As soon as I began drafting this piece, I remembered a book that I reviewed for a friend, George Nkwoji, in the year 2000, ‘The undotted scriptures’. My friend, now publisher of Nigerian Moment Newspaper, was then an elder in Olumba Olumba’s church, Brotherhood of the Cross and Star (BCS). Nkwoji said he left his Anglican Communion for Olumba’s church because the Anglican Church was “poorly lit”. Today, my friend is wiser. He has retraced his root back to his Anglican Communion. He must have discovered that no matter how “poorly lit” the Anglican Communion is, it cannot be compared with Olumba Olumba’s church.

But the problem is really not about a poorly lit church in Nigeria. Many churches in the country today are simply in total darkness and a few that have a semblance of light are indeed poorly so lit. And that is creating a lot of problems for the church.

Please let no one get me wrong. I am not going to blame the church authorities for this. Rather, I may wish to join issues on the basis of faith that we profess. Moreover, whatever I say also pertains to me as a Christian. But I am bothered because it appears the churches are too preoccupied with other existential matters at the detriment of the spiritual, hence, some of these measures that do not reflect what we are told always about certain events in the Bible concerning how to exercise our faith. We are always reminded on the pulpit how the wall of Jericho fell after the Israelites had shouted and danced round it. We are also always told about how God killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers overnight for the sake of His people. There are several such examples in the scripture.

What is missing today is that old-time religion and this is not about any particular sect or denomination. It is missing across board. Otherwise, why would vigil be cancelled just because of threats from some bandits and terrorists? Something must be wrong with our faith. Yes, the government, because it is a secular arrangement, can fret over such a threat and take panicky measures. Not the church. That should tell us that definitely, something is wrong somewhere.

Indeed, there must be something wrong with a nation with churches and mosques in virtually every nook and cranny, yet is about the headquarters of ritual killings and other heinous crimes in the world. There must be something wrong with a nation that has converted virtually all its erstwhile profitable  industries and commercial warehouses into churches, yet is so far from God. There must be something wrong with a nation that so much professes to love God but is more notorious for doing the biddings of the devil.

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What I can smell here is that our churches are simply unsuspecting and this is unfortunate. In the height of the second wave of the Coronavirus pandemic in December 2020, several states in the country banned vigil and other night programmes in churches and mosques as well as other places of worship. In fact, the Federal Government’s ban on nocturnal activities had effectively taken care of such activities; what several state governments did was merely to reinforce that ban. As a matter of fact, Sunday worship was suspended for some time as a result of the pandemic; the measures were later relaxed.

The point I am making is that while it was the governments, federal and states, that proscribed night worship back then, this time around, it is the churches themselves that suspended vigil. I find this scary, considering the fact that churches sing of the old-time religion and want God to continue to relate with Christians today as He used to in the years of the early Christians, yet, many Christians (including myself), are not ready to go through the rough mills and baptism of fire that Apostle Paul and others went through in the course of propagating the gospel.

The fact of the matter is that the town and the cassock have found a confluence of sorts, and both seem to be enjoying the romance. That is what you see in many churches today.

If we are suspending vigil for fear of terrorist or bandit attacks, did the June 5, 2022 massacre at St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State, happen in the night? Was it not in broad daylight that at least 40 worshippers were killed in the church and several others injured? So, what are we talking about? With the suspension of vigil, the impression we are giving is that if we have a repeat of the Owo daylight attacks in any other place, it is Christians themselves that would ask Christians to stay at home on Sundays, not the devil, or government.

I know that when it gets to that point, it would be ‘to your tents, oh Israel’. Most of the churches that would ignore such calls for boycott of Sunday services or vigil would do so not necessarily because of their love for their members or even for God but because of the bottom-line. In many churches today, it is work and eat. There is no food for lazy man or lazy pastors. So, if only for the church authorities to smile to the bank the day after service, many of them would not be favourably disposed to the idea of suspending Sunday services, no matter the extent of potential threats from any quarters, unless they are compelled by the government to shut their doors.

