Why Some African Christians Love their Scandalized Preachers

It baffles many people, both Christians, and skeptics alike. A “pastor” is in the news for having acted in a way that would normally have brought disgrace to them or their church. And most of the time, this pastor is male. 

It might be accusations of sexual escapades with many women in the church, they may have been accused of swindling some people of their monies, or of being verbally or physically abusive towards someone. They may even be accused of dabbling in occult/voodoo. But none of these accusations is ever really able to dissuade their church members from abandoning them. In fact, in most cases their church members will rally around these leaders, castigating anyone who dares to repeat the alleged offense of their leader. And 99% of the time, these leaders don’t even bother to apologize or take steps to rectify the wrong they’ve done. They simply go on leading their congregations and empires they have built, brushing off the allegations as if they never existed, even in cases where it has been proven that they actually did commit whatever they are accused of. I could give countless examples of each of these, from the beloved “men of God” that middle-to-upper-class Ghanaian Christians love, to the multitudes who target the “ordinary” lower-class in the populace. But that will digress from the goal of this article because I’m trying to diagnose the problem, not point at the culprits.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve met people who are skeptical of Christianity wondering if Christianity is just a religion for fools, as these skeptics wonder why these faithful cannot see that they are being hoodwinked. But alas what critics and baffled Christians do not understand is that these “pastors” fill a very important role in the worldview of what a critic might call a “fool”, and until one understands that worldview, there will be no end to the critic’s amazement. And don’t be deceived – it doesn’t matter whether this African worshipper has a Ph.D. or has no formal education. So far as they grew up in Africa, this is the worldview that is bequeathed to them. They may be living in UK, US, Germany, or Accra. In the diaspora, it usually takes the 2nd and 3rd generations before this worldview changes. In Ghana, one who questions this worldview is deemed an ignoramus, a spiritual baby, or worse – the devil himself. 

So, with the pleasantries out of the way, let’s delve into 4 of the underlying pillars of the typical African worldview that make false preachers thrive even when exposed.

A Strong Belief in The Gods

Yes, I meant gods, not God. And it doesn’t matter whether one grew up in a Christian/Muslim/traditional African or non-religious home. Because even when many Africans are talking about the God of the Bible, they actually have a god in their mind that is closer to the traditional African conceptions of God than they realize, something I explain here. Our language is saturated with mentions of god. We believe so much that the gods have our destiny in their hands and are capable of directing it as they please. Hence our “success” i.e. material wealth and health – is determined by how we are able to steer the attention of the gods in a direction favorable to us. How to attain this attention is the ever-enduring plight of the African religious person.

A Complex Relationship with The Extended Family

Even though there is a gradual reduction of the hold of the extended family on the average African, they still retain a very strong influence. Just take a look at the role they play in the typical rites of passage of most Africans, and you’ll see why. Extended families demand their pound of flesh when it comes to weddings, baby naming ceremonies, and funerals, and extricating oneself from its claws in such events is anathema. On an ideal day, this shouldn’t be a problem. However, there is the constant frustration (which continues to increase with each generation) that our extended families fail in supporting us in attaining “success”, but demand to be respected and cajoled when we need them, or easily demand resources from us as they wish. I used to think this was a modern complaint, but listening to the lyrics of the likes of Pat Thomas (Me Wo Akoma), Wulomei (Mebusuafuor) and a host of other popular highlife musicians of long ago expressing this frustration tells me that this is a very deep-seated frustration. While many upper-middle-class Christians in Ghana might be able to overcome this overreach by the extended family in their lives, it has a suffocating effect for the less well-endowed.

There Is an Enemy Under Every Stone.

It is hard enough trying to figure out the will of the gods so one can succeed while navigating the overreach of extended family. It is made worse by the belief that not everyone you meet in your day to day life means you well. Many Africans have a morbid fear of the “enemy”, which is typically someone who is supposedly close to you. Hence the famous Akan proverb “Aboa bi be kawoa, na efri wontoma mu” – to wit the animal that bites must already be in your cloth/dress.  

African movies have contributed in no small way to magnifying this fear, with all sorts of dubious special effects applied to show how close “friends” plot wickedness via the use of “black magic” against a person’s success, mostly out of envy.

Now, these enemies may not be found just amongst friends and colleagues at work, in the marketplace, in one’s neighborhood, or even in the church. The extended family is a veritable source of enmity, as the constant attendances to weddings, naming ceremonies, and funerals mean that some family members get exposed to the growing “success” of other family members, and hence go about plotting a PhD – a “pull him down” operation. This means that many Ghanaians either find ways to avoid some family events or are extremely cautious to avoid drawing attention to themselves. Again, Dr Paa Bobo’s Ofie Mponi comes to the rescue.

