Dark side of ministry: This controversial Abel Damina

By Paul Dada

The name, Abel Damina, is an anathema to many superstar preachers in Nigeria. The man who bears the name is the Senior Pastor of Power City International, Uyo, the Founder and President of Abel Damina Ministries and the Chief Executive Officer of Kingdom Life Network, a satellite TV channel. And he has used those platforms to ruffle many feathers among the prosperity Gospel preaching preachers.

Dr. Damina, a former proponent of the of the anti-Biblical albeit entrenched prosperity gospel ( also known as transactional gospel), some years back, started to  publicly rebut his own teachings on materialism.

Damina’s epiphany

In an address made to his congregation, Damina narrated how he abandoned the prosperity gospel he preached for 40 years.

He stated, “In this town I was the Baba of prosperity message. I preached prosperity to the point that I was lost in it. I was so carried away in the preaching of prosperity that I could collect money even from the devil. I preached deliverance to the point that I conducted deliverance from street to street, junction to junction in this city.”

But the cleric said he found his ministry void and empty as he realised that many of the things he taught were not practicable. He was fed up although he put up the façade of a man who was God’s oracle.

He said, “I thought my time on earth was up. In fact I told God my time was up. I began to reason to myself, is this how ministry is, just to raise money and preach how to make it. I preached all kinds of sermons that I knew were not practicable. I preached how to make it, pillars of prosperity. I knew some of the scriptures I was quoting were not well interpreted. I knew something was wrong somewhere. I did not know for instance that the scripture give and it shall be given to you pressed down shaken together has nothing to do with money. I was actually fed up.”

According to him, his story and perspective changed after he read books by Andrew Wommack, an American preacher. His words: “I thought I needed to do a retreat and get myself refreshed. So my wife and I travelled out. I took out two weeks to go and pray. But nothing happened. In the course of going to pray I stumbled on a bookshop and saw Andrew Wommack’s books. I bought all his books because I have heard so much about Andrew Wommack. I knew he commanded global respect but I never read his books and I did not have the patience to listen to his message.

“I came back from the trip and felt emptier. I preached and still felt a void. I knew I was lost. I had money, cars and all the good things of life but I was lost. I then travelled to Dubai again. In the plane I was not feeling sleepy so I took one of the books and read just eight pages and my eyes became open, the veil fell off. I began to find joy and fulfilment in Christ. I discovered that Christ is the missing link in my life. I came back and began to preach grace. I preached grace for 30 days. I preached the revelation of Jesus. I became fulfilled. I have found him.”

Damina’s opposers

Damina’s penchant for publicly taking on teachings in Nigerian mega churches, has drawn the ire and opprobrium of many of Pentecostal bigwigs and their followers. Pulpit top shots like Pastor  Enoch Adeboye the General Overseer of The Redeemed Christian Church of God,  Pastor Paul Enenche the Senior Pastor of Dunamis International Gospel Centre and David Ibiyeomie the Presiding Pastor are among the Nigerian Pentecostal clerics that have dressed down Damina for daring to denounce their teachings.

In a seeming reaction to Damina’s denunciation of Adeboye’s claim that he drank tea with God, the octogenarian preacher had warned people to stop listening to mad people on YouTube who wear three-piece suits. Adeboye also described as crazy those who listen to such people.

But Damina in a sarcastic response to Adeboye’s umbrage,  said it was fine to label a preacher like him mad. He said, “I cannot see the evil done to the gospel and not be mad”.

On his own part, Ibiyeomie was livid that Damina had been criticising notable preachers. He particularly said the controversial preacher was envious of Enenche who had grown to achieve better success than he (Damina) had done. He said, “There is a man of God who is heavily jealous of a boy under him. When I see him preach, I say this man has gone into bitterness. He has gone into heavy envy. Many of you don’t know. That man was at the top. But he sees small boys rise up.  So he thinks he can’t stand it. That is the biggest problem he has. He doesn’t understand love. Check all the men he is attacking. They are men at the top. Everybody rising is now a problem to him. People who know love don’t do that. He’s so envious of  men of God.”

Damina’s mindboggling heresies

While some Christian faithful have adorned Damina with flowers for speaking loud against what they believe to be egregious and fallacious doctrines and claims of strong Pentecostal pastors, not a few persons have expressed their disenchantment with his pandering to Bible revisionism.

While they acknowledge that he correctly rebuts the teachings of the likes of Adeboye, they rain knocks on him for dispensing his own errors with the most reckless abandon and an unprecedented devil-may-care attitude.

For example, Damina has claimed that God did not  tell Noah to build an ark contrary to the Biblical account  in  Genesis 6:13-22. He is known to have said that Jesus did not ascend to heaven but disappeared into believers contrary to what the Bible says. He says the angels who assured the disciples that Christ who ascended to heaven literally would return to the earth as recorded in Acts 1:11, are ignorant. Damina says  angels are actually still learning the truth from believers in Christ.

Damina has said there is no no hell fire contrary to the Christian orthodox belief. He says  hell is simply a place of outer darkness. He says God does not destroy  although the Bible is replete with records of God destroying people for their sins.

One of the most mindboggling remarks by Damina is his  prescription of  continuous watching of pornography in addition to listening to Bible teachings as a solution to addiction to pornography.

All of these and many more are why some have concluded that Damina has actually introduced another religion rather than Christianity.

They believe that true Christians must flee Damina’s teachings as they would a hurricane.