Nearly a century ago, a woman of God broke the jinx of man-made limitation and of confinement to the proverbial “kitchen, living room and other room” by doing the unprecedented. She defied all odds – socio-cultural norms, religion and gender – to establish the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. As if that was not enough, she went ahead to build Angelus Temple, an architectural masterpiece in the heart of Los Angeles, the film industry capital of America, as the place of worship for the new church.
The woman, Aimee Semple McPherson, driven by nothing other than simple obedience to God, and with no connections or earthly inheritance, raised $250,000, the modern day equivalent of just over $3m according to a 2014 estimate, to build that edifice during the economic depression of 1920-1921. In today’s Nigeria, Aimee Semple McPherson would have had to raise about N1 billion to build that new phenomenon in church architecture.
Shocked by this contrasting demonstration of God’s supernatural abundance during an economic downturn, one critic accused Sister Aimee of putting the “cost” in “Pentecost”.
Journey Of Faith
Foursquare Gospel Church played a critical role in my journey of faith. Decades after the founding of the international ministry, the Foursquare movement came to Nigeria. In attendance at the inaugural meeting of Foursquare Gospel Church in Nigeria in October 1955 was a young man who would later become the General Superintendent of the church between 1970 and 1983, Dr. Samuel Odunaike of blessed memory.
Dr. Odunaike impacted me personally during my time at Foursquare while I was a student in the Faculty of Law at the University of Lagos between 1977 and 1980. I found his ability to straddle the ministry and the marketplace so inspiring that, when he became a presidential aspirant on the platform of the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP), I was in the finance committee of his campaign alongside Bro. Brown Mene, then of the Federal Mint, late Mr. Akin Denton, a successful Christian businessman, and the living legend, Dr. Christopher Kolade.
A World In Turmoil
The number 14 is significant in the Bible for generational landmarks. Scripture tells us in Matthew 1:17 (NKJV) that “all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, from David until the captivity in Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the captivity in Babylon until the Christ are fourteen generations.” It is significant that your 14th anniversary is taking place in 2016, an unusual year.
At the beginning of the year, in a State of the Nation broadcast from The Latter Rain Assembly, I unveiled to the nation the nature of the year as I had received from God. I said then that the year 2016 would be: “…a year of global upheavals, characterized by extreme uncertainties, intense political suspense, accelerated global terror and mounting economic pressure due to dwindling resources that will drive nations to the precipice and activate the rage of the poor”.
True to that prophecy, the year has indeed been one of socio-political and economic turmoil, so much so that if one were asked, “What time is it?”, one might respond with Charles Dickens’ timeless words in A Tale of Two Cities, saying: “It is the worst of times.” From Syria to Libya and from Pakistan to Turkey, the impact of global terror has been staggering. Seemingly impenetrable European fortresses like Belgium and Germany have become targets of terror attacks. France has almost become a terror hotspot.
Political upheavals have rocked countries like Brazil. The fate of the European Union is hanging in the balance with Brexit and other potential exits. Gross discontent with establishment structures is evident in mass support for political radicals, from Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in the United States, to Jeremy Corbyn in the United Kingdom.
Furthermore, family life is under threat with the spate of divorce and the dark advance of alternative sexual lifestyles such as gay culture, paedophilia and cohabitation. There is subtle or increasingly expressed denouncement of the divine and godly, rising persecution, unimaginable heinous hate crimes, conflict, internal displacements, an alarming increase in the number of refugees, and the saturation of the airwaves with negativity.
Economy In Recession
The economic landscape, the main focus of today’s address, is not immune from these perilous times. The economies of oil rich countries, including Canada, Ecuador, Venezuela, Algeria, Brazil, Iraq, Russia, Libya, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, are all in recession. It is no longer news that Nigeria is officially in a recession. Experts define a recession as a significant decline in activity across the economy, lasting longer than a few months.
According to Investopedia, a leading online source of investment related definitions: A recession is visible in industrial production, employment, real income and wholesale-retail trade. The technical indicator of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth as measured by a country’s gross domestic product (GDP). In my opening, I referred to Aimee Semple McPherson’s raising of funds for the building of Angelus Temple during a depression. Depression is a sustained form of recession. Again, according to Investopedia: Depression is a severe and prolonged downturn in economic activity.
