Recently, African controversial writer, a man many consider as “Antichrist”, Reno Omokri has come up with so many unjustifiable teachings on theology.
These teachings according to fillers on social media are now having negative effect on Reno’s gullible followers
Infact many are of the opinion that Reno who is a JEHOVAH WITNESS believer is “infesting” the minds of the young Christians.
It is on this premise that African prolific writer,Father Kelvin Ogwu writes on what he titles: Correcting Reno’s Many Lies Pt1 To Pt4″.
Let us read what he has to say:
“Today I just want to correct some lies about Christianity, about the Trinity, about Bible/scripture and about the name Jesus/Yeshua propagated by Reno Omokri.
I am doing this because I believe that when falsehood is preached without questioning, it soon begins to look like truth.
I know I have received messages asking me to clarify some falsehood peddled online. To be honest, I don’t usually take most of the posts from those so called “gospellers” seriously. Most of them sound childish.
But in truth, not everyone had or will have the opportunity to study theology or philosophy or biblical exegesis or to have read wide on those topics. So, while those writings may sound laughable to me in particular, it is possible that some other young minds are believing them and are being misled.
So today, I have free time, I will be responding to some of Reno’s Lies. I will do this in series or parts using his post titled “Muslims Are More Loyal To Christ Than Christendom” as the focus.
If you are ready. . . Gather here!
Check Next post. . .
Correcting Reno’s Lies (Part 2)
Excerpt from Reno’s post on “Muslims Are More Loyal To Christ Than Christendom.”
“Recently, I wrote about the difference between Christianity and Islam and the feedback from many Muslims exposed a lacuna in their understanding of Christianity, which is quite understandable, being that that vacuum also exists in Christendom.
“Many Muslims think Christians worship Christ. No. The worship of Christ is something that exists only in Christendom.
“The issue that Muslims have is not actually with Christianity. They can cohabit harmoniously with Christianity. Their issue is with Christendom.
“In Christianity, we worship God only, and we come to God only THROUGH Christ, whose real Name is Yeshua. There is no other Way to God except through His Son, as we learn from John 14:6. In Christendom, they worship the Trinity, which was invented by men at the Council of Nicae, of which Yeshua the Son of God became Jesus, God the Son.
“Christianity and Christendom are different. Christianity is a faith. Christendom is a religion. It was used by Rome as a tool of colonisation. They first bring the religion to you, use it to weaken your institutions, and then they take over and become colonial masters.”
~ Reno Omokri
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Response:
Dear Muslims reading Reno . . . Reno is lying. Reno is wrong. Christians worship Christ. Anyone who does not worship Christ is not a Christian. Full stop!
Right from when Christ was born, we were told that the wise men came all the way from the East, not just to give him gifts, but to WORSHIP the child.
Matthew 2:11
“On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and WORSHIPED HIM. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.”
The book of Hebrew even made it clearer, this time around, not just humans should worship him, but Angels.
“And when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says, “And let all the angels of God WORSHIP Him.” Hebrews 1:6
We remember Apostle Thomas in John 20:28 after seeing the resurrected Christ and the holes the nails made in his hands and feet and his pierced side. He worshipped Christ and said emphatically: “My Lord and my God!”
I have many passages from where those ones came from, but let’s take it bit by bit. But while we deal with this issue, let us make this categorical statement: anyone who does not believe that Christ is God and worthy of worship, is not a Christian.
So, I say to you, don’t get your understanding of Christianity from a man who does not in the first place believe that Jesus is God. It is the belief that Jesus is God that distinguished Christianity from Judiasm and indeed Islam.
Ignore Reno, he is not speaking for Christians. In fact, Ignore the distinction he is trying to make between “Christians” and “Christiandom”. . .
Let me tell you the truth, he is making every effort to avoid calling the name “Catholics”. In all the times he used “Christendom”, if you read through the context, you will see that “Catholics” or “Catholicism” is the word in his mind and heart.
Who are those that called the council of Nicaea? Catholics. What Christian denomination was there during the time of Constantine? Catholic. Who are those that defined the doctrine of the Trinity? Catholics.
So you see. . . He is afraid to call the name Catholic instead he uses the word “Christendom”.
And by the way, what is even Christendom?
In the general sense of the word, and just a simple “googling”, it means a group of people or nations under a Christian set of morals and values. In short, it is the impact of Christianity on the world.
But like every word that did not just develop from isolation, Christendom has its etymology rooted in medieval times when Christian world represented a geopolitical power. It is like saying, a particular territory is majorly or wholly Christians and belongs to Christians as at against the pagan world and the Muslim world.
