigations. In this regard, the medical profession is eternally grateful to such great minds as Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and his pupil, Carl Jung who devoted much time to the study of such diseases and introduced into Medicine Psychoanalysis.

Finally, it may probably interest Mr. Awoyokun also to know that every year, hundreds of barren women kneel before that "piece of carved wood with conical breasts and split vulva" (god of fertility) begging her to give them children. Those whose prayers are answered come back the following year with their thanks offering. Another thing that may shock intellectuals of Awoyokun's ilk is that just in the same way the Hindus bathe in and drink polluted Ganges River without bad effects, these women give their less than one year old babies water from the polluted River Osun to drink while singing: "Osun nti woo omo re koyinbo to de"! (Osun had been caring for her children before the arrival of Europeans.) Their case can be compared with that leper in Luke 17:19 whom Jesus told: "Go thy way, thy faith hath healed thee".
*Dr. Jinmi lives in Lagos.

[url=http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/editorial_opinion/article04//indexn2_html?pdate=150409&ptitle=Susan%20Wenger's%20tribute%20revisited]Guardian[/url]

For me, the answer is No for now, but our political, religious and business leaders will definitely say yes.
If you have little or no concsience, Naija is the place to be, where you can make millions for doing almost nothing but scamming people under different guise in broad daylight.
A few friends have actually said they prefer to do their biz in naija as it is easier to make money.
Imagine, ex-gov. Alami jumping bail, disguised as a woman and showing up in his state capital and ascribing his ordeal to the work of his "detractors" and his escape to God's divine intervention to which the people chorused Hallelujah and Amen. Not sure if he was able to organise a lavish, thanksgiving feast before EFCC nabbed him.

ChinenyeN:
Common misconception.

how is it a common misconception that they were sold by their brothers and sisters- fellow Africans?

is that the settlement they gave him/them for their great grand parents having been sold by our own great grand parents for alcohol, fabrics, guns, ammunition and other pittance?

This is the example of one man, like the early Apostles, who followed Christ's teachings. Although not Nigerian, there are Nigerians like him though they may be very few.
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Millard Fuller: Compassionate life of the man who housed a million people
By Samuel Odia

After selling all he had and giving out the proceeds to the poor, Fuller, who, at one stage was the largest publisher of cookbooks in the United States, then took to a life of service to the lowly, starting the Christian house-building group Habitat for Humanity and later a similar organisation, The Fuller Centre for Housing. By the time he died recently at the age of 74, he had built more than 200,000 homes housing up to one million poor people in no fewer than 100 countries

ALREADY a self-made millionaire at 29, one young man named Millard Fuller did what very few people would do to save his home: he sold all he had and gave out the proceeds to the poor.

Not done yet, the man who, at one stage was the largest publisher of cookbooks in the United States, then took to a life of service to the lowly, such that by the time he died recently on February 3, 2009, at the age of 74, he had built more than 200,000 homes housing up to one million poor people in no fewer than 100 countries.

Saints are ordinarily known to be the preserve of the holy books, but in the context of the contemporary housing industry, the man Millard Fuller, who gave away his wealth to start the Christian house-building group Habitat for Humanity and later started a similar organization, The Fuller Centre for Housing, is rated as close to one as any man can be.

Born to a farming family in Lanett, Alabama, on January 3, 1935, Millard Fuller graduated from Auburn University in 1957 and enrolled in law school at the University of Alabama. Along with a fellow law student, Morris S. Dees Jr., he later became co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama, where, in his own words, he also started a direct-mail business with the simple mission "to get rich."

The partners were making $15,000 a year before they even finished law school in 1960. After passing the bar, Mr. Fuller served in the Army and then returned to Alabama to open a law office with Dees. They also became publishers, starting with 'Favorite Recipes of Home Economics Teachers' in 1963.

After two years, they stopped practicing law, becoming the largest publishers of cookbooks in the United States and by the age of 29, Mr. Fuller had become a millionaire.

But success brought along its own stress and tensions, particularly in his relationship with his wife, the former Linda Caldwell, whom he had married in 1959. At the peak of their travails, his wife left for New York and Mr. Fuller followed. After long discussions, they resolved their differences and decided to sell almost everything they owned and give away the proceeds to the poor.

In 1966, Mr. Fuller became a fundraiser for Tougaloo College, a small, church-funded and predominantly African-American school in Mississippi. He soon moved his family to Koinonia Farm, a 20-year-old multi-racial, religious commune in Americus and developed business plans for the group.

After some time, the Fullers travelled to Zaire now the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in 1973. Mr. Fuller, as the Church of Christ 's Director of Development for the region, started a home-building program that built a total of 114 houses for local residents and raised money for prosthetic limbs and eyeglasses.

On their return to America in 1976, they founded Habitat for Humanity.

"We want to make shelter a matter of conscience," Mr. Fuller told the Chicago Tribune at the time. "We want to make it socially, politically, morally and religiously unacceptable to have substandard housing and homelessness."

Bsed in Americus, Ga., Habitat for Humanity has to date built more than 200,000 houses, housing more than a million people in 100 countries. Under Mr. Fuller's leadership, the organisation attracted thesupport of several prominent volunteers, notably former US President Jimmy Carter.

The Fuller Center for Housing, founded in 2005, raises money for the same purpose and is active in 24 states of America and 14 foreign countries including Nigeria.

Propelled by his strong Christian principles, Millard Fuller had developed a system of using donated money and material, and voluntary labour, to build homes for low-income families. The homes are sold without profit and buyers pay no interest.

Hundreds of thousands of families who lived in substandard housing and who did not earn enough to buy a home through conventional channels benefited from his policy of no-interest mortgages. Would-be homeowners had to make a small down payment and spend a certain number of hours building their home along with volunteers, in a concept Mr. Fuller called "sweat equity."