In economics, a depression is commonly defined as an extreme recession that lasts two or more years. A depression is characterized by economic factors such as substantial increases in unemployment, a drop in available credit, diminishing output, bankruptcies and sovereign debt defaults, reduced trade and commerce, and sustained volatility in currency values. In times of depression, consumer confidence and investments decrease, causing the economy to shut down. I am once again reminded of a profound re-couching of the terms recession and depression I heard recently: Recession is when your neighbour loses his job and turns to you for help; depression is when you lose your job and have no one to turn to.
That seems to corroborate the technical position that Nigerian is in a recession as our leaders have been travelling the world in search of help in the form of loan deals, foreign direct investments and, more recently, advance payments to meet cash calls for joint venture operations.
Experts are inclined to attributing Nigeria’s recession to the drop in global oil prices since late 2014 as well as the reduction in production output due to renewed insurgency in the Niger Delta. However, it would be either short-sighted or simply irresponsible to blame our economic woes on external or emergent conditions rather than own up to our failure over the years to both manage the gains of eras of prosperity and diversify the economy.
Mismanaged Opportunity
As a nation, we cannot deny that God has been good to us. Global events that spelt “doom” for other nations translated to “boom” for Nigeria. For instance, the 1973 oil embargo by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) resulted in Nigeria’s first oil boom. This led to a steady GDP growth from about $10 billion in 1972 to about $90 billion in 1982. This was when, paraphrasing the words of one of our respected statesmen, Nigeria’s problem was not money but how to spend it.
With that posture, despite the aggressive industrialization, import substitution programme, and the broader national development plans of the government at that time, Nigeria ended up squandering an opportunity to diversify her economy and build sovereign wealth. Therefore, when the global recession of the early 1980s hit the nation, the gains of the boom years translated to doom and GDP fell to about $25 billion by 1989. However, with the Gulf War in 1990, oil prices rose and Nigeria’s GDP began to pick up once again. This rate of production was sustained for a few more years until 1996 when more intense exploration and drilling activities led to a sharp rise in production with GDP rising back to the $90 billion level towards the end of the decade.
Rather than fund the development of the nation and the wellbeing of the Nigerian people with this boom, the military government and their civilian collaborators ended up looting the gains of that short-lived era of prosperity. Furthermore, as a result of the invasion of Iraq by the United States in 2003, Nigeria was given another chance at wealth creation and management as the price of crude gradually rose. Laudably, the economic team of the Obasanjo-led administration, comprised of the likes of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo and Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, demonstrated astute management of resources despite the limitations of the political atmosphere.
By the end of that administration, the GDP growth occasioned by rising oil prices resulted in reserves of about $67 billion. Our external debt had also been severely reduced following the Paris Club agreement. However, not only were the macroeconomic gains of that era not translated to wealth creation and poverty reduction for the teeming population; the gains were also eventually lost as that administration left a legacy of ill-prepared succession.
Unfortunately for Nigeria, our biggest boom experience fell into the hands of an unprepared leadership. The rise in global demand, the political turmoil in the Gulf nations that came to be known as the Arab Spring, and the sanctions on Iran, pushed oil prices to unprecedented levels. The price of oil peaked at $145 per barrel around 2008 and, after a brief fall, rose and subsequently hovered around $100 until December 2014 when it began to crash.
Hence, with our revenue unaccounted for in the preceding boom era, and with reported massive lootings through oil subsidies and diverted defence budgets, the present government inherited a Nigerian economy in dire straits. In the past eighteen months, attempts at salvaging the economy have not yielded lasting results. A few months ago, the Minister of Finance admitted that Nigeria is officially in a recession. While the GDP shrunk by 0.36% as at the first quarter of 2016, production dipped by 2.06% as at the second quarter. Evidently, Nigeria’s recession is largely self-inflicted and could have been avoided.
