In rural parts of the West African country, the number of young people participating in Sunday Mass has plummeted and continues to fall as many of them turn to paganism.

Father Vitalis Anaehobi serves in the region and said that most of the young people he has spoken to are grieved by "difficulties in life" such as poverty, unemployment, and "the failure by the Church to protect them" as attacks against Christians continue in the country where religious-based persecution is one of the highest in the world.

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"We have witnessed an explosion of new religious communities. Some with little or nothing in terms of spirituality and charism of consecrated life" Father Anthony Akinwale said.

Fr Akinwale (pictured) is Professor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Augustine University Ilara-Epe in Nigeria's Lagos State.

Speaking at the 2024 Plenary Assembly of the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, Fr Akinwale expressed grave concerns about the future of the Church.

According to Fr Akinwale, the proliferation of new religious orders in Nigeria poses a significant threat to the credibility of Catholicism in the country.

"Some of these ministries and ministers pretend to be Catholic … They even display statues of our Blessed on their websites or expose the Blessed Sacrament in a way that points to sacrilege" he said.

Furthermore, Father Akinwale accused leaders of these religious orders of perpetrating "fake prophecies and arranged miracles" to exploit a vulnerable populace.

The priest expressed concern that such practices push disillusioned believers towards alternative faiths.

"The populism of these ministries, the advertisement of un-authenticated miracles and prophecies, the opium these ministries administer on our people erode the credibility of Christianity, of Catholicism in particular, in our country," he said.

Pentecostalism encroaching

Pentecostalism in Nigeria is "a greater concern than the blessing of same-sex couples" Fr Akinwale said.

Referring to the controversy around Fiducia Supplicans, he suggested the same-sex blessing issue was a distraction from the deeper issues affecting the Church.

Fr Akinwale also warned that the encroachment of Pentecostal practices within the Catholic Church is diluting its identity and undermining its traditional teachings.

He predicted that an emerging critically minded population would repudiate Catholicism because "it is unable to see the difference between the Pentecostal pastor and a Catholic priest."

While Father Akinwale's remarks underscore the pressing issues facing the Catholic Church in Nigeria, not all share his concerns.

Father Stan Chu Ilo of DePaul University believes that dialogue and mutual learning between Pentecostalism and Catholicism can be beneficial for both traditions.

Fr Chu advocates for a broader perspective that acknowledges the strengths and weaknesses of each religious movement.

"Pentecostalism and Catholic Charismatic is a good thing for the Catholic Church and the churches of Africa" Fr Chu stated

"We can do better"

In response to the challenges outlined, Fr Akinwale proposed a reevaluation of seminary formation. He encouraged a deeper engagement with lay faithful and consecrated individuals within the Church.

He stressed the importance of upholding the Church's apostolic traditions while addressing contemporary realities.

"We are doing well. But we can do better" Akinwale said.

And doing better, the priest explained, means that the Church in Nigeria "must have the courage of martyrs of old in receiving, preserving and transmitting the Gospel that comes to us from the apostles."

Sources

CruxNow

BNN Breaking

CathNews New Zealand

In a sermon to churchgoers at Perth's Pentecostal Victory Life Centre, Morrison said in his experience it would be a mistake to trust governments.

"We trust in Him. We don't trust in governments. We don't trust in United Nations, thank goodness.

"We don't trust in all of these things, fine as they might be and as important as the role that they play. Believe me, I've worked in it and they are important.

"But as someone who's been in it, if you are putting your faith in those things, like I put my faith in the Lord, you are making a mistake. Firstly, they are fallible. I'm so glad we have a bigger hope."

Morrison - who is still an MP - was at the Pentecostal church at the invitation of Margaret Court, the controversial former tennis champion who runs it.

The service was to mark the church's 27th birthday. Former federal Liberal MP Vincent Connelly and former WA premier Richard Court (Court's brother-in-law) also attended.

In his 50-minute sermon. Scott spoke of the Coalition's election defeat.

"Do you believe that if you lose an election that God still loves you and has a plan for you? I do. Because I still believe in miracles."

Churchgoers applauded.

For the majority of the sermon, he talked about anxiety.

"All of this anxiousness, all of this anxiety ... all of this feeling about the bills that are pouring in, all of this feeling about the anxiety - and then the oil of God, the ointment of God, comes on this situation and releases you, if you will have it, and receive His gift.

"We cannot allow these anxieties to deny us that. That's not His plan. That's Satan's plan."

Anxiety and mental illness are different, he stressed.

Mental illness has "very real causal factors" such as biological issues which require professional clinical treatment, he said.

