Archbishop Okok, Anglican Primate of Nigeria

Archbishop Okoh, Primate of Nigeria, who replaced Peter Akinola. Taken from
http://dulverton-ramblings.blogspot.com/2009/10/muslim-take-over.html

Christ Church Beckenham, 5 July 2009: 6.30pm.

Archbishop Nicholas Okoh
“Contend for the faith”
Jude 3

I have been introduced and, for those who came after the introduction, my name is Nicholas. I come from Nigeria to attend the launch, the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, to represent my Primate, Archbishop Peter Akinola, and I was asked to come here to share your fellowship so I am very pleased to be here and I thank you, Mr Vicar, for accepting me. Thank you very much.

I want to talk about ‘Contend for the Faith’. Before I say something, please, if you don’t understand my English, I will be available at the end of the service to explain what you don’t understand or what is not clear to you. I will try as much as possible to be slow so that you can understand me, but it will not be the same because my English is Nigerian English - we have our own English and your own is English English!

‘Contend for the Faith’. It is amazing how some of the earliest problems of the church, particularly about ideas of God, reappear in our time, and cause a lot of problems. If you check, there is hardly any new idea about God that has not actually existed before, in the form of one heresy or the other, or one false teaching or the other, and doubted [?] by the church leaders. You find that today such ideas may appear and claim a lot of following, but in actual fact it is not new. Somebody called Jude, who wrote his paper towards the end of the first century, dared to take the particular heresy that was eating the life of the church up at that time, so heretical teachings are ever present dangers in the church that everyone must watch out for because what you believe has a lot to do with the way you live. It is very, very important.

What was the trouble in the time of Jude? Jude was defending the apostolic faith against the strange teachings of the early Gnostics who misinterpreted the Grace of God to mean licence of thought and licence of conduct. In other words, you are free to think as you like, you are free to live as you like, it doesn’t really matter - what is important is the Grace of God, and so they abused grace trying to promote it. Jude used the word ‘only God’, ‘only Lord’ to exclude all possibilities of augmenting God as the Gnostics were trying to do. They want to augment God and to devalue the position of Jesus Christ. These false teachers were immoral in their lives and heretical in their teachings. In their immorality they lived like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. In their teaching they denied the uniqueness of our Lord and Master, and of the only God. The false teachers taught that the God of creation was different from the God of redemption, and so drove a wedge between the Old Testament and the New Testament by creating two gods of their own imaginations. They regarded Jesus as one of the emanations from God that spanned the distance between God and human beings or matter, and so they regarded Jesus not as the Lord or the unique Christ but as one, maybe very close to God, maybe the closest, but certainly not God. They identified the true God with the New Testament, and the god they had no regard for, whom they regarded as secondary, ignorant and hostile [?] with the God of the Old Testament. Jude warned people to beware of heretics and he warned his own people, particularly those within his own influence. He said: remember the Israelites did not escape the punishment of God. They were to inherit the land of Canaan, but because of disobedience and unbelief, most of those people who left Egypt did not inherit the land. So beware of this type of life.

And then they talk about something we really cannot understand very well. Angels who lost [?] and corrupted mortal women, and consequently they were imprisoned in the abyss of darkness awaiting the judgement of God. In other words, Jude said whichever way you go, disobedience and unbelief will lead to God’s judgement, no matter how it delays. And they made recommendations for those who hold the true belief, what should they do, how should they defend the faith. It’s said, they should build their faith on the foundation of the Holy Faith of the church, not going to the left and not going to the right. They should stay within the orthodox Faith. They did not use the word ‘orthodox’. They say they should learn to pray in the power of the Holy Spirit so that this Holy Spirit can guide them in preserving the faith. Again they said they should remember the conditions of the Covenant into which the love of God has called them. It is a Covenant that they entered into, the Covenant that was initiated by God and given to them to bring about that family relationship between them and God. And then again, it said they should wait for the mercy of Jesus Christ (this is in verses 20 & 21).