The Church At A Crossroads
In all of these, the Nigerian Church showed an interesting trajectory. First, Archbishop Benson Idahosa, one of the Founding Fathers of PFN, the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, received the commission for his emphasis on prosperity in 1973, the same year Nigeria experienced her first boom. The boom also coincided with the era of Scripture Union revival on campuses. This was an indication that God desired to bless the Nigerian people. By the 1980s, when the boom became bust, the faith movement had gained traction as people learnt to trust God. By the next boom in the 90s, the prosperity message, fueled by the faith movement, had spread across the land but, unfortunately, had become smeared with greed among those who could not handle it.
Also, in those boom years of the 90s and at the turn of the century, while the Nigerian government was steeped in corruption, oppression and the mismanagement of resources, only few in the Nigerian church took the transition to the then emerging apostolic and prophetic movement to preach God’s kingdom, power and glory with the attendant grace to call the government to order. With the road to Nigeria’s recession and the complicity of the Nigerian Church in the downward spiral established, the pressing question before us today is: “What should the role of the Church be in a time of recession?”
Biblical Overview Of Recession
To address this, let us first consider a biblical view of the concept of recession and God’s relationship with His people in spite of economic challenges. We will then establish broad patterns of the contemporary Church’s response to recession, and, finally, God’s expectation of the Church’s unified response. First, a biblical overview of recession.
The terms, recession or depression, are not used in the Bible. However, the word “famine” may be substituted for these terms considering the fact that economic activity in Bible days revolved mainly around agriculture and food production. Scarcity of food was the most prominent indicator of a recession. That said, let me point out that my earlier reference to the opening words of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities was not an afterthought; it was deliberate as it highlights a principle that you will find operational throughout the Bible with respect to God’s perspective of famine.
You will find that famine is a crucible where God separates His covenant people from their environment. In the Old Testament, the people of Israel were God’s covenant people. God’s covenant with Israel was hinged on His covenant with Abraham when He called him in Genesis 12:1-3 (NKJV). The purpose of the call was to make Abraham, then Abram, a great nation: 1Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you. 2I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. 3I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Interestingly though, the first biblical mention of the word “famine” follows immediately after the call of God to Abraham. Abraham’s response was to go down to Egypt, a move that placed the call in danger with Hagar and Ishmael ultimately resulting from that action. Abraham eventually emerged from the famine and from his trials to become great and mighty, winning the respect and fear of his environment and growing sufficient stature to rebuke kings.
Isaac, the recipient of the covenant blessing, was about to follow the same path when famine hit the land, but God instructed him not to embark on that journey and prospered him in the land of his birth. Once again, God created a contrast between Isaac and his environment as He had done with his father Abraham. In the time of Jacob, Joseph went to Egypt through a divine arrangement that manifested as slavery until he became ruler over all Egypt. Destiny in disguise, if you like.
In Egypt, Joseph deployed the economic principles that Nigerian leaders failed over the years to harness; the economic wisdom even ants have – saving in the time of boom in order to remain buoyant in the time of bust. As the repository of the solutions Egypt needed at the time, Joseph made a difference in his environment and facilitated the creation of the contrasting city of Goshen when his family relocated to Egypt. In the days of Moses, that city of Goshen stood out in contrast to the plague-ridden land of Egypt and God’s people were once again immune. When God eventually brought Israel out of Egypt and taught them how to have structures, systems, institutions, laws and government, He made it clear to the nation that famine was not their heritage and was instead a natural consequence of disobedience and rebellion.
Rebellion And Recession
Thus, all through the Bible, we see that when the people of Israel aligned with God, they prospered, but when they rebelled, they suffered captivity, shortage and famine. We also find in the Bible that such rebellion that caused famine, or, as it were, recession or depression, did not only manifest as a direct result of disobedience to God but also as a result of covenant-breaking among men. As such, the three-year famine in the days of David was as a result of the killing of the Gibeonites by Saul in his demonstration of zeal without knowledge. This could only be rectified by dispensing justice in favour of the Gibeonites against the sons of Saul. See II Samuel 21:1-9; 12-14.
