Dear Evangelical (Pentecostal) Pastor, You Are Not God – Part 2

Every four years in the United States, we go through a presidential election period when evangelical (also known as Pentecostal) pastors prostitute themselves and their congregations to the Republican Party and tell tales that they claim are messages that God gave them about who our nation’s next President should be.  It is curious that their God always tells them that his choice for every election, even at the lowliest local election, is a Republican – regardless of the individual’s character.  While they are delivering those “messages”, traditional church attendees are studying the candidates’ positions on issues and praying that God would do His will.  Then they vote in whatever way they feel convinced.

During the campaigns for the Nigerian presidential elections, there was no paucity of “prophesies” by evangelical pastors.  Taking sides with either presidential candidate, many prophesied doom and gloom as they warned against electing a Moslem.  They also prophesied that President Goodluck Jonathan would win because God said so.  In the process, they used Nigerian electronic and print media shamelessly and used social media as a platform to spew their hatred and spread their lies. 

Here are some questions for those evangelical pastors: If God truly told them what they claim He told them, why did President Jonathan lose – and badly so?  Do these pastors now think that God changed His mind?  Do they believe that God made a mistake in choosing Retired General Buhari to lead Nigeria at this time or are they of the opinion that he wasn’t chosen by God?  Are these pastors still sure that the messages that they reportedly received actually came from God or would they acknowledge that the so-called messages never came from God but were hatched in their own hearts?

One of the problems with so-called prophetic claims is that it is hard for anyone to verify the credibility of the claims.  The only way to know is to wait for the outcome of the so-called prophesies.  In the Bible, prophesies by genuine prophets always came to pass.  We know that the word of God is as true today as it was centuries ago.  Since that is the case, then perhaps we should be able to say the following: First, that those pastors whose so-called prophesies have failed may not have heard from God and either falsified their claims, were delusional, plainly lied or gambled with God’s name.  Second, that if you are a member of a congregation or worship under a pastor who used God’s name so recklessly to make himself/herself relevant in the political process, chances are that your pastor is lying to you about everything else.  You should consider finding another church where you can worship God in truth.  Third, to regain credibility (to the extent that they did have any), the pastors in question should first apologize to God, then to their congregations and the nation instead of trying now to spin what they did in a different direction so that they may continue to maintain relevance as clergy.  There was a time when it was respectable to be a member of the clergy.  That was a time when even pastors feared God and took their responsibilities to society seriously.  We should all long for that time to come again.