The
Archbishop Emeritus of the Catholic Archdiocese of Lagos, Cardinal
Anthony Olubunmi Okogie, has said that there is no Godliness in the
decision by some churches in the country to have as many branches as
possible.
Churches in
going after as many branches as possible, do so in an effort to bring
the gospel of the Lord closer to the people. But condemning such
multiplicity of branches, the patriarch of the Lagos Catholics described
such branches as “mere business centres,” insisting that there is
indeed no godliness in planting churches in close proximity.
The
Cardinal noted that the mushrooming of such churches has not elicited
commensurate level of godliness across the land. His words: “In order to
bring us together and to get sanity back into this country, the fear of
God must be number one. Nigerians of today don’t care a hoot about God.
For
example, I heard that one of my colleagues, (Pastor Enoch) Adeboye,
said that he would love to build churches everywhere so as to make it
easy for worshipers to walk to them. But for me, that is a useless
statement. How can you say you will build churches everywhere?
What
kind of churches are you talking about? “Look at traffic in Lagos for
example, and those who are pastors are traders and a good number of them
are business men. Such churches in most cases are more like business
houses! “Look at the number of churches springing up in Lagos. If the
Muslims start building mosques like that, does it show that Nigeria is a
religious country?
Every day we hear of killings and other
things that we were not hearing before. “We can’t even walk on the
streets freely. You have to be watching yourself left, right and centre
to know who the man coming behind you is. It wasn’t like that before.
Churches must ensure that there is fear of God. “And I’m just telling
you that those churches that he is talking about are just business
centres.
New Telegraph