Fuller said his inspiration came from the Bible, starting with the injunction in Exodus 22:25 against charging interest to the poor. He spoke often of the "economics of Jesus" and insisted that providing shelter to all was "a matter of conscience." Indeed, the publication Christianity Today in 1999 called him "God's contractor."

Former President Jimmy Carter, in a statement called Fuller "one of the most extraordinary people I have ever known, He used his remarkable gifts as an entrepreneur for the benefit of millions of needy people around the world by providing them with decent housing.

"As the founder of Habitat for Humanity and later the Fuller Center, he was an inspiration to me, other members of our family and an untold number of volunteers who worked side-by-side under his leadership," Carter said.

Former President Bill Clinton has also volunteered on Habitat projects. When he presented Fuller with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America 's highest civilian honour in 1996, he said, "I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that Millard Fuller has literally revolutionized the concept of philanthropy."

In 2005, Millard and his wife, Linda, who co-founded The Fuller Center, were honored by former President George H.W. Bush and the Points of Light Foundation with a bronze medallion embedded in the Extra Mile volunteer pathway in Washington.

Mr. Fuller wrote numerous books about his experiences, including "Bokotola" (1977), "The Theology of the Hammer" (1994) and "A Simple, Decent Place to Live: The Building Realization of Habitat for Humanity" (1995).

After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the Fuller Center built a house in Shreveport, La., amongst others, for a mother and her daughters, one named Genesis, the other Serenity.

Mr. Fuller loved the religious connotations he saw in their names. "What will little Genesis become?" he asked at the time. "What will little Serenity become? We don't know, but we know one thing: if we give them a good place to live, they've got a better chance."

Millard Fuller is survived by his wife Linda as well as four children and eight grandchildren.

* Odia is of the Fuller Centre for Housing, Nigerial

[url=http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/homes_property/article04//indexn3_html?pdate=130409&ptitle=Millard%20Fuller:%20Compassionate%20life%20of%20the%20man%20who%20housed%20a%20million%20people&cpdate=150409]Guardian[/url]

And the early missionaries to Nigeria were not very different from Fuller. They built schools, hospitals, vocational centres etc for subsidised fees and schorlarships.
Cannot say the same of today's churches though!

Or maybe you do not see these thieving politicians in the front row seats on Sundays and ceremonies in your churches?

I assume you did not see this part of my post? Or did you?

biina:
Thanks, as that puts your earlier post in a clearer perspective. One clarification needed though is that do you feel the entire mosaic law was then abolished or just the law on tithing?

Irrespective, I disagree with your interpretation of Hebrews  7:5-20 as such an interpretation would be in conflict with Matt 5:17-48, where Jesus stated that he did not come to abolish the law (but to fulfill them), and goes on to expound on the notion behind several of the mosaic laws.

(skip)

I do agree with you on giving out of one's heart and not under compulsion. However that would be in reference to how much one should give, and not if you should give or not.

You may wish to check the definitions of fulfill here
It includes:

2 a: to put into effect : execute
b: to meet the requirements of (a business order)
c: to bring to an end

You should also note the rendering, at Christ's death, of the veil separating the Holy of Holies in the Teample and its significance.
My understanding is that while Christ had not died and resurrected, the laws were still operational but His sacrifice fulfilled the law, hence Paul's explanation in Hebrews to Jews who had a background of such laws as opposed to Gentiles who did not.
BTW, your conclusion above is what everyone opposed to tithes on this forum also share- no compulsion in giving! However, pastors overtly and subtly compel members to tithe, vow, sow a seed in order for god to bless them or so god will not curse them. Must be a cheap god their god, methinks.

I also confirmed from someone that they raised pledges/vows for it last year.

3 days ago I wrote the above (post # 21) to corroborate PM News story and thought some RCCG and Adeboye churchgoers and sympathisers would have denied that such an offering was raised about 10 months ago.
I guess silence means consent!

vanitty:
I do not claim to no more than anyone but then again i do not come up with random things just to thrust aside the main issues so i ask again what has my income based tax and VAT has to do with tax exempt churches?

I think that the onus should be on the person trying to make us believe that the major recipients of the loot are the religious leader so i ask can you prove your stance on the matter?

Can you re-read my post again, please and don't forget to put on your reading glasses in case you did not do so the first time.

vanitty:
They (churches) might be tax exempt but they do more for the society than the so-called government,

I am sure you can give a list of these things they do more for the society as you seem to know so much more than others on this forum.

vanitty:
That country can easily do all those things you mentioned

Are you a Nigerian?

vanitty:
don’t blame the tax-exempt churches for the woes of uncivilization that reigns in the country. That country can easily do all those things you mentioned if not for the thieving politicians that would rather have all for themselves and non for the masses

and who are the major recipients of the loot of these "thieving politicians" other than your reverends, GOs, pastors, imams, sheikhs, khadis etc., with Adeboye in the very ore front of the pack. Or maybe you do not see these thieving politicians in the front row seats on Sundays and ceremonies in your churches?
So do you see why the churches and mosques are to blame for the rot in "that" country?

vanitty,

since you pay income tax on your salary or business profit why don't you refuse to pay VAT. that is just one example. I can give you more if/when you respond to this.
meanwhile, is your N/L name indicative of your priorities in life?

anyone has tried getting a new passport at the Nigeria Consulate in NY after applying and paying online?
how did it go?
how many days after the online application did you get your passport?

debosky:
They are not funded by you (unless you are a member) and even if you are a member, you should have ways of contacting the authorities within the organisation to ascertain the true state of things.

