The death of a child in church
By Odimegwu Onwumere
 |
Some tears dripped
down my jaws. This was after reading a story in the Saturday edition of The Sun
newspapers of January 28, 2012. The story was entitled, “Death in Church”.
It is a gory story of
a woman who had gone to a church in Lagos State for her own problems but was
later told by the pastor of the church to go home and bring her children for
deliverance. What makes the story complicating is why the pastor asked for the
children? It is obvious that this church is not where this woman worships. You
may suffice to say that she is one of the faint-hearted Christians who run from
one church to another at the little or big trial of their faith in God.
The journey this
woman embarked on gulped one of her children – a girl of about six years old.
According to the woman, the innocent girl was given a ‘black liquid’ to drink.
The concussion was rejected by her other children when the pastor gave it to
them to drink. She did not tell her husband before going for her own spiritual
healing hence her children were demanded for. The husband was supposed to be
acknowledged (if there is still decorum in the homes again in the modern
times). As the head of the home the husband was supposed to be taken permission
from but the woman rather preferred to sneak into the church and was hoodwinked
to bring her children.
Should this case be
taken that the woman who called herself a Christian was hypnotized by the
pastor, as she described it, having seen one of her children she went to the
church alive with died? What of if she had not encountered this bad omen would
she have told the husband where she went to? How could somebody who called
herself Christian pay money for whatever deliverance by any clergy having been
warned in the bible that healing of any sort should be free?
It is an ordinance in
Mathew 10:8 that the disciples should heal the sick and raise the dead; cleanse
those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely
give. In the Acts 8:20, Peter answered: "May your money perish with you,
because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! See Luke 10:7 and
1 Corinthians 9:8-14 and 1 Timothy 5:18; the ordinance is that Freely ye have
received, freely give - That is, they were not to sell their favors of healing,
preaching, etc. They were not to make a money-making business of it, to bargain
specifically to heal for so much, and to cast out devils for so much. This,
however, neither then nor afterward precluded them from receiving a competent
support. However, our ‘Christian woman’ went contrary to the bible commands.
“She said she booked an appointment to him (the pastor) on a Tuesday, after
paying N25, 000, regarded as ‘deliverance fee’. What a Christian!
Like many Christians
who do not know their stand in their faith, she confirmed her cowardly
knowledge of the bible when she said: “I am a Christian and I know that
children’s fast does not exceed 12 noon” but she allowed her saintly children
to fast from 6am to 6pm. What a woman! If it were in a civilized society, is
this woman not be charged for child’s molestation for giving much evidence why
she should be cooling her heels in the gulag by now? She “forced” her innocent
children, even without the consent of her husband, to fast for that long period
of time, perhaps against their will.
This woman is not
left alone among the many people who in totality would believe whatever any
pastor would say (because he is a man of God) than believing what the bible
said. Some people are just “insane” Christians. Is this woman’s negligence of
her husband’s consent before embarking on the bad-premonition journey not an
aberration of a Woman Believer? Hear her: “I was afraid, so I rushed to the
house to bring all my children, but I made the greatest mistake of my life by
not informing my husband…”
If this woman had
told the husband, there was no how he would have allowed his wife to go for the
now regretful journey in the hand of the pastor from hell. When the husband saw
the corpse of his daughter and was told what had happened, his reaction was
that he knew the pastor as a mechanic, “when did he become a pastor?”
This “Christian”
woman who was in a hurry for ‘deliverance’ and did not tell her husband perhaps
had joined the legion of Christian women who see ‘humility’ to their husbands
as old fashion. They no longer subscribe to the book of Ephesians 5:22-33 ESV /
25 (and (1 Peter 3:1-6 ESV / 21) that said, Wives, submit to your own husbands,
as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the
head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church
submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands…
Likewise, wives, be
subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they
may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your
respectful and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding
of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— but let
your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of
a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. For this is
how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to
their own husbands.
"Of a truth, God
will not do wickedly, and the Almighty will not pervert justice." - (Job
34:12). Instead most of these Christian women would incline to the sound
doctrine as God prescribed they rather bring logic into the issue of their
faith, insinuating human rights and democratic laws which are different form
the stipulated untainted rules and laws of God in the bible pertaining to
women. Some would tell you that the husband should be like Christ before they
will SUBMIT to him. You are bound to hear that “Christ did not demand anything
without showing it by example. He was a Servant Leader who washed His
disciples’ feet.” They want their husbands to wash their ‘feet’ as Christ did
to his disciples before they will reciprocate. What a modern world!
