I start by wishing all the readers of my column and members of their family a happy New Year. And with the prayer that 2020, which begins today and the day my PABULUM comes out every week, will be a good year full of joy and of sound health for all. The next time January 1 will come up on a Wednesday will be in the year 2048, that is twenty – eight years from now. I know this because I have a calendar that runs from 1801 through 2050, a period of two hundred and fifty years.
As they do at times in the month of December, Pastor Williams Folorunso Kumuyi, the founder and General Overseer of the Deeper Life Ministry and his Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministry counterpart, Pastor Daniel Kolawole Olukoya and some other Pentecostal clerics, came out last week in newspaper reports to say that Christmas had idolatry origin. Consequently, they said a good Christian should not celebrate it. Especially given the fact that the day and month Jesus Christ was born is not in the Bible, neither was his birthday marked in the Holy Book, while there is no instruction in the Scriptures by God, Jesus Christ or any of the Apostles that the day should be celebrated.
According to Kumuyi, Olukoya and other anti – Christmas preachers December 25 was a date originally set by ancient Romans for Mars festival by the idol worshippers of the sun. And that it was a pagan Emperor of the Western Roman Empire, which existed from 202 B.C. through 476A.D., who forced Christians to shift the marking of the birth of Christ from the genuine date to December 25, the day they celebrated their own idol.
I wonder how Pastors Kumuyi and Olukoya see their claim as a worthy and tenable explanation. How could a pagan monarch have made Christians to mark the birthday of Jesus on the same day that he and the people of his faith celebrated their own lifeless deity? Does this stand to reason?
Would they have done that when it was certain that such would have created competition between the two celebrations in which one was bound to be better and more popular. Given this fact, I don’t think any pagan ruler would have made Christians to shift the birthday of Jesus to the day people of his religious persuasion celebrated their deity.
Pastors Kumuyi, Olukoya and the other anti – Christmas clerics came up with their story that a pagan Emperor forced Christians to change Christmas Day to December 25 for two reasons. The first is that they do not have the grace of speaking one – to – one with Almighty God, as I do.
If they have the privilege they would, as I did ten years ago, have asked the Lord if it was true that Jesus was born on December 25 or not. I raised the issue with the Most High in 2009 and wrote about it in this column in the December of that year. The article as I indicated in last week’s edition was captioned: God confirms Jesus was born on December 25.
The point I am making is that most Christian priests or prophets say things as they saw it or perceived an issue in the Bible. But come out to say or give the impression that they got the revelation or message from the Ancient of Days. For the sake of those new to my column I will before this series ends provide proofs that I speak one – to – one with Almighty God, which long-time readers of this 13 – year – old column have known since December 2010.
Another reason why Pastors Kumuyi and Olukoya and the other anti – Christmas pastors say a pagan Roman Emperor forced Christians to start marking Christmas on December 25 is because they are ignorant of the fact that at the time the celebration began that day in the fourth century that it was a Christian who was on the throne.
Two days are given for when this happened. Some say it took place in 336 while others have it as 352. But on both dates a Christian was the Emperor. It is in history books and documents on the internet on the Western Roman Empire that Constantine I The Great, who was also known as Saint Constantine, was the Emperor in 336. He reigned from 306 until 337 when he died. He ascended the throne when he was a pagan, but converted six years later to Christianity in 312 and the following year issued the Milan Edict of 313 which legalized Christianity.
If an earlier pagan Emperor had forced Christians to change the celebration of the birth of Jesus to December 25, would Constantine I The Great when he became a Christian, not have returned Christmas Day to its original date? All his successors until the Empire collapsed in 476, one hundred and thirty – nine years after his death, were Christians.
To be continued next Wednesday
TA – TA PROFESSOR TAM DAVID – WEST (2)
I knew Professor Tam David – West, who like me was an alumnus of the University of Ibadan in 1965, when I was a student in the Department of History at the institution (1965 – 68) and he was a lecturer in the Department of Virology.
He was one of the few popular teachers, along with Professor Victor Olunloyo of the Department of Mathematics and Mr. Ukpabi Asika of the Department of Political Science, who were known by most people on the campus. This was because they rode exotic cars, dressed fashionably or were radicals or progressives who gave public lectures in Trenchard Hall, built for such a purpose and entertainment.
But Professor David – West did not get to know me until 1984 when he was the Minister of Petroleum in the military administration of Major – General Muhammadu Buhari. I was then the Editor of the Sunday Concord. We first met at a luncheon he had for media executives in 1984 and he took to me because he loved the articles I used to write in my column in the newspaper.
A few readers who used to phone or sent text messages to me as from December 2007 when this column commenced stopped doing so in 2017. This was when I did the series on Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, as the person God sent me to as His candidate for the February 2019 presidential election. To such readers I did the series because Atiku was a Croesus (a person of great wealth), and I wanted to make money from him. But Professor David – West did not see me that way. He still believed I was a man of integrity and that the Lord must have sent me to Alhaji Atiku, hence I came out to do the series on him.
He remembered that more than any columnist in the country that I wrote articles to promote General Buhari for the 2011 presidential election, including Femi Adesina who was then the Managing Director and Editor – in – Chief of Sun newspapers and a columnist in the Daily Sun. And who has been a Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Buhari since 2015.
More to come next week