At the end of Morrison's address, Court told the congregation: "The Lord certainly has a life for [Morrison] after politics."

Liberal MPs including acting Opposition Leader Sussan Ley have declined to comment.

Source

• The Age

This was, after all, the same Brian Tamaki whose Destiny Church followers wanted to reclaim Christchurch "for Jesus" in the immediate aftermath of the 2019 terrorist attacks. And who blamed the Christchurch earthquakes on "gays, sinners and murderers".

Those familiar with the branch of modern Christianity known as Pentecostalism would not have been surprised at all. Tamaki's Destiny Church is part of the fastest-growing religious movement in the world, with an estimated 500 million adherents.

Today the average Pentecostal is as likely to be Nigerian, Fijian, Korean or Brazilian as they are to be British, American, Australian or Kiwi.

Aotearoa New Zealand is just one of many places Pentecostalism is flourishing. As well as the more prominent churches such as Destiny, City Impact, the Assemblies of God (AOG) and Elim, a host of smaller congregations exist throughout the country.

Here and elsewhere, Pentecostals' steadfast assertion that the raw power of the Holy Spirit will prevail over the principalities of darkness has run up against the cultural and environmental realities of the modern world.

A record of resistance

Nowhere is this more obvious than in their responses to COVID-19. As nation-states have rolled out public health measures, Pentecostals have seemed unwilling and unable to accept epidemiological explanations and strategies.

Tamaki's actions are the tip of an iceberg of global resistance. Pentecostals have been at the forefront of legal pushbacks against gathering restrictions and insisted only the second coming of Christ would force churches to close their doors.

They have proclaimed COVID cannot survive in the bodies of the faithful, declared a link between the virus and 5G mobile technology, and maintained the pandemic is God's yardstick for distinguishing his loyal servants from pretenders.

While these claims and interpretations can appear outlandish and dangerous, they are not entirely incomprehensible. Rather than view them as nonsense, it is more helpful to see them as a different kind of sense altogether.

Miracles and wonder

Specifically, Pentecostal values are a religious response to the pandemic and a spiritualisation and demonisation of the virus. This goes directly to the Pentecostal obsession with the Holy Spirit.

Pentecostalism is defined, above all, by its intense experientialism. More than any other Christian variant, it is concerned with saturating human existence in otherworldly power.

The Pentecostal vocabulary is not one of ritual, liturgy or structure, but of ecstasy, surprise, miracles and wonder.

From this standpoint, any stricture, rule or earthly imposition that impedes a life in the Spirit is, by default, suspect and anathema. This sets up an overall opposition between the spiritual and the worldly that helps define the difference between good and evil or God and Satan.

Defining Pentecostalism

For the devoted Pentecostal, everything is either one or the other, and to be on the side of the world is to collaborate with the enemy. Several features of this theology directly shape Pentecostal responses to COVID-19.

Triumphalism: Pentecostals are fearless combatants in a spiritual war against Satan. The Holy Spirit is the ultimate weapon in this charge, providing absolute confidence in a Biblically preordained victory. With its long shadow of sickness and fear, COVID-19 bears the Devil's signature.

Framed as an active demonic force, the virus is something that should not - must not - be feared. The triumphalism determined by a total faith in the Spirit to conquer evil immediately establishes an ethos that spurns caution, regulation and withdrawal.

Deliverance and healing: The former expels demonic forces threatening well-being, while the latter cleanses a diseased body affected by those same powers. These religious tools are brought to bear against the pandemic, warding off the Satanic viral threat while healing the afflicted. Logically, vaccination becomes unnecessary, misguided and a betrayal of faith.

Tribulation: Pentecostals are deeply concerned with the end of human history as the precursor to Christ's return and the establishment of God's paradisical kingdom. The Tribulation is a seven-year nightmare of evil and suffering featuring the rise of a nefarious "new world order".

Within this end-times scenario, all humanity is branded with the mark of the beast, a process authorised by Satan. An apocalyptic plague and Satanic mandates for vaccination provide further prophetic justification for a pro-healing, anti-vaccination position.

The Kingdom: Pentecostals are not huge fans of worldly entities and human rules. They prefer divine authority, spiritual inspiration and Biblically sanctified morality. The Kingdom of God is juxtaposed with the debased platforms of government and capitalism (even if countless Pentecostals embrace a divinely sanctioned materialism).

Translated into the pandemic context, the continual legislative and policy directives of the government are, by virtue of their human origin, tainted with iniquity. As always, paramount trust must be placed in the Holy Spirit and the Bible.