The Book of Job clearly portrays the contrast principle: Job 5:20 (NKJV) – In famine He shall redeem you from death, And in war from the power of the sword. Job 5:22 (NKJV) – You shall laugh at destruction and famine, And you shall not be afraid of the beasts of the earth. The difference is also very clear in Psalm 37:18 and 19 (NKJV) – 18 The Lord knows the days of the upright, And their inheritance shall be forever. 19 They shall not be ashamed in the evil time, And in the days of famine they shall be satisfied. In other words, God intended for the Church to be recession-proof. In the New Testament, Christ’s redemptive work ensured that the blessing of Abraham would come upon the Gentiles.
Building A Recession-proof Church
By this redemptive work, the Church has become the recipient of the mandate to exist in stark contrast to the environment. Yet, like the work of Joseph in Egypt, this call to contrast is not with a view to isolation, but to emphasize the principle of contact without contamination. It is a call to be part of that environment, to infiltrate it, to influence it, and, by God’s grace, infuse into it the culture of God’s Kingdom through discipleship.
Hence, Christ, unveiling our identity, said of the church: Mathew 5:13-16 (NKJV) – 13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavour, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. 14 “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”
In line with this identity, Christ’s mandate to us, partakers of the New Covenant, is to bring the Good News to every domain of human endeavour in every nation and in every generation. Good news to a nation in recession is economic recovery. In line with this, the mandate of the Church in a recession is to bail out nations! This is what God articulated in the Old Testament to the nation of Israel when He said in Deuteronomy 15:6 (NKJV): For the Lord your God will bless you just as He promised you; you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow; you shall reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over you.
However, a look at newspaper headlines reveals a spectrum of dispositions by the Church either in the lead up to or in the midst of a recession. From one end of the spectrum to another, I see seven types of churches (just as you find in the Book of Revelation). They are:
- The Scandalous Church: In climes where the law is effective, certain congregations have reportedly been enmeshed in financial scandals. In Nigeria, there have been reports of clergy men engaging in fraudulent activities. Arraignments by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) are becoming more common. From the pulpit to the pews, corruption stinks to the highest heavens, and God cannot be mocked.
The Scandalous Church, by accommodating the corrupt in the land and adopting corrupt practices, contributes to the state of decay and decline and is part of the problem. Before blaming the government, the Nigerian Church needs to seriously self-examine to find out whether or not it has actively contributed to the impoverishing our nation and the collapse of our economy.
- The Bankrupt Church: This refers to congregations that are forced to file bankruptcy during a recession. In America, for instance, apparently hit by the subprime mortgage crisis that led to the global financial crisis of 2008, some churches had large buildings that were worth less than the mortgages on those buildings, so they filed for bankruptcy when income could not meet their obligations.
- The Struggling Church: In Nigeria, there have been reports of church attendance, tithes and offerings shrinking as a result of the recession. In 2012, U.S. churches reportedly lost $1.2 billion in similar circumstances. Earlier on, the 2008 global depression reportedly took a toll on orthodox churches. In other instances, some churches have had to be bailed out through fundraising activities while others have had to lay off workers including clergy as a result of recession. Just as it happened in the days of Nehemiah in Nehemiah 13:4-12 (NKJV). 4 Now before this, Eliashib the priest, having authority over the storerooms of the house of our God, was allied with Tobiah. 5 And he had prepared for him a large room, where previously they had stored the grain offerings, the frankincense, the articles, the tithes of grain, the new wine and oil, which were commanded to be given to the Levites and singers and gatekeepers, and the offerings for the priests. 6 But during all this I was not in Jerusalem, for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I had returned to the king.
“Then after certain days I obtained leave from the king, 7 and I came to Jerusalem and discovered the evil that Eliashib had done for Tobiah, in preparing a room for him in the courts of the house of God. 8 And it grieved me bitterly; therefore I threw all the household goods of Tobiah out of the room. 9 Then I commanded them to cleanse the rooms; and I brought back into them the articles of the house of God, with the grain offering and the frankincense. 10 I also realized that the portions for the Levites had not been given them; for each of the Levites and the singers who did the work had gone back to his field. 11 So I contended with the rulers, and said, “Why is the house of God forsaken?” And I gathered them together and set them in their place. 12 Then all Judah brought the tithe of the grain and the new wine and the oil to the storehouse.