Now, Christian people, in the context of the Anglican Communion, and particularly your own context, the problem is no longer contending with different teachings of other denominations. We are not contending with the Roman Catholics, we are not contending with the Presbyterians, we are not contending with the Baptists, we are not even contending with the Pentecostals (quote and unquote!) but we have problems within us that are internal. We are contending with aggressive secularism, a society that is marching mindlessly towards the precipice, being led by the ideology of secularism and has refused to recognise any transcendental reference. So secularism has kind of injected timidity into everyone so that when they talk about Jesus Christ they say ‘you don’t talk about that type of thing in public’, ‘you don’t talk that type of thing in this place’, ‘you don’t talk about that in the public place like that - no, no, no. You don’t talk that sort of thing in politics.’ But who is Jesus? They are talking about the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and they say we should [?] keep him in his place - don’t offend people. That is the world we live in today in your own context It is much more severe here than in my country. Remember the world is a village now. Whatever is happening here is happening all over the world. This doctrine of secularism is eating people here, it is eating people everywhere. It is not only in your country, it is everywhere. It is blowing down every structure and we are accepting it by refusing to do something about it. And that is why I feel very happy when my Primate asked me to come here; I was very happy to come, that at last somebody is standing up to say: “Excuse me, I have something to say. I have a contrary view.” And unless the Christians in any society say publicly and strongly that they have a contrary view the world will assimilate them and crush them.

So the second one is the strong and steady Islamic advance. In recent times I have had the privilege of travelling in our continent, Africa, a lot and I see, whether you talk about Uganda, you talk about Kenya, you talk about Rwanda, you talk about east, west, central, everywhere, there is a determined Islamic attack. They spend a lot of money, even in places where they don’t have congregations, they don’t have people there, they build mosques, they build hospitals, they build anything, with the hope that they will come, and you know what? They come to Africans and say “Christianity is asking you to marry only one wife. We will give you four!” “We will give you four - don’t listen to them. If it is all about the money to look after the family, we will support you.” So evangelism by mass production. That is the type of evangelism they are doing: mass production, so if you have four wives, four children, sixteen children, very soon you will be a village. Now for us it looks as if this [?] is child’s play. But let me tell you that Africa is surrounded already. Africa is really under Islamic domination, and I think in your own context, particularly in the City of London, you know this story better than anyone else.

So when you have these types of attacks, how do you defend the faith? Are you going to fold your arms and say “We’re Christians, we don’t offend people! You see we are very holy.” How do you live out your life? Mark you, when it eventually happens you will lose your power of speech. You will lose your authority to speak because you will not be allowed to do so. So if you must do something, it is now. Then some of us within the church, some bishops, have denied the uniqueness and the universal lordship of Jesus Christ. This is no longer news, and is part of what is tearing our communion into shreds. So enemy without; enemy within. Nobody is an enemy, but I’m just using the language. Trouble without; trouble within. And then there’s the issue of our attitude to evangelism. You don’t bother so much. People who go to a seminary - we are only taught how to manage church. You go to a seminary you are taught how to look after a congregation, but you are not taught how to create a congregation. You are not taught how to create a congregation. In my own place you see the Pentecostals, you come to this place, there’s no church - give them six months, they will have a flourishing congregation. But the Anglican is very complacent, comes from the seminary, goes to one congregation already made - ready-made - and he is there, morning and evening and [?] Sundays. The time has come to rethink. So I have been thinking! What do we do to contend for the faith? We have journalists, yes, they can write; they are contending for the faith. Some of them have written in today’s newspapers - I’ve seen some of them about this Conference and so forth. Yes, good! Then some of those who do theology can write, yes, but in the nature of things reading a theological article is a tedious thing! - it is not what everybody jumps to read. So what do we do? I pray, I fully considered, that there is something we can do. A Christian is a believer in Jesus Christ. In our own Anglican setting, somebody who is baptised, confirmed and has the gift of the Holy Spirit, and there I say ‘Yes, this is the point - the gift of the Holy Spirit - we have the gift of the Holy Spirit!’ The Christian has the gift of the Holy Spirit and the cardinal gift; we are told in Romans 5.5 that God has given us his Spirit and shed his love abroad in our hearts. You go to 1 Corinthians 13: the whole chapter is devoted to the gift of love through the Holy Spirit, that the cardinal gift of the Holy Spirit is love - they talk about others but they give a whole chapter to that, and then in Galatians - you remember - chapter 5.22, the fruit of the Spirit is love from the Spirit. Then again 2 Timothy 1:7 says you have not been given the Spirit of timidity or fear, but of power and so on and so forth. Now my point is, if we have received all these things, the purpose of receiving the Spirit according to Acts 1:8 is for the ministry of witness, so I’m going to draw your attention to four things, four pragmatic ways of applying love in order to contend for the faith.

