Showing posts with label Pastor W.F. Kumuyi - General Superintendent - Deeper Christian Life Ministry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pastor W.F. Kumuyi - General Superintendent - Deeper Christian Life Ministry. Show all posts

Friday, December 21, 2018

Indeed, Christmas Is Idolatrous!

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
The recent statement by the General Superintendent of the Deeper Christian Life Ministry, Pastor W.F. Kumuyi, that Christmas is idolatrous has attracted widespread reactions.  Pastor Kumuyi was quoted in the Punch newspaper of December 13, 2013, as saying: 

We don’t celebrate Christmas. It actually came from idolatrous background. That is why you don’t hear us sing what they call Christmas carol. Never! ... When you find anybody coming in, or any leader, trying to introduce the idolatry of mystery Babylon that they call Christmas, and you want to bring all the Christmas carol saying that is the day that Jesus was born, and you don’t find that in the Acts of the Apostles or in the early church, then you don’t find that in the church either.  If you don’t know that before, now you know.”
*Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye 

These are indeed weighty, unsettling words on a widely cherished festival. The reactions they immediately stirred were, therefore, to be expected. However, it was a very courageous assertion by Pastor Kumuyi and I would love to pitch my tent with those who insist that he is right, and that those attacking him are either doing so out of sheer lack of adequate information on the matter or, worse, unwittingly betraying their reluctance to let go of a cherished idol.

Friday, May 4, 2018

New Worship Centre: Lessons From Deeper Life Bible Church

By Banji Ojewale
“I sought for the greatness of the United States in her commodious harbors, her ample rivers, her fertile fields and boundless forests and it was not there. I sought for it in her rich higher learning and it was not there. I looked for it in her democratic congress and her matchless constitution and it was not there. Not until I went to the churches of America did I understand the secret of her genius and power
– Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French historian and political writer
*Pastor W.F Kumuyi
One of the numerous instructions we took away from the dedication of the new ultramodern Deeper Life Bible Church at Gbagada, Lagos, last week was that society or its institutions do not need supermen, showy billionaires and extra large resources to excel or secure an entry in the record books. All what is required are ordinary men and women driven by uncommon passion to aim for extraordinary goals. No organization rises or transcends on the sheer labour or wealth of its so-called super-rich.

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Pastor Kumuyi Is Right: Christmas Is Idolatrous

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
The recent statement by the General Superintendent of the Deeper Christian Life Ministry, Pastor W.F. Kumuyi, that Christmas is idolatrous has attracted widespread reactions.  Pastor Kumuyi was quoted in the Punch newspaper of December 13, 2013, as saying: 
 
*Pastor Kumuyi
We don’t celebrate Christmas. It actually came from idolatrous background. That is why you don’t hear us sing what they call Christmas carol. Never! ... When you find anybody coming in, or any leader, trying to introduce the idolatry of mystery Babylon that they call Christmas, and you want to bring all the Christmas carol saying that is the day that Jesus was born, and you don’t find that in the Acts of the Apostles or in the early church, then you don’t find that in the church either.  If you don’t know that before, now you know.”

 These are indeed weighty, unsettling words on a widely cherished festival. The reactions they immediately stirred were, therefore, to be expected. However, it was a very courageous assertion by Pastor Kumuyi and I would love to pitch my tent with those who insist that he is right, and that those attacking him are either doing so out of sheer lack of adequate information on the matter or, worse, unwittingly betraying their reluctance to let go of a cherished idol.

Now, despite the din, pomp and fanfare that usually mark this annual December 25 ceremony called Christmas, I have for many years now excused myself from everything that has to do with it. In my household it is just like any other day. And the reason is quite simple: I do not believe that December 25 is the birthday of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. In fact, what my research has shown is that, just like Easter before it, Christmas is rooted in hideous idolatrous observances and, in fact, predates the coming of Christ to this world in human form.

One of the vehement opposers of Pastor Kumuyi’s statement (as contained in the same Punch report) is the Director of Social Communications, Catholic Archdiocese of Lagos, Monsignor Gabriel Osu.

Hear him: “I don’t know what he means by saying the practice of celebrating Christmas is wrong. Is he saying that Christ wasn’t born? That he didn’t come to die for us? Does he not celebrate his own birthday …The celebration of Christmas didn’t just start today; it is too public an event for anyone to say that they don’t know what it is about… Christ came to redeem us from our lost state; this was actualised through his coming, his birth; that is why we celebrate Christmas… Kumuyi is just saying what he feels; he is not making any doctrinal statement.”

Quite a passionate reply, one would say. However, as a Roman Catholic cleric, Monsignor Osu may wish to look at the 1911 edition of the Catholic Encyclopaedia which states that “Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the church … the first evidence of the feast is from Egypt.” 

Also, even before the New Testament Church was fully formed, Easter was mentioned in the Bible as feast already in existence, showing that it was not ordained by the Apostles of Jesus Christ to mark His death and resurrection (Acts 12: 4).

No doubt, what we today know as Christmas is one of the prominent, irremediably polluted children that emerged from the very ungodly marriage between a distorted and depreciated form of Christianity and (Roman) paganism which crept into the Church many years after the death of the Apostles of Christ and the genuine Christians that took over from them. 

Although the pagan worship of the SUN god had gained prominence in several parts of the world long before the birth of Christ, and had permeated and gained wide acceptance in imperial Rome, it was Emperor Constantine’s Edict in 321 AD which ordered the unification of the mostly apostate Christians and the pagans of that period in the clearly abominable observance of the “the venerable day of the Sun” that increased the influence of Christmas celebration in the Roman church. What has, however, become clear, judging from historical accounts, is that Emperor Constantine may not have truly become a Christian.