- The Passive Church: The Passive Church is not bothered about surviving difficult economic conditions as its main concern is not economic security – it is so heaven-focused and earthly irrelevant that it adapts to earthly inconsistencies by invoking heavenly realities. It readily provides an eschatological explanation for the economic crisis in the nation and sees it as a clarion call to Christians to get ready for the “rapture”!
- The Survivor/Humanitarian Church: At this level, churches are preoccupied with surviving harsh economic conditions and, to achieve survival, they develop creative revenue generation strategies to keep afloat. Some at this level, having met their own needs, transcend self-survival and use some of their resources to fund humanitarian projects that facilitate survival for the less privileged in their environment; they thus become survivor turned humanitarian churches.
Many congregations have tended to peak at this level of involvement. See Acts 11:27-30 (NKJV): 27 And in these days prophets came from Jerusalem to Antioch. 28 Then one of them, named Agabus, stood up and showed by the Spirit that there was going to be a great famine throughout all the world, which also happened in the days of Claudius Caesar. 29 Then the disciples, each according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea. 30 This they also did, and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul.
- The Investor Church: At this level, the church has a sufficient resource base to fund businesses and capital projects and to lift populations from poverty. Churches in this category go on to invest in the commanding heights of the economy; others comfortably fund massive building projects that have a ripple effect on society. While only relatively few churches have attained this peak, The Foursquare Gospel Church demonstrated a dimension of this at its inception with the audacious faith of its founder, Aimee Semple McPherson, when Hollywood began to court Angelus Temple because of its architectural ingenuity.
- The Governing Church: The Governing Church encapsulates the height of God’s expectation of the Mountain of the Lord’s House as articulated in the second chapter of Isaiah and the fourth chapter of Micah. At this level, the Church has the ability to bail out nations, influence public policy through God-inspired economic principles, and strategically position human resources in the order of the Josephs and the Daniels to implement these principles.
In Church history, while some economic influence has been wielded by the theories propounded by Church leaders from John Calvin to John Wesley and from Martin Luther the Reformer to Martin Luther King (Jr.), the Church is yet to rise to the height mandated to it by destiny to bail out nations and to lead them to God’s will. However, I am convinced that the recession currently being experienced in Nigeria is an opportunity for the Church.
Therefore, I declare to you that the Scripture is about to be fulfilled in your hearing as God is stirring up the Church to take responsibility for the destiny of Nigeria. That is why we are gathered here today to talk about the Church and economic recession. If the Church is also reeling from the impact of the recession, we must admit to ourselves that this is against the Scriptural pattern. God’s Word is timeless and does not become irrelevant whether it is 1900 or 2016.
Since we are called to be separated as light in the midst of darkness, and have an express commission to bail out nations, our posture must change from one of conformity to one of actively engaging and re-engineering the spiritual, social, economic and political landscapes of the nations of the world. The Church will not distinguish itself by imbibing the world’s standards or the world’s wisdom; it will distinguish itself by embracing the principle of contrast and explicitly adhering to God’s expectations as revealed in Scripture.
Then and only then can we prosper as God intended and, from the vantage point of our prosperity, interface with the world, as did Joseph in Egypt, to reveal Kingdom blueprints for order and increase. In closing, permit me to once again paraphrase Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Yes, it is the worst of times. Yet, it is the best of times. As far as I am concerned, it is the best of times for the manifestation of the sons of God. It is the best of times for God’s people to take responsibility for the destiny of the nation. It is the best of times to take the tenets of the faith beyond the four walls of the church building to the marketplace and the policy roundtable.
It is the best of times for Jesus the Saviour to save the economy of our nation through the manifestation of saviours from Zion. It is the best of times for the emergence of the true church that brings healing to a dying world. It is the best of times to enthrone the righteous in our land in preparation for Jesus, the Soon Coming King. In His Name, Nigeria will be saved, Nigeria will be changed and Nigeria will be great in our lifetime.
Being excerpts of an address by Pastor ‘Tunde Bakare on the occasion of the 14th anniversary celebration of Foursquare Gospel Church, Asokoro, at 1902, Yakubu Gowon Crescent, Asokoro, Abuja (Saturday, October 22, 2016).