Rev Fr Lawrence Ogundipe SDV
Pentecostals emphasize the corporate elements in worship and lay special stress on the practice of gifts listed in 1Cor 12 -14 especially prophecy, healing, speaking in tongues, exorcism and miracles among others. In South-West of Nigeria, possession of gifts is required for members as a sign of true faith, as such, there is spontaneity and freedom in worship and life of Pentecostals since everyone has gifts and must manifest them anytime and everywhere. This is completely different from the Catholic Church belief and teaching which did not allow spontaneity in her liturgy; rather the rubrics must be followed. The Pentecostal church constitute a challenge because of their influence in building an attitude that sees every interpreted human experience as essentially religion, and every speech as speech about God.This is a distortion of religion that borders on superstition. Hence our youth drift into their ways and neglect the orthodox teachings worst still is the influence on our liturgy, many attempts to conduct a lively liturgy in the pattern of Pentecostal lousy worship. How do we respond to this challenge is the object of this paper.
PENTECOSTALS IN NIGERIA
Pentecostalism as movement originated after the America Civil War through the members of the Methodist revival movement led by Charles Fox Perham who claimed that sanctification by the power of the Holy Spirit is an act of God in Human life. This sanctification for them leads to perfection, moral standard and pure doctrine which all believers must possess.
A group called Holiness appeared in America, Britain, Indonesia, Latin America, North America, Jamaica, and Nigeria in particular with crude, selfish and aggressive methods of conversion and evangelization with emphasis on Bible and Grace of God alone. According to Benjamin Steward in his book Historical background of Churches in Nigeria, the Pentecostal mission began in Nigeria in 1977 by a group of religious zealous men which includes; Emmanuel Ugbaja, Akintola, Okonji and others, by the administrative skill of Francis Nwaka who broke away from the Gospel mission in Palm Avenue Musin Lagos.
Today, there is no community or village in Nigeria that has no Pentecostal Church not to talk about our cities where almost every house along the road is branded with one or more Pentecostal Church. The activity of these Pentecosatals has to a great extent won the admiration of many of our Catholic members. Ojo shares his opinion thus:
The new variations of the Christian faith or mushroom Churches tends to be breaking the traditional approaches in orthodox religion. They blend all sorts of ingredients, spiritual and otherwise to win traditional Catholics over. They wield miracle wands and promise instant relief to all sorts of problems.
Other attractions include: Close bound between the ministers and the members and adequate use of the scripture and zealous preaching among others.
EFFECTS OF PENTECOLATLISM ON THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
The Pentecostal movement in the South-West of Nigeria offered a free style worship anybody can be used by the Holy Spirit hence, many of the catholic faithful left the Catholic Church, some drift to other denomination, while others establish their own church. This became a serious challenge that required urgent response from the Catholic Church in the South-West. In the face of this challenge, Ujomo raised the following question for our consideration:
Has the loss of Catholics Church members to other churches any bearing on the attitude, disposition and the performance of the clergy or laity, what class of Catholics are most guilty of this drift and why, has this trend any direct or indirect correlation with the church policy on method of worship and doctrine, or with the worshipers as an entity or with the individual Catholics or with socio-economic and political system in which the Church is suppose to operate.
The above statement is a clear indication of the recognition of the facts of the problem of drifting of the Catholics to other denominations. Some of the factors responsible for this include:
Lack of proper programme for the youth
Secularism
Families failed in their duty as domestic Church
Decline of Spiritual Formation in our Seminaries
Inadequate Pastoral care for our members
Lack of proper Catechesis
Less Emphasis on the word of God
RECOMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
Having mentioned some of the factors that are responsible for the drifting of Catholics to Pentecostal Churches we need to observe that, it is our duty to pass on to the next generation the deposit of faith which has been handed over to us hence the following suggestions may help us out
Creation of more Catholic Mass centres
The need for feedback in our Pastoral work
Promotion of various societies in our parishes
Strengthening catechetical activities
The need to make our liturgy lively
Adaptation and inculturation
Reawakening the zeal for the mission in many of our priests
Empowerment of youth
CONCLUSION
The word "fellowship" comes from a Greek word (koinonia), the meaning of which is very hard to put into English. Paul is praying that the people of Corinth may partake of, or be in communion with, in fellowship with, the Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit, with whom we too are in communion, bestows on us spiritual gifts, such as those we learned about in our Catechism days, wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, fortitude, piety and the fear of the Lord. But all of these are begotten of faith, and sustained by faith. In his conversation with Nicodemus - the Pharisee who came to him by night for counsel - Jesus himself emphatically said, "Unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." Being born of water is a reference to baptism. But, you may ask, what does it mean to be "born of the Spirit?"
Essentially it signifies being born to a new life which is a life of faith that leads to a new way of living and acting. It is the Holy Spirit alone who can bring about this change in us. We should also remember that, in the early Church, a person was baptised and confirmed on the same day, so highlighting the special role of the Holy Spirit from the moment one became a member of the Church. The Spirit begets in us a deeper understanding of the teaching of Christ, and assists us in living up to the demands of that teaching. But according to Thomas Aquinas in the Prima Secundae of summer theological q.113, the Spirit does not coerce or dominate our lives through fear. He is rather God's gracious gift to us, enabling us to become God's children with the privilege of addressing the Almighty and Eternal God as "our Father."
Fr Lawrence Sdv
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