Why Kumuyi’s walk back matters, by Bamidele Johnson
Pastor W. F. Kumuyi is no poster boy for liberalism. His Deeper Life Bible Church once a had television sets high on its shit list in addition to rules that made Pharisees look permissive. Just like when he lifted the ban on television watching, he has admitted that the church’s famously stiff marriage procedures were not biblical but just administrative.
In other words, all that red tape was not God’s handwriting on stone tablets, but office paperwork. This is important, because too many pastors think their personal preferences are a divine decree. What they like, God commands. What irritates them, heaven abhors. The church has built doctrines out of a pastor’s pet peeves.
Five years ago, a famous preacher told men to sack their private secretaries if they found them attractive. Scripture? None. Psychology? Maybe. Comedy? Certainly. Imagine a whole generation of competent secretaries being sent packing simply because Pastor cannot handle a dimpled smile. That is not holiness, but HR malpractice.
And it is everywhere. A skirt length offends a pastor’s eyes, so angels start measuring hemlines. A wedding colour clashes with a pastor’s taste, so couples are threatened with divine wrath if they pick it. Even hairstyles have been turned into matters of eternal destiny. There are more egregious examples.
Kumuyi’s walk back matters because it punctures this balloon. He is saying some rules are just admin, not gospel. That honesty is refreshing in a religious landscape where leaders often play dress-up with their biases and parade them as God’s eternal will.
If a church or pastor dislikes something, he should own it as his dislike. He should not say God is about to rain fire because of it. If you cannot stand your secretary’s perfume, buy air freshener. Do not decree mass unemployment for womenfolk.
The gospel was not meant to imprison believers inside the neuroses of their pastors. It was meant to free them. Kumuyi has given us a reminder of that. Others should take notes, preferably not on church letterhead rebranded as scripture.
