Molue MOnoLogUEs

Who Owns God? Christian Faith, Immigration and Compassion

2026-10-18T04:56:36.110-07:00

Who Owns God?
On Christian Faith, Immigration and Compassion?

From a squirrel on a cable to the vast cosmos and the stranger at the border, Don Kenobi reflects on God’s unfathomable immensity, His boundless love, Christian hospitality and the politics of exclusion.

The Squirrel on the Cable

I looked up and saw a black squirrel scurrying along a cable. A power cable, perhaps a telephone line. I couldn’t tell.

And a thought crossed my mind: how many squirrels are there in the world?

Then another thought stopped me. God knows. He knows exactly how many there are at this moment. How many died last night. How many were born between six yesterday evening and six this morning.

Selah!

Earlier, I had seen telescope images on television. Vast clouds in space, a kaleidoscope of colours, creation stretching beyond anything my mind could comfortably hold.

Let me marry those two thoughts.

A God Too Great for Our Prejudices

The God of that immensity knows the squirrel on the cable. Yet here we are, on this little speck of dust, imagining that He belongs exclusively to us. Our congregation. Our religion. Our race. Our country.

We hate somebody, then persuade ourselves that God must hate that person too. We want somebody excluded, so we construct a theology that puts them beyond His mercy.

What astonishing presumption.

I cannot reconcile the greatness of God with the smallness of a faith that requires me to despise another human being. Nor can I accept that His justice becomes negotiable whenever the offender belongs to our camp.

We need to examine what we are preaching, what we are accepting, and what we are allowing others to do in God’s name.

Paul’s warning about “dogs” comes to mind: his fierce rebuke of those insisting on circumcision as a religious requirement. Two thousand years later, we should still be asking who is placing barriers between people and the grace of God.

The Stranger Moving Towards Us

And that brings me to another thought.

How do Christians who defend the movement of Europeans across the world, including conquest and settlement, become so hostile when people move in the opposite direction?

How do we celebrate carrying our faith into somebody else’s homeland, yet resent the stranger who arrives in ours?

Perhaps we should consider what people are moving towards. Safety. Opportunity. Justice. Some assurance that their children will matter, that their labour will be rewarded, that their lives will not depend entirely on the whims of the powerful.

These hopes draw people to Western countries, including societies shaped by Protestant as well as Catholic traditions. Such societies have many influences, and their histories contain grievous betrayals of the gospel. Still, wherever their institutions uphold human dignity, protect the vulnerable and make room for compassion, I believe we can recognise something of the light of Christ.

Perhaps some who migrate towards these societies are responding, without even naming it, to that light. To the promise of a place where mercy has some public expression, where the stranger might find protection and the powerless might receive a hearing.

The Great Commission at Our Doorstep

And if so, has the Great Commission not, in one sense, been made easier?

We once crossed oceans to take the gospel to people. Now people cross oceans and arrive among us. What an opportunity to make the love of Christ tangible through hospitality, fairness, friendship and service. What an opportunity to bear witness without making anyone’s welcome conditional upon conversion.

But some Christians seem offended by the opportunity itself.

They speak as though the peace, security and prosperity they enjoy must be guarded against the very people with whom they were commissioned to share God’s love. They praise Christian civilisation, then resist the obligations that come with that claim.

There are questions to debate about immigration. Of course there are. Housing, public services, employment and the capacity to receive people require serious thought. But there is a profound moral difference between addressing those questions and making hostility towards immigrants a badge of patriotism.

When we make the stranger an enemy simply for being a stranger, what exactly are we defending?

We cannot preach love of neighbour and quietly insert a condition: provided the neighbour comes from the right country.

God in a Back Pocket

Yet narrow religion keeps attempting the same extraordinary feat: cornering the God of the universe and slipping Him into a back pocket.

He is ours. Ours alone. His peace, His joy, His grace and His salvation are apparently benefits reserved for our own people.

And Christ’s Great Commission? Just a thought, perhaps. Something He said. Surely He could not have meant that we should welcome an actual opportunity to practise it.

You see the absurdity?

In Whose Interest?

When politicians cultivate contempt for immigrants, and Christians bless that contempt, whose purposes are being served? When fear becomes the organising principle of our public life, whose spirit are we allowing to guide us?

I cannot see the work of Christ in a politics that needs us perpetually suspicious of one another. I see fertile ground for the divider: humanity consumed by discord, nations driven towards conflict, resources poured into weapons while human needs go unanswered.

We become better equipped to destroy one another and less willing to care for one another. We impoverish ourselves spiritually and materially, making the world less like the kingdom of God we claim to desire.

In whose interest is all this?

Final Thoughts

The squirrel on the cable.
Those extraordinary clouds in space.
The stranger at the border.
God knows them all.

Even you....

Remember all that before you purport to speak for Him.

Don Kenobi | Christianity Without Apologies

#MyFrancisEssays #OldManInTheMolue

#WhoOwnsGod #GodsBoundlessLove #WelcomeTheStranger

The Church, Its Comforts, and the Destinies We Could Change

2026-10-12T12:44:19.953-07:00

WHAT IF?
The Church, Its Comforts, and the Destinies We Could Change

I attended the funeral of a dear friend who passed away on earlier this year. The funeral took place somewhere in Lagos.

I cannot quite remember whether the church was housed in an elaborate tent or a bungalow. What I remember is that it was not an ostentatious affair.

Nothing about the place suggested an extravagant display of wealth. Yet considerable effort had gone into making the space comfortable and sophisticated. I looked around and noticed the air conditioners. Packaged air-conditioning units. Several of them.

I have encountered places of worship ranging from the modest to the magnificent, from the sprawling auditoriums of Lakewood Church and The Potter’s House in Texas to the historic grandeur of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. Each, in its own way, reflects the considerable resources devoted to creating spaces for worship.

Yet, for reasons I cannot quite explain, it was in this relatively modest church in Ikoyi that I found myself asking a question I had never seriously considered before.

I have seen magnificent buildings, impressive auditoriums, sophisticated sound systems, elaborate lighting, and the full paraphernalia of modern religious worship.

But on this particular occasion, something happened. I began to wonder what Jesus would make of it all.

Not what the church leadership would say. Not what the congregation would say. Not what the building committee would say in defence of its expenditure.

What would Jesus say?

I looked at those air-conditioning units and began to think about the cost of acquiring them, installing them, and keeping them running. The diesel, the generators, the maintenance, the technicians, the electricity, and the eventual replacement of equipment.

And suddenly, the air conditioners became more than air conditioners.

They became a question. A question about priorities, about the Church and its mission, and about the relationship between the resources we consume to maintain our institutions and the destinies we might change if we chose to spend some of those resources differently.

And I began to wonder.

What if?

What Does It Cost to Maintain the Church?

What if we could quantify the total recurring expenditure of churches across Lagos? Not just air conditioning, but generators, sound equipment, lighting, buildings, maintenance, administrative overheads, fleets of SUVs, and the private jets and helicopters used by some prominent religious leaders. Everything.

What if we could put a figure to the amount of money required every month to keep the religious machinery running?

I have no idea what that figure would be. Perhaps it would be less than I imagine. Perhaps considerably more. But I suspect it would be large enough to deserve a serious conversation.

And I am not talking about the money people give in church. I am talking about what the Church spends to maintain itself.

The Comfort of the Sanctuary

I know the arguments. People need to be comfortable when they come to worship God. Churches need good sound systems so people can hear the Word. They need generators because public electricity is unreliable, and air conditioning because Lagos can be unbearably hot.

Churches need buildings, equipment, administrative structures, and money to function. I understand all of that.

I am not suggesting that Christians should worship God in misery, that churches should abandon their buildings, or that every expenditure on comfort is wasteful. That would be a simplistic argument.

But there is a question we rarely ask.

At what point does providing comfort for those who have gathered to worship become more important than providing relief for those who are struggling to survive?

At what point does the maintenance of the institution begin to compete with the mission for which the institution exists? And how would we know if we had crossed that line?

These are questions about proportion, priorities, and whether our expenditure reflects our professed values.

In my latest book, Apprentice Nations, I argue, and I paraphrase here, that budgets are moral documents because they reveal what governments truly value. Every allocation represents a choice between competing priorities: the powerful and the powerless, political convenience and public welfare, wasteful prestige projects and essential services.

Speeches may proclaim concern for the poor, but budgets reveal the truth.

Follow the money and you will discover who matters, what matters, and what kind of nation a government intends to build.

That argument applies just as readily to ecclesiastical institutions.

We sing about the love of God. We preach about compassion. We quote the Scriptures about caring for widows, feeding the hungry, and remembering the poor.

Every Christian knows the familiar hymn: Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me.

But how much of our collective expenditure is devoted to making those things happen?

I do not know. And that, perhaps, is part of the problem. We do not seem particularly interested in asking.

What If We Sat Down Together?

Imagine, for a moment, that the leaders of the various Christian denominations in Lagos agreed to sit around a table. Not to organise a crusade, plan a convention, discuss church growth or membership figures, or consider acquiring another property.

But to examine their expenditure.

The elders, bishops, pastors, accountants, and people who understand the financial workings of our institutions would put the figures on the table.

This is what we spend every month on electricity and diesel. This is what we spend on buildings and maintenance. This is what we spend on administrative overheads, transportation, equipment, and the other costs associated with running our institutions.

They would add everything up and establish what it costs to keep the machinery of organised Christianity running in Lagos.

Then, having established that figure, they would ask another question:

What if we agreed to reduce that expenditure by 25 per cent?

Not by closing churches, abandoning worship, or dismissing the people who work in our institutions, but by examining our spending, eliminating unnecessary extravagance, sharing resources where practical, improving efficiency, and asking whether everything we currently pay for is genuinely necessary.

Twenty-five per cent.

What would that amount to? I do not know. But suppose the savings were substantial.

What could we do with the money?

The Destinies We Could Change

What if we established a fund to support children from poor families who have the ability to learn but cannot afford school fees? What if we provided scholarships, vocational training, apprenticeships, and access to tools for young people willing to work but lacking the means to begin?

What if we helped people acquire the skills necessary to earn a living rather than merely providing occasional assistance when their circumstances became desperate?

We could create programmes to help small businesses survive their first difficult years, establish properly managed microfinance institutions offering responsible financing to people excluded from conventional banking, and invest in productive enterprises that create jobs and generate income.

We could help people establish farms, workshops, small manufacturing businesses, and service enterprises.

What if our churches became centres not only of spiritual instruction but also of practical economic empowerment?

And what if we did these things on a scale that individual congregations could never achieve alone?

Consider the possibilities.

A child who would otherwise have abandoned school completes an education. A young person learns a trade and becomes financially independent. A woman who has struggled for years to sustain a small business obtains the capital and training needed to expand it.

A community gains access to clean water because several churches pool their resources. Unemployed young people receive the equipment and support needed to establish a cooperative enterprise. A family escapes a cycle of poverty that has persisted for generations.

These are not merely charitable transactions.

They are interventions in human destiny.

And the people who benefit are not simply recipients of our generosity. They become producers, employers, taxpayers, parents, innovators, and contributors to the society around them. They acquire the means to help themselves and, in time, help others.

What if this became a central measure of the Church’s success?

Not merely how many people attended our services last Sunday, but how many acquired the means to live with dignity because we were here. Not merely how many buildings we constructed, but how many lives we helped rebuild. Not merely how much money we raised, but how much human potential we released.

And Then, Another 25 Per Cent

Let us suppose we succeeded. The first 25 per cent reduction in expenditure has been implemented without compromising the essential work of our churches.

The lights still come on. Services continue. Pastors still preach. Congregations still gather.

But we have discovered that some things we once considered indispensable were, in fact, negotiable. We have learned to distinguish between what is necessary and what is merely desirable, and that institutional comfort need not require institutional extravagance.

Now, what if we went further?

What if we challenged ourselves to find another 25 per cent in savings, where genuinely achievable? And what if we committed those additional resources to public education, primary healthcare, vocational training, community infrastructure, agricultural development, small and medium-sized enterprises, research, innovation, and housing for vulnerable families?

We could also use our collective influence to press governments to fulfil their responsibilities.

Imagine churches working together to demand functioning public schools, better-equipped hospitals, reliable electricity, decent roads, clean water, and policies that encourage productive enterprise.

Imagine them publishing evidence of neglected public services, organising citizens around specific local problems, and holding elected officials accountable for their promises.

Imagine the Church becoming a formidable advocate for the public good, not because it seeks political power for itself, but because it recognises that the welfare of the people is inseparable from the mission it professes.

There is an important distinction here. The Church should not have to replace the government. Government has responsibilities funded by taxes collected from the people.

But the Church can help communities organise, identify their needs, demonstrate what is possible, and insist that public institutions do their jobs.

It can combine compassion with accountability.

Charity can relieve suffering today. Good governance can prevent some of that suffering tomorrow.

We need both.

When We Become Accustomed to the Smell

There is an old observation about people who live close to a sewage dump. After a while, they become accustomed to the smell. They no longer notice it as a stranger would. What is unbearable to an outsider becomes an ordinary part of their environment.

I wonder whether something similar happens to institutions.

We become accustomed to the way we do things. We inherit structures, habits, traditions, and expectations. We learn to defend them. Eventually, we stop asking whether they still serve the purposes for which they were created.

We become so familiar with our arrangements that we mistake familiarity for necessity.

Perhaps this happens in government. Perhaps in business. Perhaps in our churches.

We become accustomed to the expense of maintaining our institutions. We learn to justify it and develop arguments for why it must continue. And because everyone around us has accepted the arrangement, we rarely question it.

But a stranger comes along. Someone who has not yet become accustomed to the smell.

And suddenly, what everyone else regards as normal begins to look questionable.

I wonder whether that is what happened to me at the funeral.

I was looking at the air conditioners. But perhaps I was really looking at the distance between the resources we consume and the needs we claim to care about.

Perhaps the question was not whether the church could afford those air conditioners, but whether we had considered what else we could accomplish with the money.

And perhaps that is a question worth asking in every church in Lagos.

What Would Jesus Say?

I must be careful here.

I cannot claim to know precisely what Jesus would have said about those particular air conditioners. Neither should I pretend that every church expenditure can be judged by a single calculation.

But we do have the Gospels.

We have the story of the Good Samaritan, who did not merely express sympathy for a wounded stranger but spent his own resources to ensure that the man received care. We have the feeding of the multitude, where the immediate needs of hungry people were not dismissed as somebody else’s responsibility.

We have Jesus’ instruction to the rich young ruler to sell his possessions, give to the poor, and follow Him. We have the warning that it is possible to gain the world and lose one’s soul.

And we have a Jesus who repeatedly directed attention towards people whom society had neglected, marginalised, or considered unworthy of attention.

The question, therefore, is not whether Christians are permitted to own comfortable buildings or use modern equipment.

The question is whether our material arrangements serve the mission of Christ or gradually become ends in themselves.

Can we claim to love our neighbours while remaining indifferent to the conditions in which they live? Can we celebrate the growth of our churches while entire communities struggle to educate their children?

Can we measure spiritual success exclusively by what happens inside our auditoriums when so much suffering happens outside them? And can we continue to insist that the Church is transforming society without examining the evidence of that transformation?

These are uncomfortable questions.

But discomfort is not always the enemy of faith.

Sometimes it is the beginning of repentance.

What If We Tried?

I am not suggesting that churches should abandon their buildings, sell every vehicle, switch off every air conditioner, and distribute the proceeds to the poor. That would be a caricature of the argument.

Churches need resources to fulfil their missions. They need competent leadership, responsible administration, and sustainable operations. Some investments in facilities and equipment are entirely justified.

Nor am I suggesting that the money should simply be handed out without accountability. Money intended to help people can be wasted, mismanaged, or captured by the very interests it was supposed to serve.

Scholarship programmes need transparent selection criteria. Microfinance requires sound underwriting and responsible lending. Business-development programmes need competent management, while community projects need measurable objectives and independent oversight.