This fear of the enemy has a very strong place not just in modern popular music from the likes of Shatta Wale to Stonebwoy, but it resonates strongly in that of supposedly Ghanaian “gospel” music. Exhibit A is Joyce Blessing. 

One Needs the Right Intermediary to Overcome

It is this unholy alliance of unreachable gods with their mysterious “destinies” for us, demanding external families and “the enemy from within” that forms the fertile ground for the fervent need for the religious intermediary. This intermediary is the one who can move the gods in the favor of the seeker so they can overcome and become “successful”. Knowing this deep-seated need that exists amongst Africans, many modern-day pastors now fill in the void, advertising themselves as the one with the right “technique” to get one’s needs met. Coupled with the fact that the general perception brought on by European colonialist Christianity was that to be “enlightened” (in Twi it’s called “eni bue”) was to no longer appeal to the “gods” of traditional religions but to look to the white man’s God, all one needs to do is to constantly find Bible verses to support one’s shenanigans, and voila, the “Christian pastor” is born.

And this, therefore, is the primary reason why many Ghanaian Christians follow their pastors. They have very little interest in studying the Bible deeply. They mostly neglect the formal study of theology, calling it “the wisdom of men”. In churches that support formal study, the theology studied is of very little actual use in discipling the church. It’s mostly a means to promotion in the church hierarchy. Some of the more elitist ones call themselves “Dr” or append “PhD” to their names to increase their appeal to their more educated membership but their PhDs are either honorary or do not come from any properly accredited institutions.

The more the ability of such intermediaries to perform “miracles” the better. A large percentage of time in church is devoted to testimonies, to create more trust in the preacher man’s spiritual credentials. It is not abnormal to hear language about the “pastor’s god”, suggesting that he is the one who is more in touch with the Biblical God, while other preachers may rather be invoking false gods. 

In addition, there is an inordinate amount of attention paid to prayer sessions which may or may not be led by them but are sanctioned by them, as this is taught as the primary means by which the religious African may get god to “alter their destiny” in a way that pleases the seeker. This explains the abundance of churches with “Prayer Ministries” in their names, with some calling themselves “Prayer Armies”. It is also why many churches have all sorts of special all-day prayer sessions open to anybody (whether church members or not) to come and pray for their own “breakthrough”. The names evoke their purpose – “Jericho Hour”, “Solution Center”, “Breakthrough Hour” etc. Basically, the religious intermediary’s goal is to create the “enabling environment” for you to petition God for your own needs. 

Scandal is of Little Consequence

As a result of the 4 pillars above, a scandal involving such men of God is really just a fly to be swatted away. The so-called “man of God” is needed because he is the means to overcome these three-pronged problems of unknown destiny, extended family overreach, and enemies within. The continuous “success” of such men of God keeps hope alive amongst congregants that they will have success someday. As a result, they cannot fathom why such a “man of God” being caught stealing money or abusing people has anything to do with their personal success. They are not following this “man of God” because he models Jesus for them to follow. They are members of his church because he claims to have the keys to unlock their hidden potential and to overcome the enemies of their progress. To such people, charisma is more important than character. The end justifies the means. They want personal results, and they’ll get it, so far as they are not the ones directly affected by the misbehavior of these “men of God”. It is only “haters” who refuse to see the genius of their “man of God”. 

The baffled critic needs to understand this about the typical African religionist – religion is a means to their personal ends. The personal moral choices of their chosen religious intermediary have precious little to do with those personal ends, unless they themselves are the victim. Once the religious intermediary can still show themselves to be in touch with the gods, the show must go on.

While many of us may feel frustrated with such preachers and their shenanigans, perhaps we should pay more attention to what kind of people our worldview produces, and how that fits perfectly with the kind of leaders we have, religious or not. After all, they say that oftentimes we deserve the kind of leaders we get.

Conclusion

One of the enduring legacies of Christianity on the African continent is that it simply moved the allegiance of many Africans from their traditional African gods to a god that looked more modern – the god of the white man. That god may be dressed in Roman Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal or Charismatic clothes, but nothing much changed about our expectations of that God. In this respect, popular African Christianity’s enduring failure is to disciple church members to realize that the god represented in Jesus Christ is a God who uses the right behavior – God’s own example shown us in Jesus the Messiah – to achieve his goals.

In this failure, perhaps we have forgotten the words of Jesus Christ himself.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and, in your name, perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” (Mt 7:21-23).