Popular South Africa Pastor Daniels reveals reasons behind Xenophobic attack

Bishop Benny Daniels is the Senior Pastor of Our Destiny City Church in Johannesburg,  South Africa and Mansville Texas,  in the United States. He was in Port Harcourt, Rivers State for a Three days prayer program tagged “Festival of Miracles! Operation Total Settlement,  organized by Liberty Christian Church,  219 Victoria street, with His Lordship,  Bishop Moses Obasi as host.

In an exclusive interview with Gloria Harry of Africa Update Newspaper, Bishop Daniels spoke about the reason behind the xenophobic attack and other disturbing trends in Christendom.

Excerpts:

Is this your first visit to Port Harcourt?

I am basically here for a few days for a meeting with Bishop Moses and one or two ministries around. I have been to Port Harcourt before. I have been here before,  but it has been a long time.

 

Like you said,  you have been here before.  Can you tell us what your perception is about what you saw before and what you are seeing now?

When I came here, it was couple of years and it is quiet different from what is happening now and I will speak like generally because I don’t want you to misunderstand me.

To be honest with you,  I get scared to associate with pastors especially from this side of the world , because of what is happening today and in this part of the world.

So when I was here the last time, it was couple of years,  it was good, everything was alright. I had a good time. But coming back this time, wasn’t sure where to go, because to be honest with you, the wrong people make you not to know who is wrong and who the right people are anymore.  And the body of Christ is going through serious challenge. Serious , serious challenge right now.

 

Going by what you just said, most of us are scared! The Christians, onlookers and non Christians about the trend of things regarding the doctrines and ideals of most churches, which have adverse effect on the perception of the younger generation about Christianity. what is your take on this?

l would say one of the things that most of the fathers before now, did not really raise up good breed. i will be honest with you because some of the generation we are in right now, don’t want to be fathers. They don’t want to be fathered, because they just want to lead. They don’t want to be fathered. If they had fathers over them, they might have not gone astray.

if you look at naturally, most of our boys and youths today that are messed up outside, is because of the absence of a father. if a father is missing in a home, a son will definitely be wayward. So the reason why we have a lot of wayward sons, is because of the absence of a father.

most of our fathers get too busy with work and forget to attend to us. So there is no father figure to raise us up on how to live our lives.

It takes a man to tell his son which woman not to marry, while it takes the mother to tell her daughter which man not to marry. so now we don’t have that figure that is why in Christendom , the young generation today never had father figure over them for them to be able to listen.

Everybody wants to get up there. That is why the gospel has now been watered down, so it has passed to the next generation and the next generation don’t know if they are coming or if they are going because the doctrine has been messed up.

 

what Advise do you have for us in this part of the world considering the level of violence? what advise do you have for church leaders? Because we believe that the church has a major role to play.

The Church has a major role to play in the States, even in South Africa, we need to quit pointing our fingers at the government, because the government needs the help of the church. if the church can pray for the government, things can go right. so the church right now needs to come back to the place where God originally planted the church, which is getting back to the real word, not preaching doctrines. if the older generation can start bringing correction in alignment through this, i believe that the gospel will really change in this part of the world; and if the younger ones that are coming up will agree to be fathered, things will come on alignment. Nobody wants to be fathered right now, everybody wants to be on their own and that is why it is hard to speak into the life of a person that don’t want to be fathered. And definitely there is every tendency that they will go astray.

Our churches mostly are more of political institutions and because members of the church are citizens with voting rights. , We have a lot of corrupt leaders across Africa. Don’t you think the church is not doing enough to touch the lives of the leaders positively?

Yes, though there are some that preach that, you wont say the church is not doing anything. There are some that are preaching against it, and there are people that have come to a place of working in compromise. Can I be real? if you are a politician and you are hanging with me, and you give me Twenty million naira, you think i will preach about something for you to do or not to do as a leader? I wont preach that! Why? Because you have become like a source of my movement. so that’s the problem.

