By Oyewole O. Sarumi
There is a peculiar responsibility that rests upon those who would tell sacred stories. Whether from a pulpit, a seminary lectern, or a cinema screen, the one who handles divine truth does so as a steward of mysteries that are not their own. The apostle Paul, writing to a young protégé, captured this weight with characteristic urgency: “Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you” (2 Timothy 1:14). That deposit is not merely a set of doctrines to be recited but a living gospel to be embodied, proclaimed, and above all, protected from dilution.
In our contemporary moment, the Christian film industry has emerged as one of the most potent vehicles for shaping the theological imagination of believers across the African continent and beyond. Nigeria’s Mount Zion Film Ministries, founded by Evangelist Mike Bamiloye, has been at the forefront of this movement for over three decades. Their recent remake of Agbara Nla (Ultimate Power), a classic that first aired as a television series in 1992, has generated significant attention and acclaim. The film, as reviewed by Gbenga Osinaike in Church Times Nigeria, has “earned the biggest single preview ever in the whole of West Africa” and has “enjoyed rave reviews across the internet”.
Yet, popularity and spiritual sincerity are not the same as theological fidelity. This present essay undertakes a forensic theological assessment of both the film and the review that celebrates it, not from a posture of cynicism or cultural condescension, but from the conviction that the church’s leadership must learn to discern the spirits that animate even the most well-intentioned of artistic productions. The stakes are far too high for passive consumption. When the cinematic pulpit distorts the gospel, whether through the addition of foreign doctrines or the subtraction of biblical clarity, the consequences ripple through congregations and generations.
The Hermeneutical Fog: When Reviewers See Without Discerning
One of the most instructive aspects of Osinaike’s review is what it reveals about the state of theological discernment among Christian journalists, pastors and thought leaders. The reviewer identifies what he considers to be a “potential area of concern” in the film’s portrayal of Abiku spirit children, acknowledging that this “tends to reinforce the belief that souls can repeatedly cycle into the world, which may raise theological questions for some viewers”. He further notes that “there are other theological issues that have been raised in some other reviews like the use of the blood of Jesus to confront the power of darkness and speaking in tongues to avert evil”.
Here is the crux of the hermeneutical problem. Osinaike sees the theological errors but refuses to name them as errors. He observes the syncretistic elements but declines to call them syncretism. This is not discernment; it is diagnosis without prescription, and it leaves the patient untreated. The reviewer’s posture is one of detached observation rather than pastoral guardianship. He notes that “those practices are entrenched traditions among many believers” and that “many Christians believe this practice of pleading the blood of Jesus always is ‘working’ for them”. The implicit logic is troubling: if enough people practice something and feel it works, then it must be acceptable.
This is precisely the hermeneutical error that the apostle Paul warned against when he wrote to the Colossians: “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ” (Colossians 2:8). The measure of truth is not popular experience but scriptural fidelity. The reviewer’s reluctance to issue a clear theological verdict may stem from a desire to be irenic, to celebrate what is good in the film without alienating its creators or its audience. But charitable critique is not the same as capitulation. As the Puritan divine Richard Baxter once observed, “Unity without truth is conspiracy.”
The Abiku Conundrum: Reincarnation in a Christian Frame
The concept of Abiku is not a minor cultural detail that can be casually incorporated into a Christian narrative without consequence. In Yoruba cosmology, the Abiku is a spirit-child who dies young and returns repeatedly to the same mother, trapped in a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth by an oath taken in the spirit world. This belief is not merely a quaint folktale; it is a structured theological claim about the nature of human existence, the destiny of the soul, and the relationship between the living and the spirit realm. As scholars of Yoruba religion have documented, the Abiku phenomenon involves “a continuous circle of birth and death” driven by spiritual compacts made before conception.
The biblical response to this belief is unequivocal. The writer to the Hebrews declares: “Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many” (Hebrews 9:27-28). This verse is not a proof-text to be deployed in polemics; it is the very architecture of Christian hope. The singularity of death and the finality of judgment are bound together with the singularity and finality of Christ’s atoning sacrifice. To introduce the possibility of reincarnation into the Christian story is not to add a cultural ornament to the gospel; it is to undermine the gospel’s very foundation. As the early church father Athanasius argued in On the Incarnation, the human predicament is not a cyclical problem requiring repeated cycles of purification, but a singular catastrophe requiring a singular remedy.
The Abiku scene in Agbara Nla is therefore not a harmless nod to Yoruba culture. It is a theological infection that, if left untreated, will produce confusion in the church. When Christian filmmakers present spirit-children who return to the womb and are reborn, they are not merely depicting a cultural belief; they are lending the authority of Christian storytelling to a doctrine that the church has always rejected. The reviewer’s comment that this “may raise theological questions for some viewers” is a staggering understatement. It should raise theological objections from every viewer who has been taught the first principles of the faith.
