IN DEFENCE OF TRUTH: RESPONSE TO PASTOR CHRIS OKOTIE By REV. FR. OGRAH, John Eseveta “After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my Christianity must be separated from myths or sentiments. FROM WHERE I STAND, I write to sincerely offer my candid opinion, standing on the Teaching of the Church and imbued with reasoned faith, as answer to the various questions that now occupy the minds of many- Catholics and Non-Catholics alike: Is not the Pope Christ’s greatest rival? Why does the Catholic Church worship Mary? What a hell is the Eucharist? And as Michael Mphiri puts it: A Catholic? You must be crazy! While I would want to say that many are yet to come to terms with what the Catholic Church is and its place in authentic Christian life, the majority of anti-Catholic agitations border on the appropriateness of words used in describing religious sentiments whether in the form of belief, heaven, hell, worship or final destruction. The pastor of the Household of God Church, Chris Okotie purportedly standing on the Bible, released the bullet that is yet to penetrate the hearts of many specifically because, the human conscience seeks for rational ground before it can settle for mere unbelief. The Pastor said vehemently: “All Catholics in the world will go to Hell”. How true is this? Here lies my case against him, not so much on his personality but very much on his seemingly convinced religious claims which include: 1. All Catholic will go to hell because the worship Satan and are led by an Anti-Christ Pope 2. The Catholic Church is a counterfeit church set up by Satan 3. That Catholic bow to idols and crucify Jesus every Sunday when they eat bread claiming they eat Jesus’ body 4. Catholics are not Christians and have never been after all they worship Mary No doubt, for those who have always held their sledge hammer ever-ready to see the final end of the Catholic Church, this was great news. But interestingly enough, this supposed good news of the twice divorced Pastor has since aroused threatening, conscious and curious debate about faith in a world adorned by the ugly civilization of sentiments, idolatry of self and death of the culture of truth - the three dangers that continue to threaten the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ in whichever denomination you find yourself. BUT WILL ALL CATHOLICS GO TO HELL? What is Hell? And what are the criteria for going to hell? I think this claim of the Pastor begs itself! As well know and as purported in various Christian sects, Hell is a place of damnation; where sorrow abounds and a total negation of heaven- the place of total peace! If this definition of hell is accepted by all, then the Catholic Church is right anyway. We condemn sin and define Hell as the destiny of the unrepentant sinful! So how can the Catholic Church who teaches the same universal notion of hell and rightly accepted by all (of course including Pastor Christ and his followers) be living a lie and threading the part of hell? We must never forget that this argument rests strongly on the natural law principle where for example the law of karma is the gospel of nature, while the consequence of faulty conscience is the law of morality. I think, we are all in the same boat! Hell cannot be the destiny of Catholics- a truth made crystal clear based on reason and the law of faith. BUT IS NOT THE POPE ANTI-CHRIST? To be anti-Christ is to be against Christ in the totality of one’s being whether in thought, purpose, aspirations and general outlook of life and the world. Interestingly, Pastor Chris Okotie based his argument on the fact that the Pope is led by Satan and for this reason he is against Christ! How is one led by Satan? Of course, when such person’s entire outlook is in support of the law of Satan-Evil! But what evil has the Pope done? If the argument rests on his personality and sin is looked upon as sin then all us are anti-Christ including pastor Chris Okotie for having entertained sin in our hearts. What does Jesus teach about divorce? (Mt. 19:2-6) Oh what a play of God! Again, the claim that the Pope is anti-Christ is unfounded! This is the analogy! To be anti-Christ is to be against Christ; to be against Christ is to be for the devil; to be for the devil is to be for evil; to be for evil is to be against good; and to be against good is to be against love and to be against love is to be for evil- for love is a total contradiction of the being of Satan but a clear affirmation of the Being of God (IJn. 4:6) But wait a minute! How come the Pastor did not make reference to the many acts of love expressed by the Pope and hailed by the world as a true expression of the sympathy of God? Or is it the case that to wash the feet of the imprisoned, to eat with the destitute, to fight for the oppressed, to heal wounds with smile, or to give warm embrace to those whose illness defies medicines and many more is to be antichrist? Are all these not practically demanded by the exercise of the gospel? Truly, acclaim such holy acts as antichrist is to be antichrist itself! And to ignore the kingdom ideal in such acts is also to be the anti-Christ? To prophesy political doom in the name of God that did not eventually happen and eventually portrayed God as a liar is also be the real authentic anti-Christ! Now who is the anti-Christ? BUT IS THE CATHOLIC CHURCH SETS UP BY SATAN? ARE CATHOLICS CHRISTIANS? How can Satan set up the Catholic Church and yet, still prefers to disguise himself as god? Will this not even be a contradiction to the nature of Satan who will openly declare himself as satan in church religion as Illuminati, church of satan and mammon without any fear of being ridiculed? Or if it is the Catholic Church that is afraid to declare itself as satanic why would that same satan who will prefer to declare his kingdom against the true Church not still come out and declare that forcefully