Some would even say
that when women were submissive to their husbands were in the days of Homer.
They would put their point this way: "When I was a child, I spoke as a
child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man,
I put away childish things." (1 Corinthians 13:11 NKJV). They take
'leaving the past for the future' to mean that wives should challenge their
husbands. FUTURE may vary, but the laws in the bible are meant to be static.
There are things one
does not leave for the PAST to follow the FUTURE. It's not expedient to leave
good virtues, morality, love, discipline, sound spirituality, humility,
reverence etc., because the world's people are moving FORWARD with everything
and anything. What must be left for the past are anger, bickering, tinkering,
sorcery, envy, hatred, disobedience, nagging, dogmatism etc. for the embrace of
happiness, peace, love, respect etc.
In the landscape of
the FUTURE many people are leaving the PAST for, there are few things that are
less comfortable than that of one in the PAST. The FUTURE is not determined by
the abandonment of the PAST. Many people are yet to grasp the meaning of time.
The FUTURE will still disappoint a lot of people who do merely read bitter
lessons from the PAST. Even though that the PAST is gone, it is not yet over,
because the FUTURE many progressives are spoiling conservativism for is not
guaranteed.
One thing many people
have forgotten or are yet to take cognizance of is that the dreams of the PAST
are the reality of the FUTURE. If we did not see yesterday, we cannot love
today. We can only enable the FUTURE, not to foresee it. A lot of people are
hopping into the FUTURE because others crusade it, forgetting that the FUTURE
is not what it used to be, because it comes soon enough.
What I pray for and
would see as my FUTURE when it manifests, could not be what the other is
praying for or would see as FUTURE. The inventions of this world do not make
the FUTURE. If they do, a lot people will not be crying. An adherent to the
Christian principles can not say that what the God told him or her when he or
she was a child should be changed because he or she is now an adult and is
reasoning like one. Anyone who sees the rules of this God from the eye of AN
ADULT merely believes that HE IS THE SAME YESTERDAY, TODAY AND FOREVER, AND AN
UNCHANGEABLE GOD.
The FUTURE, I think,
does not have an end, it can never make a Blackman become a Whiteman, but both
have to live together in one world. The FUTURE can't make us change the day we
saw as kids to night as adults we have become. There is FUTURE we can't meet no
matter the ADULT eye we look at it with. No matter how we reason, we can't
change God with our ADULT THOUGHTS, and since we can't do that, we can't also
do to His laws. Anything contrary to this is not the FUTURE of a Christian.
Some of the Christian
women, to justify their head-judgment why they should not submit to their
husbands would say, “We cannot be adults while wanting to remain as children
because we enjoyed the childhood days. Being an adult means that we take our
childhood memories (meaning the past) and embrace adulthood (meaning the
future) with it. Even nature shows that it is impossible to remain a child for
life. We are supposed to learn from the past and move on and not to pitch tent,
if not we will always be in the past which is stagnation.” Is the word of God
in the bible stagnation’?
You will hear from
such Christian women again why they should not submit to their husbands thus:
“There was no electricity or aeroplane in the primitive days. We've moved on
now to the point of being in a global village like Facebook. In the past we
used to wait months to receive letters abroad but today its instant. The past
helps us to learn, the future helps us to discover possibilities. Such is
life.”
One thing any woman
who feels that respect for her husband is in the past should know is that the
disciples saw Christ as their master, and didn't request a 50/50 measurement in
their ministry with him, unlike in the House of today where EQUALITY is misinterpreted
to mean, WIFE IS EQUAL WITH the husband. Yes, Christ washed His disciples’
feet. Christ only washed the disciples’ feet once but they are submissive in
carrying out his message even to date. How many wives can carry out the
instructions of their husbands, as these disciples of Christ? As the disciples
are to Christ, so wives are supposed to be to their husbands, but
disappointedly many are singing a new song of watching this order with an ADULT
EYE. On a serious note, the disciples venerated Christ, whether he washed their
legs or not. Washing their legs was not a pointer for their submissiveness, but
Him that came.
No one is wrong in
his or her opinion. But regarding the bible which the Christians preach, the
Christian women should please read well the ordinances to women, not wives, on
how they should behave in the church. And if we take the church as a society,
it could be a juxtaposition that women, not only wives, are under the authority
of men. This is why every reasonable woman behaves well in order to get a
suitor. So, if a woman sees the man who is not her hubby as EQUAL, there will
never be a suitor. Though you say that MARRIAGE is not worth the woman having
character for men who are not her hubby, please I am not the person who asked
women, not wives, to be SILENT IN THE CHURCH, WHAT THEY DO NOT KNOW THEY SHOULD
ASK THE MEN. This is in the New Testament. I didn't write it, and don't think
any Christian woman can win THE WAR, if this law is strictly followed and
adhered. No Christian woman should go pari per su with the laws in the
bible and THE LAWS OF DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS.