There is nothing wrong with the word Christendom. Don’t allow Reno paint it Black in your minds. If he has problem with the Catholic Church, he should face them directly like a man.
Correcting Reno’s Lies (Part 3)
Excerpt from Reno’s post on “Muslims Are More Loyal To Christ Than Christendom”
“So, in AD 325, Emperor Constantine convened a council of religious leaders of his new religion in a town called Nicaea, and they came up with the articles of faith for their new religion. That article of faith is known as the Nicene Creed.
“The most important article they came up with was the transformation of Christ from the Son of God, to God the Son, a phrase that does not exist in original Christian Scripture. They then made their God the Son equal with the Only True God in a union known as Trinity.
“Both the idea of God the Son and Trinity do not originate from Scripture. It originated from the Council of Nicea.
“These new ideas led to a split in the Body of Christ, and thus, Christendom was founded. Simply put, Christendom is state control of the Church, to be used to further the political objectives of the Roman Emperor. Those Christians who refused to accept this new articles of faith were abandoned, and gradually their numbers began to reduce. There are still about 20, 000 of them in modern day Turkey and they live harmoniously with Muslims. ”
~ Reno Omokri
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Response:
Okay, here Reno lacks the basic history of what led to the convoking of the council of Nicaea. And if he knows and intentionally distorted the fact in his writing to paint the group he kept referring to as “Christendom” bad or to paint Constantine bad, then Reno is a manipulator and a dangerous liar.
Let me break down the reason for the council of Nicaea in 325 in the simplest of language without using so much theological jargons.
The whole controversy started with a man called Arius. He was a controversial fourth-century Christian thinker in Alexandria, Egypt. He was of course a priest, very popular and influential.
He taught that Jesus was not God but only a created being. He could not imagine Christ who was seen in flesh and blood being placed in same position as God.
For him, Jesus was important and crucial to our faith, but he is not equal with God. Arius went on to creatively compose a simple song that popularized his teachings even more.
The wordings of the song was simple: “There was a time when he (Christ) was not.” The implications of this is that Christ is not God and was created and as such not equal to God and not deserving of worship as God.
Arius used some biblical passages like the ones Reno used to support his claim, where Christ said “My Father is greater than I.”-John 14:28.
So, to put it simply, Reno is just regurgitating the teaching of Arius. This teaching is what is rightly called Arianism. . . From the proponent Arius.
In fact, this is the same teaching with Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and Oneness Pentecostals. They are modern day Arianism. Reno is not saying anything new.
In those days of Arius, you can’t go to the market without hearing the song that Christ was created and there was a time when he was not.
The bishop of Arius, bishop Alexander, denounced the teaching of Arius. He rejected it as heresy. He even removed Arius from his position. But the teaching kept gaining grounds. Arius got support from some influential bishops.
This caused so much controversies in the church. There were those in support of Arius, there were those in support of bishop Alexander.
But the implications of Arius’ teaching was much and difficult to ignore.
Arius’ teaching reduced Christ to a demigod and undermined the Christian concept of redemption, since only he who was truly God could be deemed to have reconciled humanity to the Godhead.
Moreso, the Christians of the 4th century were thrown to confusion since right from the very beginning, the church had worshiped Christ as God. Angels worshiped him as we learn in Hebrew 1:6. The wise men from the East worshiped him as God (Matthew 2:11). The Apostles worshiped him and preached him as God and saviour.
One of the earliest hymns of the church was the one written by St Paul. He wrote about Christ saying “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:6–7).
Even convert to Christianity were baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). So, if the Son is not God, who then is he?
Because the church was divided and there was no conclusion and it was tearing the church apart from inside. . .this was what prompted Constantine, using his position as emperor, to mediate and to seek for a council where this issue could be handled and a proper teaching could emerge.
Contrary to what Reno wants you to believe. . . Constantine was not creating any new religion. In fact, history has it that he first seek the bishop in Spain to settle the issue, but it did not work. And the only way the issue could be handled was a council in which all bishops will come together and find a solution.
On the day of the council, July 4, 325, when all the Bishops have gathered, Constantine came in and addressed them. He told them that they had to come to some agreement on the crucial questions dividing them. His memorable quote was: “Division in the church, is worse than war.”
The council of Nicaea set the stage for the orthodox understanding of Christ. The Nicene Creed formulated which was centered on the Trinity, defining Christ as God.
Contrary to what Reno wants you to believe, the idea of the Trinity is from the Bible. What is not in the Bible is the word “Trinity” that is used to describe the teaching . . . In the same way the word “Gospeller” is not found anywhere in the Bible, but Reno likes to use it to describe himself as the teacher of the Gospel.