Faith and science

It may be tempting to see Pentecostalism as its own worst enemy by denying the science and leaving its followers vulnerable to epidemiological catastrophe.

But it is also a relatively young branch of Christianity and not necessarily uniform in its beliefs. As has been observed elsewhere, "medical science and divine healing […] have never been considered mutually exclusive by the entire movement".

The question therefore becomes, can Pentecostalism reach a détente with the world, as mainstream Protestant, Anglican and Catholic churches have done?

It would seem the tide can be turned, even if compelled by tragedy. For example, after the death of one of its congregants, the Pentecostal church at the centre of the largest sub-cluster of Auckland's current Delta outbreak embraced vaccination, having initially denied its validity.

This is a pattern now being repeated across many pockets of the Pentecostal world, albeit within a church still fixated on spiritual dynamism and miraculous cures. For now, however, it may take more than faith in worldly reason to persuade Brian Tamaki and his flock that vaccines and lockdowns are a blessing and not a curse.

• Fraser Macdonald is a Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, University of Waikato
• First published in The Conversation

They did not do that to make Morrison look good. Rather, they hoped it would make the PM look, um, weird because of his faith - or at least out of the Australian mainstream. Read more

Organiser Gordon Copeland was hoping a few hundred people would turn out to "March for Jesus" on an October day in 1972. Continue reading

Here is what he has to say:

Today the primary competition stems from Africa's sprawling galaxy of Pentecostal and Evangelical churches, some part of global denominations but most home-grown.

In many parts of the continent, these churches dot every village square and street corner, and signs, billboards, and flyers touting their high-octane worship and miraculous claims are ubiquitous.

A 2011 study by the Pew Research Center found there were 122 million Pentecostals and 110 million Evangelicals in Sub-Saharan Africa, meaning their combined total at 232 million outpaced the number of African Catholics at 200 million. Given explosive growth rates, it's likely that gap has widened over the six years since the survey.

Catholic prelates and professionals ponder the success of the Pentecostals with a mixture of dismay and frustration.

Why are so many Catholics attracted to the Pentecostal churches? What is the secret of their success? Should we mimic their style to keep the Catholic flock from straying? Should we simply dismiss them as heretics and schismatics? If Pope Francis is right that they are essentially our brothers and sisters, should we simply extend them a loving embrace?

The problem, of course, is not unique to Africa. Catholics worldwide are deserting the church for various forms of high-octane Protestantism.

As a former Evangelical, I can explain some of the strengths of Evangelical churches.

Evangelicalism has always been a primitivist movement. That is to say, Evangelicals are energized by the belief that they are returning to the essential, primitive forms of Christianity.

Their conviction is that they are going back to basics, and while this is largely an illusion, it does create eight characteristics that attract Catholics and which provide a critique of a Catholic Church that is too often institutionalized and ossified. Continue reading

• Fr Dwight Longenecker studied theology at Oxford University and served as a Anglican priest before becoming a Catholic.

Cardinal Kurt Koch told a German Catholic website that Francis lays more emphasis than Benedict XVI did on strengthening ecumenical relationships through joint prayer, activities and encounters.

The reason for this is the Francis's "realistic view that theological dialogue alone will not get us any further", the cardinal said, according to a report in The Tablet.

Friendly relationships were an essential condition for even beginning to discuss difficult theological questions, Cardinal Koch said.

The Pope wanted an evangelising Church that would take the Gospel message out into the world and he "wants us [Christians] to do everything together that we can do together".

Asked if ecumenism had the same high priority for Pope Francis as it had had for his predecessors, Cardinal Koch replied, "Ecumenism has the highest priority for Pope Francis as it has had for all popes since the [Second Vatican] Council.

"Perhaps Pope Francis approaches it with a slightly different emphasis.

"He continually underlines that we cannot wait until we are one [Church].

"We must work together now; we must walk along the same path, bear the same witness and pray together.

"Sisterliness and friendship between the different Christian Churches and church communities as well as bearing witness are very high priorities for Pope Francis."

Cardinal Koch said that an important development appears to be the improving climate for dialogue with Pentecostal churches.

"There were those among the Pentecostals and Evangelicals who were pretty prejudiced against the Catholic Church and the papacy," he recalled.

"If these groups meet the Pope personally, and see that he is a good Christian, that can overcome many prejudices and open doors for new dialogue."

This is particularly important as Pentecostalism has become the "second-largest reality in Christianity after the Catholic Church" Cardinal Koch said.

Sources

• The Tablet
• Image: Soundings John Barker