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Christian Passivism: Gain Of Islamic Extremism By Lawrence Nnoli

January 30, 2017

Christians should not fold their hands and do nothing but look up to God to stem the huge tide of religious extermination facing them in Nigeria.

I claim not to be a repository of God's knowledge and wisdom, but in my little wisdom, I strongly believe that Christians should not fold their hands and do nothing but look up to God to stem the huge tide of religious extermination facing them in Nigeria. For me, I think it is a mark of religious infantilism for Christians to adopt such a laid-back approach with respect to the subject of Christian defence in the face of Islamic extremism and genocidal activities by Islamic extremists. 

An objective study of the Bible from the book of Genesis to the book of Revelation can guide an unbiased seeker to what God expects of his people (Christians) when faced with genocide. Several Biblical instances abound where God has shown us what our reaction should be in the face of strong opposition from opposite religions. As against the notion bandied about by some Christians that God expects us to hand our necks to those human demons and show them love instead, the questions arise then: Why didn’t God show love to Pharaoh and the Egyptians when Pharaoh started persecuting the Israelites to the point of death? Why did God have to give Pharaoh a hardened heart that would not accept Moses’ pleas to allow the Israelites leave Egypt in peace? In another instance, God instructed Joshua to be strong and fight God's fight against the heathen nations. Were those heathen nations not God’s creatures too? And yet God specifically instructed Joshua not to spare them. Is that not ‘too wicked’ of God to do that to his creatures? In another instance, God enabled the young David to kill Goliath the giant and wage numerous wars against the Philistines. And so goes on many instances where God not only approved retaliatory and offensive aggression against the enemies of his children (Christians) but in some cases actually instigated the aggression. 

The bone of contention raised by the outburst of Apostle Johnson Suleiman a few days ago which has been viewed negatively by Moslems and even some Christians is that since Jesus Christ instructed Christians to love their enemies and do good to those that hate them as recorded in Matthew chapter 5 verse 44 and Luke chapter 6 verse 27, the call to self defence made by Apostle Suleiman is UNCHRISTLIKE. Indeed, nothing could be more hypocritical than that view. 

The commandment of love for others by Jesus Christ was qualified. Jesus Christ commanded his followers (Christians) to love their neighbours as they love themselves and not otherwise. It therefore follows that if they cannot love themselves, they cannot love their neighbours, let alone their enemies. There is no disputing of the fact that one intrinsic, inherent and natural evident of love for one-self is self-preservation, also known as self-defence. All basic daily activities of a normal human being, ranging from routine body washing to career pursuits and even to religion, are founded on self-preservation against disease, poverty and eternal damnation, respectively. If that is the case, then it is also safe to deduce that one who loves himself will defend himself against harm and danger. 

This laid-back approach to Christian defence in the face of Islamic extremism ignorantly seeks to portray Jesus Christ as only a God of love who will have nothing at all to do with violence. But this is false. Its falsity can be likened to that erroneous teaching of some Christian sect which postulates that God is too loving to send his creatures to hell. But we know that such beliefs are not true. If only the proponents of this laid-back approach to Christian defence should go and read of what Jesus did to people selling goods in the temple maybe they will have a re-think of the kind of personality Jesus Christ is.  If Jesus Christ could use a whip to flog and chase away those that were selling in the temple, one wonders what he would have said to those that are condoning the maiming and killing of Christ’s beloved brethren in Northern Nigeria under the name of ‘love your enemies’. 

A situation where Islamic extremists have waged war unabatedly against innocent Christian children, women and men and yet some Christians are saying we should do nothing to stem the devious tide does not only showcase timidity and lack of clear understanding of Biblical truths, it also showcases and reveals by a stretch of imagination their benign connivance with these Islamic extremists not only to harm the church of Christ in Nigeria but to exterminate the Christian faith from Nigeria.

It will not be out of place to surmise that in some Christian gatherings of late, some Christian leaders have started dissipating enormous energies preaching sermons blaming the cause of these mayhems on Christians themselves, pointing out their lack of prayer and evangelism as the reason for the gross massacre of adherents of the Christian faith in Nigeria. Some may have concluded that this mayhem has afforded true Christians an excellent opportunity to experience what the apostles of Jesus experienced in the hands of the ancient Roman empire in terms of persecution and for that reason they should rejoice because this will now birth the “revival” needed in the Christendom. Indeed ‘my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge’ says the scriptures in Hosea chapter 4 verse 6.

How have we come to this extent as Christians in Nigeria? The blame cannot solely be heaped on the men of God whose teachings encourages those laid-back approaches; the congregations also have a share to that blame because they have not only refused to study the Word of God by themselves, but they have refused to open their eyes to obvious numerous scenarios in the Bible and chosen rather to be led by the sleight of these men. For most of those congregations, everything they know about God and his ways were not what they read and studied for themselves in the Bible but by what their GO, GS, Bishop, Apostle, Prophet, Prophetess, Archbishop, Deacon, Deaconess, told them. This Christian age is the age where Christians are the most gullible people, especially in Nigeria.

May it be repeated for the umpteenth time that practising true Christianity is not practising foolishness; it is not practising self-defeatism. The Christian God that talked about love also talked against timidity. In second Timothy chapter 1 verse 7, Christians were reminded that God has not given us the spirit of fear but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. It is the lack of this Biblical understanding that has given voice to these “love professing” Christians who would rather contend viciously with their fellow Christians on whether Christians should defend themselves or not instead of raising their voices to openly condemn and strongly denounced the activities of these Islamic extremists.

In the case of DSS versus Apostle Johnson Suleiman, let it be known and let the message be sent clear and loud to the Jihadists in Nigeria that Nigeria is not an Islamic nation where seemingly wrongs done to Moslems and the Islam faith are unpardonable yet wrongs done to Christians and the Christian faith can be swept under the carpet and nothing happens.

An unbiased and objective statistics of people slaughtered for their faith in Nigeria have shown that Christians in Nigeria, especially in the North, are fast becoming endangered specie because of the activities of Islamic extremists. Instances proving this assertion abound: from Chibok girls victims to Southern Kaduna killings, to Agatu massacre, to Suleja Catholic church bombing, to Nimbo farm saga etc. All these have unveiled the hidden but clear agenda by some people of the Islamic faith to decimate the population of Christians in Nigeria.  For those doubting the accuracy of these claims, the questions have been and will always remain: Why must the people bombing, maiming, raping, murdering be all from one faith-Islam and yet no one has been sentenced and convicted in our courts? Why must the DSS and other law -enforcement and arms-bearing agencies suddenly jerked to life and remember their statutory duties when it comes to investigating so-called hate speeches against Islam and Moslems by Christians and yet do nothing when hundreds of thousands of Christians are murdered in cold blood? Why? Until these questions are honestly answered by the DSS, let them know that all their desperate conspiracies and activities to nail Apostle Johnson Suleiman, Bishop David Oyedepo, Bishop Ola Makinde and a host of other fearless clerics over fathom hate-speech allegations will be counter-productive.

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