social challenges in Nigeria to be surmounted, religious leaders
should urgently drop the habit of preaching about signs, wonders, and
prosperity.
The failure
to stop these would increase the quest for materialism in Nigeria and
frustrate any effort at ensuring that the principles of right and
wrong were restored in the country.
These admonitions, which reflected the current situation
in Nigeria where the quest for materialism as evident in the ongoing
corruption cases in the country, were noted recently by the Parish
Priest of Saint Agnes Catholic Church, Ichida, Rev Fr. Boniface
Ezeoke. Ezeoke, who
highlighted the various means through which Nigerians go astray in the
quest to get rich, noted that religious leaders were to blame for the
elevation of materialism against patriotism and humility in the
country.
His words: "Our pulpit must stop talking about miracles and
breakthroughs because our youths want to hear that through miracles
and breakthroughs, people can get something out of nothing. I repeat
that you can never get something out of nothing. What they are being
told is that it is possible to reap what they did not sow. It is
impossible. It was Saint Paul, who admonished his admirers
in the church at Thessalonika that he who doesn't work shouldn't eat.
The national psyche of Nigerians today is more like "if it is ripe
pluck it if it is unripe do the same thing." Man must labour before he
is able to eat. Today
the shout of "I claim it'' is renting the air from our exalted
pulpits. What are you claiming? Whose labour are you claiming? Let the
truth be told from the pulpit to our teaming youths going out of our
churches. "My dear pastors and priests, our churches have largely
contributed to the rot in the society. Our messages of instant
gratification have created a generation of people, who only want to
see instant results, immediate relief, and a painless profit. This is
not the natural course of nature or a normal way of doing things. For
our youths to change, our messages must
also change. For our nation to change, the messages from our pulpit
must also change. We must begin to deliver relevant homilies which are
relevant and capable of uplifting souls. Instead of messages that only
promise blessings, miracles, breakthroughs, and wonders, we should
replace these messages with preaching on virtues such as hard work,
creativity, dedication, commitment, perseverance, diligence, and
responsibility."
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