If we are serious about changing lives, we must be serious about how the money is spent.

But none of these considerations should prevent us from beginning the conversation.

Let us start with the numbers. Understand what we spend, identify unnecessary costs, and agree on what we can reasonably save. Then let us choose a small number of communities and demonstrate what coordinated action can achieve.

We could begin with scholarships, support vocational training, establish a carefully governed enterprise fund, and help finance businesses with viable plans. We could measure the results, publish them, and, if the experiment succeeds, expand it.

There is no need to wait until every denomination agrees or every pastor is convinced. A group of willing churches could begin. The results might persuade others.

Imagine the testimony of a young woman who started a business with support from such a programme. A young man who acquired a technical skill, found employment, and eventually established a workshop of his own. A family whose children remained in school because the Church helped remove a financial obstacle.

Imagine the difference between a congregation that celebrates its own expansion and one that can point to an expanding circle of people whose lives have been transformed.

Both may be doing worthwhile things.

But should we not aspire to do more?

The Question I Cannot Shake Off

I keep returning to that funeral. To the air conditioners, the diesel generators that power so much of our religious infrastructure, and the cost of maintaining buildings, equipment, vehicles, and the other trappings of organised religion.

And to the millions of people trying to find their way out of poverty.

I think about children whose education is interrupted because their parents cannot afford school fees, young people who have the capacity to work but cannot find a foothold in the economy, and entrepreneurs with ideas, determination, and a willingness to work but without the capital to begin.

I think about families for whom an unexpected medical bill can become a financial catastrophe.

And I wonder how much of this suffering might be relieved if institutions with substantial resources pooled even a modest proportion of what they spend on themselves.

I do not know how much money the churches of Lagos spend every month maintaining their operations. I do not know what percentage could be saved without compromising their essential work, or how many lives could be transformed with those savings.

These are questions that require evidence, not guesswork.

But surely we can find out.

Surely the Church, with all its intellectual, financial, organisational, and human resources, can commission such an exercise. Surely we can put the numbers on the table and have an honest conversation about what they mean.

And surely we can ask whether the resources entrusted to us are producing the greatest good they reasonably can.

Because the issue is not the air conditioner, the generator, or even the building.

The issue is what we believe the Church exists to accomplish.

Is it enough to gather people every Sunday, preach the Gospel, collect offerings, pay our bills, maintain our buildings, and repeat the process the following week?

Or should the Church also be asking what kind of society its presence is helping to create? What kind of people it is helping to form? What kind of poverty it is helping to dismantle? What opportunities it is helping to create, what governments it is helping to hold accountable, and what future it is helping to make possible?

I am not offering answers to all these questions.

I am asking that we begin to ask them.

Because there is something profoundly troubling about an institution that preaches deliverance while remaining insufficiently curious about the conditions from which people need deliverance.

And there is something profoundly hopeful about an institution that begins to understand its resources not merely as the means of sustaining itself, but as instruments for transforming the world around it.

What If?

So I return to my question.

What if we reduced our recurring expenditure by 25 per cent? What if we used the savings to educate children, equip young people with skills, finance productive enterprises, support struggling families, and help communities become more prosperous?

What if we measured success not only by the growth of our congregations but also by the growth of human possibility?

What if we discovered that we could do more for the Kingdom by spending less on ourselves?

I do not expect everyone to agree with me. Some will have objections. Others will question my assumptions or argue that the numbers do not justify the proposal.

Fair enough.

Let us examine the numbers, test the assumptions, and debate the proposal. But let us not dismiss the question merely because it makes us uncomfortable.

I have no grand conclusion to offer. Only a thought that occurred to me at the funeral of a dear friend, and a question that has refused to leave me alone.

What if the Church began to measure some of its success by the destinies it changes outside its own walls?

Don Kenobi

#MyFrancisEssays
#OldManInTheMolue

St. Paul: Beware of Dogs....

2026-10-11T09:21:42.000-07:00

St. Paul: Beware of Dogs, Beware of Evil Workers

Why did St. Paul call religious teachers dogs?

Philippians 3:2 warns against imposing

Old Testament requirements that undermine

salvation through Christ

Beware of Dogs!

In Philippians 3:2, Saint Paul issues a rather extraordinary warning: “Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision.”

Dogs! Evil workers! Mutilators of the flesh! Three descriptions, one warning. And consider this carefully: Paul uses such extraordinary language to condemn people who insisted that Gentile converts must undergo circumcision to be fully accepted as Christians.

He is not talking about prostitutes, drunkards or people openly hostile to Christianity. Not LGBTQ people. Not liberals. Not the usual targets of religious condemnation. He is talking about people who considered themselves defenders of religious truth!

These were people who knew the Scriptures, revered Moses and Abraham, and believed they were protecting the requirements of God’s covenant. They were not presenting themselves as enemies of religion. Quite the opposite. They believed they were defending it.

And what was their offence?

They insisted that Gentile Christians must be circumcised and observe Jewish religious requirements to belong fully to God’s people. In effect, they were making circumcision a condition of salvation.

Now, I find this extraordinary. If Paul could use such forceful language over a covenant sign that the Lord God Himself had given to Abraham, surely every one of us who professes to proclaim the Gospel ought to tremble at the responsibility of speaking in God’s name.

I certainly do. I sincerely hope I am not twisting Scripture in making the argument that follows. After all, I have no desire to become one of the very people Paul was warning against!

But the more I consider this passage, the more convinced I become that its warning is profoundly relevant to contemporary Christianity.

What Made Paul So Furious?

Paul was not furious because circumcision was evil. God Himself had given Abraham that covenant sign. Nor was Paul rejecting the Old Testament, from which he drew so much of his own teaching.

His objection was that these teachers were turning circumcision into a compulsory entrance examination for salvation. They were placing an additional requirement upon what Christ had accomplished.

Jesus Christ had come, suffered, died and risen from the dead. The Gospel was being preached to people of every nation, and now these new believers were being told that faith in Christ was insufficient. They must also submit to particular requirements of the Mosaic Law.

For Paul, this struck at the very heart of the Gospel.

And here lies the relevance of his warning today: Whenever we take an Old Testament requirement and make its observance a condition for receiving the salvation Christ has accomplished, are we not repeating the very error for which Paul called those teachers dogs?

That is the central question of this essay.

I am not suggesting that Christians should discard the Old Testament. Far from it. The Old Testament is Scripture, and Christ Himself declared that He had come not to abolish the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfil them.

The question is how we understand those Scriptures in the light of Christ.

There is a world of difference between learning from an Old Testament commandment and insisting that Christians must observe it as an additional condition for salvation.

There is also a profound difference between encouraging believers to give generously and teaching them that God’s favour can be purchased through prescribed financial contributions.

Paul was confronting the first kind of error. I believe we must be equally vigilant about the second.

Why Did Paul Call Them Dogs?

In the culture of Paul’s time, dogs were often regarded as unclean animals. Some Jews used the word contemptuously for Gentiles, and Paul turned the insult around against those who considered themselves religiously superior.

Paul could be a very dangerous man with words!

He also called these teachers “mutilators of the flesh,” refusing even to dignify what they were demanding with the name circumcision.

According to bible scholars, the Greek word for circumcision is peritomē, meaning cutting around. Paul instead uses katatomē, a word associated with cutting up or mutilation.

Paul was dangerous with words (when he was provoked to righteous anger

His point was devastating. When circumcision is imposed as a condition of salvation, a sacred covenant sign is reduced to mere cutting of flesh.

Then Paul delivers the real blow in the next verse He declares: “For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.”

Wow!

We are the circumcision! We who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus and place no confidence in the flesh, we are the true circumcision.

Think about what Paul is saying. The very people being told that they must undergo circumcision are being assured that they already belong to the true circumcision through Christ. That their acceptance before God does not depend upon acquiring a particular physical mark or religious credential.

But how can an uncircumcised person be circumcised?

The Circumcision of the Heart

Because Paul is speaking of the heart - the Lord God wanted a people whose hearts belonged to Him.

A people who loved:

Justice,
Who practiced mercy and
A people who walked humbly before Him.

Paul’s warning remains relevant nearly two thousand years later. The danger is not simply that we might misunderstand a religious practice, but that we might become so attached to its outward observance that we forget what it was intended to accomplish within us.

And this brings us to a particularly uncomfortable question about contemporary Christianity.

When Religious Work Becomes Evil Work

Paul calls these teachers evil workers, a remarkable description because it suggests that it is possible to work very hard for God while working against the very thing God is trying to accomplish.

Consider some familiar declarations. “Unless you belong to our church, you cannot be saved.” Or, “Unless you pray in this particular manner, God will not hear you.”

And, of course, the ever-popular, “Unless you sow this seed, your breakthrough will never come.”

Somebody tells you that Christ died for your sins, but before you can enjoy the blessings of His sacrifice, have you paid you tithes, first fruits! Covenant seeds! Prophetic offerings?

Now, let me be careful here.

There is nothing inherently wrong with Christians giving money to support their churches, helping the poor or contributing generously to worthwhile causes. Giving is an important expression of Christian faith - but... but.. give the people a chance! Give them a chance to express that Christian faith.... Don't rob God twice:

First of the money you collect unlawully, and second of the joy of seeing his little ones grow in faith and exercie that faith through their giving to worthy causee - stop ribbing them of the chance to grow through your coercive demanfds!!

Clearly I am bnot suggesting that every appeal to an Old Testament passage is an abuse of Scripture.

The problem arises when a religious obligation is presented as a transaction with God, when people are told that unless they make a particular payment, God will withhold His blessings, refuse to answer their prayers or deny them His favour.

Consider Malachi 3:10, the familiar passage about bringing tithes into the storehouse. It is frequently preached as though it establishes a direct financial contract between the contemporary Christian and God.

Pay your tithe, and God will open the windows of heaven. Fail to pay, and you risk losing His blessings.

But is that what the Gospel teaches?

Malachi was addressing a particular people within a particular covenant relationship. Christians must surely ask how that passage is to be understood in the light of Christ and the New Covenant.

The New Testament certainly teaches generosity. Saint Paul himself encourages believers to give willingly and cheerfully, not reluctantly or under compulsion.

But that is quite different from presenting a prescribed payment as the price of divine favour.

If circumcision could not be imposed as an additional condition for salvation, on what grounds do we impose financial obligations as conditions for receiving God’s grace?

To be clear, salvation and temporal blessings are not identical questions, and Paul’s argument about justification cannot simply be transferred unchanged to every teaching about giving. Nevertheless, the underlying danger deserves serious examination: the tendency to turn our relationship with God into a transaction.

The language may have changed, but the temptation remains familiar. We take something that may have a legitimate place in religious life and elevate it into an indispensable condition for obtaining what God freely gives.

That is how religious work can become destructive, even when those engaged in it believe they are serving God.

Beware of the Dogs in Our Own Pulpits

We must all be careful, therefore, especially those of us who consider ourselves Christians, defenders of the faith and proclaimers of the Gospel. We must be careful about the things we say, the teachings we promote, the people we condemn and, perhaps most importantly, the people and causes we defend.

There are many dogs in pulpits today. Of that, I have no doubt. People who present themselves as servants of God but whose words and actions undermine the very Gospel they claim to preach.

There are workers of evil whose works are manifest for all to see. Some knowingly defend, excuse and support conduct that is blatantly evil by the very moral standards they profess to uphold. Some even accept positions on councils and advisory bodies established by people whose wrongdoing they ought to be confronting.

And what makes this particularly troubling is that they often claim to be defending Christian values!

Justice? They love justice, but too often only when it concerns themselves, those who look like them or those who worship as they do. Injustice against others becomes something to explain away, minimise or simply ignore. The command to love one’s neighbour appears to acquire qualifications that Christ never attached to it.

Mercy? They preach about mercy but seem to have little patience for it when the suffering person belongs to a group they dislike. Empathy itself becomes a dirty word, something to be mocked as weakness or dismissed as fashionable sentiment. “The wages of sin is death!” they thunder, apparently forgetting that the same Scriptures proclaim the mercy of God. Mercy, it seems, is reserved for themselves and those they consider deserving of it.

Humility? Not much of that either. Some proudly describe themselves as “Shemites,” as though such a label confers spiritual superiority, while invoking “Hamites” as a contrasting category. These are ancient genealogical names turned into supposed measures of human worth, as though the Gospel had not already confronted the very idea that ancestry establishes one’s standing before God.

And these are people who profess to follow Jesus Christ!

Be in no doubt about the seriousness of this contradiction. When religious leaders defend injustice, withhold mercy, promote human hierarchies and excuse wrongdoing because it serves their interests, they provide striking contemporary examples of the broader danger illustrated by Paul’s warning: religious conviction employed in the service of evil.

And some of them are extraordinarily religious!

Perhaps the most dangerous religious person is not the one who knows he is doing wrong, but the one who is so convinced of his own righteousness that he can no longer recognise evil in what he says, does or defends.

That is precisely what makes Paul’s warning so uncomfortable. Being religious does not necessarily mean that we are doing God’s work. We may, in fact, be working against Him.

And that is a warning for all of us, myself included.

Good Works Are the Fruit of Grace

There is another distinction we must preserve. Paul was not saying that obedience is unnecessary or that good works are worthless.

Far from it.

Good works are the fruit of grace, not the price we pay to purchase it.

Christian faith is not a licence to ignore God’s commandments or abandon our responsibilities towards others. Saint James reminds us that faith without works is dead.

The Christian life requires repentance, obedience, charity, justice and mercy. The sacraments themselves are gifts of grace, not trophies of human achievement.

But none of these things gives us the right to imagine that we can place God under an obligation to reward us.

We respond to grace; we do not purchase it.

There is a profound difference between giving because we love God and giving because someone has convinced us that God will punish us financially if we refuse.

There is an equally profound difference between observing a religious practice because it draws us closer to God and insisting that the practice itself gives us power over God.

Does Christian Love Permit Such Language?

There is, of course, an uncomfortable question. Why did Paul call people dogs? Is that not contrary to Christian love?

Paul was confronting a teaching he believed endangered the Gospel, and his language was deliberately forceful. But understanding his language does not give Christians permission to insult everyone who disagrees with them.

Some Christians read “Beware of dogs” and immediately begin looking for people to bark at!

That misses the point.

Paul was challenging a religious teaching, not condemning an ethnic people. Paul himself was a Jew. Jesus was a Jew. The apostles were Jews. This passage must never become an excuse for contempt towards the Jewish people.

Indeed, the concept of circumcision of the heart came from the Jewish Scriptures themselves. Paul’s argument was about the meaning of belonging to God and the sufficiency of Christ, not the inferiority of any people.

And perhaps this is where we ought to be especially careful about applying Paul’s language to contemporary religious leaders.

It is one thing to identify teachings and conduct that contradict the Gospel. It is another to assume that everyone with whom we disagree deserves to be called a dog.

We must be prepared to challenge wrongdoing without allowing our own indignation to become another form of self-righteousness.

Why Have I Never Heard This Preached?

Can I be honest?

I do not remember ever coming across this passage before now. Neither do I remember hearing a sermon devoted to it, and I find that rather extraordinary.

You would think that a warning this important, delivered by Saint Paul to the early Church, would occupy a prominent place in Christian preaching. After all, Paul is warning believers about the danger of religious people who distort the Gospel while imagining themselves its defenders.

What could be more relevant to Christianity today?

Yet I suspect many Christians are far more familiar with Malachi 3:10, the passage about bringing tithes into the storehouse, than with Philippians 3:2.

Why? Could it be that some passages are more convenient to preach than others?

Malachi 3:10 can be used to encourage people to give money, while Philippians 3:2 challenges those who claim religious authority to examine themselves.

One can fill the collection basket.

The other might empty a few pulpits!

Of course, I cannot conclude from my own experience that the passage is rarely preached. Perhaps I simply have not been paying sufficient attention. But that does not diminish the importance of the question it raises.

Are we teaching the whole Gospel, or are we selecting those passages that best serve our interests?

Are we leading people towards Christ, or are we placing additional burdens between them and Him?

