Church leaders as they claim are individuals that occupy position of power over their followers based on anointing of god. They combine transactional and transformational elements of leadership like charisma and being opinionated.
The fundamental philosophical question to ask is how do we know when and what are the criteria used by god for such anointing.
Why this individual (x) and not the other person (y).
Do we have to take it for granted that the purported anointing confers life long leadership of an organization like a church or an automatic dynastic generational transfer of the so called anointing from god.
The source of authority of a church leader derives from his/her ability to command and to enforce obedience either by referential points in the Bible as injunctions of command to followers who accept the leader as an anointed Man of God or the abundance charisma of the Man of God whose opinion is taken as God’s commandment to his/her followers in a relationship of delegated authority.
The implication of the above is that God is the supreme authority. Therefore, the primacy of God’s authority cannot be disputed by any Man of God in christianity.
However, how do we elucidate the intermediariness of Christ and The Holy Spirit in the anointing process of our Man of God since there are no empirically verifiable evidences or justifications to the claim of anointment by The Holy Spirit which is one of the explanations for sit tight mentality often observed in churches in respect of leadership tenure in Nigeria.
John Locke in his work: A Letter Concerning Toleration, advices us to desist from accepting wholesale reliance on emotional considerations in the defence of religion or religious doctrines. We must adopt rational explanation to religion and the basis for religious beliefs I wonder what religious zealots would make of the above given the narrative of anointment by Holy Spirit often propagated by pastorpreneurs.
This brings me to my encounter recently at the RCCG Camp in Mowe where I was opportuned to have a discussion with a Pastor from RCCG about this subject matter and he made it vividly known to me that most members do not believe in the idea of leadership for life but that the indoctrination machinery of the church is so overwhelming that members were being forced to accept the doctrine of divine inspiration and authority to justify leadership for life.
This is similar to the argument for Absolute Monarchism a despotic system of hereditary supreme authority based on the divine right of Kings, a repugnant theological justification of God’s mandate for Kings to rule forever that was propagated in Europe, Asia and in Africa.
I have read articles online concerning separation of church and state as the bedrock of John Locke’s argument which supports freedom for religious groups but those using this idea to justify the recent action of president @mbuhari sack of Obazee are not doing justice to our constitution because they are indirectly encouraging dictatorship of the theological community in concert with political society.
In my view Nigeria is a secular state and the government must not in any way be seen to be encouraging theological influences in governance processes.
Secularism defined by Longman Dictionary as “ A system of social organization that does not allow religion to influence the government or the belief that religion should not influence a government”.
Section 10 of the Nigerian Constitution provides:
The Government of the Federation or of a State shall not adopt any religion as State Religion.”
John Locke rejection of government interference or interest in Godly salvation or religious truth is legendary but his arguments in support of this position are not without fundamental philosophical problems which I am not in position to discuss fully here. While his idea is good for religious freedom in a democratic society but it can also create a dangerous development something I call ”POSTLEVIATHAN” a situation wherein (if/when) political community allows itself to be hijacked by theological community in the formulation of policies, rules, regulations and laws of a secular state and this is happening as we speak in Nigeria in contradiction to John Locke’s idea on this subject matter that religious bodies must maintain absolute distance by not interfering in political community affairs or the affairs of the state.
According to John Locke we need to make a vivid distinction between political society which he gave the description secular community and religious group which he described as theological community because failure to do so shall endangered the political legitimacy or authority to govern of a secular state leading us into theocracy.
My opinion is that president @mbuhari has violated the constitution of Nigeria for politico-theological expediency under pressure from RCCG Adeboye. Where is the legitimacy of this government if it fails to understand that politics must free itself from religious interference by an appeal to the strict observance of laid down regulations, rules and laws of the land at all times.
In my opinion whenever there is disagreement or conflict with rules, regulations and laws of political society that affects theological community as we have witnessed in Nigeria recently, secular community must assert its legitimacy since those rules, regulations and laws concerning religious groups are not made about religion but they are made based on social-political and economic argument in the interest of the Nation.
Church leaders and Political elites in Nigeria are in concert of dictatorship to impose the concept of divine authority on the populace which is to dictate to us that the right to rule directly derives from the will of God. Nigerians must resist the impending dictatorship and incestuous relationship between the church and the Nigerians government moving forward.
LONG LIVE SECULARISM, LONG LIVE THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA
OTUNBA ADE ILEMOBADE IS A PHILOSOPHER
TWITTER; PEARL2PRINCE