The first one is the love that speaks - the love that speaks - bearing witness Acts 1:8. We have come to devalue preaching in our churches - we have come to devalue it. But cast your mind back, take a book, read and see what preaching did to the church in those days: it brought the message of God urgently to people. So why is it that today we have devalued preaching? If we have received the gift of the Holy Spirit for ministry, why have we devalued preaching the Word? Preach the Word, in season and out of season. So I want to remind you that contending for the faith - we cannot contend for the faith by killing preaching, but preaching the Word. In other words, don’t stay in your trench, advance, move forward, get on new ground. By spreading the word, we are neutralising the power of the enemy, and so contending for the faith. I believe that if you read Romans 10 from verse 14, it says that they cannot hear unless they have a preacher and they cannot preach unless they are sent, and so on and so forth. So we need people to go out and speak, go and preach, go and teach. We must be busy, teaching our faith, preaching our faith. Don’t be ashamed. The man has no need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Go on speak it, don’t be ashamed of the Gospel, because if we are ashamed we will be bound hand and foot and be cast out, even from your own land.

The first one is the love that speaks: you will remember John Wesley, you will remember and listened to, in recent history, Billy Graham, and others. They went out to preach, and people heard the Word of God and Life. Why not be the prophet of our generation and let the Word of God come afresh through you? Do not think you are not anointed? - you are anointed. You are an anointed person. You don’t know the gift God has deposited in your life until you have the courage to use it, unless you go out. When it says that forces of different powers [?], will bow down for you, as it says in Scripture. They are not in the church, or in the party, or in the jolly good fellow or friend’s house! Until you challenge the forces, entrenched forces, of evil, then you will know that when you speak there is power in the Word.

Secondly, love that issues from exemplary life. Romans 12:2 says be transformed - be transformed. Love that issues from exemplary life. In other words, like Nicodemus was told, “you need to be born anew”. Our Lord described the Christian as salt and light of the world, and St Paul uses the word ‘Christ’s ambassadors’. These are images that bring to us clearly the type of people we are supposed to be. If we are to be transformed, we believe in transformation. And so people are teaching us that you should not be transformed, you should accept that things as they are and so destroy the power of God, having the form of religion but denying the power thereof. If you take away transformation, so what are we preaching? Why do we gather every Sunday, why do we gather wherever we gather? Somebody said don’t bother people to be transformed or to be changed. Why do you come to worship, what is the meaning of sanctification, if there is to be no transformation, no change? What we are doing in my country, to God Almighty be the glory: the Church Missionary Society people who came to us, brought transformation. People were killing twins. But it is not done anymore. People were being buried with kings and monarchs. It is not done, again, and so many other things like that. So why should somebody come in this age and say: “If you see somebody don’t ask him to change, don’t ask him to be transformed, leave him as he is, it is the culture, this and that”. Reject that teaching. Be transformed, so that you will live the type of life that can contend for the faith. For instance, in Africa we have the problem of polygamy and we are tackling it. Of course, we are aware that we have corruption, and now corruption is everywhere. I heard that somebody was jailed for fifty years. I pity the man. That means that even after he has died he will remain be in prison! So God have mercy. Now my point is that we have polygamy; some people in your society have serial monogamy. Then you can’t ask people to remain like that in the light of the Gospel. All of us are summoned by the power of God’s word to change. If we change, then we are keeping the original faith, the catholic faith, because what we are doing by permitting all these aberrations is that they distort the faith.