And are we willing to examine our own religious practices with the same seriousness with which we scrutinise the behaviour of others?

Rejoice in the Lord!

There is something beautiful about the order of Paul’s words. Before he says, “Beware of dogs,” he says, “Rejoice in the Lord!”

Why? Because he wants to protect the joy of the Philippian Christians, the joy of knowing that their acceptance before God rests upon Christ rather than religious credentials, ancestry or human achievements.

And Paul knew something about religious credentials. Circumcised on the eighth day, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee, zealous for the Law!

What a résumé! If anybody wanted to compete in religious qualifications, Paul was prepared to show them his certificates!

But then he says that everything he once counted as gain, he now counts as loss for the sake of Christ.

All those magnificent credentials, all that religious prestige, all those achievements suddenly became secondary to knowing Christ.

Paul had put his religious résumé beside Christ, and suddenly, it was no longer magnificent.

The God Who Sees the Heart

That, ultimately, is the lesson.

The Old Testament remains Scripture. Its teachings about justice, mercy, holiness and love of neighbour remain profoundly important to Christian life. But Christians must understand those teachings through the fulfilment of God’s promises in Jesus Christ.

We must not turn religious observances into additional conditions for salvation, nor transform acts of generosity into payments for divine favour.

And if we are ever tempted to boast about how much we have done for God, we should remember what Paul did with his magnificent religious résumé.

He put it beside Christ.

And suddenly, it was no longer magnificent.

I rest my case

Don Kenobi

#OldManInTheMolue

#MyFrancisEssays

#ChristianityWithoutApologies

An Honest President Is Not Enough to Fix Nigeria

2026-10-11T07:52:38.885-07:00

An Honest President Is Not Enough to Fix Nigeria

Why personal integrity alone cannot fix Nigeria. Don Kenobi examines corruption, Peter Obi, institutional reform and the need for development.

Dear Dr. John,

Your hypothesis that “if the leader doesn't steal, then the followers are less inclined to steal” seems logical at face value, but in a country like Nigeria, it is profoundly wrong.

Profoundly so.

A Conversation I Have Never Forgotten

Let me tell you a story.

Around 2006, before the presidential elections of 2007, I was on a bus from the main car park to the office. Beside me sat a friend from the North.

“I’m so glad Yar’Adua has emerged as the PDP’s presidential candidate,” I told him.

He laughed.

“I thought you’d be happy,” I said.

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he replied. “The man will not steal, but he will not achieve anything.”

He believed Yar’Adua’s record in Katsina already demonstrated that.

I have never forgotten that conversation. My friend may read this and remember it differently. I am recounting it as I remember it.

I am not minimising the importance of integrity. I am saying that developing Nigeria requires much more than an honest president.

Corruption Is Our National Dial Tone

Our problems are deeply embedded in our culture. That is the basis of my argument, my numerous hashtags and my book, Apprentice Nations: From Ruin to Renewal.

#CultureNotStructure

#ReCultureNotReStructure

Buy the book na!

Corruption is like the country’s dial tone. So much depends on it that, without it, things often refuse to move. To imagine that an honest president alone can fix Nigeria is to underestimate the problem.

Corruption is one thing. Development is another.

We must confront corruption while also making the country work.

Think of a bullet lodged near the heart. Sometimes, removing it immediately poses a greater danger than carefully managing the patient while deciding how to proceed.

I am not saying we should leave corruption alone. I am saying we must keep the country functioning while dealing with something deeply embedded in its institutions.

Peter Obi and the Problem of Ineptitude

And that is precisely why Peter Obi’s ineptitude bothers me so much.

Ineptitude generally bothers me, but it is particularly troubling in someone seeking to govern a country as complex as Nigeria.

Take away the bogeyman. Take away the scapegoats, the people to blame, the soundbites and the declarations of personal integrity.

What is left?

What exactly is he going to do?

He has not demonstrated the clear-headedness required to articulate whatever solutions he imagines he has.

And that is a serious problem.

Nigeria's problems will not disappear merely because the president sets a good example.

We Must Design Corruption Out of the System

We need systems that make corruption harder, expose it earlier and reduce opportunities for public officials to divert money.

We have to find ways to design those opportunities out of the system.

One proposal I have put forward is a network of regional central banks, one for each of the six geopolitical zones, with a seventh at the federal level. These institutions would finance development, with clear responsibilities and public oversight.

I am not pretending every detail is settled. These are ideas to be examined, challenged and improved.

That is what serious thinking about governance requires.

Boya-Jeka: Give Power Back to the People

That is also why I proposed, in Apprentice Nations, the Boya-Jeka ward assemblies, drawing inspiration from Afghanistan’s Loya Jirga.

People must be involved in decisions about their communities.

When government allocates money for a road, drainage or irrigation project, the people should know how much was allocated, what it will deliver and when it should be completed.

They should have the power to monitor the work and demand answers.

We must give power back to the people.

Citizens should not merely be spectators waiting for an honest president to rescue them. They must become participants in governance and auditors of the development taking place around them.

The Questions a Serious Presidential Candidate Must Answer

These are the questions a serious leader should be addressing.

“I am not corrupt” matters, but it does not answer them.

How will you change the incentives?

How will you make institutions work?

How will you empower citizens?

How will you deliver development while confronting corruption?

What will you do differently, and how will you make millions of public officials behave differently?

These questions require thought, strategy, institutional design and the capacity to execute.

Not soundbites.

Not slogans.

Not endless declarations of personal virtue.

Four Years? Who Asked You?

And Peter Obi says he will do all this in four years?

Who asked him?

If he is doing a good job, why only four years?

Why would someone seeking to undertake the enormous task of rebuilding Nigeria arbitrarily limit himself to a single term?

Is this a serious development strategy or simply another sales pitch?

My conclusion is simple.

He is just a salesman. He is not serious.

Nigeria needs more than a president who will not steal.

It needs a president who knows how to make the country work.

I hope this explains my position.

Don Kenobi
Writer | Author, Apprentice Nations: From Ruin to Renewal

The Looming Electoral Failure of an Apprentice Nation

2026-10-08T01:52:35.216-07:00

The Looming Electoral Failure of an Apprentice Nation

Nigeria’s opposition appears unable to mount the kind of political challenge that could seriously threaten the ruling APC. Beyond the electoral arithmetic lies a deeper failure: the absence of compelling alternatives, rigorous public debate, and sustained pressure on government policies. The problem is not simply who wins the next election, but why successive governments reproduce the same failures.

Drawing on themes from Apprentice Nations: From Ruin to Renewal, Don Kenobi argues that Nigeria needs more than another change of leadership. It needs a revolution of thinking, stronger civic participation, and institutions that make government accountable to ordinary citizens. Through concepts such as Boya Jeka, he challenges Nigerians to move from passive spectatorship to collective responsibility for their country's future.

The list of the top 10 states by registered voters got me thinking....

State	Registered Voters
Lagos	7,488,633
Kano	6,570,276
Kaduna	4,662,640
Katsina	3,876,051
Rivers	3,736,434
Oyo	3,588,111
Delta	3,525,988
Benue	3,057,225
Ogun	3,037,981
Bauchi	3,012,547

Look at those numbers! Simple arithmetic. First thoughts? Make dem de play de go de go. (Tinubu is going nowhere.)

They’re all working for Tinubu, as far as I’m concerned: Atiku and Peter Obi. The only credible candidate out there, in my view, is Sowore. Him sef fit de operate behind smokescreen. At this late stage, I trust nobody.

But one thing I believe: the APC will not lose the coming elections. Anyone dreaming otherwise de play.

It’s all about hearts and minds. Serious candidates, by now, would have created a narrative that was virtually unassailable, a narrative in which ordinary Nigerians could see their future so clearly that Tinubu’s return became politically untenable.

By now, Tinubu ought to be panicking, reversing his atrocious tax laws, perhaps even reducing the price of fuel simply because the political pressure had become unbearable.

Whosai!

The man is powering on. And why? Because nobody is really putting him under the kind of political pressure that matters.

Not a single candidate is speaking seriously about bringing back the subsidy. Just open your mouth and say it! Create that possibility. Give people something to believe in. Create the political pressure. And when elected, do as everyone else has done: explain how difficult it is to actually implement.... (It's called politics.)

Instead, they’re lining up behind Tinubu, helping him explain why subsidy is gone for good.

Nobody is talking seriously about the tax laws either. Why should anyone pay taxes in this country at rates higher than what they were paying before? Government has not even adequately justified the previous rates, and now it wants to increase them?

If the country’s internally generated revenue is low, well… how is that our fault?!

Three decades of a profligate Fourth or Fifth Republic (I’ve stopped counting) brought us here. What about us? What about our own internally generated revenue? E nor de increase?

It should be quid pro quo. Increase our ability to generate revenue for ourselves internally, and then we can tolerate an increase in your own internally generated revenue.

Where is the candidate who stands up and says, "This is unacceptable. We will do it differently"? Where is the political argument against this inordinate tax increase?

Instead, the candidate who claims to be the people’s best friend seems more interested in travelling than engaging in serious intellectual debate. New York to pray for the victims of 9/11. Washington, D.C., to “consult” with Nigerians in the diaspora. Then Europe.

But where are the serious engagements with our universities: UNILAG, UNIBEN, ABU, UNN, UI, and Ife? Where are the lectures, the debates, the difficult questions from students and scholars about his vision for Nigeria?

A presidential ambition should be subjected to intellectual scrutiny, not sustained by endless appearances and reassuring platitudes.

That is the tragedy of political obscurantism: visibility without intellectual engagement, movement without direction, and rhetoric without the discipline of serious questioning.

Mercifully, he left Egypt out of his itinerary. Hopefully, he still remembers what they told him 4 years ago about electricity generation.

“He’s a clown. An annoying one,” someone said in a Molue a few days ago, before continuing, “Anyway, I will not be voting. Na una sabi.”

Me? I think the problem is larger than one election, one candidate or one administration. The failure we are witnessing is not merely electoral. It is institutional, historical and intellectual. We keep changing the people at the top without changing the arrangements that make failure possible.

That is why I wrote a book whose original subtitle was The Anatomy of Failure. The editors changed it to From Ruin to Renewal. A change I now regret. Because perhaps The Anatomy of Failure was actually the more important title.

Before we can renew anything, we must understand how we arrived at ruin. We must examine the habits, institutions and assumptions that keep reproducing the same outcomes, regardless of who occupies the presidency.

Apprentice Nations (link below) should, in my view, be in the hands of every Nigerian.

My vision for the book was that it might one day occupy something of the place that Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth occupied for generations of revolutionaries - across Africa and indeed the developing world.

Why? Because armed revolutions in Africa have largely failed. The need for a revolution of thinking is dire!

From Mozambique to Angola, from Zimbabwe to South Africa, and from Libya to Burkina Faso, we have repeatedly seen the same basic problem: changing the men at the top does not necessarily change the system underneath them.

Sometimes we change governments. Sometimes we change ideologies. Sometimes we change uniforms. But somehow, we keep reproducing the same failures.

Nigeria has tried its own versions of political rupture, military intervention and revolutionary rhetoric. Yet here we are.

What we need is NOT another armed revolution. What we need IS a revolution of thinking.

And that starts with anatomising the past.

It starts with asking why citizens remain spectators in a political system that claims to represent them. It starts with asking why public failure is tolerated for so long, why political promises are so easily abandoned, and why the people are repeatedly asked to endure conditions that would be considered intolerable elsewhere.

Those questions lead directly to one of the central concepts developed in the book: Boya Jeka.

Boya Jeka, in a certain Nigerian language, suggests: Oya! Let’s go. It is a barely disguised homage to Afghanistan’s Loya Jirga.

The Loya Jirga is hardly a democratic system in the conventional Western sense, but there is something instructive in the underlying idea of an assembly in which members of a community come together to discuss matters concerning their own welfare.

The idea is simple enough: people should have a mechanism through which their voices actually matter.

That mechanism must do more than provide the appearance of participation. It must create a genuine connection between citizens, their communities and the decisions that shape their lives. It must give people a way to identify problems, demand answers and organise around their own interests.

Nigerians, have you ever wondered why, after several decades of war, the roads in Afghanistan are better than the Benin–Auchi road?

Think about that for a moment.

Afghanistan has spent decades dealing with war, insurgency, foreign intervention and political instability. Yet here we are in Nigeria, on a major highway, watching trailers literally overturn as they attempt to traverse the Benin–Auchi road at the lowest possible speed.

How does that happen? How does a road become so bad, for so long, that heavy-duty trucks are effectively fighting for survival simply trying to pass through?

And more importantly, why does nobody seem to care enough to fix it?

Could it be because there is no real pushback? Because the voices of the masses are unheard? Because citizens have become spectators rather than participants in the political process? Or because the representatives we send to Abuja are more concerned with pursuing their own interests than with pursuing the interests of the people who elected them?

This is where Boya Jeka comes in. It is an attempt to provide a roadmap, not merely for changing governments, but for changing the relationship between citizens and power.

That is all a book can do. A book cannot build the road. It cannot repair the bridge. It cannot force a government to listen. It can only present a path forward and say: Here's another way.

The walking is up to us.

And perhaps this is the uncomfortable truth Nigerians need to confront: we are all complicit in our own imprisonment. By omission or by commission. By what we do and by what we refuse to do.

By the politicians we tolerate, the failures we normalise, the roads we endure, the institutions we abandon, the elections we reduce to tribal contests, and the years we spend waiting for somebody else to come and rescue us.

The point of Boya Jeka is not that someone else will save us. It is that we must create the means by which ordinary people can begin to act collectively, insist on accountability and reclaim responsibility for the conditions in which they live.

Other interesting concepts are Associocracy and Bank-ocracy.

I have done my bit.

I rest my case.

Obi Akaraiwe | Don Kenobi

Apprentice Nations | From Ruin to Renewal is published by #BigAgendaAfrica and may be found on Amazon using this link:

https://a.co/d/02CbKOou

2026-10-03T18:30:46.781-07:00

“This Prosperity Gospel? It Is of the Devil”

With folks still clapping, the Oldman said almost offhandedly:

“This prosperity gospel? It is of the devil.”

It was a stunning statement.

The clapping stopped.

An unappreciative silence descended on the Molue, a mood he correctly read. Nobody said anything. He quickly backtracked, although it took me a long time to realise that he was not really backtracking at all. This was a deliberate, carefully thought-out attack on a doctrine he considered completely false.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “What I mean is, this prosperity gospel, e de do me somehow!”

That drew laughter. Relieved laughter.

“A few times,” he continued, “some of their praise songs sound like the kiss of Judas. Cold-blooded betrayal.”

By now it was raining heavily, and the sound of the raindrops striking the metal roof of the Molue was distinct, like thousands of tiny metal beads.

“For instance, why was it necessary to betray Jesus with a kiss?”

He had everyone’s attention. He left the question hanging in the air for a few seconds, then asked again:

“Why was a kiss necessary?”

The young student answered with a question.

“Perhaps he had a problem with what Jesus was teaching?”

“No!” the Oldman shot back. “If he had a problem with the Lord’s teachings, he would have stood like a real man, pointed at Jesus and shouted his grievances as he directed the Roman soldiers to the Lord!”

The student nodded.

“That was exactly what St. Paul did!” the Oldman continued.

“Word!” I exclaimed.

“Paul was a believer in every sense, albeit in the traditions and theology of his fathers. Judas, on the other hand, cared nothing for Jewish tradition or theology. If he did, he would not have spent three years following Jesus all over Judea. And, as it turned out, neither did he care for the teachings of the amazing young Rabbi.

“Judas cared only for himself.”

The noise of the rain seemed almost to pause to allow him to make his next point. I had not noticed it at the time, but listening to the tape recording years later, the background noise seemed to cease altogether.

The Order of St. Judas Iscariot

“Let us leave prosperity teachers and pastors for a moment and talk about prosperity followers. They may not realise it, but Judas Iscariot is their patron saint.”