They are tax exempt i.e money that should have been received from Adeboye et al for developing roads, electricity, hospitals etc, which will benefit all 140m of us Nigerians. Thus any Naija citizen who is implicitly giving these guys tax free ride can scrutinise each and every of their words and actions. Get the drift?
Otherwise they should pay taxes on the money they are fleecing from their gullible members and we may consider leaving them ride their jets quietly.

Rekky:
He who has no sin should throw the first stone, Peace to u all in the house.

That was for ordinary folks, not for leaders-political or religious who place themselves abiove us all on the pretext that they are super-humans. If they are not they should not step forward.
Leadership nor be by force.
Read Matt. 7 and come back let's discuss. Right?

ttalks:
Hmmm,

Who knows what to believe about all these.
I smell a cover up.
When u look at the first information on this redeemed jet, and then look at these so called 'fresh facts', one might say there is a crossroad on what to believe.

But again, if u look at this article published sometime last year,
what then do u feel?

thank you for digging up this article, which I have reproduced below for doubters to confirm that Adeboye is just spinning them and going from one deception to another.
------
Adeboye Shops For $20m Jet
July 15, 2008 15:56

By Adetutu Audu

The General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye, is shopping for $20 million to buy a private jet.

The private jet, P.M.News gathered, is to facilitate his trips to many parts of the world where the parishes of the church are located.

Already, members of the RCCG worldwide have been planning to ‘sow seeds’ towards the project.

The humble mathematician turned pastor, we learnt, has the vision to spread the gospel to the outermost part of the earth and he is not resting on his oars to achieve this feat.

RCCG is one of the fastest growing churches in the country. There are branches in London, United States and Middle East.

Daddy G.O, as he is fondly called, was barely 31 years old when he bagged his doctorate degree in Hydrodynamics. He had an encounter with the Lord in 1973. He answered the altar call, and with a strong zeal for the Lord, he has since, never looked back.

The mantle of leadership fell on Adeboye, then a University of Lagos lecturer , in 1980 after the death of the founder of RCCG, Rev. Josiah Akindayomi.

Ever since he attained the leadership of the church, he has brought several innovations and programmes into the church through which the church has continued to grow.

From the 39 parishes of the church which he inherited, the church has grown in leaps and bounds with branches all over the world
---------

I also confirmed from someone that they raised pledges/vows for it last year.
Na only Adeboye plan to move go NEXT LEVEL make gullible members dey continue dem waka waka dey wait dem turn .

Easy na, OBJ's tight friend, the one who descrcribed him as our Joshua at the beginning of his eight years reign of complacency will soon jet in to pray powerfully to avert any arrest and prosecution for spraying our money.
Anyone knows the salary of a retired President plus the income from the businesses OBJ revived from the loot proceeds of his eight years of mismanagement? I hope OGD gets his tax guys to do a proper assessment of his expenditure and collect adequate tax from him to start with.

Religion and the flying pastors
By Anthony Akinola

Two athletes, one African and one British, were interviewed after the successful conclusion of their respective events. The African who had won an event attributed her success to the grace of God. "He touched my limbs, I could not have done it without him." The British athlete, on the other hand, gave substantial credit to her coach as she attributed her success to a regime of rigorous training.

Of course glory must be given to God for all we are able to achieve as mortal human beings. There are certain things we are never going to achieve in life either because we are too tall or too short! The natural attributes which propel us to unimaginable heights can hardly be purchased in the cosmetic market. However, our natural attributes or talents could be a waste if not augmented by appropriate training. In short, there is something to be celebrated in the explanations both athletes attributed to their individual successes.

Those of us exposed to cultures other than our own have exciting stories about the gulf of differences in cultures. The British man or woman may be quite happy to say "Happy New Year" to you but cannot understand why you need to keep praying for what you would like God to do for them in the New Year. He or she knows, for instance, that to own a home one would have to approach a bank for a mortgage!

There is this temptation on my part to assume or conclude that the British, for instance, may be more rational than the Nigerian. This writer is hardly the most rational of human beings, so there is an element of self-criticism here! Even among the British who go to church there is hardly the punctuation of every conceivable sentence with "in Jesus name" as is common among Nigerian Christians. They believe that a lot of problems can be resolved without having to involve Jesus in them. One sometimes wonders if Britain was indeed the nation that introduced Christianity to Nigeria, not least because the life of the typical British person is no longer dominated by religion.

I think I have a perspective into the Christian religion as is currently practised in Nigeria and this perspective came from a discussion with a Nigerian lady who once told me that "people have their different reasons for going to church". I tried to argue that there is only one universal reason why people should go to church, to worship God and assimilate the Christian culture and that the blessings of the Lord, either here or in heaven, come with devotion to the cause. Wanting to win an election, or an anxiety to be promoted at work, should not be the motivating factor for wanting to go to church. Unfortunately the Nigerian lady was talking from experience which, in itself, explains why many Nigerians have become vulnerable to exploitation in the hands of fake pastors who claim to have divine power for all sorts of problems.

The Nigerian early churches were what the Church still is in some societies. The priest prays with and for the congregation without claiming to have the power to reveal what lies ahead. Many Nigerians want to know what the future holds for them and they also seek miracles. Otherwise, how do you explain the fact that some Nigerians phone home to ask their pastors to pray for their visas to be extended here in Britain? We are a people cocooned in ignorance and that is the major problem.

The Christian Church has been great to Nigeria, especially the southern part of it. Of course Christianity came with colonialisation but society in general has not been the worse for it. The achievements of the early missionaries are well documented and such achievements can be seen in the areas of education and health. It can be said without much contradiction that Christianity has contributed substantially tot the foundation of our society.

