The Mature and Holy Hope of a Nation

Over a Nigerian dinner a few moments ago, I asked a missionary deep into his second decade about the health of the Church in this nation.

I was glad I did.

First, a bit of background. This is my second foray into Nigeria to teach in a seminary. A year ago I was convinced that the Church in this part of Africa was sick, gagging on a prosperity gospel that reflects the worst of the American church. "In many churches," said one of my students this week, "more time is spent talking about the kind of car you can drive, the size of house God wants you to live in, the amount of money that is to be yours if you will just give to the church."

And giving to the church, of course, means giving to the prosperity of the pastor.

A ride up and down the busy highways and roads of Lagos will not alleviate the concern. Prosperity, signs and wonders are the primary stuff of a health-and-wealth distortion of Scripture, and billboard after billboard screams the temptation of getting what you want instead of giving your life to a pilgrimage of holiness. Not, of course, that the Bible to certain extents doesn't talk about prosperity and signs and wonders; but Nigeria, from first impressions, gives the appearance of making American hucksters of the distorted truth woefully inadequate in their own perversion.

The Nigerian prosperity ministers are good, and it looks like they are better than their U.S.A. mentors from afar. One Nigerian evangelist recently visited our church in Mississippi and bemoaned that if you wanted to make serious money, starting your own church was a good way.

So, a little dismayed, I asked my missionary friend out of the holiness tradition what was going on. He said that, frankly, while the Church is not perfect it is good, and getting better. "It is growing," he said, "and frankly maturing to the point of taking not just evangelism seriously, but also the all-important issues of AIDS and business/government corruption."

And, frankly, if you know anything about Nigeria, you know that these are the critical issues of the nation. Our friend was once the only guy invited to the meetings concerning AIDS to speak about the faith-based approach. Now, the faith-based approach is all the rage, and even government is becoming convinced that faith and abstinence are the only real answers to this dire problem.

The weakness, he said, was that the Nigerian church had grown so fast and made such enormous gains over the last few decades that a developed theology hadn't kept pace. "But," said my friend, "that seems to be changing and the theologically trained are starting to arise." That needs to happen. One Kenyan friend told me years ago that there were 300 Christian cults in his country, a byproduct of getting excited about Jesus but not to the exclusion of pagan tribal practices.

At any rate, this is where I find myself for two weeks this January: in front of a group of bright and extremely energetic young men and women in one of the exciting places of Africa, students whom I have deemed for their own edification "the hope of the nation."

For, if Nigeria is to have a robust future it will be because the Church added theological maturity to the holy vibrancy that is apparent in those little flourishing churches huddled behind the screaming billboards. May it be that from these churches leadership will arise that penetrates the heart and soul of the country.

And it is at that point that Nigeria becomes what God called us all to be: "A kingdom of priests and a holy nation."

BY Matt Friedeman

[Source: Agape Press]

Matt Friedeman is teaching at a graduate school in Lagos, Nigeria, this week. He writes his column from Africa this week and next. He is a professor of evangelism and discipleship at Wesley Biblical Seminary.