Then the rain intensified.

The Oldman raised his voice to make himself heard above the hammering on the roof.

“Prosperity followers are, first, the ones with itchy ears. Those are the words of St. Paul. Second, the ones who will not tolerate sound doctrine, the ones who turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. Third, they are the ones who gather around themselves teachers to suit their own desires.

“They are knights of the rapscallion Order of Judas, and their pastors are the Supreme Knights, Grand Advocates of the Order of St. Judas Iscariot!”

No one said a word.

It had become unbearably humid inside the Molue.

“You have digressed,” I said.

“Thank you,” he replied, nodding solemnly and patting me on the back.

Once again, I felt useful to this ministry I had somehow just become part of.

May the Testimony of Demas Not Be Yours

“May the testimony of Demas not be your testimony, in Jesus’ name!” the Oldman proclaimed.

“Amen!” we responded.

“Say a louder Amen!”

“AMEN!”

“Say a louder Amen!”

“AMEN!”

“Now,” the Oldman said, “this is why you must say an Amen louder than that. In Philemon, Demas is praised by St. Paul. St. Paul calls him a ‘fellow worker.’ Amen?”

“Amen!”

“He is mentioned by Paul as a fellow worker alongside Mark and Luke. Mark wrote the Gospel of Mark, and Luke the doctor wrote the Gospel of Luke. Gospels which have been read for thousands of years.

“There is no Book of Demas.

“Think about that.

“Nothing more is heard from Demas. The last words written about him in the Bible are: ‘For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.’”

He paused.

“Thank you, Sir,” I said, for no reason at all.

But perhaps there was a reason. The fact that he was doing all this for the love he had for Christ was inescapable.

He patted me on the shoulder and continued.

Back to Judas

“Back to Judas,” he said.

“Having betrayed Jesus with the barely disguised mockery of a kiss, Judas was himself immediately betrayed by Satan, also in a barely disguised manner.

“How do I know?

“He hanged himself!

“He had lost God, yes, but at least he still had his thirty pieces of silver. He might have steeped himself in River Lethe and tried to come to terms with his loss of God. Perhaps he might even have beaten a retreat to the Cross. I can only guess.

“But the loss of God was acute, and in all likelihood it was made worse by the barely disguised mockery of Satan.”

He paused again.

“Perhaps Satan called him a betrayer. Perhaps Satan said to him, ‘Get out of my sight, you betrayer!’”

Then, raising his voice, he asked:

“Would that be too mean for Satan to do?”

No one said a thing.

“Left desolate, bereft of hope, he killed himself!”

We all clapped.

“Thank you, Sir,” I heard myself saying on the tape as the applause continued.

I remember feeling grateful to God for this strange man who laboured so hard for the Gospel of Christ.

He nodded, rested his hand briefly on my shoulder and eased himself back into his seat.

“May the testimony of Judas and Demas not be your testimony, in Jesus’ name!”

The Molue erupted.

“AMEN!”

Rain on the Roof of the Molue

This was already a Wednesday to remember forever.

It had begun with the Lord speaking to me as I stood beside the railway track, calling me by my name and saying, laconically:

“I change!”

Rain had now been falling steadily for almost an hour.

The raindrops kept up their staccato rhythm on the metal roof of the Molue, but somehow the noise seemed perfect after the Oldman’s long homily. It gave every passenger a private space, framed by the sound of rain, in which to think.

But the Oldman was not finished.

He suddenly stood up and pointed at the young student.

“Can you please pray for the rain to stop?”

Traffic was at a standstill, and it had become unbearably hot inside the bus.

“I’m an atheist,” the young student replied, laughing.

“Well, tell the rain to stop then!”

“I can’t. It’s an act of God. I mean…”

“I get your point,” the Oldman said wickedly. “Just pray. Say anything!”

The young man thought for a moment.

“Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day. Amen!”

Everyone laughed.

“Great!” said the Oldman. “One last thing. Say, ‘In Jesus’ name.’”

“In Jesus’ name,” the young atheist said, wearing a huge smile.

And the Rain Stopped

It was not immediate.

But within a minute, the sound of rain falling on the metal roof of the Molue ceased completely.

We all noticed.

It was unremarkable, really. It could have been coincidence. These things happen.

But then the sun came out.

And then the floodwaters on the road began to ebb.

And because the waters ebbed, traffic started moving. Cars which had invaded other lanes because of the flooding began returning to their proper lanes.

In less than two minutes after the prayer of the young atheist, we were moving at a steady pace again.

Fresh air rushed into the Molue.

It was bearable again.

“Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” Gladstine shouted.

“Rain, Rain, Go Away”

Eventually, the Molue driver stopped and asked everyone to come down. Many passengers had remained aboard longer than they normally would because of the rain and flooding.

“Oya! Everybody come down!” the conductor shouted. “If you stay, you go pay again o! Even if na Herbert Macaulay you de go!”

“Can we pray for the rain to start again?” the young student quipped. “My bus stop still de for front!”

Everyone laughed.

The Oldman was already making announcements as we climbed down from the Molue.

“Wednesday and Saturday! Catechism class! Do not forget! I want to see every one of you there!”

Then, remembering the atheist’s prayer, he added:

“If anybody comes from this Molue, just say, ‘Rain, rain, go away,’ and I will consent to your immediate baptism! You come, we will baptise you. Rain, rain, go away!”

What a day.

Then he turned to me.

“You have to be going back now.”

The Oldman removed the stick handle from the collection bag and handed it to me.

“See you Wednesday. Bring it with you.”

And just like that, my first day in this strange ministry was over.

Don Kenobi
#MyFrancisEssays
#OldManInTheMolue
Excerpt: The Oldman In The Molue

Scripture References

2 Timothy 4:3–4: “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine…”

Philemon 24: Paul includes Demas among his “fellow workers.”

2 Timothy 4:10: “For Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica.”

Note to a “Christian” Trump Supporter

2026-10-03T02:45:24.536-07:00

Leave Christ Alone: Why Don’t You Share Things from Trump’s Bible?

Christianity and Political Loyalty

Do you realise how contradictory it looks to share Christian posts while defending Trump as though nothing he says or does deserves criticism? Do you pray for his repentance, conscience and salvation—not merely for his political victories?

I cannot declare that Trump is going to hell, and neither can you declare him safe from judgment. That belongs to God. But Christ told us to examine the fruits. Where are the love, kindness, gentleness and self-control in the conduct you defend?

When Politics Overrides Truth

What about his COVID misinformation and the people harmed by it? Does concern for truth and human life disappear because he is your preferred politician? Does the commandment against bearing false witness stop applying when the liar is your man?

You cannot excuse dishonesty and cruelty while presenting Christianity as though there is no contradiction. Ask whether your politics are being judged by your Christianity, or whether your Christianity has been reshaped to serve your politics.

Sometimes the Christianity you present seems to mean: hate LGBTQ people, hate liberals, and boom—heaven. Where are repentance, humility, compassion and the difficult work of loving your neighbour?

I write this because Christianity is serious to me. These reflections are among the most important work I do, and I intend them to outlive me.

Do You Listen to the Rosary?

You say the rosary, but do you listen to its words?

“O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of Thy mercy.”

What about Trump? Is he not in need of mercy?

Of course he is. None of us earns mercy by becoming worthy of it. We pray that sinners recognise their need, repent and receive it. Pride is dangerous because it refuses to acknowledge that need.

The Poor and the Abuse of Power

Does the gratuitous wickedness not bother you—when aid is withdrawn from poor people? You repeat the reasons, even though the person giving them has a troubling history with truth and facts. You say USAID was being stolen.

Okay… so stop the steal… stop the steal!

When Suspicion Becomes a Death Sentence

Does the use of lethal force against people in boats not bother you? Do you ask whether the evidence justified it, whether arrest was possible and how innocent lives were protected?

If people can be located from the sky, suspicion should not become an automatic death sentence. These are serious moral questions for every Christian, regardless of party.

Human beings are not disposable because a government labels them enemies, and those who authorise the spilling of innocent blood should fear God’s judgment.

Will You Sweep Away the Righteous?

Abraham’s plea over Sodom should confront us:

“Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?”

Why place Trump beyond reproach while applying moral scrutiny to everyone else? Must political disagreement erase every good thing about Biden or Obama, while political loyalty excuses every wrong?

And when you repeat sensational allegations about opponents, do you establish their truth, or merely value them because they are useful?

Conviction Without Hatred

You know the Church’s teaching on same-sex marriage, but hatred will not make the Gospel credible. You can explain your convictions, pray for people and treat them with dignity.

Christ approached lepers, tax collectors and people accused of sexual sin with mercy and respect, while calling them to changed lives. He did not teach us to enjoy their humiliation.

Take Christianity Seriously

That is the Christianity I am asking you to take seriously: pray for Trump, criticise him when criticism is deserved, apply the same moral standard to those you dislike, and stop confusing loyalty to a politician with fidelity to Christ.

Religion Is Like a Rolls-Royce

2026-09-24T23:52:29.406-07:00

Religion Is Like a Rolls-Royce

Religion is like a Rolls-Royce.

Don Kenobi argues....

The failures of Christians do not define Christianity.
To judge the faith, we must ultimately judge it by Christ.
What Did Christ Teach?
What Would Jesus Have Done?

No - the actions of those men did not expose the inferiority of Christianity. They simply brought Christianity down to their own level.
The analogy of a car may help explain what I mean.

The Purpose of the Automobile

Cars are involved in accidents. People are injured in cars, people are killed in cars, and cars can even be deliberately used as weapons. Yet none of this changes the fundamental purpose of the automobile. It exists to move us from Point A to Point B.
Its purpose is not redefined by every foolish, careless or wicked person who sits behind the wheel. If a drunk driver crashes a beautifully engineered automobile into a wall, we do not conclude that the automobile was designed to crash into walls. We look at the driver.
The same distinction should matter when we talk about religion.

Suppose a Man Is Given a Rolls-Royce

Suppose a man is given a Rolls-Royce. What he chooses to do with it does not change what the car is, although he remains entirely accountable for how he uses it.
One man may sell it and give the proceeds to charity. Another may hitch it to a refuse bin and use it to haul rubbish to the dump. Someone else may register his as an Uber and spend his days carrying passengers around town, while another may simply park his in the driveway so that the neighbours can admire it.
These choices tell us a great deal about the owners, but remarkably little about the automobile itself. Its engineering does not deteriorate because its owner behaves foolishly. Its craftsmanship is not diminished because somebody misuses it, and its pedigree does not disappear because someone employs it for a purpose its designers never intended.
The misuse reveals something about the owner. It does not redefine what has been entrusted to him.

Christianity Must Be Judged by Christ

So it is with Christianity.
Christianity must ultimately be judged by the Christ to whom it points, not merely by every terrible thing human beings have done while carrying His name.
The Crusades, the Inquisitions, slavery, colonialism, segregation, prosperity preaching, political Christianity, corruption and hypocrisy must all be examined. Where condemnation is deserved, condemn. Where institutions have done evil, hold those institutions accountable. Where religious leaders have abused their authority, hold them accountable. Where individual Christians have behaved wickedly while invoking the name of Christ, hold them accountable too.
But after doing all of that, there remains a more fundamental question: Was that what Christ taught?
Did Christ teach conquest,
racial superiority,
exploitation,
cruelty,
greed or
the worship of political power?

Or did human beings take His name and attach it to their own ambitions?
That distinction is crucial because Christianity makes extraordinary claims about Christ, not about the perfection of Christians. Indeed, Christianity begins with a rather unflattering assessment of human beings. It assumes that we are capable of pride, greed, cruelty, hypocrisy and self-deception. It should therefore hardly surprise us that human beings can take even religion and bend it towards those same impulses.

Look at the Christian

The corruption of Christianity by Christians does not necessarily disprove Christianity. If anything, it demonstrates something Christianity itself has always insisted upon: human beings are capable of corrupting even the highest ideals placed in their hands.
So the question cannot merely be, “What have Christians done?” That is an important historical and moral question, and Christians should never be afraid of answering it. But another question must follow: “What did Christ teach, and how closely have those who invoke His name actually followed Him?”
There is an enormous difference between those two questions.
Christianity does not become false simply because Christians behave badly, any more than medicine becomes fraudulent because a doctor behaves unethically or justice becomes worthless because a judge accepts a bribe. The corruption of an ideal may expose the people entrusted with it without necessarily invalidating the ideal itself.

The Tragedy Is in the Misuse

And perhaps that is the tragedy of Christianity throughout so much of history. Too many Christians have taken something noble, beautiful and transformative and brought it down to their own level.
They have taken a faith that calls human beings towards love, mercy, sacrifice, forgiveness and service, and sometimes converted it into an instrument for wealth, status, tribalism, domination and political power.
That is not the failure of Christ's teaching. It is the failure to live by it.
Perhaps that is where the distinction ultimately lies. We should absolutely judge Christians by Christ. We should ask whether their conduct resembles the faith they profess, whether their lives reflect the values they preach, and whether the Christianity they practise bears any resemblance to the Christianity Christ taught.
But we should not judge Christ by Christians.
Christianity must ultimately stand or fall on Christ.
Hope this helps
Don Kenobi
#MyFrancisEssays
#OldManInTheMolue

On church succession

2026-09-20T11:58:49.511-07:00

Lillian,

My first response to Zaynab was deleted.

I however expounded and reframed it, and posted it on my wall.

Like you said, we move…

But first, your 3rd point addresses a point I do not understand. Perhaps you are a member of that assembly.

As I mentioned in the reframed article, selecting whomsoever is to succeed a departed General Overseer is NOT a matter for public debate!

However, if you wish to justify it, a roll-call of well-known charlatans having done the same thing is not a very strong argument:

Warren.

T.D. Jakes.

Franklin Graham.

I have omitted Osteen because:

(1) I love him like a brother, and

(2) I know he was never groomed to succeed his father.

He was a cameraman in his father’s ministry, and when he told his mum that the Lord had spoken to him to take over the mantle of leadership, his mother laughed!

I heard his mum tell this story herself. Live. Not on TV.

The rest of my argument is on my wall, but the summary is this:

THE APOSTLES.

They gave us a formula for replacing “fallen” members of Church leadership.

Fallen spiritually.

Fallen physically.

Doesn’t matter.

That formula is the CASTING OF LOTS.

Ballots.

(Interesting. I never realized until now that “lots” is contained in “bal-lots.”)

Sons and daughters succeeding parents in Church leadership is a phenomenon found principally in what I call Prosperitarianity: Prosperity-Christianity.

Not even traditional African churches such as the Cherubim and Seraphim and Christ Apostolic Church routinely succeed leadership in this worldly manner!

Worldly?

Yes!

You find sons succeeding parents routinely in family businesses and corporate organizations.

If these churches are corporate organizations, then THAT is THAT!!

Let them only admit that they are BUSINESSES, stop the pretence and deceit, and no one cares.

But to pretend these “worship houses” are part of the Body of Christ?

That must be grievous to the Holy Spirit!

The personalization of these churches through hereditary succession must surely raise a profound theological question: if the Holy Spirit truly DID build these churches, should THEY not be afraid to proceed without seeking HIS leading, and without seriously considering the example of the early disciples in a matter as important as choosing a new leader?

My next statement is harsh, but it came to me just now:

“The Holy Spirit appears to do nothing at all, not even express His dislike for these leadership shenanigans, perhaps because He has nothing to do with a self-serving, heretical church system?”

They survive because God is patient and merciful.

NOT a single evangelical church I know meets all the good deeds for which the “Churches in Asia” were commended by Christ in the Book of Revelation. Yet those churches were still condemned, sometimes in extraordinarily strong language, for their shortcomings.

That should make serious Church leaders think.

Deeply.

Isn’t it ironic, and I’ve said this before, that churches such as these, which do not believe in the doctrine of Purgatory, are perhaps the ones which most desperately need it to be true?

I rest my case.