The Church continues to play a prominent part in development. Even a few recent churches have established universities of relatively good quality. The Church must continue to make its presence felt in areas of community development, as well as in improving the morals of our peoples. The Nigerian nation, sadly, is one of the most corrupt in the world - something of an irony for a nation which undoubtedly is also one of the most religious. The Church, therefore, has an ideological responsibility to engage in the war against corruption and a moral one to discourage materialism and ostentatious living which Jesus Christ himself so much detested in the predispositions of the Pharisees.

Is the perception of the Christian Church as a vanguard of morality well represented by pastors flying all over the place in private jets while most of their flock go about hungry and bare footed? I tried to appraise the issue of some Nigerian pastors and their private gets with an open mind - bad roads and long distances to travel - but a British theologian seemed to have convinced me that "[b]it is not the way to propagate the gosp[/b]el". The trend we are witnessing is towards the culture of those boisterous American pastors who tend to explain every big thing they have - houses, cars and yachts - as the favour of God. It will be sad if Nigerians now aspire to the leadership of the Church, as they do in politics, solely because it is perceived as an avenue leading to influence and flamboyance.


Dr Akinola lives in Oxford, England

[url=http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/editorial_opinion/article03//indexn2_html?pdate=060409&ptitle=Religion%20and%20the%20flying%20pastors]The Guardian[/url]

Arogundade denies ordering assault on Uzoma

Written by INNOCENT ANABA
Thursday, 19 March 2009

REAR-ADMIRAL Harry Arogundade yesterday told a Lagos High Court handling the suit filed by Miss Uzoma Okere and Mr. Abdulahi Abdulazeez who were allegedly assaulted by six naval ratings, that he did not order the men to beat or harass the applicants. He added that Uzoma's father apologised to him when he heard about the matter.

Arogundade, in one of the six counter-affidavits by one Nureni Akinyemi, a litigation clerk in Bolaji Ayorinde Chambers, the defence counsel in the matter, averred: “I did not order, encourage, direct or instruct the second respondent to beat, hit, harass, torture, humiliate and or traumatise the applicants. It is untrue for the applicants to say that they lost several valuables or sustained injuries arising from the incidence.”

Uzoma and Abdulazeez are demanding N100 million as damages against Arogundade, unknown Naval ratings and the Nigerian Navy.

Arogundade averred further in the affidavit that during his discussion with Uzoma’s father, he realised that Colonel Okere was his senior at the Military School, Zaria. He then related to Col. Okere what the daughter had just told him. Okere profusely apologised to him and also begged him to tell his men to release her.”

He said he was in his vehicle reading newspapers hence did not witness the alleged beating and harassment of the applicants and that when Uzoma came to his office to lodge a complaint, he did everything to calm her down.

Arogundade stated that he did not at any time order or encouraged the Naval rating to either beat or torture the applicants and that it was not true that the applicants lost several valuables or sustain injuries as a result of the incident.

Counsel to the 1st and 3rd respondents, Chief Bolaji Ayorinde (SAN), had earlier told the court that it would be very clear from the counter affidavits that there are conflictions in the facts presented before the court and that the suit ought not to have been filed under fundamental human rights procedures.

Ayorinde’s prayed the court to order for oral evidence in the proceedings, but was turned down by Justice Opeyemi Oke, who said it was not yet time to make such order.

Counsel to the respondents also told the court that he was not served with a copy of the video clips attached as exhibit to the originating summons.

But Omotola Rotimi, Director of the Office of Public Defender (OPD) told the court that she needed time to study the respondent’s counter affidavits.

On the issue of video clips marked as exhibit, Omotola explained that copies have been made for the respondents as well as for the court.

At this stage, Justice Opeyemi Oke urged both parties to file all their processes and serve same before the next adjourned date and subsequently adjourned the matter till April 27 for hearing of the originating summons.

Vanguard

May be useful to ponder on the article below in relation to our understanding of God's attributes.
-------------------
Africa needs development, not God
By Leo Igwe

MY attention was drawn to an article "As an Atheist I truly believe Africa needs God" published on December 27, 2008 in the Time On-line in the UK. Personally, I found that piece deeply flawed, shallow, narrow and potentially misleading. The article is a misreading of the situation in Africa, and a misinterpretation of what Africa needs to walk tall in this 21st century.

From his experience living with missionaries in Africa and returning 45 years later to witness the work of a British Christian charity, Pump Aid that helped rural Malawians install pumps and keep their village wells sealed and clean, Matthew Parris concluded that missionaries not aid money or the secular NGOs. God, not education or training was what Africa needed to grow, develop and emerge in this Century. He maintained that Christian faith was what Africa required to conquer fear, anxiety, a tribal belief system that has ground down their individual spirit and curiosity.

I mean, nothing can be farther from the truth. First of all, I want to know, when Parris says Africa needs God, which God is he talking about. As an atheist, he doesn't believe in the existence of God. So how did he come about the God he thought Africa needed?

Maybe a 'simple pump' in a rural community suddenly became an evidence of God's existence? Or the relative security he enjoyed near mission houses while travelling through Africa'? Or the missionary schools and hospitals in African villages? I mean, if these missionary schemes were enough to shake or embarrass Parris' growing belief that there is no God, then he is not a confirmed atheist.

Alright, let's assume that Parris has suddenly realised that God exists. Which God did he think Africa needed that the continent does not have? Is it the tribal God? We have it in thousands. Or the Jewish God? Or the Christian God? Or the Islamic God? Which bloody deity does he think Africa lacks? None. In fact Africa is filled with Gods. The black continent is a den of deities. Obviously Parris meant the Christian God - the post reformation and post Luther Jesus God. Particularly that brand packaged and propagated by European missionaries through the installation of pumps and building of schools and hospitals. At this point I want to state that missionaries have been coming to Africa for centuries. In Nigeria, missionary work is over 200 years old. In fact some parts of Africa like Nigeria and Ghana have started sending locals to go and re-evangelise and bring God back to Europe and America. (I mean which Africa is Parris really talking about).