We have compromised ourselves, compromise the word and compromised the gospel. So if we can come back and re-correct that, definitely the leaders will change. But it has to be based on prayer. The bible says that a nation that walks away from God is doomed to destruction, once we walk away from God. The church needs to pray. That is all i can really bring out to the body of Christ in this part of the world. The church really needs to come back to the place of seeking God and the church body must be united. There has to be unity in the body of Christ.

 

Is it right for churches to discriminate against other churches?

We are not supposed to discriminate, but the bible says, God is the Alpha and Omega. In other words, He knows the end from the beginning . So what is happening in the body of Christ today, has already been scripted down, that it was going to happen at the end of age. Now tell me, Jesus already knew that Judas Iscariot was going to kill Him, Jesus knew about that before the foundation of the world. When Jesus was coming He knew that it was going to happen. And it still had to happen for the fulfillment of the scripture.

So the bible says in this end time kingdom will rise against kingdom, and nations against nations. We are talking about kingdom, we are talking about religion, so even Christians will rise up against Christians, so because there are some that say preach the right doctrine, the other one says no, we don’t preach the right doctrines. The Bible says at the end of the age, when you see that happen, it tells you the age is drawing close. And the bible says even the very elect, if they are not careful, they will not be saved because that is going to happen at the end time. So whatever you see is the fulfillment of prophecy but my prayer is, we should not be the one to bring the fulfillment of that prophecy.

 

How do you manage being the Pastor of a well know ministry?

It is a long way. I got saved when I was fifteen. I was raised in a christian home. l was born into a home where my dad and mum are leaders of a church, so it made it very easy for me. l didn’t have a life outside the church, so l got saved when i was seventeen. l went to the bible college. l was in the bible school, came out at the age of eighteen. l went into full time ministry, l became a full time pastor. l have been a pastor since that time up till today. Over twenty seven years.

So l have been through a lot. l have not had the outside experience of the world before i came to be saved. So l have been through a lot of challenges, to the point l didn’t think l was called.

But because l knew from that age, l didn’t jump out of a carpenter’s shop to become a pastor. l grew into this thing and l endured it and l walked through these things.There have been a lot of challenges but today where God has brought us is because of a few things that l try to highlight to some pastors. lt is faithfulness and commitment and staying focused to your calling . lf your are running a race, 100 metres, the truth is if you have five of you and if you move off your lane to another lane and you win the race and you come first, you are still disqualified, because you went off your lane. So no matter how the calling, you have to stay in your lane. Not everyone is called to prophesy, not everyone is called to heal the sick, some people are called to go out and reach the people in the slum. Some are called in different ways, so most of us have deviated from our calling because of the glamour we think is in the ministry,

 

In the wake of xenophobic attacks on Nigerians, how have you been able to use your ministry to touch the hearts of South Africans in this regard?

That is very easy for me to breakdown for you and l will be very honest with you and l am going to hit the nail on the head. The reason the south African government ad some of the South Africa people are against Nigerians from staying in there is because Nigerians have come in there, not all Nigerians, there are good ones and there are bad ones. The bad ones have come into the system and made marriages broken and made their kids on the streets. What they do is they sell drugs and most of these people are addicted to drugs. They sell their houses, they pawn their stuff, they go to the pawn shop, get money and leave their Television there, just to feed their craving with the addiction of the drugs. Then the people are being messed up. You can see a whole lot of people becoming prostitutes because they drug them. So that is the reason why the South African people felt now if the Nigerians will be out of this place, the place is going to be clean. l am been honest with you. lt is going to be clean, that is why they are attacking the Nigerians not necessarily because they don’t need the Nigerians.

The Nigerians have contributed a lot the economy of South Africa. Some streets in Johannesburg  are owned by Nigerians. They bought up properties, so they have added value to that Country, but because of the other part of the negativity of the drugs, that is why the people are attacking Nigerians to move out of the country.

lt is bad when you are there. When you are outside, you may not understand, but when you are in there, you will really see what l am talking about.