#Dk

#MyFrancisEssays

#WeMove

GRACE WITHOUT DISCIPLINE

2026-09-14T23:59:47.546-07:00

GRACE WITHOUT DISCIPLINE

Standing before his students, Timotheus reflects on grace, divine discipline and the danger of celebrating another person’s downfall. God may permit disgrace, he argues, not to destroy His child, but to correct, refine and ultimately restore him.

A monologue delivered by Timotheus to his students

Timotheus stands before the students. He writes one word on the blackboard:

GRACE

He turns and studies their faces for a moment.

You have all heard it said:

“All things work together for good to those who love God.”

Romans 8:28.

It is one of the most beautiful promises in Scripture. It tells us that, for those who truly love God, nothing is ever completely wasted.

Not pain.

Not failure.

Not rejection.

Not even disgrace.

God can take the worst moment of a person’s life and bend it towards something good.

If necessary, He will redirect the trajectory of the stars. He will command the light of the sun. He will make the very laws of nature submit to His purpose.

Somehow, He will make all things work together for good.

He pauses.

But there is something dangerous about grace.

Not because grace itself is dangerous, but because human beings can misunderstand it.

When people become too confident that God will rescue them, they may begin to live recklessly.

They stop watching their steps.

They stop listening to correction.

They begin to believe that because God is merciful, consequences no longer exist.

And that is when the Lord brings them under the yoke of discipline.

He turns to the board and writes beneath “GRACE”:

DISCIPLINE

Grace without discipline will eventually end in disgrace.

Let me say it again.

Grace without discipline will end in disgrace.

God loves us too much to allow grace to become an excuse for foolishness. And so, He corrects those He loves. He permits them to stumble. He allows consequences to find them. Sometimes, He lets them walk through humiliation.

Not because He has abandoned them.

Because He is training them.

Timotheus steps closer to the students.

Now listen carefully, because this is where many religious people become cruel.

When you see someone passing through a season of disgrace, do not assume that God has invited you to join in his punishment.

Do not laugh.

Do not mock him.

Do not add weight to the burden already bending his back.

Do not look upon him with disgust and call your cruelty righteousness.

You may think you are helping God to punish him. You may even quote Scripture while you do it.

But God did not place that person in the fire so that you could pour petrol into it.

God may have placed him there to correct him.

To humble him.

To refine him.

And perhaps, one day, to raise him again.

So be careful.

The person you are helping to push down today may be the very person God is preparing to lift tomorrow.

And if you attempt to deepen the disgrace that God is using merely for discipline, you may suddenly discover that you are no longer standing with God.

You are standing against the person God intends to restore.

He looks again at the words on the board.

Yes, all things work together for good to those who love God.

But that promise is not permission to live recklessly.

Those who take grace for granted will be disciplined. God will place them under a yoke until they learn obedience, restraint and wisdom.

Grace is the hand that saves us.

Discipline is the hand that teaches us how to remain standing after we have been saved.

Without grace, discipline may crush a person.

Without discipline, grace may be squandered.

But when grace and discipline work together, disgrace is no longer the end of the story.

Timotheus wipes the word “DISGRACE” from the board and replaces it with:

RESTORATION

Divine discipline is not destruction.

It may hurt like destruction.

It may look like destruction.

The person passing through it may even believe that everything has been lost.

But God is not always tearing down when it appears that He is tearing down.

Sometimes, He is removing what cannot support the life He is preparing to build.

So, when a brother falls, do not dance.

When a sister is disgraced, do not celebrate.

When God is disciplining one of His children, do not volunteer to become His executioner.

Stand nearby.

Pray.

Speak the truth, certainly, but speak it with mercy.

And when the lesson has been learned, extend your hand.

Because the purpose of divine discipline is never humiliation for its own sake.

It is correction.

It is transformation.

It is restoration.

Timotheus turns back to the board. He draws a line connecting the two words.

GRACE → DISCIPLINE → RESTORATION

That, my students, is how all things work together for good.

Religion Is Like a Rolls-Royce

2026-09-14T21:20:23.819-07:00

Religion Is Like a Rolls-Royce

They did not expose the inferiority of Christianity.

They simply brought Christianity down to their own level.

The analogy of a car may help explain what I mean.

The Purpose of the Automobile

Cars are involved in accidents. People are injured in cars. People are killed in cars. Cars can even be deliberately used as weapons.

But none of this changes the fundamental purpose of the automobile:

It exists to move us from Point A to Point B.

Its purpose is not redefined by every foolish, careless or wicked person who sits behind the wheel.

Suppose a Man Is Given a Rolls-Royce

What he chooses to do with it does not change what the car is, although he remains accountable for how he uses it.

One man may sell his Rolls-Royce and give the proceeds to charity.

Another may hitch it to a refuse bin and use it to haul rubbish to the dump.

Another may register his as an Uber and spend his days carrying passengers around town.

Someone else may simply park his in the driveway so that the neighbours can admire it.

But through all of this, one fact remains unchanged:

The Rolls-Royce remains a Rolls-Royce.

Its engineering does not deteriorate because its owner behaves foolishly.

Its craftsmanship is not diminished because somebody misuses it.

Its pedigree does not disappear because someone employs it for a purpose its designers never intended.

The misuse may reveal something about the owner.

It does not redefine the car.

Christianity Must Be Judged by Christ

Religion is like that car.

Christianity, in particular, must ultimately be judged by the Christ to whom it points, not merely by every terrible thing human beings have done while carrying His name.

Crusades.

Inquisitions.

Slavery.

Colonialism.

Segregation.

Prosperity preachers.

Political Christianity.

Corruption.

Hypocrisy.

Yes, examine them all.

Condemn what deserves condemnation.

Hold institutions accountable. Hold religious leaders accountable. Hold individual Christians accountable.

But after doing so, ask the more fundamental question:

Was that what Christ taught?

Did Christ teach conquest, racial superiority, exploitation, cruelty, greed or the worship of political power?

Or did human beings take His name, hitch it to their own ambitions and drag it through the refuse of history?

Look at the Driver

A person can use a Rolls-Royce to haul rubbish.

That tells you something about the driver.

It tells you remarkably little about the Rolls-Royce.

In the same way, the corruption of Christianity by Christians does not necessarily disprove Christianity. It proves that human beings are capable of corrupting even the highest ideals placed in their hands.

The question is not merely, “What have Christians done?”

The deeper question is:

What did Christ teach, and how closely have those who invoke His name followed Him?

Christianity does not become false because Christians behave badly.

It means that too many Christians have taken something noble, beautiful and transformative, and brought it down to their own level.

The Rolls-Royce remains a Rolls-Royce.

The tragedy is that many of its supposed drivers have forgotten where it was meant to take them.

THE GOD OF NIAGARA FALLS

2026-09-14T10:43:24.000-07:00

THE GOD OF NIAGARA FALLS
Grace, Discipline and the Calling to Become Light

What can Niagara Falls teach us about God’s grace?
Don Kenobi reflects on grace, discipline, restoration and God’s calling for us to become light.

Timotheus walks slowly onto the stage. Behind him is the sound of rushing water. Not music. Water. Immense, unbroken and overwhelming. He stands silently for a moment, listening. Then he walks to the blackboard and writes:

“Because all things work together for good to those who love God.”
He looks towards the students. He listens to the water a little longer, then says quietly, almost to himself: I think that explains it.

ALL THINGS

Not everything that happens to us is good.
He turns from the board.
Let us be clear about that.
Betrayal is not good. Sickness is not good. Failure is not good. Humiliation is not good.
There are things that happen to human beings that are painful, unjust and sometimes almost unbearable.
But here is what Scripture says.
It does not say that all things that happen to us are good. It says, rather, that all things work together for good to those who love God.
He pauses.
To those who love God...
Another pause.
To those who love God...
He looks back at the words on the board.
Think about what that means.
It means that God can take what is not good and compel it to serve something good.
For those who truly love Him...
He pauses, as though reconsidering his words.
No. Let me say that somewhat differently.
The Lord can bend the trajectory of the stars. He can command the very light of the sun. He can summon winds, redirect rivers and make the laws of nature submit to His purpose.
And if that is what it takes...
He looks towards the students.
...then that is what He will do.
He is the Lord.
If that is what it takes, He will bend the stars, command the sun, summon the winds and redirect the rivers to make “all things work together” for your good.
He pauses.
The sound of the water continues.

THE GOD OF NIAGARA FALLS

Have you ever stood before Niagara Falls?
I do not mean that you have seen it in a photograph.
I do not mean that you have watched a video recorded by somebody else.
I mean, have you ever actually stood before it?
Because when you stand there, you do not merely see the water.
You hear it.
You feel it.
You are confronted by its power.
An immeasurable torrent of water plunges over those mighty falls:
Second after second.
Minute after minute....hour after hour, day after day.

It does not pause.
It does not become weary.
It does not stop to ask whether anybody is watching.
It simply pours.
Timotheus listens again.
That is what you have been hearing.
Niagara Falls.
I recorded it myself. And if you look carefully at the video being projected on the screen behind me...
He turns and looks towards the screen.
...you'll see me.
Timotheus pauses. Looks down at his feet. Rubs his chin thoughtfully.
And I think God's grace towards those He loves is like Niagara Falls.
It never ends.
It never pauses.
It never runs dry.
He looks again at the falls.
Think about this.
The God who created those mighty falls knows every molecule of water that tumbles over them.
He knows how much water has passed over them from the beginning of time. He knows how much is falling at this very moment. And He knows how much will flow tomorrow.
He turns slowly towards the students.
That same God knows you.
Not humanity in general.
Not the world as some collective abstraction.
You.
He pauses.
Think about that.
He knows every force that has risen against you. He knows every burden placed upon your shoulders. He knows the wounds you have hidden from those closest to you.
He knows every fear you have concealed, every battle you have fought in silence and everything you will require to overcome whatever opposition stands in your way.
He glances towards the falls again.
His grace for your journey is immeasurable.
He pauses.
The water continues to fall.
But there is something we must understand about grace.

WHEN GRACE IS MISUNDERSTOOD

Grace is not dangerous.
But human beings can become dangerous when we misunderstand it.
When people become too confident that God will always rescue them, they can begin to live recklessly. They stop watching their steps.
They stop examining their conduct. They stop listening to correction.
Eventually, they begin to imagine that because God is merciful, consequences no longer exist.
They tell themselves, “Whatever I do, God will forgive me.”
Timotheus shrugs slightly.
And perhaps He will.
But forgiveness does not always cancel discipline.
He walks to the blackboard and writes beneath the verse:
GRACE
Grace saves us.
But the God who saves us also loves us too much to leave us foolish, arrogant, careless and undisciplined.
And so He brings us under the yoke of correction.
Beneath GRACE, he writes:
DISCIPLINE
Those who rely upon grace while refusing discipline may eventually encounter disgrace.
He turns towards the students.
Grace without discipline will end in disgrace.
Pause.
Let me say that again.
Grace without discipline will end in disgrace.
God does not discipline us because His grace has failed.
He disciplines us because His grace is still working.
Discipline is not necessarily the withdrawal of divine love. Sometimes, it is among the strongest evidence that divine love remains.
Scripture tells us that the Lord disciplines those He loves.
And so He sometimes allows consequences to catch up with us. He permits us to stumble. Sometimes He allows the applause to cease, the doors to close and the things upon which we depended to disappear.
He places us under a yoke until we learn restraint. Until we learn obedience. Until we learn wisdom. Until we finally understand that grace is not permission to live recklessly.
Grace is the hand that saves us.
Discipline is the hand that teaches us how to remain standing after we have been saved.
Timotheus steps closer to the students.

DO NOT HELP GOD PUNISH HIS CHILDREN

But now listen carefully.
Because this is where many religious people become cruel.
When you see a man passing through what you believe to be a season of divine discipline, walking through his season of disgrace, do not take it upon yourself to enjoy his suffering.
Do not mock him. Do not deepen his humiliation. Do not add weight to the burden already bending his back.
And please, do not look upon him with disgust and call your cruelty righteousness.
You may even convince yourself that you are helping God punish him.
He shakes his head.
You are not.
God does not need your assistance to discipline His child.
If God has permitted that person to pass through the fire, He did not put him there so that you could pour petrol into it.
Perhaps the fire is there to correct him. Perhaps to humble him. Perhaps to refine him.
And ultimately, perhaps to raise him again.
What you call his destruction may merely be the dismantling of things that could no longer support his future.
What you call his disgrace may be divine discipline.
And what you think is the conclusion may only be the middle of the story.
He pauses.
So be careful.
The person you are pushing down today may be the very person God is preparing to lift tomorrow.
And if you take it upon yourself to deepen a disgrace that God intends only as discipline, you may suddenly discover something terrifying:
You are no longer merely standing against the person God intends to restore.
He pauses.
You may be standing in opposition to God Himself.
Timotheus lets the words hang for a moment, then walks slowly back to the blackboard.
Beneath DISCIPLINE, he writes:

RESTORATION

THE MIDDLE OF THE STORY

Divine discipline is not necessarily the end of the story.
It may feel like destruction. It may look like destruction. The person passing through it may even believe that everything has been lost.
But God is not always tearing down when it appears that He is tearing down. Sometimes He is removing what cannot support the life He is preparing to build.
He looks at the words on the board.
Grace saves.
Discipline corrects.
Restoration raises.
But why?
Why does God restore us?
Is restoration simply about returning us to comfort? Is it merely about giving us back our possessions, our reputation and our place among other people?
He shakes his head.
No. God restores us so that we may carry His light.
He writes one final word beneath the others:
LIGHT

THE CALLING TO BECOME LIGHT

God wants you to become His light in the world.
That is the destination towards which grace, discipline and restoration are carrying you.
But to become a light, you must first be willing to carry the Light.
You must believe that He is God.
Not a small God.
Not merely the God of the olden days.
Not a God whose power belonged only to Abraham, Moses, David and the prophets.
He is God today.
He is the God of the earth and the heavens. The God of the oceans and the stars.
The God of Niagara Falls and Jupiter.
The God of every distant world we have discovered and every mystery we have not yet begun to comprehend.
He looks towards the students.
And this immeasurable God loves you.
His grace is greater than the waters of Niagara. His discipline is evidence that He has not abandoned you. His restoration is proof that your worst season does not have the authority to write your final chapter.

WHEN A BROTHER FALLS

So when a brother falls, do not dance.
When a sister is disgraced, do not celebrate.
When God is disciplining one of His children, do not volunteer to become His executioner.
Stand nearby.
Pray.
Speak the truth, certainly, but speak it with mercy.
And when the lesson has been learned, extend your hand.
Because you do not know what God intends to make of the person whose humiliation you are presently witnessing.
Yesterday, he may have been reckless.
Today, he may be under discipline.
Tomorrow, he may become a light that leads thousands of people out of darkness.
Timotheus turns towards the blackboard.
Slowly, he draws a line connecting the four words.
GRACE → DISCIPLINE → RESTORATION → LIGHT
He steps back and studies what he has written.

ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER

Remember what we began with.
He points to the sentence at the top of the board.
“Because all things work together for good to those who love God.”
He looks again at the four words.
Perhaps this is how. Grace finds us. Discipline forms us. Restoration raises us.
And then God sends us back into the world to shine.
The sound of Niagara grows louder.
Timotheus says nothing.
For several seconds, he simply listens.
His grace does not pause.
It does not become weary.
It does not run dry.
It simply pours.
He looks towards the students.
Like Niagara Falls.
Long pause.
Then, almost as quietly as he began:
That is all I have to say about this matter.
Don Kenobi
#MyFrancisEssays
#OldManInTheMolue

2026-09-14T10:42:59.718-07:00

THE GOD OF NIAGARA FALLS

Grace, Discipline and the Calling to Become Light

A Timotheus Monologue

Timotheus walks slowly onto the stage. Behind him is the sound of rushing water. Not music. Water. Immense, unbroken and overwhelming.

He stands silently for a moment, listening.

“Because all things work together for good to those who love God.”

He looks towards the students.

I think that explains it.

Not everything that happens to us is good. Let us be clear about that.

