Religion has its own unique way of making even an educated man/woman take leave of his/her senses. A pastor cheats/commit atrocities and is caught, his congregation believes his lies and start praying against his supposed enemy. The only thing the pastor has to do is to come up with very good Bible verses ….and with their charisma and Queens English, the heads of the blind followers are turned. They shout “hallelujah, the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church,” and the pastors keep abusing them.
Some churches even collect offering for a pastors’ bail out money. Back in the days (when religion was not a business enterprise), we see pastors defrocked; mourning and deserted when they are caught in certain acts. But these days, they are untouchable. They are teaching their followers to abandon God and make them gods (they don’t need to say it explicitly like what I just said but through the spiritual abuse they put the members through).
Just look at the South African pastor who turned his church members into herbivores by asking them to eat grass for them to be ‘closer to God’ and was stepping/walking on them during deliverance/church service as if they were Egyptian carpet; (and I thought one pushing my head for me to fall down was the highest form of abuse). The goats (oh sorry), the church members justified the action with one member quoted as saying: “Yes, we eat grass and we’re proud of it because it demonstrates that, with God’s power, we can do anything,” adding that she had been battling a sore throat for more than a year, but it “was healed after she ate the grass.” If human beings are now fighting with animals over their food….trouble!
Worse may happen if church members do not develop a critical mind and do some critical thinking!
A friend told me I am too analytical but spiritual things cannot be understood by the flesh….Ok, but I still need to know why. Obeying a pastors’ instruction that flies against common sense is dangerous. The prophetic church movement is growing and most people, disgruntled by biting socio-economic hardships in their daily lives are looking at escape routes so they have found solace in prophets, apostles and pastors in the new churches promising them heaven on earth and critical thinking has been thrown out of window. What fascinates me most is that these same pastors are using the sense we’ve discarded to make crazy money out of us.
Majority of pastors have taken advantage of vulnerable members of society to satisfy their evil cravings (dictatorship/authoritarian) under the guise of religion and the followers hold the belief that the liturgical approach of their religious leaders cannot be questioned. In other words, pastors must be obeyed unreservedly!
A lot of these followers are being made to believe that their problems will just go away by guzzling down anointing oil (bought at exorbitant prices in the church), giving God big monies in the name of sowing seeds, paying pastors to fast on their behalf (another story for another day) and even pay their way into heaven is the way to go. Meanwhile, they indulge in wicked acts people who have a problem with ‘Jesus Christ’, will not even do.
I won’t be surprised at all if god (pastor) instructs his followers to drink gutter water because God said so. The all obeying followers will gladly do it and they will justify their action by claiming it is chocolate drink for healing… made from sewage/waste water, can you beat that? Isn’t it wise to seek the face of God before undergoing some rituals in the name of getting closer to ‘Him’? What if the pastor is suffering from schizophrenia and is hearing voices in his/her head? That is not God talking, that is …you guessed right (or wrong).
Keeping quiet in the name of “touch not my anointed and do my prophet no harm” will do more injury than good to the Body of Christ. That passage has even been taken out of context. Challenging a pastor in church will make you a devil’s advocate but packing your bag and your backside out of that ‘God-forsaken’ place will leave your common sense very intact.