The Audacity of God's Grace: 10 Strategies To Living Your Best Life Now (10 page)

‘Religious Stakeholders and Elites’ Abuse of Religion

Majority of the problems that the church populations have faced over the years comes from the apparent discrepancies inherent in religious pedagogies that have for centuries influenced and limited the children of God to living at their best, and making their minds to work for them at their fullest potentialities by expanding their horizon. It has continuously kept them in captivity from achieving, becoming, and standing tall with their heads high in taking custody of all God-given opportunities and natural resources that was at their reach. The result is this: lack of transparency, racial and tribal mistrusts and tensions; other countries or groups invading and dominating through structural injustices and corrupt practices other people’s natural mineral resources; like oil and gas (in such people’s homeland) and poor management and wastages. The compendium of poor teachings that negates empowering pastors, religious people and populations and provide them with the tools for financial success, to take response-ability of created things and resources and dominate these resources as seen in Genesis 1: 26ff (where God gave Adam the mandate of dominion) ran deep in the theological training and curricula that produced the teachings received by many pastors and theologians over the centuries. Whether it was in the Chicago Theological School, Fuller Theological Seminary or Andrews University, it is still the same. Thankfully, the administration of Professor James Makinde, the vibrant Vice Chancellor/President of my alma mater—Babcock University has provided a dynamic leadership that has effected a paradigm shift, thus changing the way we do business in human capital development through education in Nigeria.

In the theological training that most of us received in the past, there were virtually no part of it that dealt with or taught us something deeply about wealth creation, money management, or how to incorporate the teachings of prosperity—which is what God desire for our daily lives into our ministerial assignment to help keep our congregations on a greater path for wealth creation and management and finance the kingdom work, yet our ministers longed and in numerous instances levied their members for funds to do one church project or the other. How can we finance the kingdom work when we don’t equip our church members with the right mental tools and other resources they need to creatively become a powerful force for capital development and help finance the work of God in our local churches? At best, some of us were taught about stewardship, but it was taught in a straight-jacketed manner that never really promoted our personal prosperity and starved us the knowledge of wealth creation, thus starting with tithe promotion that ended with Malachi 3:10.

The sad reality is this: these teachings have resulted into God’s people and church goers and members perishing for lack of knowledge to take care of their financial future and that of their children. How can people live their best lives now without financial capital that provides money and assets, access to basic standard healthcare, comfortable housing and clean water, and infrastructures like good road networks and security of lives and properties? Is there any, among all of these things that we do not deserve or any of it that God is against for his people?

Because of hermeneutical errors, religious perceptions, and traditional dogmas, these teachings missed the point of empowering people on how to effectively pursue and live at their best on earth for the time being, while they await the second coming of Jesus—the kingdom of God. Over the centuries, some influential church fathers and theologians have produced teachings that influenced believers into believing that God is only interested in spiritual matters and pays no greater attention to human material needs or human capital development. This should have not been the case! It was because of this type of poor religious teachings and understanding that the theology of social gospel by Niebuhr and Rauschenbusch was born to confront the problem and make a statement that Christianity should not be for paupers, but that the movement of God in Christ through Christianity should be more relevant to both the spiritual and material well-being of individuals; their communal needs, as well as the social, and economic conditions of the adherents.

The Dynamics of Religious Influence In Our Lives

“How can the gospel of Jesus save lives when people do not have adequate resources or food to feed their children and money to access their healthcare needs”?

The proponents of poor religious teachings or those with PTS rather resisted the social gospel putting their emphasis that it undermines the central narrative of the gospel of Jesus whose singular purpose is to save lives. “How can the gospel of Jesus save lives when people do not have adequate resources or food to feed their children and money to access their healthcare needs”? While Neo-Platonism influenced church policies and Christianity like the example of the Roman Catholic church deciding that their priest must take a vow of celibacy before pursuing their careers or calling in the priesthood—a practice that was forbidden before as Roman Catholic priests use to marry and enjoy sex in marriage as part of God’s pleasurable holy gifts to his creatures, Neo-Platonism never influenced Judaism. The Jews successfully rejected the tenet of Neo-Platonism and Gnosticism. They stuck with the scriptures and believed that both the material blessings of the earth and the spiritual blessings come from the presence of God and are in harmony with God’s will in God’s economy of grace for his children; because “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows (James 1:17 NIV). This is why many Jews are successful business people and still very spiritual because they very well understand the harmonization of material things with the spiritual.

Dr. Richard Caulker once stated that: the Jewish people and priest expect material blessings from God (because) in the Hebrew culture, the priests were not trained in sacred things (alone), but to also learn different trades. Jesus is one example of a spiritual leader with knowledge and skills on how to access wood and make furniture. Jesus did not expect people to sit and wait for God to access natural resources for socioeconomic development and job creation. Jesus created wealth by being self-employed, accessing natural resources, and thus produce goods and services that was needful, thus maintaining the dominion principle he instituted when he tasked Adam and Eve at creation to “subdue and have dominion” over the created things after creating them in Genesis 1:28. Dr. Caulker believes that after the creation of our first parents according to Genesis chapter one, God gave humans three major tasks to enable every human being to live in harmony and in abundance.

First, God tasked them to take care of their relationship with God; to serve God in truth and in spirit and to have no other God beside the creator. This is why God created rest and ask our first parents to work for six days and get a time to be with God and spend quality time in ruminating on his grace. Secondly, God tasked our first parents to take care of their relationship with each other. To love ones neighbor as you love yourself. To avoid treating others in ways that you would not want them to treat you. And thirdly, God asked Adam and Eve to dominate the material world—all the created things, oil, natural gas, agriculture, businesses that create wealth for the good of humanity etc. While the Jews or Judaism obeyed and never deviated from the command of taking care of the material world or resources that God created, Neo-Platonism influenced Christianity to do otherwise.