Betrayal is not good.

Sickness is not good.

Failure is not good.

Humiliation is not good.

But God can take what is not good and compel it to serve something good.

For those who truly love Him, the Lord can bend the trajectory of the stars. He can command the very light of the sun. He can summon winds, redirect rivers and make the laws of nature submit to His purpose.

Somehow, He will make all things work together for their good.

He gestures towards the sound of the water.

Have you ever stood before Niagara Falls?

I do not mean that you have seen it in a photograph. I do not mean that you have watched a video recorded by somebody else.

Have you ever stood before it?

When you stand there, you do not merely see the water.

You hear it.

You feel it.

You are confronted by its power.

An immeasurable torrent of water plunges over those mighty falls, second after second, minute after minute, day after day.

It does not pause.

It does not become weary.

It does not stop to ask whether anyone is watching.

It simply pours.

And I think God’s grace towards those He loves is like Niagara Falls.

It never ends.

It never pauses.

It never runs dry.

The God who created those mighty falls knows the name of every molecule of water that tumbles over them. He knows how much water has passed over them from the beginning of time. He knows how much is falling at this very moment, and how much will flow tomorrow.

And that same God knows you.

Not humanity in general.

Not the world as a collective abstraction.

You.

He knows every force that has risen against you. He knows every burden placed upon your shoulders. He knows the wounds you have hidden from those closest to you. He knows every fear you have concealed, every battle you have fought in silence and everything you will require to overcome what stands before you.

His grace is immeasurable.

But there is something we must understand about grace.

Not because grace is dangerous, but because human beings can become dangerous when we misunderstand it.

When people become too confident that God will always rescue them, they may begin to live recklessly.

They stop watching their steps.

They stop examining their conduct.

They stop listening to correction.

They begin to imagine that because God is merciful, consequences no longer exist.

They tell themselves, “Whatever I do, God will forgive me.”

And perhaps He will.

But forgiveness does not always cancel discipline.

Timotheus walks to the blackboard and writes one word:

GRACE

Grace saves us.

But the God who saves us also loves us too much to leave us foolish, arrogant, careless and undisciplined.

And so, He brings us under the yoke of correction.

Beneath the first word, he writes:

DISCIPLINE

Those who rely upon grace but refuse discipline may eventually encounter disgrace.

Grace without discipline will end in disgrace.

Let me say it again.

Grace without discipline will end in disgrace.

God does not discipline us because His grace has failed.

He disciplines us because His grace is still working.

Discipline is not the withdrawal of divine love. Sometimes, it is the strongest evidence that divine love remains.

Scripture tells us that the Lord disciplines those He loves.

He allows consequences to catch up with us. He permits us to stumble. Sometimes, He allows the applause to cease, the doors to close and the things upon which we depended to disappear.

He places us under a yoke until we learn restraint.

Until we learn obedience.

Until we learn wisdom.

Until we learn that grace is not permission to live recklessly.

Grace is the hand that saves us.

Discipline is the hand that teaches us how to remain standing after we have been saved.

He steps closer to the students.

But now listen carefully, because this is where many religious people become cruel.

When you see a man being disciplined by God, walking through his season of disgrace, do not take it upon yourself to enjoy his suffering.

Do not mock him.

Do not deepen his humiliation.

Do not add weight to the burden already bending his back.

Do not look upon him with disgust and call your cruelty righteousness.

You may think you are helping God to punish him.

You are not.

God does not need your assistance to discipline His child.

He did not place that person in the fire so that you could pour petrol into it.

He may have placed him there to correct him.

To humble him.

To refine him.

And ultimately, to raise him again.

What you call his destruction may only be the dismantling of the things that could no longer support his future.

What you call his disgrace may be divine discipline.

What you think is the conclusion may only be the middle of the story.

So be careful.

The person you are pushing down today may be the very person God is preparing to lift tomorrow.

And if you attempt to deepen the disgrace that God is using merely for discipline, you may suddenly discover that you are no longer standing with God.

You are standing against the person God intends to restore.

Timotheus writes a third word beneath the others:

RESTORATION

Divine discipline is never the end of the story.

Its purpose is not destruction.

It may feel like destruction.

It may look like destruction.

The person passing through it may believe that everything has been lost.

But God is not always tearing down when it appears that He is tearing down.

Sometimes, He is removing what cannot support the life He is preparing to build.

Grace saves.

Discipline corrects.

Restoration raises.

And what is the purpose of restoration?

Is it simply to return us to comfort?

Is it merely to give us back our possessions, our reputation and our place among other people?

No.

God restores us so that we may carry His light.

He writes one final word:

LIGHT

God wants you to become His light in the world.

That is the destination towards which grace and discipline are carrying you.

But to become a light, you must first be willing to carry the Light.

You must believe that He is God.

Not a small God.

Not merely the God of the olden days.

Not a God whose power belonged only to Abraham, Moses, David and the prophets.

He is God today.

He is the God of the earth and the heavens.

The God of the oceans and the stars.

The God of Niagara Falls and Jupiter.

The God of every distant world we have discovered and every mystery we cannot yet comprehend.

And this immeasurable God loves you.

His grace is greater than the waters of Niagara. His discipline is evidence that He has not abandoned you. His restoration is proof that your worst season does not have the authority to write your final chapter.

So, when a brother falls, do not dance.

When a sister is disgraced, do not celebrate.

When God is disciplining one of His children, do not volunteer to become His executioner.

Stand nearby.

Pray.

Speak the truth, certainly, but speak it with mercy.

And when the lesson has been learned, extend your hand.

For you do not know what God intends to make of the person whose humiliation you are presently witnessing.

Yesterday, he may have been reckless.

Today, he may be under discipline.

Tomorrow, he may become a light that leads thousands of people out of darkness.

Timotheus turns towards the board. Slowly, he draws a line connecting the four words:

GRACE → DISCIPLINE → RESTORATION → LIGHT

That is how all things work together for good.

Grace finds us.

Discipline forms us.

Restoration raises us.

And then God sends us back into the world to shine.

The sound of the rushing water grows louder.

His grace does not pause.

It does not become weary.

It does not run dry.

It simply pours.

Like Niagara Falls.

That is all I have to say about this matter

Selective Justice Is Not Justice

2026-09-10T07:18:42.000-07:00

Selective Justice Is Not Justice

People believe what they want to believe.

They do not want to take a stand that might cost them something. They do not want to extend themselves beyond the boundaries of the causes they have already chosen, or the battles they have already imagined themselves fighting.

This is what perplexes me.

I have discussions with people whom I know to be highly intelligent. In many other conversations, they demonstrate an impressive ability to reason, analyse and follow evidence wherever it leads.

But introduce certain subjects, particularly Israel and Palestine, and suddenly their logic disappears.

They say things like:

“The land belonged to the Jews 2,000 years ago.”

And I am left wondering: What exactly does that mean?

Does that give anyone the right to arrive today, drive people from their homes, seize their land, restrict their movement and imprison them for years because the land supposedly belonged to their ancestors two millennia ago?

How does that make sense?

Propaganda can imprison the mind so completely that you find yourself explaining things to intelligent adults that they would ordinarily understand without difficulty.

Palestinians possess deeds, records and legal documentation showing ownership of their homes and land. In Nigerian terms, think of something resembling a Certificate of Occupancy, a C of O. These were not empty spaces waiting for someone to claim them. People lived there. Families owned homes, cultivated land and built communities there.

Now imagine that you are from southeastern Nigeria and you lawfully purchase a large piece of land in Lagos. The government recognises your ownership and gives you the necessary documents.

Then, one day, another group arrives from the Republic of Benin and declares:

“This land belonged to our ancestors 2,000 years ago.”

They proceed to drive you out. They also drive out the Yoruba family that originally sold the land to you.

Would that make sense?

Would ancient ancestry automatically cancel your ownership, your home and your humanity?

Put yourself in that position.

But many people cannot, or will not, place themselves in the position of the Palestinian. Truth is not necessarily what they are seeking. Justice is not necessarily what they desire.

What they want is selective justice.

And selective justice is not justice at all.

This is one of my deepest problems with much of evangelical Christianity. It emerged, in significant part, from a culture shaped by white supremacy, and it has too often trained Black Christians to adopt the worldview of those who once regarded them as inferior.

The message is subtle but unmistakable:

“Hate whom we hate. Love whom we love. Defend what we defend, and you will be accepted. Those people on the other side of the fence are beneath you because they are beneath us.”

It turns Black Christians into spiritual house servants, desperate for approval from a master whose racial hierarchy they have absorbed as theology.

Justice becomes secondary.

Belonging becomes everything.

Acceptance depends on occupying the correct position on an imagined ladder of race, religion and civilisation. The objective is not to stand with the oppressed, but to receive the approval of those who have decided who is worthy of sympathy and who is not.

It is mind-blowing.

Perhaps this is why I am so opposed to this corrupted form of evangelical Christianity, and why I become especially angry when Black Christians subscribe to it so uncritically.

It contradicts the mission of Christ.

It misrepresents the nature of Christ.

Christ came to set captives free. He did not set one group free so that it could place its knee upon the neck of another. He did not come merely for our nation, our race, our tribe or the people whose suffering we find politically convenient.

He came for the oppressed.

All of them.

And any Christianity that requires us to deny another people’s humanity is not defending Christ.

It is denying Him.

Don Kenobi

#MyFrancisEssays

If There Are Fifty Righteous? Abraham’s Plea for Innocent Lives

2026-09-09T05:41:30.858-07:00

If There Are Fifty Righteous…

Don Kenobi reflects on Abraham’s plea for Sodom and asks an urgent question for our time: Can any cause justify the indiscriminate destruction of innocent lives?

At its heart is a timeless moral truth: we have a duty to defend the innocent, whoever they are.

Abraham Negotiates With God

I have just watched a documentary about Abraham. The scene that stayed with me was the moment God revealed His intention to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham began what can only be described as a negotiation with God.

Abraham asked:

“What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will You really sweep them away with the wicked?”

God answered that He would spare the entire city for the sake of those fifty.

But Abraham continued. What if there were forty-five? Forty? Thirty? Twenty? Finally, ten?

Each time, God assured him that He would not destroy the city if that number of righteous people could be found within it.

Later, I would like to estimate the population of Sodom and Gomorrah at the time and calculate what percentage fifty people represented. That calculation matters, and I will explain why.

Sodom’s Sin Was Bigger Than Sexual Immorality

The angels eventually entered Sodom, and we know what followed. The men of the city, young and old, surrounded Lot’s house and demanded access to his visitors. The account presents a society in which corruption had become almost universal and every boundary of decency had collapsed.

It is easy to look at Sodom and Gomorrah entirely through the prism of sexual immorality. But sexual immorality was only one manifestation of a much deeper corruption.

The prophet Ezekiel described Sodom’s sin more broadly:

“She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.”

A society may incur the wrath of God through many forms of wickedness. Its sin does not have to be sexual.

Cruelty is immorality. Oppression is immorality. Indifference to suffering is immorality. The destruction of innocent lives is immorality.

Shall Not the Judge of All the Earth Do Right?

This is what gives Abraham’s conversation with God such profound contemporary meaning.

Abraham was not defending wickedness. He was pleading for justice. He was asking whether the innocent should be destroyed alongside the guilty:

“Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”

That question echoes through history.

For me, Abraham represents the godly person who sees even one innocent life as worthy of defence. He stands before God and makes the case for people he does not know.

His intercession tells us that protecting innocent life is not weakness, sentimentality or betrayal. It is an expression of justice itself.

No Cause Makes Innocent Blood Insignificant

The indiscriminate destruction of innocent people is ungodly.

To believe that children, families and ordinary people may simply be sacrificed for a cause requires a terrible moral surrender. No cause, however loudly proclaimed, can make the blood of the innocent insignificant.

People who believe that others must die for their cause may claim the moral high ground, but their willingness to destroy innocent lives reveals the opposite.

How Loud Must Their Cries Be in Heaven?

Think about what the cries of Sodom and Gomorrah represented. The cries of its victims rose to God, and God heard them.

Now think about the cries of innocent people today.

Think of the children.

Think of the terrified families.

Think of those buried beneath the consequences of decisions they did not make.

If their cries reached heaven, how loud would they be?

That is all I have to say about this matter.

Don Kenobi

#MyFrancisEssays #Abraham
#SodomAndGomorrah
#Justice #InnocentLives
#FaithAndConscience #ChristianReflection

Fool Me Twice: Peter Obi, Political Structure and the Refusal to Learn

2026-09-05T04:54:05.553-07:00

FOOL ME TWICE
Peter Obi, Political Structure and the Refusal to Learn

What happens when a political movement refuses to examine its own mistakes? A reflection on Peter Obi, the 2023 election, political structure, the Obidient movement and the danger of repeating yesterday's strategy while expecting tomorrow's miracle.

Dear Eustace,

To answer your question: Do I hate Peter Obi?

Why would I?

I ought to assume that he does what he does from the bottom of his heart. I ought to. But as time has dragged on, I increasingly find that I cannot. Increasingly, I find myself wondering whether much of this is simply a game of politics and self-service.

I'll come back to that.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Am I angry with Peter Obi? Yes.

Because I believe his lassitude, his political know-it-all-ness, and his failure to confront his own strategic deficiencies contributed enormously to Tinubu's victory in 2023.

Had he settled down, looked beyond the excitement surrounding his candidacy and subjected his own campaign to ruthless analysis, he might have seen the obvious weaknesses. Geography was not in his favour. Political structure was not in his favour. The entrenched machinery of the parties he sought to defeat was certainly not in his favour.

And enthusiasm was never going to be enough.

One of our problems as a people is that we do not pay sufficient attention. I fully understand that not everyone is given that grace. I regard discernment itself as a grace. But if you do not see something, at least listen to those who might.

Don't reduce every warning to hate, envy, jealousy or tribalism. Because then we remain trapped, consistently trying to solve problems at the same level of thinking that created them.

I remember some legislator in Abuja once suggesting that the solution to militancy in the Niger Delta was essentially to absorb the militants into the armed forces.

Think about that. What rank would you give those who already call themselves "General"? And if unrest continued, what next? Absorb everybody into the Army? Who pays their salaries?

Meanwhile, ideas such as legislators pooling even six months of constituency allowances to establish food-processing industries, create agricultural value chains and make farming commercially viable do not cross his closed mind.

We keep treating symptoms because systems thinking is hard.

Which brings me back to Peter Obi.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Perhaps Peter Obi did not fool us the first time. Perhaps he fooled himself.

Perhaps he genuinely believed that a half-tepid, half-timid, blunt, unsharpened and ultimately inadequate campaign strategy was sufficient to prise power away from a ruthless and deeply entrenched political establishment.

"WE HAVE MASTERED THIS GAME"

Before the 2023 election, I attended a church event where I spoke with an APC chieftain from Edo State about Peter Obi's chances.

He laughed me to scorn.

"We have mastered this game," he told me. He explained that party organisation went right down to election-day behaviour. Then he waved away my optimism about Obi:

"Leave dat tin! We lose no sleep over Peter Obi."

I wrote about that encounter immediately afterwards.

Go and verify. 😊

And as the campaign progressed, I became increasingly strident in my criticism of Obi's lukewarm, half-here, half-there approach.

WHEN THE STARS ALIGN

When the stars align, I think one of two things may be happening: Divine judgment or Divine grace.

For divine judgment, sometimes all that is required is the withdrawal of light. Darkness follows, discernment disappears, and people become capable of believing falsehood with extraordinary fervour.

There is an eerie biblical description of something like this in 2 Thessalonians 2:11, the "strong delusion" by which people come to believe what is false.

But when grace provides an opening, there will always be forces determined to misalign the stars.

Which is why I have said it before, and will say it again:

Obama's 2008 campaign remains one of the royal standards for refusing to waste a political moment.

You roll up your sleeves and traverse the country. Crucially, you don't spend all your time where everybody already loves you.

You go where the language is different, where the culture is different, where the religion is different. You go where people may distrust you and where you may receive a hostile reception.

