A few days ago, the internet went agog with the ascension to pulpit the son of the late Pastor Taiwo Odukoya. Jimmy Odukoya took over as senior pastor and now wears his father’s big “shoes”. Tongues have been wagging in critical appraisal of this elevation. Jimmy, an actor is wearing a huge dreadlocks with a body built like a bouncer and very visible tattoos on his biceps. A lot of people have called Jimmy’s grooming to question while some are defending same. The question also arises as to if Jimmy ought to have succeeded his father in a church built purportedly built with congregants’ tithes and contributions.
Jimmy’s dressing ideally should be good enough on the pulpit and on a good day, dressing is a choice. Tattoos are his right. Dreads are a choice and some dreads even come natural. Not everyone locks their hairs to grow artificial dreads. No one should castigate him therefore for wearing dreads. He is within is rights to make his choices. He has also come out to say in a BBC interview that he found approval for his looks and calling in the scriptures. Fair enough.
But why is the public up at virtual sword pointing over his appearance on the pulpit?
Let’s analyse this within the context of the Bible as Christian’s’ age-old irrefutable textbook.
The Bible says in 1 Timothy chapter 3 that “anyone that seeks the job of an (Church) Overseer or Bishop must be of good conduct, must be a husband of one wife, must be sound in mind, must be orderly, hospitable, qualified to teach, not a drunkard, not violent, but reasonable, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money”.
Now see this…The same bible in the same chapter also charges church overseers to come to table with fine testimonies and be moderate in habits.
We may now define what “moderate in habits” connote to us when broken down into semantics but certain things cannot be redefined by our own proposed benchmarks or manipulated by our own biases or extremely liberalised woke generation’s proclivities.
That same book of Timothy also states that a man of God must be seen by all to be above board and must be irreprehensible. The moment your appointment or appearance is controversial enough to stir public wagging of tongues, to the extent you must respond to media inquiries in defense of your chosen subject elements of branding, you have lost grip of a certain canonical positioning by public estimation of impeccable wholeness and has fallen into the sweeping swamp of scrutiny.
If I still recall, at the core of Jesus unambiguous, assigned responsibility handed to Christians is the work of evangelising — meaning going from city to city or neighbourhood to neighbourhood in preaching the word of God. If Jimmy steps out to preach and knocks the door of old order conservative folks or their children who frown at tattoos or dreads or other socially deviant adornments, will he “win their souls” for Christ? If he couldn’t, based on a discretion-lacking turnoff from him, how has he fulfilled his purpose as an evangelist? Except we’re arguing that his own brand of evangelism is only for a certain segment of social grouping.
Like I said earlier, whatever anyone chooses to wear is their choice by right. But the argument of self control and quest for circumspection here is why 1 Corinthians 10:23 admonished Christians that “all things are good or lawful, that is, morally legitimate and permissible, but not all things are beneficial or advantageous”. All things are lawful, but not all things are constructive…I’ll add, not all things that are rights as we insist upon upholds character or are practical for edifying purposes. There cannot, therefore, be hazy optics around your calling, your grooming or the solemnity that is required for your spiritual brand persona. Jesus denied himself, Jesus curtailed himself, Jesus frowned at anything that would invite poked fingers at his earthly ministry. Jesus was so uncompromised that he flogged money changers out of the synagogue. He yelled in anger against the turning of his father’s house into commercial merchandising arena. We won’t stretch this further today, otherwise, we may be opening another Pandora Box about what the churches of today have become where we merchandise anointing oil and where ostentatious living are our pastors’ “callings”.
Not to lose track on Jimmy Odukoya, all these arguments about “it is not your dressing that takes you to heaven” are our mere consolatory line of reasoning to appease our conscientious probing.
If the Bible is no longer the basis upon which this faith is founded, then please be free to do whatever you like. No one will accuse you of being immoderate. Then the idea of the Bible demanding that you be “moderate in habits” can as well be discarded.
However, if the Bible still remains the foundation upon which the Christian faith is built, then we cannot adjust the standards to suit our predilections. And we don’t have to be so difficult and unbending to superior logic on this. When God (according to Bible stories) was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah over sexual depravity and other forms of perversions, he was not guided by the liberalised articulations of the men of those days. He simply felt they were extremely permissive in objectionable conduct and wiped them out. If this story is true or not is a subject for another debate. But on the basis of the Bible that you all read, you believe this story, don’t you?
Now, Romans Chapter 15 Verse 4 says and I quote: “For all the things that were written beforehand were written for our instruction.
Verse 5 challenges us to have the “same mental attitude that Jesus Christ had”. What was Jesus Christ’s mental attitude? Modesty.
For emphasis, Timothy urges a man of God standing on the pulpit to “be irreprehensible”. It means he must be blameless and irreproachable. Let’s face this candidly; the fact that Jimmy is being dragged while some are standing up to defend him is indicative of reproach. To all of those who are rising in his defence with all kind of justifications, let’s be clear: You cannot defend a man of God. The fruit he bears, his posturing, body language and overall demeanour are the parameters by which he’s measured. Let’s stop deluding ourselves: God has a standard that cannot be bent for man. We cannot be in such a hurry to pursue self approbation that we forget we hold a crucial responsibility of being accountable to diverse observers watching us in the choices that we make. The church is not a club where a pastor appears with indulgent recklessness. And we cannot cede the church to worldly appeal so we can accommodate all persuasions and proclivities.
There is a reality we need to all face: When the world upheld a certain spartan standard from our parents and generations back, there were certain things you could not do and get away with. You are the child of neighborhood oversights and communities upbraiding. An eye is kept on you and you are raised for the good of the world. As the world became lax and acquiescent to ultra liberal culture of worship and raising of children, we are down today with the consequences ranging from rape, drug addiction, brazen business deals and manipulations, romance and financial scam, intractable divorce rates and eye popping murder incidences. There is a palpable fear and mental state of siege. The world has never been this traumatised even as the church has never stopped getting “modernised”.
While I agree cultures must evolve and generation shifts are a norm, a paradigm shift in worship culture that has failed to halt the slide to anarchy and global decimation is not worthy of applause. The church as currently reordered has not helped the world.
But why does the church keep growing in numbers? The answer may be traceable to this: Our people have been so pulverised by poverty that they keep seeking inebriating escapism in the motivational hypnotism of Bible-carrying church orators called pastors. Their followers rest their mental aspirations on the allure of prophetic contracts, Japa-Visas and posh employment. This explains why some church leaders sweet-tongue congregants into parting with their January incomes as “first fruit” of the year in hope for “blessings round the year” and a given people who “perish for lack of knowledge” run over themselves in droves to lay down the income from their sweats. Like they say on the streets, “E get why?”.
Poverty and the fear of poverty are both bastards. And there is nothing that defies human logic like a gullible embrace of oratorical tomfoolery.
With this cage of psychical stupor across Pentecostal confraternity therefore, the ascension of someone like Jimmy to “power” at the Fountain of Life Church hitherto pastored by his late Mom, then his late Dad and now him, is not an issue for me. If the members of the fold are fine with it, it is not our business to stir contention within the fold.
The issue here though is telling the world: “It is a church of God”, building its wealth possibly through the sweat of the people with tithes and contributions but translating succession planning into an obvious inheritance. The argument in defence of this does not add up.
