The Hallelujah Challenge Will Change Nothing in Nigeria

[FlyJ]

Psalmist and gospel music minister Nathaniel Bassey began a thing he dubbed the Hallelujah Challenge on Instagram this month.  ‘

 

Basically, believers gather on Insta Live to worship God in song and pray. The time is midnight and it will last throughout June.

 

It is the first of its kind and it has been a rousing success, judging by the skyrocketing numbers every night and the marvellous testimonies.

 

Media entrpreneur Joy Isi Bewaji is a skeptic. What’s the point of the Hallelujah Challenge if it does not solve any of Nigeria’s problems, she asks in these series of rants posted on Facebook.

 

These are the 7 things we learned:

 

1) Nigeria is fertile ground for religion

 

#HallelujahChallenge will succeed bigly in Nigeria. That’s a given. Not a miracle.

 

 

Religion is the bedrock of our confidences and convictions.

 

Reinhard Bonnke succeeded in the 90s with his exaggerated revivals in Nigeria.

 

Adeboye succeeds every first Friday of the month, leaving travelers along Ibadan-expressway pulling out their hair (the irony of that situation: a god worshiping mission that makes people swear and curse in god’s name for hours of traffic they have to suffer just so a few can practice a religion).

 

Christ Embassy succeeded on Television. No ministry is yet to beat the hours dedicated to Oyakhilome’s theatrics.

 

Religion succeeds in Nigeria.

 

If I start a church today, it will succeed. Calling or no calling.

 

Because we are not people given to anything apart from an obsession with things we cannot see or have any control over, whilst all that we see rot away and are destroyed by our innate corruption.

 

2) The Hallelujah Challenge will change nothing in Nigeria

 

This cute online revival will change nothing; even if we gather half the numbers in Nigeria to spread their faith on third mainland bridge and cry out to God (apart from that good feeling that plasters your heart after belting out and sweating on a few hallelujah songs).

 

This is the era of knowledge. We are not Israelites under Moses. Salvation has come. Jesus has come and died. What else do you want?

 

***) We need a mental revolution

 

We have had too many spiritual revolutions. What we need is a mental one.

 

You cannot pray Nigeria to greatness. It is impossible for God to move in a country where we allow our police to discard rape cases with the wave of a hand, and our politicians rob us blindly. It is not up to God to save the rot in our educational institutions or fix the drainage on our roads. It’s up to us. And we can’t do any of that on our knees. We get shit done in 2017 by cerebral drudgery.

 

Religion is like soda. It’s Coca-cola. That drink isn’t going to save anything. It’s feel-good… and like Coke, we are addicted to this feel good process. Every Sunday we go to church to get our feel-good tablet. Then we have to come out of that fix after a few hours and face the issues that have been haunting us for decades, still unsolved. Still in need of a different approach.

 

Religion makes us vulnerable, self-centred and clearly delusional. It attacks our rational and coherent capacity.

 

 

4) Revivals are Nigeria’s biggest achievement

 

Things are moving well in your life and a miracle occurred in your life and you finally got an answer to something that had been bugging you in your life because you prayed. But your prayer doesn’t have the depth or promise to change the problem called Nigeria. Your little success is beautiful. But what does it matter when every part of the country you call home is a wreck.

 

If you have beautiful lips but your body is ravaged by cancer, what then does it count for – those beautiful lips?

 

#HallelujahChallenge will succeed bigly. That’s a given. Not a miracle.

 

Why then are y’all so surprised that you can gather 50,000 people online? Revivals are our biggest achievements. The most educated will bow to a man of God who couldn’t pass his WASSCE exams. It is why we are what we are.

 

Stop being so shocked that people want to serve God. It is what we do. It is the only thing we do well. When we are done, we go back home and justify a paedophile, or delay the transaction of a debt, or bear false witness. Or choose any of the 100,000 ways to live sinfully. Then the process continues the next Sunday. Like a dark cycle, like playing russian roulette, until your own dark faith and spinelessness kill you.

 

5) We need a different challenge

 

God, however, wants you to get your knees up and go challenge your Local government for a start. He wants you to write a petition and follow through in regard to Queens’ College. Or choose any 100,000 ways to fix your country.

 

Try #ScienceChallenge, a hashtag that hopes to promote facts through experiment and observation, and see how far that will go. It definitely will not get 50,000 people questioning why we, a people of over 170million, cannot produce our own malaria drugs.

 

Do you know if they close the borders of Nigeria we will all die? Over 90% of our daily needs are imported. Even toothpick.

 

But prayer is the key. Smh.

 

Rant 883

 

6) Religion is Nigeria’s greatest obstacle to growth

 

Is Nigeria’s spirituality productive? Don’t share personal stories. Even heathens and infidels have glorious personal victories.

 

The question is: has spirituality affected Nigeria as a country in politics, education, economy, vision, leadership? Is it taking us closer to first world realities… or is it just helping you as an individual sell more garri in your shop?

 

Nigeria’s spirituality isn’t interested in ensuring better healthcare, for instance… it only wants to heal a child of pneumonia miraculously, which it hasn’t even yet succeeded in doing.

 

There’s no holistic mission for religion in Nigeria. You want to drive a fine car through bad roads and call it a blessing. Build a Lekki house right in the middle of a street with bad drainage and call it a blessing.

 

These personal victorious are cringe-worthy, pedestrian and ridiculous.

 

7) Nigerian Christians need to grow up

 

You are not developing your minds. That is why we have to break this down to tiny bits of information so you can burp on it like a child still being fed cereals.

 

When will your spirituality and church-going and hallelujah-shouting graduate to tough meat and sound knowledge?

 

We don’t need spirituality to succeed or develop or curb our excesses as a failed country.

 

Religion/spirituality, as a matter of fact, is our biggest obstacle to growth.

 

We still believe God will do som’tin… and your faith will heal the land… and your prayers will touch the hearts of our leaders so they can stop looting.

 

Lol! Shoot me!

 

Deal with the loot in your respective religious centres first. Then deal with your own duplicity. That should keep you preoccupied for the next decade.

 

You don’t need God’s permission or even His blessing to build a first world county. Our minds can do so much. And HE gave us that mind. We are blessed already.

 

I don’t do my children’s homework. I stopped since grade ***. I provide. Children, go and read and pass. You don’t need me.

 

I know when I need to come in. You can’t be children forever. Kill your cockroaches with your own broom, make your sandwich by yourself, sweep your room, wash your toilet, throw your clothes in the washing machine, change the bedsheet, negotiate with the shoemaker by yourself.

 

Don’t call me.

 

When are you going to grow up?

 

That’s parenting. And if God is your father, why do you expect His parenting to be different from ours?

 

Source

[kimi]

A standing ovation... A million likes!

I had this same argument with colleagues. I just don't get it. People have chosen to suspend their ability to reason for every word uttered at the 'pulpit'.

 

What we need are more of those who would question and not be like sheep. "It is finished" He said! It is time to do the works!

[mermaid]

It can change something. I think what you believe works for you. If you don't feel it's gonna change anything in your life, then it won't work for you but if you have faith it'll work.

[Hawken]

Number ***, 6 and 7 is very key.