You may not win their love, but you may win their respect.

Who remembers Joe the Plumber, the man who confronted Obama with difficult questions?

That encounter mattered because politics cannot merely be a procession of believers applauding their candidate. A candidate seeking to govern a complicated country must deliberately encounter people who do not already believe in him.

Peter Obi, by contrast, ran what became largely a populist campaign. And, astonishingly for a man seeking to wrest power from two enormous political machines, he repeatedly appeared to dismiss the importance of political structure:

"The people are my structure!"

"The people will defend their mandate."

"I don't need a manifesto. Go and see what I did in Anambra State."

Let us examine those propositions.

1. YOU NEED STRUCTURE

An army of one million people without formation can be defeated by 10,000 disciplined, organised and properly commanded soldiers.

Numbers are not structure. Enthusiasm is not structure. Virality is not structure. Crowds are not structure.

Peter Obi could have made one simple announcement:

"I need 100 volunteers from each of Nigeria's 774 local government areas."

That gives you 77,400 people. Ask each one to recruit another ten volunteers and suddenly you have the beginnings of a nationwide political army approaching 800,000 people.

Then tell the movement:

"Obidients, we now have nearly 800,000 volunteers nationwide. We need your donations more desperately than ever to train them, coordinate them, equip them and keep our operations running."

What could be simpler?

You begin converting enthusiasm into organisation, organisation into presence, presence into intelligence, and intelligence into election-day capability.

Instead, we heard repeatedly that structure was unnecessary.

We've seen how that panned out.

2. "THE PEOPLE WILL DEFEND THEIR MANDATE"

How?

"The people" cannot defend a mandate merely by being numerous any more than an amorphous army of one million can necessarily defeat 10,000 disciplined soldiers operating under a coherent command structure.

Who coordinates them? Who trains the polling agents? Who gathers intelligence? Who communicates when something goes wrong? Who collates results and documents irregularities? Who gets evidence to the right place quickly? Who provides transport, food, legal support, communications and logistics?

That is what structure means.

It is not merely a collection of party grandees sitting in Abuja.

Structure is the machinery that converts political preference into political action.

3. "GO AND VERIFY WHAT I DID IN ANAMBRA"

Fine.

What exactly did you do?

More importantly, what parts of that record constitute a replicable governing philosophy for a federation of more than 200 million people?

A presidential campaign cannot simply be:

"I governed Anambra. Go and check."

Nigeria is not Anambra multiplied by 36.

A candidate for president owes the country a coherent theory of government: what he believes, what he intends to change, how he intends to change it, what systems he intends to build and how those systems will survive him.

FAST-FORWARD TO 2026

Anyway...

Fast-forward to 2026.

Peter Obi wants the same office. And from where I sit, I am seeing far too much of the same script.

That is where my problem lies.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

What troubles me even more is that, four years later, many of his most passionate supporters still seem unable to identify one consequential thing Peter Obi himself got wrong.

Not one.

Everything was somebody else's fault: INEC, APC, PDP, the judiciary, tribalism, religion, rigging, the establishment.

Perhaps some, or even many, of those criticisms have merit. But surely a serious political movement must also possess the intellectual courage to turn the mirror upon itself and ask:

WHAT DID WE GET WRONG?

Where was our strategy deficient? Where did our candidate miscalculate? Which constituencies did we fail to reach? What organisation did we fail to build? What assumptions turned out to be false?

And, most importantly:

What must we do differently?

That is what learning looks like.

Instead, we appear ready to do the same thing again: support the same candidate, using substantially the same methods, making substantially the same assumptions, dismissing substantially the same warnings, and expecting a miracle.

I truly wish I could simply believe that the outcome will somehow be different this time.

I cannot.

That is not hatred. It is not envy. It is not bitterness. It is the refusal to surrender one's judgment to a political movement simply because one once believed in it.

I supported Peter Obi. I wanted him to succeed.

But support must never require the suspension of thought, and loyalty must never become an excuse for refusing to learn.

Independent thinking is a privilege. I cherish that privilege.

And I reserve the right to change my mind when the evidence before me changes.

I rest my case.

Don Kenobi

#OldManInTheMolue
#IndependentThinking
#CultureNotStructure
#BigAgendaAfrica

The Nicene Creed and the Great Filtration

2026-09-02T05:22:13.720-07:00

THE NICENE CREED AND THE GREAT FILTRATION

What if the trials of life are more than things happening to us?
What if they are part of a filtration process?
The Nicene Creed tells us that Christ “will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end.”
A reflection on whether the choices we make, especially in times of trial and tribulation, reveal what we are, before the judgment that precedes the Kingdom without end.

I’ve been thinking about the Nicene Creed...

If you are a Christian and actually consider what you profess in that Creed, you begin to realize that perhaps everything we go through in our daily lives is part of a filtration process.

Consider this:

“He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end.”

Consider that.

Judgment.

The Creed places judgment immediately before the Kingdom that has no end. Why? Because judgment is the great separation.

The wheat from the tares. The sheep from the goats.

Those who merely professed Christ from those who actually became Christlike. And ultimately, those who will dwell in the Kingdom that has no end.

If that is true, then the trials of this life begin to look rather different. They are not merely things happening to us. They may also be revealing what we truly are... before Christ.

Perhaps then, this life is not simply about what happens to us. Perhaps it is also about what those experiences reveal about us.

What does suffering produce in me? What does injustice expose in me? What happens to my Christianity when I am hurt? What happens to my love when the person standing before me becomes difficult to love?

Because if there will ultimately be a judgment of the living and the dead, then how we respond to the circumstances of this life cannot be irrelevant.

Which brings me back to the Creed.

“For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate; He suffered death and was buried.”

For our sake.

What does for our sake mean?

Because of us.

For our benefit.

For our good.

Without becoming tedious about it, surely we can agree that very few trials we encounter could approach the excruciating horror of Christ’s Passion.

Yet Christ endured.

And being Christlike must therefore mean, among other things, learning to endure suffering without allowing suffering to transform us into something contrary to Christ.

Pain cannot become our licence to hate. Persecution cannot become our permission to persecute. Injustice cannot become our justification for injustice. The wickedness of another person cannot become our excuse for wickedness.

“For our sake, He suffered under Pontius Pilate.”

There is something enormous hidden inside those few words.

There is a temptation, when we have suffered, to believe that our suffering gives us certain permissions: permission to hate, permission to retaliate, permission to dehumanize, permission to become cruel because someone else was cruel first.

But Christianity presents us with an uncomfortable question:

What if the trial itself is revealing whether Christ has actually taken root in us?

It is easy to love when love costs nothing. It is easy to preach forgiveness when nobody has injured you. It is easy to speak about mercy when you are not the person being asked to extend it.

The test comes when Christianity becomes expensive.

Understandably, perhaps, this Christ, the Christ who suffered, seems too weak for many Christians today.

There are telltale signs. They shout when they pray, as though Christ might otherwise not hear them. He seems too lethargic, perhaps, and must be roused.

And apparently, shouting is not enough.

In addition to shouting loudly from the pulpit, He needs sacrifices from you. Your sacrifice demonstrates just how serious you are about your request. You must somehow persuade God that you really, really mean it.

After all, it increasingly seems to be about:

“YOUR will be done.”

Not God’s will.

Yours.

And so, consciously or unconsciously, we begin constructing another Christ. A Christ of political power. A Christ who conquers governments. A Christ who needs presidents, armies, legislatures and political movements to establish His dominion.

“Oh, I’m a proud Christian nationalist!” they cry.

Even Africans among them.

But again, the Nicene Creed interrupts us:

“He will come again in glory...”

Notice the words:

He will come.

Not:

“You will bring Him.”

And when?

Christ Himself tells us that no one knows the day or the hour.

And when He does come, He will not require our permission, our political coalition, our parliamentary majority, our preferred president or our military assistance.

The Kingdom does not await our ability to seize enough earthly power to install its King.

God has not asked us to manufacture the Second Coming.

What, then, has He asked us to do?

Love until He returns.

That’s it. Frighteningly simple.

Love.

Especially the unlovable.

Love the wicked. Love the unworthy. Love the rejected. Love the person who cannot repay you. Love the person whose politics disgust you. Love the person whose religion frightens you. Love the person who hates you.

Love.

Not because they deserve it, but because Christ loved us before we deserved it.

And then?

Become light.

Christ said:

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”

Notice something. He did not say that people would glorify God because of our Christian slogans, or our political victories, or the size of our churches, or our performances before enormous crowds.

He spoke of our works.

When people encounter your compassion and find themselves wondering, What kind of God produces a person who behaves like this? ...you have become a little light in the darkness.

Light of the world. Salt of the earth.

There is another side to this.

When people look perplexed at the God you claim to serve precisely because of your cruelty, indifference, hatred, greed, tribalism, racism, violence or absence of charity, then you have made the world a little darker and placed an additional burden upon the remaining lights, which must take up the slack and shine brighter.

Perhaps that is partly why Christ said that if His disciples became silent, the very stones would cry out.

The balance of Light shining on earth will not be diminished because you refuse to shine.

When you don’t shine, that grace is given to someone, something, to shine.

Somewhere.

Because:

“His Kingdom will have no end.”

(And will not be delayed)

So?
So do yourself a favour.
Let your works so shine...

Where was I?
Ahhh...
The Nicene Creed.

Hmmm...

Perhaps Christians who do not yet say it should consider saying it, and those of us who already say it should stop merely reciting it and start wondering what we are actually saying.

And those who have never heard of it?

Learn it. Memorize it. And when you recite it, do so slowly.

Very slowly.
Because those few paragraphs contain an extraordinary question:

If this is truly what I believe, what manner of person should I be?

Don Kenobi

#MyFrancisEssays
#OldManInTheMolue
#ChristianityWithoutApologies

Not All Israel Is Israel (Romans 9:6)

2026-08-30T04:55:57.000-07:00

Not All Israel Is Israel (Romans 9:6)

The Question We Dare Not Ask

Could modern Israel be part of an end-times deception?

A provocative reflection on Revelation 16, Armageddon, Romans 9:6 and the meaning of Israel.

Overheard in a Molue

I’ve been thinking…

Could the emergence of Israel as a nation in 1948 be one of the greatest “false signs and wonders” of modern times?

Could the Israel we see today be a false Israel, raised up as part of an end-times deception to mislead many?

It is a provocative theological question, certainly, but one I think is worth exploring carefully.

As I’ve repeatedly argued, the Antichrist does not merely oppose Christ. He seeks to replace Christ, to receive the worship due to Christ and, ultimately, to deceive people into believing that he is Christ, or that what comes from him comes from God.

If that is the nature of the deception, then perhaps the most powerful false sign would not look obviously evil at all.

Perhaps it would look biblical.

Perhaps it would appear to fulfil prophecy.

Perhaps it would be convincing precisely because believers desperately want to believe it is from God.

That is the theological concept I want to explore.

Who’s bold enough to peep behind the veil?

I’ll circle back to this…

The Frogs

There is a passage in Revelation that has troubled me for a long time.

John writes:

“And I saw, coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs.”

Revelation 16:13

Then he tells us what these spirits do:

“For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty.”

Revelation 16:14

And finally:

“And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.”

Revelation 16:16

Look carefully at the sequence:

Dragon + Beast + False Prophet

↓

Deceptive spirits

↓

Signs

↓

Kings of the earth influenced and gathered

↓

War

↓

Armageddon

That sequence has given me considerable concern.

Because the road to Armageddon, in John’s vision, is not simply a road paved by obviously evil men announcing obviously evil intentions.

There is deception involved.

There are signs.

There is persuasion.

And somehow the rulers of the earth become participants in something whose true spiritual character they apparently do not understand.

That brings me back to the provocative question I overheard in the Molue:

Could the Israel we see today be a false Israel, raised up as part of an end-times deception to mislead many?

Scripture does not explicitly say this. I certainly cannot claim that Revelation 16 identifies the modern State of Israel in this way.

But the possibility raises another question that I find even more disturbing:

What if the true Israel is yet to gather?

And then Paul whispers something rather unsettling into the discussion:

“For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.”

Romans 9:6

That single sentence should, at the very least, make us cautious about assuming that the biblical word Israel, the modern political State of Israel, ethnic Israel and the people whom God ultimately recognises as His own are necessarily interchangeable concepts.

Paul himself forces us to ask the question:

What exactly does God mean by Israel?

What If?

I have asked this question in several of my treatises.

There are Christians who look expectantly towards the return of Christ after Armageddon.

Some therefore interpret events in the Middle East through an eschatological timetable in which a great final conflict must occur before Christ returns.

And this creates a frightening theological possibility.

What happens when people begin to want prophecy fulfilled?

What happens when Christians become eager for Armageddon because they believe that once the battle comes, Christ will return and all His enemies will finally be destroyed?

And then comes the question I almost hesitate to ask:

What if, in eagerly working towards the destruction of those they have identified as Christ’s enemies, they themselves become enemies of the Christ they claim to await?

What if?

Because Christ left us an extraordinarily inconvenient test by which to recognise His followers.

Not their ability to interpret prophecy.

Not their ability to identify geopolitical enemies.

Not their ability to predict Armageddon.

Love.

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Perhaps one of the most dangerous possibilities in religion is that a person can become so consumed with defending God’s programme that he ceases to resemble God.

Sometimes the things I overhear in the Molue overwhelm the mind.

And then I remember something I once wrote about the Village Idiot.

It came from one of the many feisty exchanges I had with Gabi, my favourite Australian.

“You think too much about these things,” she once told me.

“Just breathe!”

Gabi, I should mention, was born to Jewish parents in Berlin in the dying days of the Second World War. She rejected religion about as completely as it was possible to do and was as staunchly anti-Zionist as she was pro-Palestinian.

We argued.

Boy, did we argue.

And during one of those exchanges, I wrote something in anger that, with a little refinement, went something like this:

The Village Idiot

The happiest of men may simply have given up trying to discover some greater meaning to life.

They gossip.

They laugh.

They sit together at the pub, beneath the village tree or outside the church after Mass.

And they are perfectly content to leave no footprints upon the sands of time, or whatever it is upon which human beings imagine they are supposed to leave footprints.

That’s what you suggest I be?

She responded, rather unkindly, with something along these lines:

Those who cannot simply sit at the end of the day in fellowship with others, amused and satisfied by the ordinary rhythm of existence, perhaps even by the possibility that their lives may ultimately have no greater meaning, may have condemned themselves to a peculiar kind of misery.

Perhaps they would be well advised to become like the village idiot.

And now, all these years later, sitting once again in the Molue and thinking about Israel, Armageddon, false prophets, frogs, signs, wonders, Christians, enemies and Christ…

I find myself wondering:

Perhaps Gabi was right after all.

Maybe I think too much.

Maybe the village idiot was really not an idiot?

Perhaps he was the only wise man among us!

Perhaps his idiocy, though entirely uncontrived, rested upon information sounder than that available to those of us who chose a different path.

RIP Gabi!

But what if? What if the greatest deception is the one that looks most convincingly like prophecy fulfilled?

What if those waiting most eagerly for Armageddon fail to recognise the spirits gathering the nations towards it?

And, most troubling of all:

What if, in eagerly working towards the destruction of those they have identified as Christ’s enemies, they themselves become enemies of the Christ they claim to await?

What if?

Don Kenobi

#MyFrancisEssays | #OldManInTheMolue

Idi Amin, Julius Nyerere: The Giant and the Monk

2026-08-25T00:16:59.075-07:00

The Giant Who Ran and the Monk Who Stood

Idi Amin and Julius Nyerere offer a powerful lesson in leadership: true strength is not found in size, titles, boasting or power, but in humility, character, faith and a life whose light speaks for itself.

The Buffoon President

And then there was Idi Amin — Conqueror of the British Empire, and all the other grandiose titles he bestowed upon himself. Perhaps one of the great buffoon-leaders of modern history.

A man-mountain, too: 1.93 metres — about 6 feet 4 inches — tall.

