BY DR NINYO OMIDIJI
One of the biggest names in “Pentecostal Christianity” in Africa , fondly called “daddy GO” was on record praying for his congregants that their colleagues or friends would come to them to ask for food. On another occasion, he was praying that Christians from other denominations would come to bow before members of his church.
Friends, this issue has thrown up an hitherto latent ecclesiastical narrative that came with the “material posterity gospel” which has dominated the religious landscape of Africa in the last few decades. It is called dominionism.
The whole idea of this faulty premise is to have dominion over other people who are equally created in God’s own image. To all intent and purposes, this is at variance with the culture of the kingdom and the value system of the Christian faith.
I recall the story of the mother of Zebedee’s 2 sons who approached Jesus, knelt down and prayed to Him that her 2 sons would be able to sit at His right and at His left in His kingdom (Matthew 20:20-28).
At the time, many of his disciples had thought Jesus was going to establish an earthly kingdom. Hence, some among them started lobbying for dominion. James’ and John’s mother wanted her two sons to have dominion over other disciples. Did Jesus grant it? No, He didn’t.
Friends, there is a spirit that loves to have one man dominate over another man. It is not the spirit of God. It is a demon spirit that reigns supreme in paganism and this spirit has, unfortunately, found unfettered expression in religion.
It is that spirit that makes you pray and hope that your family members will bow before you or that they won’t be able to hold a family meeting until they have seen you. It is that spirit that makes you pray to be the first university graduate in your family when there are others before you who desire the same thing.
Friends, when God made man, He did not give them the instruction to have dominion over one another. No! He gave them authority to have dominion over other creatures and over all the earth. But since the fall of man, “fallen men” began to desire to have dominion over one another.
They started wars of conquest and began to take slaves. It is regrettable that in places called churches today, people still promote such a paganistic ideology when it is obvious that the gospel of Christ’s kingdom is against it.
At Lystra, when the people wanted to worship them as if they were some deities, Paul and Barnabas tore their own clothes as a mark of rejection of such a gesture (Acts 14:14). They told them: “we are men like you….”. Even the angel that appeared to John the beloved did not allow John to bow down to him (Revelation 22:8-9)
The dominion mentality being promoted by many pentecostal preachers is not born of the Spirit of Christ. It is the religious version of the same spirit of this world which drives subjugation, wars of conquests, slave ownership, slave trade and colonisation.
Jesus said, “the greatest among you shall be your servant..”. If you constantly feel a need for people to bow to you before you can have a sense of fulfilment in life, something is fundamentally wrong with you.
We need to get over this business.