09/07/2022
*"JAWBONE OF A COW?": PASTOR ADEBOYE, SELF- DEFENSE AND THE ENDANGERED CHRISTIAN SPACE*
by
*Moses Oludele Idowu*
"I don't want to say much because I know whatever I say some people may want to twist it. But I've searched the Bible from cover to cover and there is nowhere in the Bible where God said a child of God cannot defend himself."
- E. A. Adeboye (Holy Ghost Service, 1/7/2022)
"I never asked Christians to buy guns. Christians don't need guns. Samson did not fight with an AK-47. Don't go and buy guns.... You don't need permission to buy jawbone of a cow
(E.A. Adeboye at Thanksgiving 3/7/2022)
Pastor Adeboye is a good man, a very good man. I think he is even, probably too good to hurt a mosquito. That is why I am worried. That is why I am sometimes troubled reading some of his public statements.
I love him. I cherish him. I rever him for his humility and obedience to his calling. He has sacrificed so much for the calling at a time when it was unpopular to do so. Such a man should be honoured. He has paid his price. He is a good man.
The world operates in paradox; life itself is a paradox. That is why good can lead to evil and evil can result in greater good.
A good man who cannot hurt a mosquito will eventually do great evils by causing malaria through the Law of Unintended Consequences.
That is why it is not good to be too good. Such people end up doing greater evils, though unintended.
Chamberlain was such a man. He was too good, he doesn't want war so he ended up appeasing Adolf Hi**er. Unfortunately at the end the very thing he hated was what happened because Hi**er had become so strong the possibility of success in war seemed probable.
Beware of good people. Being good does not mean being Godly. It is not for nothing that Solomon counselled against too much righteousness. " Be not over much righteous..." said the wise King, " why would you die before your time." It is being over much righteous when you asked people to do what does not make sense even to the Bible; what is not contextually sound or aligned with Bible's reasoning.
On the other hand the world sometimes need the tough people. This people you think are cruel and difficult often have their purpose. The ancient Yorubas were right when they said: "Omo buruku lojo ti tie" - "the bad boy has his day or purpose."
There is a time to be tough and a time to be funny. There is time for euphemism and time for plain and forthright speaking. The madness in the heart of man must be confronted sometimes with greater madness. That is the lesson of History. I wonder whether Pastor Adeboye has considered this.
When Arabs took on Israel at Yom Kippur in October 1973 leading to a volatile war on the holiest day on the Jewish Calendar it was thought that the unthinkable would happen. That Israel would be defeated. But it did not. By the following weeks Israel was winning the war and the Arabs were losing as always.
It was then something very interesting happened which is known only to the historians. Soviet Union which has armed the Arabs to the teeth wanted to enter the war in support of Arabs to face Israel.
It was here Richard Nixon, another "bad boy" who was President of the United States proved the Yoruba adage above that the bad boy has his own time. He was not like Chamberlain who wanted no war; he told the Communists he would not allow Israel "to go down the tube", to use his exact words. That if they entered the war for the Arabs then America too would enter for the Jews, so Russia should be prepared not only fighting Israel but also America and nuclear war. And to show the Communists that he wasn't joking he placed America on nuclear alert. A nuclear alert is a state of nuclear preparedness urging all forces to be ready waiting for the President to press the nuclear button.
That deterred the Soviet Union and Israel coasted home to victory.
That is why you need "bad boys" sometimes. God's purpose can be established too through difficult people like Nebuchadnezzar.
The trouble is that the Church at this time is led by good people, people who are so good that they don't even see the reality that awaits them. It is time for "bad boys'' in the church to emerge - men who can answer Pharaoh and talk back to Zenacherib, men like Joshua and Caleb who can confront giants and expell the sons of Anak, men who can speak with the enemy at the Gate.
Nigeria is facing a new virus, an islamic terrorist virus much worse than any before it because it is an agglomeration of several forces. Yet our government has no clue, no coherent plans against this onslaught and the Church is living in denial.
In History only two nations has successfully defeated Islamic terror on its soil - Israel and Egypt - and we know how they did it. It was not by Appeasement it was by meeting terror with greater terror. [ See my essay *TRENCH WARFARE: POWERING THE DRAGON OF BANDITRY AND ISLAMIC TERRORISM]*
It is against this backdrop that I now come to Pastor Adeboye's suggestion on Self - Defense. When he first gave the first part of the epigraph above and I read it I wasn't so excited about it because some of us have said the same thing. I have asked anyone either in the Church or outside, either from the Universities or public service who can show either from the Bible or Church History or Theology that self defense is wrong for a debate. Till today no one has answered my challenge.
General Theophilus Danjuma was a Chief of Army Staff and he told us at a Convocation in Taraba State years ago that we should be prepared to defend ourselves because "the army is no longer neutral." Why should I have more confidence in an army than a general of the army and an army chief who still draws his pension from the same army?
So really there was nothing Adeboye said that was new or that has not been said before about self-defense.
However, two days after another statement came from the same voice. This time it was not as coherent as before and even seems a dilution of the first.
I have observed this phenomenon about Pastor Adeboye of late. That he would say something, then sooner again, dilute what he had said under the guise of providing clarification. It was like that with his statement on Nigerian Debts.
