Thoughts on the 21st Century Church

"The Church may be a whore, but she's my mother."

- Augustine

Source: Jide Odukoya Photography

In late 2011, I spent many weeks hidden away in my bedroom in an apartment in London, nursing the wounds inflicted on me by a "church" I had grown to love and had served the duration of my year at university. Thinking about it even now unearths unpleasant emotions, which I want to forget and keep buried.

I would say that the church is good at hurting those it is supposed to care for. Whether or not it intends to, I do not know, but it seems to do so very well because, of course, the church of Christ is made up of flawed people.

In mid 2013, I again found myself wondering about the future and the broken nature of the church today. I was in a car driving down to Ilorin with my parents when news broke that a woman was claiming to have had a long-term affair with an influential Nigerian pastor. My heart sank. I had attended this man's church during my service year; I had laughed and thought deeply about his insightful sermons. I was beyond shocked.

Today, I look around at the affluence "men" and "women" of God coat themselves in -- the social media followership, the materialism flaunted on Instagram and Facebook, the private jets, the exuberant church buildings, the bragging on pulpits about "once when I had dinner in Atlanta" or "when I was flown to minister in Sydney" -- and I feel so ashamed of where the church is headed.

I think about the man, Jesus, what he was like when he walked the earth; gentle, meek and mild, with no place to rest his head, nothing to call his own. Are we not supposed to be his disciples, following in his footsteps? I cannot align the simple gospel of Christ, whose sole purpose was to seek and save the lost, with the lives the spearheads of the church lead today. Is it the issue of misappropriation of church funds? Or the stories we hear of infidelity and point blank misbehaviour by people who should know better?

What years of disappointment in the church and of disenchantment has led me to is a lack of faith in these "microwave churches" of our time. I see billboards plastered along highways, and feel disgusted -- I see them simply as a means for a few people to enrich their pockets through the faith (or naivety?) of the masses.

The Church  may be a whore, but she is my mother; which is to mean that the church upsets me, but she also raised me. Uncle Wale and his Sunday School classes taught me about the magnitude and importance of worship -- his love for God seeping out of his pores. Aunty Anu and her down-to-earth examples of life as a wayward and rebellious teenager taught me that God will love and accept anybody. The fellowship, food, laughter and tears we shared together at the Bread of Life Fellowship in Muscat taught me that the love of God is real; He is near us, living in our hearts.

So I've not given up on the church. I get very angry and will continue to raise my voice against appalling practices and the thieving that goes on, but I will remember my early years in the church and will view her as the stained Bride of Christ; stained and soiled, yes, but still the Bride of the Lord and yet redeemable in His sight.

- Ibiene