It's very unusual to see a popular christian cleric taking part in the muslim fast during the holy month of Ramadan in this divide of the world for the fear of being condemned by his fellow clergies and others in the Christianity fold.
One of the rare cases, however, is founder and spiritual head of INRI Evangelical Spiritual Church, Oke Afa, Isolo, Lagos Primate Elijah Babatunde Ayodele, who usually participates in the annual spiritual retreat.
Opera News learnt he specifically loves doing this along with muslim widows in his church and those around him who he also loves breaking his fast with when the sun is set.
The opportunity he equally uses to put smile on their faces by dolling out cash and food items that will take care of their Sahur(early breakfast). This the Ekiti born energy does in batches each day of the fast.
This has, however, been generating mixed public reactions as some believe there must ulterior motive or motives for constantly embarking on this spiritual assignment every year while others have linked his gesture to secret method of attracting more coverts from Islam to Christianity.
However, we contacted the popular seer on Wednesday, May 7, 2020 with a view to shedding the light on the controversial issue.
In his reaction, the famous clergy said, "As for me, I don't discriminate against any religion because there is no religion in heaven. If you come to our church you see Muslims christians praising God together. That doesn't mean we're exploring the avenue to win more converts to our church as many have been criticising. But you find out there is no such ulterior motive in what do.
"And specifically on fasting and increasing my charity giving during the Muslims holy month of Ramadan and identify with the fasting windows, that's also parrot my calling as a servant or Most High. I see nothing wrong in doing that as a christian. We should practice our tolerance to the adherents of the other faith. I always like to break my fast along with the widows, not only in our church but also those around us. And we have been doing that for long."
On how the Ekiti born prophet achieve this everyday without violating social distancing law of the land to avoid the spread of COVID-19, he explained, "That's very simple. We only attend to 20 people per day. Any widow that comes after that will only be booked for the next day. We have done a lot during this Ramadan and we're still doing mor as Good lives. Even, God has used us to reach out hundreds of widows in the ongoing lockdown and we're still going to do more as God lives. I am not interested in any mansion or private jet, but impacting lives. People will be surprised when they get to heaven and discover there's no religion and no special Paradise for either Christians or Muslims. We're all competing for one single paradise. So, your deeds on earth are what
No comments:
Post a Comment