This is troubling. Who is he afraid of? It is we little children who have achieved nothing in life who should be afraid not an 80 - year old man. It is sometimes confusing.
It was this second statement that shocks me. Not just by its contradiction but by its poor theology, dubious hermeneutics and false contextual ramifications.
Here Pastor Adeboye tells us that we should not use guns or buy guns but we can be like Samson who used jawbone of an ass; that we too can use jawbone of a cow. We wont need permission from government for jawbone of a cow.
If this is satire it is a poor one. If this is sarcasm or irony or a figure of speech I know not any so bad in its obsfucation..
This is what makes the Church today a dangerous place for men and women of Reason and why they don't come.
Sincerely, with due respect the allusion to Samson is confusing and dangerously diversionary. It is also contextually unsound.
Samson fought with Philistines who also had sticks, club and iron. So Samson was in fact carrying a weapon superior or equal to what the Philistines carried. He was using a weapon adequate for his time and for the day.
The Islamic terrorists we are now facing are carrying sophisticated weapons, AK- 47, grenades, bombs etc. And we should resist these with jawbone of a cow?
Samson had an anointing, a special anointing because he was called for this same purpose. He was a one-man army. I doubt if anyone can be found in RCCG both model and mega and classical put together with power that can equal Samson's own. So such a man doesn't even need a jawbone, even his bare hand or stick would kill people for that was his Commisison. Is that so with the Church today? Is every Christian today like Samson? Do Christians today have locks in their hairs, the symbols of spiritual power? Are all Christians today under Nazarite vows like Samson?
So, how will a jawbone works in our hands as it did with Samson? How can we do like Samson if we are not Samson and if we do not have the same spiritual preparation as he did?
This is one instance where a remedy appears worse than the disease. Pastor Adeboye's remedy of a jawbone of a cow is a remedy that, in my opinion, is worse than the ailment.
Either you leave all your defense to God and face prayer and fasting solely or you defend yourself properly with all the modern equipments like the terrorists are carrying themselves. Any other suggestion is a recipe for disaster.
It is either you defend yourself or you don't. If you must defend yourself you have to do it with the weapons commensurate with the attack. Samson's jawbone was commensurate with what the Philistines had, but it is not commensurate with AK- 47.
Someone is playing with the lives of his people. Someone is toying with the destinies of his people on the altar of a dubious hermeneutics and Political Correctness. I pray I am wrong.
If everyone in the Catholic Church in Owo had a jawbone of a cow or ass when those terrorists came what would it have achieved? There might even have been a higher casualties.
But when the assailant entered the Texas Church and started firing, he was met with a superior fire and cut down in hale of bullets. It is just. He who draws the sword shall perish by the sword. The law of the land recognizes freedom of worship and the right of ownership of property. So if you trespassed to a church during worship to kill and you are killed, that is not a sin. Your blood is upon your own head.
Do you get it? It is time we.begin to think. It is now being suggested abeit disguisely that Christians especially Evangelical Christians and Pentecostals in particular don't think;. - what Professor Mark Noll calls the anti- intellectual ethic of modern evangelicalism/ Pentecostalism.
The Texas Church stopped bloodshed but not with jawbone of a cow. It is time to stop looking good, and stop this euphemism. We are faced with terror. And when you are faced with sons of Belial there is only one answer: either you defeat them or they destroy you. That is what Israel and Egypt knew but Abuja is yet to know it and the Church in Nigeria and her leaders do not seem to know it.
Just this last week these terrorists cleared out a whole battalion of Nigerian soldiers in Niger State at Abok while our government pretends that it doesn't happen. Has RCCG considered the implications of 200 of such men with AK- 47 visiting their Redemption Camp during a service? Is it with jawbone of a cow you will resist?
However, Pastor Adeboye has said he was addressing his children, possibly those members of RCCG. Great.
I believe in miracles too and possibly this is based on Covenant with RCCG and this miraculous provisions of supernatural defense with jawbone is only applicable with members. However, I passed through Lagos - Ibadan Expressway this morning and in front of Redemption Camp I saw a Police Armoured Carrier stationed and ready at the Gate, not heaps of jawbones of cow or ass. Let him that reads understand.
The government that cannot protect you from terrorists cannot stop you from defending yourself or getting required weapons for doing so - whatever that may cause or mean. Gov. Matawale has done the right thing in Zamfara State. As Fidel Castro has rightly said, "In a state of lawlessness it is criminal to be law-abiding." You can only enforce law against citizens procuring arms when you also stop the terrorists from attacking them. As it is the Law is being ´.
to
tie down innocent people for fools and anarchists to mow down. That is not the purpose of State or of government. The primary purpose of government is the security and welfare of citizens as the Constitution says. Let those who can buy guns buy them and defend themselves. These senseless killings has gone for too long. There is nothing anyone should be afraid to say as it is
it is the truth.
That is the only thing that will put an end to this nonsense that has gone on for too long. Let the citizens as many as can afford it get their own guns to defend themselves. Not jawbone of a cow, please.
And for those who want to depend and trust entirely on God like myself, let them also do so. It is allowed. It is a free world.
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