In his article Parris failed to differentiate missionary God from missionary good or better what appears to be missionary good. The missionary god, like all other gods is a myth, a sacred fantasy and an illusion. While the mission good is real - a real attempt to spread and propagate the 'God delusion'. And I want to stress that the missionary good is not an evidence for the existence of the missionary god. Parris just allowed himself to be carried away or be seduced - by what he witnessed as some missionary good. He refused to take a critical look at it.

No doubt missionaries have executed many humanitarian projects on the continent that have impacted positively on the lives of Africans. But these projects as helpful as they are or may appear to be are Trojan Horses. They are baits - evangelising weapons which missionaries use to get Africans to embrace Christianity. Missionary schools are religious indoctrination centres. Missionaries do not educate Africans to think for themselves or to exercise and express their individual curiosity and thought. They educate Africans to become slave to Christianity and to accept blindly and not to question, or challenge the Christian god, the Christian doctrines and the Christian dogmas.

In most cases, missionaries locate their projects in rural areas. And these are places where people are not just desperately in need. These are places, where people are very ignorant, very gullible, and prone to being exploited. In most cases missionary schools and institutions are located on lands acquired and appropriated by force, without compensation or under false pretences like furthering the work of God, from poor rural peasants.

It is true that at missionary hospitals they heal the sick. They also kill by denying women their rights to abortion and to reproductive health services. Missionary hospitals in Nigeria carry out forced baptism on infants and forced conversion on death bed and forced administration of sacraments on patients. It is important to note that, in these hospitals, missionaries heal the sick using scientific medicine not prayers or the power of God. They provide water by installing pumps, not by striking the rock with a rod as Moses did in the wilderness. But they will not teach Africans, the science behind their medicine or the technology of pump installation. Instead they attribute their work to god-the Christian god. So, the truth is that God has no hand and no place in the missionary work in Africa and Parris was greatly mistaken to have thought otherwise.

I agree with Matthew Parris that African thought is driven by anxiety, fear of evil spirits, of witches and wizard etc. The same is applicable to Christianity and also to all religions so, Christian evangelism cannot liberate the African, mind or help cast off the crushing tribal group-think that hampers its development. The removal of Christian evangelism will not turn Africa into a place of chaos, confusion and superstition. (The continent is already a basket case with missionaries everywhere). Because Christianity is a superstition - a mind-enslaving and intellect-numbing superstition. What Christian evangelism has done and is doing in Africa is to replace one superstitious system with another or to reinforce the existing ones. Christian evangelism sanctioned and sanctified witch hunt, sexism, the persecution of gays, oppression and discrimination against non-believers, and other atrocities and crimes against humanity.

To emerge in this 21st century, Africa does not need God or a re-invasion by missionaries. Africa needs the Good. Africa needs good governance, good infrastructure, good roads, good schools, college, and universities. Africans need a sound education and training system that would make them to think, create, criticise debate, invent, and innovate freely. As Francis Bacon said, knowledge is power. Africans need an educational programme that empowers them to discover, express and actualise their potential.

Africa needs freedom. And this includes free mind, free society, free speech, free will, free expression of intelligence and free choice. Africa does not need a religion that shackles their minds and chains the intelligence. Africans need to rediscover and restore their humanity and human possibilities to the centre of their global perception ethics, education and belief system.

So Africa needs humanism, skepticism, rationalism, positive atheism, and free thought. Africa needs reasons, not religion, not Christian evangelism or Islamism or spiritualism or supernaturalism to experience genuine rebirth, renaissance and transformation. A popular adage says "catch a fish for a child and feed the child once, teach the child how to fish and feed the child forever. It would have been wonderful if Pump Aid had gone to Malawi not only to install pumps but also to teach young Malawians at the Polytechnics in Blantyre or at the University of Malawi how to install pumps.

So, all development aid, projects and programmes in Africa must be such that they teach, educate, inspire and empower Africans to fish, (not catch a fish for Africans) so that the people on the black continent can feed themselves forever. This is what Africa needs, not God.


Igwe is the executive secretary of the Nigerian Humanist Movement

[url=http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/editorial_opinion/article04/indexn3_html?pdate=110309&ptitle=Africa%20needs%20development,%20not%20God&cpdate=110309]Guardian[/url]

If a man extorts money from the gullible public, he becomes subject to public scrutiny whether he claims to be a man of god or not!

I hope you will patiently & thoughtfully go through the drama sketch below to the end:
-----------

As a sequel to my previous posts about the the mis-information being preached in our churches about tithesI hereby present a court scenario in which the good pastor stands before the Great Judge of all the earth, the Lord Jesus Christ, on this subject. I came across this post when i checked on a link supplied by one of the contributors to a previous thread. Enjoy the conversation:

Jesus: Enoch, you have been charged with multiple counts of extortion. Your crime spree covers 20 years and thousands of victims. You have defrauded people out of their money with fear and manipulation, telling them they had to tithe 10% of their income to your church and that God would bless them if they did. You also told them that if they didn’t tithe they would go to hell. How do you plead?

Pastor Enoch: I plead not guilty, sir. I have done nothing wrong. I have only preached what the Bible says. In the Bible Abraham tithed to Melchizedek and God blessed him for his faithful giving. The Bible even says he was rich in silver and gold.