Again, this is not necessarily to blame the churches for suspending vigil. I do not think they have a choice in the circumstance. That is the level of faith they have planted in their members; again, including myself. And this is what I am holding them responsible for; their inability to imbue in their members the kind of faith that would make them shrug off terror threats and declaring, like Queen Esther, that “If I perish, I perish”. Where else is it more glorifying to perish if not in the house of God? Where is that old time religion? Where is that old time faith?

I have heard many people criticise our stinking rich pastors who go about with all manner of security escorts like our politicians, and yet would be telling their members that Psalms 23 and 91 are all they need for protection. None of them has satisfactorily answered that question.

Many of our church leaders celebrated Leah Sharibu when we all learnt that she became Boko Haram captive simply because she refused to renounce Jesus Christ. How many of our church leaders would not have denied Christ at the time Sharibu clung to him in spite of the looming danger, if only to enjoy their freedom, even if they would spend weeks fasting and praying for forgiveness thereafter?

The altars are cold because, just as it is in town, money is what is being worshipped in many churches today. There are many examples out there. But I would cite one which I may also have shrugged off but for the confirmation about a similar experience from, incidentally, a bishop in another denomination.

What happened was that the children of a female member of the particular church wanted to do final burial programme for their departed mother and they approached the church with the aim of doing the service there. The reverend in charge gave them a long list of requirements they were supposed to bring before the church would conduct the service. I don’t want to bore you with the details. But by the estimation, the expenses would conservatively be in the region of N250,000-N300,000. And these, according to the minister in charge, must be brought for inspection at least two hours to the commencement of the service! The woman’s children could not understand this because their late mother served the church meritoriously in her lifetime.  How come the church would forget this so soon, they wondered. They then decided on an alternative venue for the service. As I said before, I had thought this was an isolated case until I was told during a discussion with a bishop in another denomination, of a similar experience in the same denomination under reference. They did not even consider that the fellow is a fellow man of God.

So, when gold rusts, what would iron do? If the church cannot accommodate the poor, who then will take care of them? Is the church denomination in question not aware that some people do not even have N250,000 to splash on any ceremony? How can such people have a budget that size for the church alone?

But this is only a minuscule of the terrible things happening in some of our churches today. Where in the Bible did Jesus Christ levy people for anything before rendering any service or help? We see pictures of Yahoo-Yahoo boys in the social media splashing Naira rain on some pastors and shepherds who dance ecstatically to welcome the fortune that has arrived for them from the pit of hell. We hear pastors preach against corruption, yet they take its proceeds from politicians and other corrupt elements that some of them are on their payroll.

How, in the midst of all these can the church truly live to its billing as church? How can the church get the power to confront the enemy, not to talk of defeat it?

I have no issues with churches deciding on precautionary measures such as procuring body scanners, engaging adequate security men, good perimeter fencing, etc. in addition to being generally security conscious. After all, even the scripture enjoins us to watch and pray; not pray alone. But to ban vigil in the name of insecurity does not seem to me the right thing to do. Again, as I said earlier, there is no way the church can do otherwise in the circumstance because that is how far their faith can go.

But suspension of vigil can only be an interim measure. Otherwise, it is the church that would ultimately kill Christianity through its own lukewarm attitude or undue fears about the perceived enemy whose weapon is only carnal. What the church should do during the interregnum is for its leaders to be interceding for it so that when the country is safe again in its estimation for a return to vigil, it would be a return with a bang. A great revival, so to say. To sit back and do nothing is dangerous for the church and Christianity in the country.

The average Christian knows that most evil plans and works are concluded in the dead of night, even outside of the Christian realm. If you now place an embargo on vigil, how do you confront such challenges vigil-for-vigil? The fact is that many Christians cannot do vigil on their own in their respective homes. It won’t take long before they start yawning.