Hardly does any other
religionists women violet this COSMIC order of ‘woman be submissive’ to your
husband as MOST Christian women who combine CANAL EDUCATION with bible
injunctions do. Instead most women will be submissive they will tell you, that
MARRIAGE IS NOT BY FORCE. There is no sound man that will take his wife for a
ride. No one calls anybody a fool, but the foolishness of people have made them
rewrote the bible to sooth their judgment. Humility can never mean zombie.
If this woman who
said that she is a Christian adheres to the bible laws to women she would not
have thrown the Holy Spirit away by not seeking the husband’s consent first before
going for the exorcism. Her character has shown that most women are following
their man in his character. Women would always say that they double what a man
(husband) gives to them. But they forgot that HOLLY women are not supposed to
quarrel their husbands even if they (husbands) do. The SAINTLY woman can change
her husband even without a word. But like the ‘modern day woman’s’ head
knowledge suggests, a wife should throwaway her manners and give back to her
husband anything he gives her. This has made many women divvies where they are
expecting much from their husbands. They forgot that a man has to expect a
woman to sooth his sense of appreciation before he goes for her in marriage.
Men are blessings to women, as heads, if they still believe that God is a
blessing to man, as Head.
These bible laws are
one of the COSMIC LAWS, not HUMAN RIGHTS. Even in Islam, “
ome men are not yet married
today because they are FINDING it hard to get a woman who will not embark on a
gravy journey as the persona dramatis without telling them (the husband). Wife
is not something just picked by the roadside. This explains the axiom that WHO
FINDS A WIFE FINDS FAVOUR, not who finds a woman.
No wonder some women
are wives, not mothers. It is because God knows the MAKING of a woman that it
was instructed that IT IS BETTER FOR A MAN TO LIVE UNDER A SHEET OF ROOF THAN
TO LIVE WITH A TROUBLESOME WOMAN IN THE WHOLE HOUSE. Wise men have to SEARCH to
differentiate between these TROUBLESOME women who will not rewrite the bible to
rank shoulders with their husbands in name of ‘living the PAST for the FUTURE’.
The mentality of
Christian men to their wives is different yet the women are fighting to oppose
the law of submissiveness. This could be why in Islam, it is written: "In
hell I saw women hanging by their breasts. They had fathered bastards." - (Ishaq:185).
"Say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard
their modesty; that they should not display their beauty except what (must)
appear; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display
them except to their husbands..." - (Qur'an 24:31). "Believers,
approach not prayers... with a mind befogged or intoxicated until you
understand what you utter. Nor when you are polluted, until after you have
bathed. If you are ill, or on a journey, or come from answering the call of nature,
or you have touched a woman, and you find no water, then take for yourselves
clean dirt, and rub your faces and hands. Lo! Allah is Benign, Forgiving."
-(Qur'an 4:43).
If Christian women
should understand what the holly spirit means, no Holly Spirit tells a wife to
give double trouble to her husband because he first gave to her. It is human
analogy that has thought most women that. This Holly Spirit, as I know, is
humble, upright, respectful etc. So, a wife with CHARACTER will never be
looking for excuses to justify her renegade. These injunctions as the bible
prescribes about marriage are also applicable to the TRADITIONAL mindset of
marriage. This was why our parents’ marriages lasted. Hardly were there
divorces, because the women were saintly submissive. So, the Holly Spirit is
everything and everywhere where there is TRUTH, irrespective of religion or
creed.
All the women in the
bible that assisted in one form or the other never ABUSED the men of Israel.
They performed the acts with humility, and never ranked shoulders with their
men, because they were in the position to help. AS A WOMAN OF GOD SHE SAID SHE
IS, SHE SHOULD KNOW THAT SHE CAN NEVER WORKOUT HER PERSONAL SALVATION
WITHOUT FOLLOWING THE
UNTAINTED RULES SHE READS FROM THE BIBLE. According to the bible, you can't
workout a section of the bible to favour you and see others as prejudices.
Christ will be laughing at some people who proclaim to be WOMEN OF GOD but
allow societal philosophies to elude them. I wish these women parading themselves
as Christians can read from Mathew to Revelation with an open mind, if they
have not done, to correct their hypnotized psych ingrained in manmade laws.
