From Sacred Assets to Commercial Power, and the Question of What Remains of the Gospel
By Lanre Ogundipe
The Church needs money to sustain its mission. Land must be acquired, buildings maintained, ministers supported, schools and hospitals operated, and charitable work financed. There is nothing inherently wrong with religious institutions owning property, generating income or building financially sustainable organisations.
The difficulty begins when the means of sustaining the mission gradually become ends in themselves, when institutional expansion becomes a measure of spiritual achievement, and when the pursuit of money begins to influence how the Gospel is preached and practised.
What happens when a spiritual movement develops into a substantial economic institution? Who owns its assets, who controls its income, who benefits from its operations, and how faithfully are its resources applied to the purpose in whose name they were acquired? These questions concern not merely financial management, but the relationship between the Church, its leaders, its members and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
From the Early Church to the Modern Institution
The early Christian community was not without financial needs. The New Testament records the sharing of resources, the collection of offerings and the distribution of assistance to people in need. The appointment of additional servants to address complaints about food distribution to widows in Jerusalem also demonstrates that faith required practical administration and accountability.
Jesus instructed his disciples to give freely what they had received freely, while the New Testament recognised the legitimacy of supporting those who laboured in ministry. The principle was not the rejection of money, but the subordination of money to the mission.
As Christianity expanded, its institutions acquired property, developed administrative systems and established schools, hospitals and charitable activities. In Nigeria, missionary organisations contributed to education, healthcare and publishing. Later generations of Nigerian churches built extensive institutional networks of their own.
Much of this growth has served legitimate religious and social purposes. Yet institutional continuity is not the same as faithfulness to Christ. The organisation created to sustain a mission can gradually become preoccupied with preserving and expanding itself.
When Property Becomes Power
Consider a religious organisation that acquires land through donations and develops it into a major campus. It subsequently establishes a university, a hospital, a publishing operation and other income generating ventures.
These activities may create employment, educate students, provide healthcare and finance further development. Their commercial character does not, by itself, establish wrongdoing.
Yet expansion raises unavoidable questions. Who legally owns the land and buildings? Who appoints the governing bodies? How are contracts awarded and expenditure approved? Where do profits go? Are transactions involving companies connected to founders, trustees or senior officers properly authorised and disclosed?
These are not imaginary governance concerns. Regulatory scrutiny of Nigeria’s private university sector has identified problems including excessive proprietor influence, interference in financial management, blurred boundaries between governing councils and executive management, inadequate financial controls and excessive commercial orientation at the expense of educational responsibilities. Such findings do not establish that every private university, or every religiously affiliated institution, suffers from these weaknesses. They do demonstrate why public reputation and spiritual standing cannot substitute for effective governance.
The issue is not whether founders should exercise legitimate oversight or whether institutions should generate income. It is whether authority is properly defined, financial decisions are adequately scrutinised and commercial interests remain consistent with the institution’s declared purpose.
A founder’s sacrifice deserves recognition, but it does not automatically confer personal ownership of every asset subsequently acquired by an institution. Legal title, institutional control and personal benefit are different questions. The distinction becomes particularly important when property appreciates, commercial operations expand and the original donors disappear from the institution’s history.
The People Behind the Enterprise
As religious organisations grow, accountability must extend beyond their founders. Trustees, pastors, directors, accountants, procurement officers and administrators must answer for decisions within their authority.
A person who knowingly falsifies a financial record cannot automatically excuse the act by claiming that a superior demanded it. Equally, a junior employee should not automatically bear responsibility for decisions imposed by others, particularly where authority was absent or coercion can be demonstrated. The evidence must establish each person’s role, knowledge, authority and conduct.
Where an institution claims to pursue an attested divine mission, those entrusted with its administration should also be prepared, in good conscience, to account before God for their particular responsibilities. Institutional complexity cannot become an excuse for personal irresponsibility.
The larger the organisation becomes, the more important independent scrutiny and clearly defined responsibilities become. Spiritual authority does not eliminate the need for competent administration. Indeed, if the resources are genuinely entrusted to God’s work, the moral obligation to handle them faithfully becomes more serious.
When the Gospel Becomes Transactional
The relationship between money and ministry becomes more troubling when financial interests begin to influence the message itself.
Giving may express gratitude, generosity and commitment to the work of God. But what happens when a particular payment is presented as the price of healing, prophecy, deliverance, prosperity or divine favour? Is the contribution genuinely voluntary, or is the worshipper led to fear that refusing to pay could obstruct God’s intervention?
Jesus instructed his disciples to give freely what they had received freely. The New Testament also recognises the legitimate material support of ministry. Both principles must be respected.
The problem is not fundraising. It is the use of spiritual authority to create coercive financial expectations, or to present divine benefits as commodities whose availability depends on payment.
When people facing illness, unemployment or family distress are encouraged to make substantial financial sacrifices on the strength of promises that cannot be substantiated, the potential for harm is serious. Such practices, where established by evidence, can distort discipleship, expose vulnerable people to financial harm and undermine public confidence in the Church.
They can also alter the relationship between the congregation and its leaders. When a financial demand is presented as an unquestionable instruction from God, legitimate questions about its purpose or use may be treated as challenges to spiritual authority. Giving then risks becoming a test of submission rather than an expression of informed generosity.
These concerns must not be indiscriminately applied to every church or every teaching about giving. We must establish what was said, what was promised, the circumstances of payment, how the resources were used and what explanation the institution provides.
The Commercial Boundary
The financial obligations of religious institutions also depend on the nature of their activities and the legal entities conducting them. Nigerian tax law provides exemptions for qualifying religious, educational and charitable activities under specified conditions, but this does not automatically exempt every trade or commercial enterprise associated with a religious organisation.
A university, hospital, publishing operation or property company must therefore be examined according to its legal structure, actual activities and applicable obligations. Religious affiliation alone cannot settle every question of tax treatment, just as the generation of revenue does not, by itself, establish improper conduct.
The wider issue is transparency. Who earns the income? Which entity owns the assets? How are profits applied? Are transactions between affiliated organisations properly documented? Can the institution demonstrate that its commercial activities remain consistent with its declared mission?
These questions require records, sound governance and evidence. They cannot be answered by reputation, public declarations or assumptions about religious privilege.
Who Is the Enterprise Serving?
A financially strong institution can support evangelism, education, healthcare and charitable work. Commercial expertise can strengthen its ability to sustain those activities. Yet financial success alone cannot establish spiritual faithfulness.
The biblical standard requires integrity in the acquisition and administration of resources, honesty in the exercise of authority, care for those in need and fidelity to the purpose for which resources were entrusted.
The Church must therefore be willing to examine not only how much it owns, but how it acquired its assets, how it uses them, what its financial practices teach its members and whether its economic life strengthens or compromises its witness to Christ.
The organisation exists to serve the mission, not to make the mission serve the organisation.
When the pursuit of revenue begins to dictate the message, when spiritual authority becomes a means of financial extraction, or when institutional preservation takes precedence over service, the Church must examine what its growth is actually serving.
The question is not whether the Church should possess wealth. It is whether that wealth remains a servant of the Gospel or gradually becomes its master.
Possession is not the problem. Stewardship is the question.
And when the Gospel itself begins to appear transactional, the Church must confront a question more serious than the value of its property: is the machinery built to sustain the mission still serving the message of Jesus Christ, or is the message increasingly being made to serve the machinery?
Ogundipe,Public Affairs Analyst, former President Nigeria and Africa Union of Journalists and itinerant Bible teacher, writes from Abuja.