BY SAM EYOBOKA

A RENOWNED Nigerian evangelist, John Deby Edukugho has identified certain pitfalls in the way Christian leaders currently practice their trade, saying there is something fundamentally wrong with our Christianity today.

Evang. Edukugho, president of Jesus Christ Power World Evangelism, made that uncom-plimentary remark about the Church in Nigeria at the maid-en Arise and Work Conference in the country which took place at the Excellence Hotel, Ogba in Lagos recently, explaining that this and other reasons form the basis for the conference.

Visibly unhappy with goings- on in the Church today, the evangelist maintained that as a result of the activities of cert-ain ministers of the gospel, “our Christianity has become so ordinary and has become mere religious observances, devoid of sound doctrine and Christ-likeness.”

According to him, Christians who should the salt of the world, have lost that saltiness, that the world perception of the Church, to say the least “is nothing but a social gathering that helps placate people’s conscience. We are now best seen as a religion that says to the world ‘things are not that bad as long as you can say I am born again’ and everything goes as far as they can be con-cluded or wrapped up in Jesus name.”

The implication of this, Edukugho emphasized, is that today, there are more worldly believers than heavenly-bound believers, stressing that if the progenitor of the Christian faith was to send the performance report of today’s church, it will be woefully condemned.

“Our love and fear of God has waxed cold,” he said, adding “our love for our neighbours especially members of the household of God is visibly non-existent; we are mostly congregation of hypocrites and pretenders”.

He maintained that messages from the pulpits are devoid of sound doctrine of biblical truth; “they have been predicated on materialism and mammonic vanities. I challenge every pre-acher hereto give us their sermons for all the Sundays of the past two years and you will discover that not more than five per cent of us preached on holiness, heaven and hell.

“We have a generation of Christians who have classified truth, holiness, righteousness, walking in love as old fashion. Yet there is a standard of lifestyle that God demands of His believers yesterday, today and forever—it is holiness; holiness is God’s standard,” he pointed out saying that holi-ness is practicable.

Another pitfall, Edukugho noticed was that of evangelism, saying that the Church has scored very low since it has neglected the Great Commiss-ion, which was the last comm-andment of Jesus Christ to His disciples.

“Today, the Church has woe-fully neglected this great com-mission. Jesus is not happy about this, as thousands of sin-ners are rushing to hell every hour and fewer are getting saved,” he maintained.

The evangelist therefore urged preachers of the gospel to join him in the task of reposit-ioning the Church, be first accepting that something is wrong, talk about it and repent of it with a view to choosing the path of truth thereafter.

To him the path of truth is holiness, love and obedience by going back to out first love, which is to love God; “Jesus said if you love me obey my commandment.”

One of the guest speakers at the event and the Permanent Secretary at the Federal Mini-stry of Science and Technology, Mrs. Dere Awosika commend-ed the courage of the evan-gelist for daring to host such conference, saying “I believe in the mission and vision of Arise and Work Conference of the evangelist.”

She hesitated to agree that there is something wrong with the Body of Christ, saying however, that the Church in Nigeria can do more than it is currently doing.

“I am hesitant because the Word of God says we should not judge and I believe that the totality of the Word of God is to be obeyed. I am not judging but like every one of us there is room for improvement,” Mrs. Awosika explained, adding that the lifestyle we are adopting is extreme.

According to her, “the things that pre-occupy today’s Christian are carnal rather than spiritual and the best way out of such is through pray and obedience to the Word of God.”