that the Catholic Church belongs to him? To all this, I will say, like other churches, the Catholic Church is a Church with the spark of the divine and therefore Christ founded it on Peter as the Rock! Any doubt to this by any Christian sect is the freedom to venture into the Scripture and see for themselves where their own history belongs! That the Catholic Church does not condemn against church or sect is proof enough of the presence of Christ in it that came to call all men to love (Jn.13:35). In this way, hatred and antagonism belongs to the spirit of Satan. Therefore, if there is any sect that prefers to be offensive and destructive, that sect or church belongs to satan and not the Catholic Church- the Church of love! Of course, to the other part of the question, I say, Catholic are Christians in so far as they have within them the mind of Christ (Phil. 2:1-5). Interestingly, the mind of Christ is nothing other than the heart of love- for God so love the world (Jn.3:16). Therefore, any Christian sect with such outlook to one another is Christian. Of course, Pastor Chris must not forget the many acts of goodness that abound in other religions! Where will be their destiny? Are they not Christians in practice? And if yes, will heaven not be their goal? What then is the attitude and goal of a Christian if not all these? WHY DO CATHOLICS WORSHIP MARY OR IDOLS? This is a question often misconstrued in construction1 I think it should read: Do Catholics worship Mary? Unless it is answered this way, the other mode simply suggests that yes, Catholics worship Mary. Of course, not! Catholics don’t worship Mary or idol. One fact we must maintain here is this: the Catholic Church has never presented Mary as the vehicle to heaven rather, we teach that cult of Mary can serve as help to support the Christian journey to heaven. This is because Mary is presented as type of the Church. Don’t be confused here! The scripture always make use of similar analogy in driving home its point. E.g, the Kingdom of heaven is like a drag net! But is heaven a net? Of course not! I prefer to use the word ‘Help to heaven’ and not criteria for heaven. It is on this that Mary is not worshipped in the Church. To worship something is to recognise in that thing the finality of all of our quest. But in the Catholic Church, the finality of our aspirations rest sole on Jesus the son of God. If Jesus is our object of worship how come it is that we also worship Mary side-by-side? Will that not amount to contraction? How can there be two gods existing side-by-side? Simply put, we give to Mary in the Church the honour due to her and as rightly conferred on her by her son, Jesus Christ! It is a divine mandate and we must keep it- Son Behold your mother! What do we understand by being a mother? Each time I read posts on internet or social network like facebook, I always come across sentiments like ‘my mum is the best mum in the world’; ‘there is nothing like you mum’ and many others. Can we say that these praises given to our earthly mother who probably never visited facebook are mere sentiments? Of course not! And this is even irrespective of the state of our earthly mother! I think where the problem lies is on false understanding of the cult of Mary in the Church on the one hand and a misrepresentation of devotion of Mary by individual Catholic faithful. But even if this is the case, it must and should not be used as criteria for negating Mary’s place in our Church! Individual spirituality is individual spirituality! And we must always demarcate it from what the Church teaches! In fact, everyone is guilty at one point or the other of the extremity of personal religious sentiments! We have sometimes exaggerated of claims, our person and our aspirations! Very quickly, to the other part of the question, I say Catholics do not worship idols! We must always try to demarcate between the authentic meanings of ritual and false presentation of Idol! Idol as a term stands in sharp contradiction to the Christian religion everywhere. Anyone who worships idols stands in need of conversion! Probably maybe what the Pastor had in mind is images in the Church. Let us call a spade a spade! There is no religion the world over that does not have the presence of rituals; for ritual in its pure meaning does not mean evil. At home don’t we wash hand before we eat? Don’t we pray? Don’t we wave hands at friends? All these are rituals. So you see, humanity is founded on rituals! Hence, when the scripture gives condemnation to images, let us read very closely, it is always given with a particular context and always in reference to a particular cultural milieu with the view of solving certain identified abnormally! Again, was Adam not a man taken out of dust? Is he not image? How come Adam remains quiet until another image was brought out from him-Eve? And immediately mankind for the first time spoke! How come the law was written on a tablet? How come Israel always looks towards the mountain? Are these not images? How come the same image that killed the Israelites was also the source of their salvation? Why were they expected to look upon the image? Why not downward? Why will Jesus, despite being God prefers to die to on the cross, leaving with us and for us the appropriate image for contemplation? Whether we like it or not, we all carry within ourselves images of the object of intense love to us. The problem comes in with the values appropriated with them. And so, FROM WHERE I STAND, I think, we must try to free ourselves from all superficiality of purpose and reason as well as reflect on what it means to be a true Christian rather than keep fuelling the gun of our religious sentiments- in whichever case, the riddle of existence is always a preamble to Religion. GOD BLESS YOU ALL!!!
Posted on: Tue, 03 Dec 2013 20:31:06 +0000
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