Word of Faith and the Mechanization of the Spiritual
The film’s portrayal of spiritual warfare through the use of “the blood of Jesus to confront the power of darkness” and “speaking in tongues to avert evil” represents another significant theological deviation. These practices, as the reviewer himself acknowledges, are rooted in the Word of Faith movement, which teaches that faith is a force and that words are the containers of that force. The blood of Jesus, in this framework, becomes a kind of spiritual weapon that can be wielded through verbal invocation to achieve desired outcomes in the unseen realm.
The Gospel Coalition has offered a trenchant critique of this view, noting that it “often treats the blood as a kind of mystical force that we can invoke by using special, supernaturally powerful phrases to achieve an outcome we desire, especially in spiritual warfare”. This is not a minor theological quibble. It represents a fundamental distortion of the nature of faith and the character of God. Faith is not a force that operates independently of God’s sovereign will; it is trust in a Person who has already accomplished everything necessary for our salvation and protection. As the Puritan John Owen wrote, “The blood of Christ is not a charm to be spoken over a situation; it is the once-for-all sacrifice that has forever secured our peace with God.”
The practice of “pleading the blood” as a verbal technique for spiritual warfare is particularly problematic because it shifts the focus from the objective work of Christ to the subjective performance of the believer. It suggests that the efficacy of spiritual protection depends on the correct formulation of words or the intensity of one’s invocation. This is functionally a form of works-righteousness applied to spiritual warfare. It robs believers of the assurance that comes from knowing that their security rests not in the perfection of their prayers but in the perfection of Christ’s sacrifice. As the apostle Peter declared, “You were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors… with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect” (1 Peter 1:18-19). The redemption is accomplished; it is not awaiting our activation.
Ayamatanga and the Marine Kingdom: When ATR Becomes the Framework
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the film’s theological framework, though one the reviewer treats with remarkable equanimity, is its use of specific African Traditional Religion entities as the structure of the demonic realm. The character Ayamatanga is identified as a “demonic spirit”, and the “marine kingdom” is presented as a spiritual realm through which believers are threatened. These are not generic biblical categories; they are specific ATR concepts that carry with them an entire cosmology.
The Yoruba concept of Olokun, the deity of the ocean, and the belief in water spirits and marine kingdoms are well-documented in the academic literature on Yoruba religion. The Bible does speak of spiritual forces and principalities, but it never validates the specific structures of pagan cosmology. To incorporate the marine kingdom into a Christian framework is to grant legitimacy to a worldview that stands in opposition to the biblical worldview. The apostle Paul, engaging with the religious culture of Athens, did not take the Athenian deities and baptize them as Christian demons; he declared that the “unknown god” they worshipped was in fact the Creator who now commands repentance (Acts 17:23-30).
The danger here is not merely academic. When Christian films present the marine kingdom as a real spiritual threat that requires specific spiritual countermeasures, they are discipling their audiences into a worldview in which the powers of darkness are given a level of definition and agency that the Bible does not grant them. The result is a form of practical dualism in which the forces of evil occupy a disproportionate place in the believer’s imagination. The Colossian heresy, which Paul addressed with such vigor, involved precisely this kind of preoccupation with the “worship of angels” and “harsh treatment of the body” as a means of navigating the spiritual realm (Colossians 2:18-23). Paul’s remedy was not to provide a more detailed demonology but to declare that Christ is the head over every power and authority (Colossians 2:10).
Syncretism as Spiritual Adultery
The theological issue at stake across all of these elements is syncretism—the blending of Christian faith with beliefs and practices drawn from other religious traditions. In the African context, this has been a perennial challenge since the first missionaries arrived. The scholar Lamin Sanneh has argued that the translation of Christianity into African languages and cultures was a genuine act of appropriation, but that it also opened the door to the absorption of pre-Christian religious categories into the Christian framework. The result, in many instances, was not the transformation of culture by the gospel but the domestication of the gospel by culture.
Recent research on Nigerian Pentecostalism has highlighted the persistence of syncretistic tendencies even within the most vibrant expressions of the faith. One study found that 70.5 percent of pastors consistently navigate culture-faith conflicts, with deeply entrenched taboos and traditional practices posing significant challenges to theological fidelity. The scholar Allan Anderson has observed that the growth of Pentecostalism in Africa has been accompanied by a certain “appropriation of indigenous knowledge and traditional spirituality” that has produced “grassroots theologies” not always aligned with historic Christian orthodoxy.
