Some Clerics Have Become Disgrace to God – Kwara Methodist Bishop Laments

Methodist Bishop of Kwara Diocese, Right Reverend Simeon Oluwole Onaleke, has lamented that some clerics have become a disgrace to God as they have been compromised.

Speaking with Tribune, Onaleke, who noted that there was a time when clerics were put in the highest esteem because they could not be compromised and intimidated urged the church not to keep quiet.

“If there are such clerics, the church should condemn in clear terms such behaviours. Immoral acts should not be condoned. The other thing is that most of these clerics are not genuinely called. Many of them are there because of poverty; they want to make money. If you have 20 churches, I tell you, 10 or more have become business centres.

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He also noted that that the church has deviated from preaching repentance and salvation but materialism.

“We missed it as a church when many of the clerics preach materialism instead of repentance and salvation. Wealth is supposed to come naturally to a child of God when we are honest and serve God diligently.

“We are not called to preach materialism. The Bible says ‘seek ye first the kingdom of God and all other things shall be added on to you.’ But what do we see now? People devise various means of enriching themselves.

“We are beginning to hear that some clerics are aiding corruption. Some of them have become willing tools as politicians use them to siphon public money, knowing that the anti-graft agencies may not look in their direction because they are men of God.

“We hear some of them are involved in money laundering. If that’s true, the anti-graft agencies should investigate it and bring such clerics to book. We have to sanitise the system. I will not embrace any member of my church, a teacher, civil servant, who brings tithes in millions. The church must be careful; otherwise, it may lose its integrity and relevance. We must condemn evil, social vices in the society as well as be ready to preach righteousness.”

The cleric pointed that the church has a role to play in the society as the world is looking up to it to take a step as well as affect the society positively because people wanted a new Nigeria.

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“In the past, when there were problems in the world, the church would come into action and the church became an agent of change in the 18th and 19th century. The church has always been playing active roles. The quest for a new Nigeria will also begin with the church in our time.

“Our role is to continue to be the voice of God in order to continue to speak the mind of God and to promote the values that will give us a Nigeria of our dream, the values that will make people know their right from their wrong.

“We used to do this through moral instructions in our schools back then and I enjoyed that. On Mondays, there were moral instructions from the Christian side and Fridays were for Islamic instructions. From there, pupils, students knew the good and the bad. But these days, the government has said that there should not be moral instructions in our schools. And you ask where are the children learning from. They are not learning moral instructions from schools and parents are too busy to teach them from home.

‘So, our children are learning from social media and it is a known fact that 95 per cent of what they are exposed to on the internet are full of deceit and evil. Unfortunately, that is changing their belief system and lifestyle.”

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