The bishop of Amichi has urged Christians to reject preachers who peddle the prosperity gospel, warning the focus on the believer’s material rewards through the intercession of God and angels was paganism repackaged for the modern age

The Church of Nigeria’s bishop of Amichi has urged Christians to reject preachers who peddle the prosperity gospel, warning the focus on the believer’s material rewards through the intercession of God and angels was paganism repackaged for the modern age.

On 7 June 2015 the Rt. Rev. Ephraim Ikeakor told a large prayer rally in Umuchu “Don’t belong to the Cherubim and Seraphim religion and run away from family churches [where] the husband is the president of such church, his wife is the secretary and the son is the treasurer.”

The bishop said these teachers were proclaiming a modern form of paganism in the guise of Christianity. “You must reject them. They are evil,” he said noting there were like “the idol worshipers [who] lay claim to lifeless things and take them to be their gods.  Look at the Uchu River here in our community, Umuchu, our ancestors deceived us that the Umuchu people are the children of the Uchu river. The Uchu River has no children, it is just a river like every other one, why must people worship it leaving God that created them, whoever that worship the river will not see good things in his life, whoever that deceived the people using the river, religion and other means will be made to suffer by God.”

Christ did not come to make men rich but to save us, he told the rally, adding those who preach the prosperity gospel more often than not are seeking to enrich themselves. “They use these false means to enrich themselves and family and not to the glory of God,” the bishop said.

The Cherubim and Seraphim (C&S) church is an African Independent Church founded by Moses Orimolade Tunolase in 1925 in Nigeria. Influenced by the Pentecostal and Holiness movements of the early Twentieth century C&S pastors preach that through dreams and visions they are able to serve as a conduit between God and man and in recent years have accepted the prosperity gospel. Migrants from West Africa have brought the church to the UK and North America over the past few decades and the church has spread from its Nigerian base across West Africa.