The third one I want to talk about is love that is concerned and serves. Love that is concerned and serves - call it compassion - or mission. Matthew 25 and so-on. If I have love and you want to show the faith in you, in the word of James, it must issue out in our action. So the Christians in the UK, they know that they probably devalue the importance of their premier position in the House of God, in the Christian Church, particularly the Anglican Communion. You don’t know that what happens in the UK is reference material, so if you do things in your own way and don’t care, you destroy the mission effort outside, because they will say it happened in the UK, and the missionaries who came to us came from the UK, so if they have accepted it there it is all right everywhere - it is all right everywhere. You see that is why you must not accept that it is all right when it is not all right. Us missionaries and people who want to show that our God is alive, you must reach out to Christians beyond the United Kingdom, beyond Britain, you must reach out. You must be interested in what is happening in Africa, Latin America, in Asia; you must be interested. Don’t be satisfied and say “Oh it is OK here: we can pay our bills, we can do all these things, if we have enough we can send one person to so and so” Show more interest in what is happening. If you watch right now this money I am telling you that Islam is spending in Uganda and in other places, it is money from oil from the Arab World. They have leaders. Who is the leader in the Christian world? There is no leader. All the leaders have abdicated their troops and so any army without a commander is very easy to [?]]. It is very easy to [?] an army without a leader. In Libya, Saudi Arabia, Iran all the oil money, they are flowing in Africa through their companies, through their businesses but with the targets. So what are you doing to defend the faith that you have inherited? This faith built this country. This faith built Great Britain. Why should the children not pursue it with vigour? So I challenge you to look at that again, the work of mission beyond your shores and that’s why I like what they are talking about in the FCA - global mission, not only UK but in other parts of the world because you are a leader, a leader.

And the last point I have to make is the love that unites, the love that unites. The love that makes unity possible and workable - work-able. It is not only possible but work-able. On the Day of Pentecost, the preacher spoke different languages but there was no strife and the Scripture (that is John 13:35) says that by this shall all men know that you are my disciples if you have love one for another. How can we contend for the faith when we are not seeing anything that can work? The more we gather the more they laugh at us. They say, “take it easy, don’t worry, don’t push, they will not agree”. And as long as we don’t say anything, we don’t agree on anything, even in ministry, the enemy is at work. So I want to appeal to you brothers and sisters in the Lord that contending for the faith now should be through the ministry God has given us. Let us operate according to the gift of the Holy Spirit in us, working through the love of God. If I can understand you and walk with you, you can understand me and walk with me, then the Christian Army is a formidable army. It would be difficult for any group, any individual for that matter, to overpower the Christian faith. We may have difficulties - quite OK, that’s normal - but the point is we will not be brought down, we will not be disgraced and I want you to erase it from your mind, if you ever imagine or anybody ever imagines that secularism will lead us to a type of paradise or that ‘live as you like’ will take us to a type of paradise, this has social [?] traditions that will destroy people. So God has given us a way, the Way of Life, and if we follow him those who are attacking the faith will be falling by the wayside, the church will march on for the promise is there that the gates of Hell shall never prevail against us.

So I want to challenge you to contend for the faith as a preacher in your church. Let the Word of God be given a prominent place in your own life as a person; be reading. The collect says: ‘Read, learn, mark and inwardly digest’. Don’t be ashamed of the Word of God and then, apart from that, live it out, be transformed. The third one is share the ministry, mission, take part to challenge the entrenched processes, to improve the life of people, let them see God in a new way, and the final thing I said was that we must practice the love that unites and by this I mean that we need to walk together and be of one mind in our mission, preaching and teaching. By so doing we will be contending for the faith in a way that the enemy will not be able to succeed against us.

The Lord be with you.