Jesus: Is it not true, Enoch, that in Genesis chapter 13 verse 2 the Bible says Abraham was rich with livestock, silver and gold?

Pastor Enoch: Yes, you are exactly right, that’s what I just told you.

Jesus: Ok, we read about Abraham being a rich man in chapter 13. But it is not until Genesis chapter 14 that we read about Abraham’s tithe to Melchizedek. So Abraham was already a rich man before he tithed to Melchizedek, wasn’t he?

Pastor Enoch: Yes, I suppose you are right.

Jesus: So his riches were not the result of his tithe to Melchizedek?

Pastor Enoch: No.

Jesus: Enoch, you also say God blessed him for his faithful giving. How many times is it recorded that Abraham gave tithes to Melchizedek?

Pastor Enoch: Well, just once.

Jesus: So the Bible never said that he gave week after week?

Pastor Enoch: No it does not.

Jesus: Where did Abraham get the things that he gave to Melchizedek?

Pastor Enoch: Well, the Bible says it was from the plunders of war?

Jesus: So you are telling me that he gave from the plunders of war?

Pastor Enoch: Yes that’s what the Bible says.

Jesus: So he basically took things that were not really his in the first place and gave them as the tithe?

Pastor Enoch: That is what the scripture seems to indicate.

Jesus: Is it recorded that he ever took anything from his own possessions and tithed them to Melchizedek or anyone else?

Pastor Enoch: I guess not

Jesus: You guess not! You pastor one of the largest denominations and you are only guessing? Is it or is it not written that he ever gave any of his own possessions as a tithe to anyone?

Pastor Enoch: No; it is not written anywhere that I have seen.

Jesus: Is it recorded as to what exactly Abraham did give Melchizedek?

Pastor Enoch: I believe it says plunder?

Jesus: So plunder could be any number of things?

Pastor Enoch: Yes, I suppose

Judge: It could have been food, cattle, sheep, the people’s possessions or any number of things. It does not say it was all money correct?

Pastor Enoch: Yes; sir. You are correct; it does not say just money.

Jesus: As a matter of fact, money is never mentioned in that account at all; is that correct, Enoch?

Pastor Enoch: Yes, sir; money is never mentioned; just goods and food and people.

Jesus: So there is no way you can say with any certainty that Abraham in fact gave Melchizedek any money at all?

Pastor Enoch: That is right.

Jesus: I only have one last question for you, Enoch. Did God command Abraham to give this plunder as tithe to Melchizedek?

Pastor Enoch: No; it appears that he did this voluntarily.

Jesus: So are you trying to tell me that because of this voluntary, one time gift by Abraham, that may not have even consisted of money, all Christians everywhere are obligated to bring 10% of their weekly paycheck to a local church?

Jesus: Considering all the evidence, I would say you are beyond any shadow of a doubt guilty of deliberately trying to make the scriptures says things they have not said for financial gain.

Pastor Enoch: Sir, I can see how foolish I was to try and use the story of Melchizedeck to try and get the people to tithe money. But there are many other verses that will support my belief on tithing. Jacob said he would give God 10% of everything. I think we should follow his example.

Jesus: Let’s see what Jacob said. Please read the verse you are talking about for me, Enoch.

Pastor Enoch: In Genesis chapter 28, starting at verse 20 it says, ‘Jacob vowed a vow, saying, “If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and clothing to put on, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, and Yahweh will be my God, then this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, will be God’s house. Of all that you will give me I will surely give the tenth to you.”‘

Jesus: You said people should follow Jacobs’s example, is that right, Enoch?

Pastor Enoch: Yes; that is right. He vowed to give a tenth and we should too.

Jesus: Let me point out one thing for you, Enoch. Jacob said he would Give God a tenth, ONLY if He blessed him first. So as you said previously, we should follow Jacob’s example and tell God that we will only give him a tenth if he blesses us first. Is that right?

Pastor Enoch: That is not what I meant.

Jesus: What did you mean then?

Pastor Enoch: That we should give God a tenth also.

Jesus: There you go again, trying to make the scripture say what you want it to say for your benefit. I would also like you to tell me the scriptures that say that Jacob kept his vow with God. I would also like to know where he gave the tenth to because there was no temple or levites to give it to at that time.

Pastor Enoch: I can not think of any scriptures that say where or if he ever tithed after his vow.

Jesus: It is obvious that Jacob made a voluntary and conditional vow to God. This in no way can be used as a reason to demand others to bring their income to you or any other place.

Pastor Enoch: I do have a few more scriptures that I believe will show that we are supposed to tithe.

Jesus: So far, all you have done is taken scripture and misapplied it to your beliefs and for your gain. But in order to be fair to you I will allow you to present more evidence.

Pastor Enoch: In the book of Malachi chapter 3 starting at verse 8 it says, “Will a man rob God? yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, In what have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the store-house, that there may be food in my house, and prove me now with this, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” So you see sir, we are commanded to bring the tithes into the storehouse or God will curse us.

Jesus: Answer me this, Enoch, were you aware that I never required anyone to tithe money?

Pastor Enoch: No I didn’t know that.

Jesus: The tithe spoken of here was always edible products never money.

Pastor Enoch: Sir, that is because they didn’t have money at the time so God had them tithe food instead.

Jesus: Not true, money is first mentioned in Genesis - and Malachi was written hundreds of years later. God had them bring food in so that the levites, the fatherless and widows may eat and be satisfied. The tithe was used mainly to take care of people. Also notice it says in the verse you quoted, that there may be food in my house. How do you completely overlook the word food in those verses?

Pastor Enoch: I don’t know

Jesus: I also want you to know that these verses speak to people under the Old Testament law. As you may or may not know, I fulfilled the law while I was on earth. The Law is no longer binding. Tithing was part of that law that has been abolished.