This is not a problem unique to Africa. The church in every age and every culture faces the temptation to allow the prevailing worldview to set the terms of its theological engagement. The Puritan pastor Richard Baxter, writing in seventeenth-century England, warned his congregation against “the idolatry of the mind” that allows unbiblical assumptions to shape our understanding of God. The remedy is not the wholesale rejection of culture but the rigorous subjection of every cultural assumption to the authority of Scripture. As the apostle Paul wrote, “We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).
The Failure of Prophetic Critique
One of the most disappointing aspects of the review under consideration is its failure to offer a clear prophetic critique of the film’s theological errors. The reviewer identifies the Abiku scene, the Word of Faith practices, and the use of ATR entities, but he declines to draw the necessary conclusion: these elements are not compatible with historic Christian faith. Instead, he retreats into a posture of descriptive neutrality, noting that “these are issues that can’t be addressed in a whiff” and that the practices in question are “entrenched traditions among many believers”.
From my perspective, this is a failure of leadership. The role of the Christian critic, whether journalist, theologian, or pastor, is not merely to observe and describe but to discern and direct. When the shepherd sees the wolf approaching, he does not convene a symposium on lupine behavior; he takes up his staff and defends the flock. The reviewer’s reluctance to offer a clear verdict may stem from a commendable desire to celebrate the film’s artistic achievements and its genuinely evangelistic intent. But the good that the film accomplishes in its broad strokes is undermined by the theological poison it carries in its details.
The great theologian of the early church, Augustine of Hippo, faced a similar challenge in his own day. The Manichaean religion, with its elaborate cosmology of light and darkness, was attractive to many Christians who found in it a satisfying explanation for the problem of evil. Augustine’s response was not to find a middle ground or to celebrate the Manichaeans’ sincerity; he systematically dismantled their theology in works like Against the Manichaeans and Confessions. He understood that pastoral love sometimes requires theological confrontation. Period!
Toward a Better Way: The Positive Role of Christian Storytelling
None of this is to suggest that Christian filmmakers should abandon the medium of cinema or refrain from engaging with cultural themes. On the contrary, the power of story to shape the imagination is a gift of God that ought to be used for His glory. The problem is not the use of dramatic narrative but the theological framework within which that narrative operates. A film can be both culturally rooted and biblically faithful. It can depict the reality of spiritual conflict without granting legitimacy to pagan cosmology. It can show the power of prayer without turning prayer into a technique for manipulating spiritual forces.
The Christian filmmaker must be, first and foremost, a student of Scripture and a disciple of Christ. The creative process must be submitted to the authority of the Word. As the great Reformer Martin Luther insisted, the Word of God is the norm by which all teaching and practice are to be judged. This applies as much to the screen as to the pulpit. The filmmakers of Mount Zion have demonstrated remarkable skill in visual storytelling and a genuine passion for the gospel. What they need, and what the entire Christian film industry needs, is a deeper grounding in biblical and systematic theology.
The apostle Paul’s exhortation to Timothy is as relevant to filmmakers as it is to pastors: “Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Timothy 4:16). The order is significant: life and doctrine. Orthodoxy and orthopraxy are inseparable. The one who would tell sacred stories must first be shaped by the sacred text.
The Stewardship of the Cinematic Pulpit
As I stop here, may I say that the film Agbara Nla and its enthusiastic reception by Christian audiences and reviewers alike reveal both the immense potential and the profound vulnerability of the Christian arts movement in our time. The potential lies in the power of visual storytelling to communicate the gospel in ways that engage the imagination and move the affections. The vulnerability lies in the fact that this power can be used to propagate theological error as easily as it can be used to proclaim theological truth.
The Christian leader must therefore cultivate a posture of critical engagement with all forms of cultural production, including those that bear the label “Christian.” This is not a call to cynicism or to the rejection of artistic beauty, but to the kind of discernment that the apostle John commended when he wrote, “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). The test is not popularity, nor sincerity, nor aesthetic excellence, but conformity to the apostolic faith once delivered to the saints.
The cinematic pulpit is a sacred trust. Those who occupy it must do so with the fear of the Lord, knowing that they will give an account for every word and every image that shapes the faith of their viewers. And those who review and commend such works must do so with the same fear, refusing to trade theological fidelity for the sake of cultural celebration, theological correctness or personal admiration. The church deserves nothing less than leaders who will guard the deposit entrusted to them, and storytellers who will tell the old, old story in all its purity and power, without the admixture of alien fire.
Prof. Sarumi, a disciple of Jesus and teacher of the Word of God, writes from Lagos
