Johnson Suleman and his jaw-dropping, mindboggling anti-Christian rhetoric

By Paul Dada

Apostle Johnson Suleman, the big man at the Omega Fire Ministries International and one of Nigeria’s Pentecostal bigwigs, is in the news again for a wrong reason.

Many a Nigerian Christian faithful had not recovered from his recent dress down of  Paul the Apostle’s teachings when a video of  fire spiting Suleman surfaced, in which he vowed death through murder for any daredevil character who would have the temerity to  insult him in front of the gate of his church in Auchi.

In the now viral video, Suleman, who was addressing a congregation, said with brazen confidence: “If you want to die and you’ve been praying for death, but it hasn’t come, there’s a way to make it happen.

““I’ve had cult boys bring people to me and say, ‘This boy was insulting you, we beat him and told him to apologize.’ I asked them, ‘Who are you?’ They said, ‘You no go like who we be, but you don help us.’ Kindness.”

These utterances by this Nigeria’s pulpit superstar, have shocked both Christians and non-Christians. It has also earned him the derision that normally greets reckless utterances and  ignoble deeds that have ironically recently become characteristic of  not a few leaders of the Pentecostal variant of the Christendom in Nigeria.

From the Biblical perspective, the attitude of Suleman to insults and criticisms, made manifest through his utterances in that video, is one that the weakest Christian should eschew, let alone a Christian leader who is supposed to be a good example in words and deeds to those who look up to them.

What Suleman said would happen to his traducers is exactly the opposite of what Jesus Christ says His followers should not wish on their enemies.

Unequivocally, Jesus commands his disciples, as recorded in Matthew 5:44: ” But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.” And in the next verse, he gives the rationale for this instruction. He says it is a proof that his followers are genuine children of God who  “makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”

Jesus, Himself, described in Hebrews 12: 1 as the “author and finisher of our (the Christian faith) faith, showed a good example by praying to His Father while he was hanging on the cross to forgive the misdeed of those who had conspired to have Him crucified (Luke 23:24).

It is noteworthy that the disciples of Christ after His recorded ascension to heaven continued to preach and practise the forgiveness of their bitterest enemies.  Stephen the first Christian martyr in history, prayed for God to overlook the sin of  the vicious and mercy-loathing mob that pelted him with stones. Interestingly, Stephen said this prayer to God as life was ebbing away from him because of the stones being hurled at him by his angry assailants.

Paul, a frontline apostle, in his epistle to the Romans, urged Christians to be kind to their enemies and avoid taking vengeance on their enemies while emphasising the need for them to leave judgement to God. This instruction is found in Romans 12:19-21.

Therefore, it boggles the mind that Suleman who purportedly speaks for God would exude vindictiveness, an attitude considered sinful in Christianity.

It is also disturbing that Suleman gleefully expressed pleasure at cultists beating up his revilers. How do cultists become defenders and avengers of  a preacher who sees himself as a man of God?

How?

Paul Dada is Deputy Editor, P.M. News