Our Saviour’s Anglican Church, Egbe, Lagos recently held its Christmas carol and lessons with combined Mattins service. The church also used the moment to celebrate what it called the oldest choir (95 years old) in the Lagos West Diocese, Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion. The Vicar of the church, The Venerable Ariire Ayo Kolawole, spoke with Seyi John Salau on the essence of Christmas and some national issues. Excerpts:
Christians all over the world will celebrate Christmas tomorrow. Of what significance is this celebration to the church today?
The lordship of Christ was argued and even rejected, and it has been established in all religions that Christ is real and the purpose of Christ coming to the world was to save the whole world. And as you can see, the whole world is also in a situation to be saved. The original world was chaotic before God took over, there was no peace anywhere – and you see what is happening all over the world today: if it is not economic problem here, it will be political problem the other place, it will be religious crisis somewhere there. Nigeria is not peaceful, Europe, America, Asia, there is no peace and, of course, we have tried so much and have put in place so much strategies to bring peace but we cannot. The United Nations has done so much, lot of research has been done but you discover that we still do not have peace in the world. Why? Because the only one who can do it is Christ and that is why the bible refers to Him as the Prince of peace, and that is also why we are waiting for His second coming. He first came and promised to come back, but His second coming is to bring back the original peace, joy, and with Christ you will see that joy will return to the world. No man can do it today because the situation of life today is beyond man; if man can do it, they would have done it a long time ago. Over time, we blame government and everybody, but that is not the truth. For instance, in recent times we have experienced natural disasters; that is beyond man and it is not political, neither is it about government. Recently in California, there was a fire outbreak that engulfed the city and as much as America is advanced in technology, they still found it hard to curtail the fire outbreak. That is to tell us that what is happening today is beyond man – and all this was foretold in the bible because the bible said when we see these things, we should know that the end has come. And what is the end? The second coming of our Lord. And what is He coming to do? It is to bring peace to the world and carry His people home, so that we will be delivered from this chaotic society and situation.
Your church recently held its Christmas carol. What is the essence of Christmas carol and the nine lessons?
The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carol is a service of Christian worship celebrating the birth of Jesus that is traditionally followed by Christmas. Within the service, the story of the fall of humanity, the promise of the Messiah and the birth of Jesus is told in nine short Bible readings from Genesis, the prophetic books and the Gospels interspersed with the singing of Christmas carol, hymns and choir rendition. Christmas carol is also called a noel, from the French word meaning ‘Christmas’. The word carol also means songs or hymns whose lyrics are on the theme of Christmas. The first carol can be traced to the 4th century and later known in the English world in 1426 by John Awdlay. Many songs like ‘Christ was born on Christmas day’, ‘Good Christian rejoice’, ‘O come all ye faithful’ were all published in 1582 in Latin but later appeared in current form in the mid-18th century. Carol later became a festival all over the world among Christians.
To this end, we have also come today to felicitate, as we prepare ourselves for the second coming of our Lord. This will also give us an opportunity to reflect on our entire Christian life and journey in order to be able to make amends where necessary. May the joy of Christmas remain ours forevermore in Jesus name, Amen.
What is your take on politicians who move from one political party to another? Do you think their actions are backed by the desire to render service to the people?
In the Nigerian context, leadership or public office is to service ourselves. However, there is nothing wrong with politics but something is wrong about the people. It is the people that move around the political parties – the same politics that we play here is being played in every other part of the world but it is our people, led by the greedy nature, that made politics unattractive. When you have things like this happening, you need to go back in history and you will notice that you cannot compare this generation with the generation of Awolowo, Zik, etc; you will see that they actually came to serve the state, as young as they were then, to transform things based on the passion they had for the country. Today that passion is no longer there, the concern is no longer there; rather it is to enrich ourselves. If they are really focused on a purpose, you will not see people move from one political party to another. It is because we do not have direction as a people, coupled with the fact that people are always looking for greener pasture where they can enrich their family. They are after their own interest, if not we would not be in the situation that we are in today.
But I think the time has come for all of us to pay keen attention to politics, especially those we elect to represent us, and not leave things to politicians alone. At the moment we have issues with the whole system. Even the church has its own issue because the church would have been in a better situation to save this nation, but it is even worse off in the church. At times you hear stories of things happening in the world also happening in the church and as I said earlier, it is about the end of the world. So what we are seeing today is enough to teach us a lesson.
That brings me to the executive bill on the floor of the national assembly seeking to regulate activities of religious organisations and non-governmental organization; what is your view on that?
Well, it depends on what the bill seeks to achieve. However, on face value the bill appears controversial, and with the situation of the society today I think there is nothing wrong with checkmating NGOs or religious bodies in order to be able to control their activities. For instance, in the church today, people are establishing all forms of associations in the name of religion or whatever, and when you go in-depth you will realise most of those places are not really what they say they are, rather they are just for making financial gains. So there is nothing wrong in the government checkmating all these things if it is for the good of the society and not to intimidate the churches or NGOs. In England, you cannot just establish a church without being regulated; same thing goes for America where laws are working. So nothing is wrong, and if we are to consider what is being perpetrated in the name of the church today, there is really a need for checkmating.
Are you in support of the view that some churches and NGOs are being used for money laundering?
Definitely, we have seen it in the society with the trend of news that we hear these days. For instance, as 2019 general election is getting closer, you will soon see some of these political leaders going to church leaders for prayers. What does the church have to do with all these things? There must be total separation between the state and the church; the church is the church, and state is state, there must be clearly defined roles. For instance, I am not in support of government sponsoring people for pilgrimage – it is all a way of messing up the whole religious institution. If you want to go for pilgrimage you should be able to source for money on your own. So, there must be a clear line between the church and the state, because many today are using the avenue of church/NGOs to commit a lot of havoc in the society.