Even in the Western world where people think that WHAT A MAN CAN DO A WOMAN
WILL ALSO DO..., holly women still know that their husbands are the HEAD.
In the African
traditions and as well in the Christendom, except by false interpretations of
the two traditions, I don’t think that any of the traditions allow women
headship, except by permission and in the kind of government called Democracy,
which effect we have seen in a part of Europe where woman is the ‘king’.
The human head
allowed the word, democracy to run in their senses more than it’s boldly
written on the Dictionary. Democracy now runs in our blood and in our veins
than we could possibly explain. It is this government that brought about the
axiom: “What a man can do, a woman can do better”, by the feminists. There is
no right thinking mother or woman who can subscribe to that axiom, because
unveiling literarily, what men do, women can’t try them, let alone, doing it
better.
This axiom has
brought divvy into many married homes today. Imagine a home where the man gives
order and the woman thwarts it because of ‘equality’! The issue of headship is
no more found in our homes, because the African woman is fighting for equality
with her man. Any right thinking woman has to give the men respect, likewise
any right thinking man has love the woman – the agape love. The measure of
success of any (man) husband is not by mental or physical ability to make
money, but by the loving and kind way he treats his wife and children. The
advent of “what a man can do, a woman can do better”, by the feminists, has
created the spirit of disrespect in wives for their husbands and in girls for
the boys resulting to the men now treating the women with poorly rated love and
shelve the issue of “weaker vessel” by the side, which women even no longer believe
today they are.
Christian women no
longer subscribe to Genesis 2:21-24: “God proceeded to build the rib that he
had taken from the man into the woman and bring her to the man”. And even, the
Moral Man in the bible told his critics in His days: “Did you not read that he
who created them from the beginning made them male and the female?” With this,
can we not see that there is supremacy built in the man over the woman?
Christianity is the most saleable religion in the world today, and many
cultures or traditions are dropping for it, because the knowledge of the
subject is profound(?) When the Creator of the world told the Man of Morality,
as recorded in Genesis 1: 26, “Let Us make man in our image, according to our
likeness”, He did not say, let Us make a man and a woman at the same time. So,
there is supremacy! Even before man was created, the Man of Morality whom He,
the Creator created “Came to be beside Him as a master”, according to Proverbs
8:22-30, “the Firstborn of all creation”. He’s not a woman!
The bible
figuratively called this Man, “Lamb of God”, and it showed he’s a husband.
Remember? An Angel once said; as recorded in John 1: 29; Revelation 21: 9,
“Come here, I will
show you the bride,
the Lamb’s wife”. We could be imagining who the Lamb’s wife is but “they are
the Man’s faithful-anointed followers. (Revelation 14:1, 3). While He was a
Model to the Christians, 1 Peter 2: 21 did not terse the truth as it
chronicled: “The head of every man is the Christ; as the head of every woman is
man; and the head of Christ is God”. But today, most women do not remember this
or are ignorance of it, but rather do remember and use the feminists’ slogan:
“What a man can do, a woman can do better”. Who told you!
This slogan has
corrupted the minds of these women that respects for their husbands and the
role a mother is supposed to play in the house are now thrown into the bins for
the much touted “gender equality”. This is why many homes today are comatosed
because the headship principle was not applied. And the family could not find
success, love, peace and happiness, which are factors that shouldn’t lag in
marriage. As men have been assigned the headship, if the feminists like it or
not, I don’t subscribe to a man dominating his wife, as many men commonly do,
without blinking an eyelid. Man should assign the wife honour, treat her as a
prized possession, and consider her feelings, always treating her as a human
being who also deserves respect and dignity. And, also, in all these, the woman
should not forget that the proverbial goat that wanted to be fat as the cow had
its anus burst.
Elaborations are much
in my head, but I will close this article with the knowledge in 1 Peter 3: 3:7,
“rather a man to harshly dominate the wife, he should assign her honour as to a
‘weaker vessel’, the feminine one”. This is a note the African woman should
understand and use. It was not only written in Africa or by Africans, but on
the marble of history. It is a pity for this ‘Christian woman’ who went for
exorcism without the husband’s consent and lost one of their children. May
their daughter’s soul Rest In Peace. And to the pastor, till the police the
report said is holding him tell us their findings, then we can talk about
whether the child was used for rituals or not as the ‘Christian woman’ alleged.
Odimegwu Onwumere,
Poet/Author, Media/Writing Consultant and Motivator, is the Coordinator,
Concerned Non-Indigenes In Rivers State (CONIRIV); and Founder, Poet Against
Child Abuse (PACA), Rivers State.
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