Jesus: And once again, you have tried to completely take a scripture out of context and apply it to others for your benefit. Can you give me a single scripture where God changed the tithe from food to money?

Pastor Enoch: I do not know of any.

Jesus: So if God never changed it from food to money who did?

Pastor Enoch: Man must have.

Jesus: So far all you have done, Enoch, is take Old Testament scriptures out of context and try to apply it to believers under the New Covenant. Is this all the proof you have?

Pastor Enoch: I do have a New Testament scripture that will show that You told us to tithe.

Jesus: Ok let me hear it.

Pastor Enoch: You said in Matthew 23:23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith. But you ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone.” Surely, You were saying there that we should be tithing.

Jesus: Let me ask you a question, who was I talking to?

Pastor Enoch: The scripture says the scribes and Pharisees.

Jesus: Are you and your members scribes or Pharisees?

Pastor Enoch: No sir; God forbid!.

Jesus: I also said in that passage, “You have left undone the weightier matters of the law“. Are we under the law, Enoch?

Pastor Enoch: No.

Jesus: Why not?

Pastor Enoch: Because You fulfilled it, and it passed away.

Jesus: When did I fulfill the law?

Pastor Enoch: When You were crucified.

Jesus: So the law was still in effect until My death?

Pastor Enoch: That is correct sir.

Jesus: I think you know where I am going with this; don’t you?

Pastor Enoch: Yes; sir. Since You had not yet been crucified and the law was still binding, the Pharisees were required to tithe because it was part of the law. Once the law ended, tithing ended also.

Jesus: I want you to take a look at that verse again. Also tell me, what were they tithing?

Pastor Enoch: The scripture says it was mint, dill and cumin.

Jesus: Was money mentioned there?

Pastor Enoch: No sir; it was not.

Jesus: Once again it was edible products that they were tithing, not money. Do you have anything else you would like to say?

Pastor Enoch: If people only tithed edible products like the scripture says, then how would the church survive? We had to build that million-seater cathedral to accomodate the people who come for Holy Ghost Festival yearly, the salaries of other pastors have to be paid. So many other things. We depend on the money from the people.

Jesus: The need does not justify the means. In other words, just because you have all these debts does not give you the right to twist and manipulate scripture and cause people to give under fear of being cursed by God to meet your needs. Not to mention that all those items you listed are problems you created for yourelves. They are not My agenda.

Jesus: Now to the more greivous consequences of your enforcing the tithe on believer. What did Paul write in Galatians 5:4 about attempting to follow the Law?

Pastor Enoch: That if they obeyed any part of the old Jewish law, including the law of circumcision, in order to be right (justified) with God, they have fallen from grace, or lost their salvation.

Jesus: Do you admit that like circumcision, tithing was part of the law?

Pastor Enoch: Yes, sir.

Jesus: Now if obeying the law of circumcision would cause gentile Christians of Paul’s day to “fall from grace”, one would have to conclude that obeying another old law; “The law of tithing” would have the same results on them today; that is to say, it will cause them to fall away from the grace of God.

Pastor Enoch: [Swallows hard] I suppose so.

Jesus: In other words, you are admitting that your teaching the tithe is actually sending people down the road to hell?

Pastor Enoch: That was not what I intended, sir.

Jesus: Nevertheless, that is the result of your actions - your ministry. How many of those one billion members (not counting the non-members who heard you and believed you) do you suppose have been turned aside unknowingly this way?

Pastor Enoch: [Swallows hard] I have no idea, sir.

Pastor Enoch: I never realized all these things, I have always been taught that we had to tithe money to the local church and that is what I have always taught. Yes I am guilty. I will not teach this error anymore. Infact, I will go and take my words back. As many people as possible must hear this.

THE END

I have given the narration a good ending. I hope that someone close to Pastor Adeboye loves him enough and has enough balls to bring this issue to his attention. You will be saving not only his soul but the souls of millions of others who believe his grace-defying, grace-denying doctrine of tithing.


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Credits:
This narration was crafted and adapted from my previous article, Believers are not subject to the Tithe, and from materials put up at http://tithing.christian-things.com/articles.html

Source: Pressing for the Crown
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STOP! Search!! Meditate!!!

Hebrews 7: 1-12, 1 Timothy 5:8, Jeremiah 9: 23-24

Source: [url=http://www.christnotes.org/bible.php?q=Jeremiah+9%3A+23-24&ver=kjv]Holy Bible[/url]

thought I should throw this into the discussion going on here.
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The sanctity of nothing
By Damola Awoyokun

IF to Prof Niyi Akinnaso the sanctity of tributes derives from its being closed to debate, then nothing should be sacred under the sun. Not only is discourse and counter-discourse the expression of an open society but the turbulent space between them is the indispensable channel for growth and development. Any idea that discounts the necessity of asking questions is an idea heading for collapse when not actually draconian. Critical consciousness is to civilisation what blood is to the body.

In my article, Soyinka on Adunni Olorisa (The Guardian, February 8, 2009), I never 'dismissed the focus' of Soyinka's Tribute to Susanne Wenger (The Guardian, January 20, 2009) as Akinnaso alleged in his 'The Sanctity of Tributes' (The Guardian, February 18, 2009), I only spent more space elaborating the fundamental before taking on the superficialities. I stated that traditional religion (TR) is nothing but superstition; that it was invented in the primitive age as a means of satisfying human desire to know; that it is based on fate, akoole; that Ifa, its divination scripture though crafted in beautiful prose, is fallacious, as proof, I analysed an emblematic passage from Otura meji; I argued that TR has no place for scientific methods to evaluate its claims which is what superstition is; in short that TR is irrational.

