NIGERIANS NEED MORE ACTION NOW THAN 30 DAYS FASTING | Stephen Wise

Few days ago I saw a newspaper headline “RCCG general overseer, pastor Enoch Adeboye has directed all members of his church to commence a 30 days fasting and prayer for Nigeria”. This kept me thinking so many things on how the children of Mama African have derailed in things of Christianity.

I am completely a Christian with a sound and renowned Christian teaching and formation. Permit me to say that at this point in time that Nigerian are facing great social political upheaval, we need more actions than 30 days fasting. Can someone please help me to call all these pastors attention to the theological and philosophical idea of Faith and Reasoning (Fidel et ratio)?

Faith and reason are both sources of authority upon which beliefs can rest. Reason generally is understood as the principles for a methodological inquiry, whether intellectual, moral, aesthetic, or religious. Thus is it not simply the rules of logical inference or the embodied wisdom of a tradition or authority. Some kind of algorithmic demonstrability is ordinarily presupposed. Once demonstrated, a proposition or claim is ordinarily understood to be justified as true or authoritative. Faith, on the other hand, involves a stance toward some claim that is not, at least presently, demonstrable by reason.

So at this time in Nigeria, pastors please kindly start disposing the mind of your congregation on the importance of reasoning. We have prayed, and God has answered our prayers; perhaps, the protest is an answered prayer by God. Because Falz & co applied reasoning which came from God. So it is time to apply reasoning which will manifest into action. Teach us to apply methods, inquiries, intellectual rumblings, let us light up our moral lives and solve our problems in Nigerian instead of fasting for 30 days. Obviously, a hungry and angry man cannot communicate properly to God. A hopeless man cannot focus or concentrate in prayer.

The Liberation Theologians got their inspiration from the plight of the poverty and injustice of peoples in the Third World, particularly Latin American. Drawing from Marx’s distinction between theory and practice, Gustavo Gutiérrez, in A Theology of Liberation, argues that theology is critical reflection on the socio-cultural situation in which belief takes place. Ultimately theology is reactive: it does not produce pastoral practice, but it finds the Spirit either present or absent in current practices. The reflection begins by examining the faith of a people is expressed through their acts of charity: their life, preaching, and historical commitment of the Church. The reflection also draws from the totality of human history.

St. Augustine said, to believe is “to think with assent” (credere est assensione cogitare). It is an act of the intellect determined not by the reason, but by the will.

As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without work is dead, James 2:26 KJV. The Nigerian people have prayed to God, have been praying and will continue be praying to God almighty; but praying without action is foolishness. Dear ‘men of God’ teach us actions. Challenge the govt. Join the protest to protect the rights of the common man. Telling people to pray and fast only without telling them to take necessary action for liberation is wickedness. Teach us the ideal, take the lead to action. Jesus Christ of Nazareth was also a man of action. To sleep and pray in the church for 30 days will not save Nigeria and Nigerian, rather it is foolishness in from the pit of hell. God can never descend from heaven to act for use; for He has given us the gift which is the ability to reason and act.

I will welcome every critic here.