Before you condemn the Nicene Creed and the teaching on Trinity, read through my next post on it and then draw your own conclusion.
Next is on Trinity. . .
Correcting Reno’s Lies (Part 4)
“There is no basis for the Trinity in Scripture.
“Both the idea of God the Son and Trinity do not originate from Scripture. It originated from the Council of Nicea.”
~ Reno Omokri
_________
Response:
Let us interrogate the claim that there is no basis for the Trinity in scripture.
To do this so that it will be more effective, I will suggest you throw away whatever you know about the Trinity including the word “Trinity”.
It will be very good if we interrogate it by keeping aside whatever knowledge of it we knew before. Let us come in a tabula rasa (clean sheet).
If it is possible, teleport yourself backward to the 4th century where what we know today is still very vague and undefined.
Now, we are assuming that you are one of the bishops during that council of Nicaea and you have come with other bishops and deacons and christians to solve this problem of whether Christ is God or just a created being who is not equal to God.
And to solve this problem, the only source that you are provided with and are allowed to use is the Bible or scripture.
Then you said your prayers so as to start. You prayed to God. You wanted to pray to Jesus as well and to invoke the Holy Spirit, but you are not sure who they are.
Then, sitting in the hall, everyone started searching the Bible. You all decided to begin your search from the very beginning of Genesis. In that moment Genesis 1:26 was read aloud:
“Then God said, “Let US make man in OUR image, after our likeness.”
So, the question is, who was God referring to as “US” and “OUR”?
Can we say he was referring to Angels that he created?
But we know that Angels don’t have same image and likeness with God and we also know that Angels do not have the powers to create as God.
So, that puts a big question mark on why God whom in many occasions will always refer to himself as ‘I’ in the singular, but in this case decided to use the plural “we”.
With this very question in mind, another passage of Genesis was read. This time around it was Gen 3:22:
“The Lord God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.’”
The same question is still in everyone’s mind including you. What does it mean when God said “Behold, the man has become like one of US”???
Who is (or are) the US?
The same scenario played out again in the Towel of Babel. Genesis 11:7 was read out. God said:
“Come, let US go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
Who was he referring to as the “US”?
While thinking about this, so many things are coming up for you and since you are good in scripture, you remembered the shema, a passage that every Jew recites. It is in Deuteronomy 6:5, and it says:
“Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is ONE Lord.”
It was emphatic that God is ONE. It is not possible that there are three Gods or Two Gods or Ten Gods. Yet, you are still trying to make sense of the plural words God used.
Then, like a flash, your mind goes straight to Genesis 1:1-3. Here, scripture affirmed that “In the Beginning”, the Spirit was hovering over the deep.
If there was a “Spirit” right from the beginning, that means he was not created. “Who is he?” You asked.
Then it also occurred to you that the same passage talked about God using “Word” to create.
The fact that he used WORD made you to start thinking. Because all through creation story, we kept hearing: “and God said.”
The phrase “and God said” occurred ten times in the first account of Creation. So, for ten good times, God used the “Word” to create.
That was when you remembered the gospel of John 1:1 that says “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
It is as though something is coming to your understanding. And you are already seeing that the “Word” which John 1:1 was referring to could be the same “Word” used by God IN the BEGINNING to create the world.
For John already said that the “Word” is God who took flesh and dwelt amongst us. And the only Word that took flesh and dwelt among us according to John’s gospel is Christ.
So, if this “Word” which is now identified as Christ was with God in the beginning, then, it means Christ was not created.
So, in light of Genesis 1:1-3, you could deduce three persons:
1. God who is called (Elohim),
2. The Spirit of God known as (ruach Elohim),
3. The Word of God (vayomer Elohim.)
This means, you could identify three Persons in that Genesis story of creation. But you don’t want to jump into conclusion yet even though it was like a revelation to you.
While you were lost in thought, your fellow bishops where listening to yet another passage.
It was Isaiah 6:8, it was read out:
“I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?’ Then I said, ‘Here am I. Send me.’”
The same question of “US”. Right now, it is becoming a little clear to you whom God must have been referring to as “US”, but you don’t want to conclude.
You sat down in a more relaxed way and started recapping everything you have heard, how. . .
Three times God admonish in the first person plural: (“‘let Us make”; “‘let Us go down’”; “‘[let Us] confuse’”). Twice, with prepositions (“‘of Us’”; “‘for Us’”).
So the question is, how should these plural divine expressions be understood? Are they in contradiction to biblical monotheism, or do such divine proclamations testify of the triune God? What does this plurality reveal about God of the Hebrew Bible?
And just right there, the bell for break was rung. The first session over, and you were told to reconvene in the next post in hall.
To be updated!