Having built this foundation, I took on the superficialities: the 'qualities' Soyinka praised in Wenger's religion and also his weird mantra which I'd rightly termed an instruction because it asked us to "Go to the orisa, learn from the orisa, and be wise." Go to!

I contended that Christianity and Islam in origin were not different from TR but along the line, they opened up to fruits of thought. Who could dispute the contributions of Islam to astronomy, physics, mathematics? Or does the Christmas we celebrate nowadays with its pageantries and carols anywhere near what is laid out in the Bible? But these religions due to their newfound rigidity to their scriptures and indifference to the latest fruits of thought have become absurd like TR that never rose above ground zero. I moved on to add a fresh angle to the thinking on tolerance and reason: that what Soyinka credits Wenger's religion with is actually a pseudo-tolerance; that TR had never been tolerant as evidenced in its history of burning mosques and churches and disowning children who happens to go to the white man's school and churches; that it looks tolerating because it had taken severe beatings from the foreign religions; that if its numerical strength were to increase significantly it would show its true colours since intolerance is that utopian quest to be the only majority, the only big tree under which nothing grows. Of course, no religion can be tolerant of the other since they are intolerant of reason. They know reason is a natural rebel, with it, every religion will lose its identity, that is, will fall apart. Any successful support of Soyinka's indefensible tribute therefore, would espouse the rebuttal of these arguments. Instead, Akinnaso's Sanctity, in a bid to stand shoulder to shoulder with Soyinka's piece stood on quicksand with it.

Contrary to Akinnaso's charge, I never followed "Eurocentric conventions" or any of those theories or "isms" that disparages freedom of thought which universities and intellectoids over use nowadays in order to look busy. I argued from pure reason, first principles and critical consciousness. What is Eurocentric in saying traditional religion? Even in the language it is called "esin abalaye, esin awon baba wa, esin ibile." Surely, the etymology of these words predates both the European and Arabic colonial incursions. There always had been what is past and what is igbalode. Colonists from the desert and sea did not teach us that.

What Akinnaso did not realise is that Soyinka's piece had already shot itself in the foot and in so doing hinted at a mistake of Wenger and the irrationality of the religion. I explain. Having described Wenger as "a spiritual seeker," "questing stranger," "a being of the universal spirit who found the truths of existence not in Europe, nor Austria, but in a place she had never heard of, Yet she recognised that space at once, intuitively, unquestioning." Why did such a seeker that had invested so much in being curious then stop questioning? The surrender of critical consciousness is sleep of reason that gives birth to not only nonsense but also monstrosities. This I already exemplified in the case of Olunde in Death and the King's Horseman. Why is it that when anyone - Christians and Muslims alike - who wants to destroy the other easily find ample space and means to in TR? Bank managers preventing a rival from rising, market women preventing the other from outselling them, or ritualists who kill others because they want quick money. What is in the religion that makes it tolerant of such evil motives that hunger for quick fulfillment?

If Wenger came from Europe and discovered in TR "truths of existence," Soyinka and Akinnaso owe us elaborations on that otherwise vague clich?. What are those truths of existence that TR uniquely offers? More evasive is that which Soyinka said was "too personal for outsiders to understand." This can, of course be put down as either willful obscurantism or underestimation of our intelligence. Nevertheless, such tactic is common to every religion. And it has proved all through the ages an easy means by which pastors and prophets, sheikhs and imams, rabbis and rabbonis, babalawos and oniseguns keep their people perpetually duped. It is through such claims to superior insights, those you-cannot-understand, you're-not-in-the-spirits that these spiritual elite plead for exemptions from tests set up to safeguard facts from fantasies, knowledge from illusions, intelligence from aberrations. It is from there moral and intellectual irresponsibility find basics and extremisms follow. "Ifa has told me your mother is the one in charge of your poverty, she was born a witch!" Or the examples of a Pastor King or several others who swear from their privileged access or insider's information that the world would soon end.

The conclusion of Akinnaso's piece is intriguing. He quoted from UNESCO: "The sacred grove, which is now seen as a symbol of identity for all Yoruba people, is probably the last in Yoruba culture. It testifies to the once widespread practice of establishing sacred groves outside all settlements." Disappointed by its elegiac tone, he recourse to another: "What is even more important for present purposes is the invocation of Susan Wenger's contribution." He cited UNESCO's hailing Wenger for developing "new sacred artists" (whatever 'sacred' means in the arts world) and "her absorption into Yoruba community have proved to be a fertile exchange of ideas that revived the sacred Osun Grove." This means before Wenger voyaged in, the grove was fortunately dead or dying. And what is this revived grove for? It is the abode of the goddess of fertility. That is the place Akinnaso said: "Anyone who goes there and is not the wiser for it needs self-examination." Whereas the truth is: anyone who still thinks fertility is administered by a piece of carved wood simply because it has conical breasts and split vuvla urgently needs self-examination. Wisdom, I have argued, cannot be in a "sacred" grove but it is acquired through immersion in the best that has been thought and said.

As the centuries-old masterpieces of religious arts in Florence or Isfahan do not rescue Christianity and Islam from being superstitions so does Wenger's 50-year decoration of Osun River or the army of 'sacred' artists she inspired make TR sensible. Its method of operation is never sufficiently determinate to make possible, specific inferences and empirical data. Hence, its value can never be relevant to any paradigm of social and mental progress.


Awoyokun lives in London.
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[url=http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/editorial_opinion/article04/indexn3_html?pdate=050309&ptitle=The%20sanctity%20of%20nothing&cpdate=050309]The Guardian[/url]

Tomorrow is d-day for round two court case: March 18