We are, of course, still very far from arriving at anything close to an empirical assessment of Joshua’s ministerial impact, and extremely far from justifying our opening statement claiming Joshua to be the most significant Christian minister in modern times. But there is much evidence to be considered and we have barely begun.
It is not totally insignificant, for example, to consider the dollar worth of his ministry to Nigeria’s massive burgeoning economy. Even though SCOAN commanded 60% of tourist traffic inland, 2,000,000 people/ year, as you would have read in the Wikipedia biography … coming from Europe, UK, US, Australia S.A. all over the world … coming to get healed, or to witness the miracles etc …. excuse me that I dont have the ridiculous worldview constraints of Wiki; but after a steady stream of endorsement 2 million/annum strong, including the cream of western inteligentsia, I think I can afford to drop the apostrophes in ‘healed’ and ‘miracles’.
But Nigeria is oil rich. That’s not that much revenue, although it certainly was locally impactful enough for the government to sincerely mourn his passing, and even force his enemies to turn up at his funeral (that’s by definition ‘significance’). So, no matter how the BBC would try to trivialize the man or Google obliterate his legacy by styling him some 9 day wonder or half-crazy abusive cultist, they only reveal their hostile agenda to an autonomous Africa un-ensnared by their presumptive self-opinions informed by other gods/principles/axioms.
We might want to consider by way of comparison the impact to any island nation in the Caribbean of a single church (or even all of them combined) bringing in similiar traffic. But of course, Jamaican Jesus is nowhere near being remotely considered a tourist attraction. In fact, many Jamaicans, especially Jamaican youth do not find Jamaican Jesus attractive at all. Perhaps because Jamaican Jesus is an inferior brand imported from the US today, historically, the UK and the refined ‘real MCcoy’ is readily available in these Metropoles, although most of our tourist traffic actually come here to escape from having long been weaned from the product having found the sensual hedonism we supply here much more rewarding. Religion was always more suitable for the enslaved and for the purposes of the enslavers.
You will forgive my crass language, but I consider some utility in employing commercial language to describe religious movements. I have elsewhere commented on the ‘Colombian’ and ‘Cromwellian’ Christianity characteristic of the Caribbean and the West in general. This version of Christianity cannot be divorced from the commerce and trade that propelled it and the exploitative ethos that chose Jesus Christ as its most perfect camouflage. It is no wonder that ‘churches’ here are ‘kept in the dark’. Truth reveals counterfeit.
My intention is not to needlessly offend, but to awaken an awareness consonant with a more realistic evaluation of religion and its positive or negative contribution to social and economic development, and it does require unfortunately some world-view assault.
But it is not yet time to consider these things. We are still in the process of hearing witnesses: Frederick Chiluba, past president of Zambia.
YeKengalé 