How We Got Here

Unfortunately for the Christians, the Greek philosophical systems or Hellenistic systems of philosophies influenced our Christian theology during its early formulations, and gradually, Neo-Platonic teachings successfully walked their teachings into our minds through the Christian theology, church policies and church manuals and traditions. They created an environment within the church and church history in ways that missiology, theology, worship, the spoken word or the kerygma—preaching, the man/woman behind the pulpit, evangelism, youth ministries, our singles’ ministries and ministry in general was misunderstood to reflect Poverty, and to be seen only within the lens of spiritual matters. The problem that emanate from the latter is that ministry failed to be attractive to a lot of people, including people in the upper-class or most millionaires and billionaires who ordinarily love God, but may not have grown up in church.

Additionally, ministry dragged to reach or fulfill its redemptive capital by empowering people to become more proactive in their material well-being and consequently undermined reasonable effort to reach believers holistically. The genesis of this problem is not new; for it came from the Hellenistic pedagogies which influenced most of the western civilizations that formed almost all church policies. It has a history that span over 2,500 years. The problem begun the day Neo-Platonism walked its way into the religious systems and teachings. The philosophical “infrastructure—comprehensive system of teachings” of Neo-Platonism began to influence Christianity from the 3
rd
to the 6
th
centuries. This system of philosophy was introduced through the works of the great Greek philosopher, Plato (427-347 BCE) together with some fractions of oriental mysticism. The founder of Neo-Platonism was Plotinus (205-270 CE) whose main interest was Platonism, Metaphysics, and Mysticism.

“Neoplatonic concepts have roots in the Greek mystery religions and oriental philosophies. They are mostly un-Christian.”

Plotinus was influenced by Plato, Ammonius Saccas, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Persian philosophy, and Indian philosophy. In turn, Plotinus influenced church fathers like St. Augustine of Hippo, Origen, St. Boethius, Damascius, Pseudo-Dionysius, Porphyry, Gnosticism, Renaissance Platonism, and the Traditionalist School of thought and most importantly, Christianity. “Neoplatonic concepts have roots in the Greek mystery religions and oriental philosophies.
They are mostly un-Christian.” It later found its way into Corpus Hermeticum, in Christian theology, soteriology and in the historical development of monotheism in the Antiquity. Plotinus designed or constructed a fantasy of spiritual levels in hierarchical manners by which the individual or soul could be separated from the physical or material to the spiritual. Neo-Platonism was a dominant system of philosophy in Greek philosophical educational institutions. This system of teaching was more attractive to the Greeks and will remain part of the curricula until this pagan teaching ended about the 6
th
century. Neo-Platonism influenced Origen (184/185-253/254 CE), a powerful scholar, Church Father, and an early Christian theologian. Origen’s works was very influential in multiple branches of Christian theology such as: Textual criticism, biblical exegesis and hermeneutics, philosophical theology, preaching, and spirituality among others. It was also Origen who taught the controversial teaching among early Christian theologians of the subordination of the Son of God to God the father. Because the Greeks were the dominant world power in their contemporaries, they made their culture superior to other nations and peoples cultures that they conquered. They made almost everyone embrace their system of philosophy, their architectures, their political structures and infrastructure, and their way of thinking which is still very predominant in the way of thinking of the Western world till today. Plato was the architect who designed much of Greek philosophy. When the Greeks were conquered many generations later by the Romans, because of the system of religious thought and philosophies that the Greeks has installed in the mind of the people, Plato’s teachings remained unchanged and unchallenged in the Roman worldview.

Plato’s Teachings & Our Belief System

In Plato’s teaching, the universe existed in two spheres: the material and the spiritual. While the bible teaches the reality of both existence, Plato separated these two realities in ways that they became practically independent of each other, and whence cannot unite together. He pushed the material world in his philosophies to be against the spiritual world. In the Hellenistic classical thoughts of Greek, the natural world was an imperfect shadow of its spiritual counterpart. In that system of philosophy which will later be ingrained in the Christian theology and in the curricula of almost all the seminaries, the spiritual world was good, holy, perfect, and should be enviable, pursuable; flawless, void of any deficit, evil or pain. However, the material world was bad, full of evil, unholy, imperfect, flawed and filled with deficit, and shouldn’t be pursued at all. It was the rise of these thoughts that ushered in a system of philosophy called Gnosticism—coming from the Greek word for knowledge. The teachings of Gnosticism persuaded people to utterly reject things from the material world, and rather put their attention on the spiritual world—the only place where they are to find merit, meaning and purpose for living, and the place to be envied by all means.

It was because of this teaching that Gnostics rejected the possibility and reality of Christ incarnation. If Jesus came in the flesh, since the flesh was evil, how could Jesus be sinless and holy? To rectify this issue, Gnostics proposed that Jesus did not really came in the flesh, but that it was rather a spiritual anomaly that only appeared to be flesh and blood. They posited that Jesus never came in the flesh and walk among the people, but that Christ only pretended to be a human with a physical body. It was because of the intensity of this philosophy which threatened the Church by the end of the First Century that apostle John wrote ferociously (John chapter 1:1-4; 14 NLT) where he stated that: “In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He (the Word) existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him (Jesus who is hereby referred as the Word), and nothing was created except through him. The Word (Jesus) gave life (meaning, purpose and direction) to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. So the Word became flesh (human) and made his home among us—Emmanuel; God with us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness; for we (I.e. apostle John and the other disciples have visibly and tangibly experienced Jesus physically and work with him, for Jesus Christ is the perfect expression of God in human form) or seen his glory, the glory of the father’s one and only son.