And then, across the border in Tanzania, there was Julius Nyerere: diminutive, soft-spoken, austere, almost monk-like.

The Monk-Like President

After I described Nyerere as “monk-like,” I became curious. I had used the expression simply from what I knew of the man and the life he lived.

So I decided to check something:

What religion did Julius Nyerere actually practise?

What I discovered fascinated me.

Nyerere was a devout Roman Catholic. He was baptized on December 23, 1943, and became known for a life of extraordinary simplicity, discipline and integrity. He attended Mass regularly, reportedly practised fasting, and lived his faith with a quiet seriousness that apparently followed him even into the highest office in the land.

His Catholicism was not merely private devotion.

It helped shape his conception of ujamaa — familyhood — with its emphasis on community, solidarity and human-centred development. He translated religious and liturgical texts into Swahili. And despite being President of Tanzania, he reportedly refused special treatment in church, preferring to join the queue for Holy Communion alongside ordinary citizens.

Then came the detail that stopped me.

In 2005, the Catholic Church formally opened the cause for his beatification, and Nyerere was given the title Servant of God, the first formal stage on the possible road toward sainthood.

I had no idea.

When I called this man “monk-like,” I did not know that the Church had already begun examining his life for possible sainthood. I simply looked at the man, considered the way he lived, and that was the description that came naturally to me.

And perhaps there is a lesson there.

His Light So Shone

His light so shone that the conclusion was almost inescapable.

Christianity is not performative.

Ultimately, it shows.

If people have to tilt the light — or tilt their heads — to see precisely what makes you Christian; if elaborate theological arguments and doctrinal contortions are required to widen the Christian umbrella sufficiently to squeeze you underneath it, then perhaps your light isn't exactly “so shining before men.”

But I digress....

The Giant and the Monk

Why am I talking about Idi Amin and Julius Nyerere?

Here’s why.

For reasons best understood by Idi Amin himself, Uganda eventually found itself at war with neighbouring Tanzania.

Consider the contrast.

On one side stood Amin: enormous, flamboyant, boastful, theatrical — a man who had accumulated titles almost as enthusiastically as he accumulated enemies. At roughly 6 feet 4 inches, he towered physically over the diminutive Tanzanian president.

On the other side stood Nyerere: perhaps 5 feet 6 inches, soft-spoken, austere, almost ascetic.

Amin was confident he would prevail.

He didn't.

The Tanzanian armed forces, together with Ugandan exiles fighting Amin's regime, drove the Ugandan army back across the border and ultimately captured Kampala.

The giant fled.

Idi Amin escaped into exile, eventually settling in Saudi Arabia.

He never saw his homeland again.

And the little, monk-like man remained standing.

Strength and Stature

There is something almost biblical about that contrast.

One man cultivated the appearance of strength.

The other cultivated character.

One announced his greatness in titles.

The other allowed his life to speak for him.

And when history finally placed the giant and the monk on opposite sides of a battlefield, it was the giant who ran.

Perhaps nations, like people, eventually discover that: Strength and stature are not the same thing —a lesson desperately needed in an age when arrogance is increasingly mistaken for strength, and swagger for foreign policy.

I rest my case

Obi Akaraiwe | Don Kenobi

#BigAgendaAfrica
#OldManInTheMolue
#MyFrancisEssays

THE CARGO PLANE THAT DELIVERED THE FAITH

2026-08-22T22:53:35.319-07:00

THE CARGO PLANE THAT DELIVERED THE FAITH

A reflection on the allure of Islam, the failures of the Prosperity Gospel, and one Christian’s journey into Catholicism. Through the metaphor of a battered 2,000-year-old cargo plane, this essay explores how Scripture, tradition, ritual and community carried the Christian faith across the centuries.

Christianity did not arrive in our generation from nowhere. Before discarding ancient traditions we do not understand, perhaps we should ask how they helped preserve the faith that ultimately delivered Christ to us.

The Prosperity Gospel is nothing. Nothing.

And I am glad we are beginning to understand the allure of Islam.

When I first visited Dubai in 2006, Kosa and I would kneel whenever the muezzin called the Muslims to prayer, and we would say our own Christian prayers. The call was Muslim; the prayers we prayed were Christian. But there was something profoundly moving about a whole community stopping what it was doing, several times a day, because God was calling.

There is something extraordinarily powerful about a society in which faith is not merely something one does for two hours on Sunday morning. The fervency, devotion, discipline and brotherhood I saw among Muslims are things Pentecostal Christianity desperately wants — envies, as a matter of fact — but too often tries to manufacture through excitement rather than cultivate through a shared life of faith.

And the brotherhood!

I had rarely felt more safe or more accepted in a foreign country than I felt in Dubai. We were not living in the glittering, postcard Dubai either. We lived downtown, among ordinary people, in the not-so-glitzy parts, and the experience left a lasting impression on me.

It also reinforced something I have increasingly come to believe: many of our woes as Christians are self-inflicted.

Christ is simply lacking in so much of the Christianity practised across our denominations. Yet strangely enough, after wandering for years, I found HIM hiding within the confines of the Catholic Church.

Hidden in plain sight.

Not because Catholics are necessarily better people, and certainly not because every Catholic practice comes naturally to me. But because beneath two thousand years of dust, argument, ritual, scandal, beauty, failure, saints, sinners, martyrs, monasteries, councils and cathedrals, I found something astonishing:

Continuity.

I found a Church that remembered.

THOSE IMAGES!

And suddenly some of the arguments I had heard against Catholicism all my life began to sound rather childish.

"Oh! They bow before images!"

Really?

What about you who tell your congregants to "raise your offering," "speak to it," and "declare what you want this money to accomplish"? At least the Catholic is bowing before an object regarded as sacred. You are raising, speaking to and investing spiritual significance in a filthy, diseased piece of paper called money.

Perhaps a simple search for "Why do Catholics bow before images?" might be worthwhile. At the very least, we might first ask Catholics what they believe they are doing before confidently telling them what we have decided they are doing.

And while we are at it, why do you kneel in prayer and stretch your hands towards a television when the television minister tells you to?

Oh! You don't know a television contains images?

What makes the statue in a cathedral automatically idolatrous while the glowing image of your favourite preacher on a 65-inch Samsung television is somehow spiritually neutral? The important question cannot simply be whether an image exists. The question must surely include what you believe you are doing with it.

Just because you haven't thought about it doesn't mean it ain't so, brethren!

THE FAITH THAT ARRIVED

We have received a faith that was delivered across the ages and somehow arrived in our hands two thousand years later. Think about what that means. Christianity survived persecutions, empires, schisms, barbarian invasions, plagues, wars and the collapse of civilizations. It survived through monasteries and universities, councils and controversies, through monks copying manuscripts by hand, and through priests, bishops, theologians, mothers, fathers, hermits, martyrs and countless ordinary believers teaching their children what had first been taught to them.

The faith did not arrive naked.

It came accompanied by sacred traditions and observances that helped communities preserve and transmit it. It came with imagery and ritual, prayers and sacraments, seasons and feast days, fasts and calendars. It came with the memory of saints and martyrs. Most importantly, it came through communities of people who understood themselves not merely as individuals who happened to believe similar things, but as members of one living Body — a community of saints and aspiring saints.

A living community.

And then we modern Christians arrived.

THE OLD CARGO PLANE

Imagine an ancient cargo plane landing on a runway after the longest flight in human history: two thousand years in the air, somehow, impossibly, still flying.

Its doors are creaking, its fuselage is dented, its engines are dirty and its windshield wipers barely work. The aircraft bears the scars of storms, wars and near disasters. Emerging from the cockpit are these ancient, greasy pilots who appear to have been flying the thing since the Roman Empire. Worse still, they speak some quaint old language we can barely understand.

Latin!

We look at the aircraft in horror. Look at this ancient thing! Look at those doors! Look at those pilots! Look at those ridiculous clothes! Surely God cannot still be using THIS!

But there is one small problem with our mockery:

The cargo arrived.

The faith arrived. The Scriptures arrived. The story of Christ arrived. The Cross and Resurrection arrived. The teachings of the Apostles arrived. The testimony of the martyrs arrived.

The Gospel arrived.

And instead of first asking how this battered old aircraft managed to carry such precious cargo safely across twenty centuries, we grab the boxes, run away from the aircraft, declare ourselves the new crew and leave the bewildered old pilots standing on the tarmac wondering what exactly they did wrong.

"We delivered it, didn't we?"

THE NEW CREW

Instead of carefully reading the manuals and ancient manuscripts that arrived with the cargo, the new captains began deciding which parts they liked, which traditions were unnecessary and which interpretations were obviously correct because, well, we had just thought of them.

The history of the biblical canon itself should make us a little more humble. Martin Luther famously expressed serious reservations about several New Testament books, especially James, which he described in an early preface as an "epistle of straw." He did not simply erase James from his Bible, but the fact that such a foundational Reformation figure could question its apostolic weight should at least remind us that the history is far more complicated than the tidy stories we sometimes tell ourselves.

Imagine Christianity without the uncompromising clarity of James:

"Faith without works is dead."

We would undoubtedly have reached that truth through other passages of Scripture, but perhaps not quite so unmistakably.

And therein lies my difficulty with modern Christianity. A faith that spent centuries discerning, arguing, debating, praying and preserving its inheritance cannot suddenly be reduced to:

Me. My Bible. My interpretation. My church.

Because an obvious question follows: Who gave me the authority?

If two thousand years of Christians can be casually dismissed because I bought a Bible last Tuesday and received a "revelation" on Thursday, Christianity has ceased to be an inherited faith.

It has become spiritual improvisation.

SO WHAT IS MY POINT?

My point is simple, although I know it will irritate some people:

Christianity in its totality is found in the Catholic Church.

That does not mean I am comfortable with everything. Far from it. I remain terribly uncomfortable with "Queen of Heaven" language and with several Marian practices. Some things still make this relatively new Catholic squirm in his seat.

But I have also learned some humility.

I understand now that many of these practices, doctrines, devotions and traditions are part of the cargo hold that delivered this glorious faith to me. Before I smash the cargo hold because I don't understand why it was built that way, perhaps I should first ask the people who built it. Perhaps I should read. Perhaps I should study. Perhaps I should listen. And perhaps I should remember that Christianity existed for a very long time before I arrived.

And so I cherish those to whom Marian devotion comes naturally, even when it does not come naturally to me. Within this enormous, ancient and occasionally bewildering faith, I have at last found Christ — hidden in plain sight.

Perhaps hidden from those who would turn Him into an instrument for personal gain; hidden beneath the noise of those who reduce the Gospel to wealth, turn the Cross into a motivational seminar, worship into entertainment and prayer into a technique for acquiring things. Hidden from those who have somehow transformed the Son of Man into the chairman of an eternal prosperity scheme.

HE DID NOT LEAVE US A MAKE-IT-UP-AS-YOU-GO CHURCH

Those are my thoughts.

Jesus did not leave us an anything-goes, make-it-up-as-you-go, pleasure-loving, sensual Church. He did not call people to Himself by promising that everyone would become rich. He called fishermen and tax collectors, sinners and outcasts. He called people to repentance, service and sacrifice. He called them to take up their crosses. Many of those who first carried His name into the world eventually paid for doing so with their lives.

That is the faith that eventually reached us: bruised, battered, ancient and sometimes difficult to understand, carried in an old aircraft whose pilots occasionally embarrass us and whose machinery sometimes appears hopelessly antiquated.

But before you mock the aircraft, remember what it carried.

Across two thousand years, somehow, by the grace of God, it landed.

The doors opened, and there He was.

Jesus Christ.

Still alive. Still calling. Still demanding that we become something radically different from the world around us. Not prosperity, spectacle or religious entertainment. Not endless declarations about ourselves.

Christ.

And perhaps He already gave us the simplest test by which every ancient tradition, every modern denomination, every charismatic preacher, every cathedral, every megachurch — and every one of us — should ultimately be judged: BY THEIR FRUITS YE SHALL KNOW THEM.

Obi Akaraiwe | Don Kenobi

#MyFrancisEssays | #OldManInTheMolue

When Government Governs: A Private Note to Self

2026-08-20T23:52:02.023-07:00

When Government Governs: A Private Note

From Onyeka Onwenu’s 1983 Nigeria: The Squandering of Riches to the present day, this reflection examines four decades of corruption, gofment pikin, squander-mania and organised extraction dressed up as governance.

Nigeria may need restructuring, but structure alone cannot cure a culture of entitlement, impunity and incompetence. Good government begins with something more fundamental: a culture committed to making life work for ordinary people.

This piece of news from the BBC got me thinking: #BBCNews: London restricted highly polluting cars. Now, a new study suggests that children's lungs are getting healthier....

I wrote a private note which stated, "This is what GOVERNMENT does. It sets out policies for the good of the people.
Government should exist to make life work better for ordinary citizens, not to rob them in broad daylight. And in Nigeria, I mean that almost literally.
Successive generations of governments in Nigeria have robbed the people blind. It is almost guaranteed that the next government will be worse than this one, and the one after that, worse still.

Flashback: 1983

In 1983, Onyeka Onwenu, the Bryn Mawr graduate, socialite, journalist and musician, put out a documentary, Nigeria: The Squandering of Riches.
You may watch Nigeria: The Squandering of Riches here:
The documentary made my blood boil, I recall. Four decades later, it is still boiling.
There was Minister Uba Ahmed, I believe, who came to work each morning in Lagos from Kano, a distance of some 520 miles, in a private jet.
Scandalous at the time!
There was corruption on a scale that, back then, we imagined was off the charts. Election rigging was brazen, and the then-ruling party, like most ruling parties, was supremely confident in its invincibility, its staying power.
A certain politician from Ibadan was said to have celebrated his attainment of millionairehood by having champagne bottles specially printed with his name on them.
He had no factories. He produced nothing. He had created no great enterprise that anyone could point to.
But he was now a millionaire.
And that, apparently, was something to celebrate.

Meanwhile, scarcity ruled the land.
A new term entered our vocabulary:

EssenCo: Essential Commodities

Sugar. Salt. Milk. Soap. Toothpaste. Rice. Garri. Beans....
You could not get them anywhere.
Import licences were issued for their importation, but to government agents, who sold them to those who sold them to those who sold them, and so on. By the time those essential commodities eventually landed on our shores, they were just as expensive as the hoarded ones.

A Quick Word About the EssenCos

The EssenCos for which import licences were issued in 1983 were always available.
They were simply hoarded.
Please watch Nigeria: The Squandering of Riches. It is worth watching again more than four decades later, if only to understand how depressingly little has changed.
Click: https://youtu.be/y-OzTxlstw8?si=64TLMfRiGTLDzpIk

Enter the Government Pikin

Clearly, this egregious period in our economic history left a lasting impression on me. Here’s how I described the import-licence and gofment pikin phenomenon some 30 years ago in my book, Of Gods and Negroes:
Import licences for everything had to be bought from middlemen who bought them from the lowly government officials who fronted for people who fronted for the leaders of the country!
The leaders!
Hindsight, they say, is telescopic vision.
Sitting in the here, dissociated from the past, you just wondered what the purpose of all that greed and avarice was.
The aboriginal thieves who had a chance to build a virile nation were now mostly aged and mostly impoverished.... like every true order, these thieves recruit their sons into the realm, the order of the gofment pikin, to continue from the point where they, on account of their creaking bones, arthritis or possibly dementia, had had to call it a day!!
Today, the successors of those who helped destroy the nation, properly groomed parasites, gofment pikins, now managing the family business of extracting from the masses, gently explain to us that the problem with Nigeria is the structure.
Not their relentless extraction from the masses.
Not the corruption they perpetrate.

Not the culture of entitlement that defines them....
...Not the system that rewards those who plunder the public purse and then celebrates them as pillars of society.

The structure....
That, we are told, is the problem.

Especially the amalgamation in 1914 of the North and South by Frederick Lugard, the Empire's man Friday - that they say, is why Nigeria does not work.
Sadly, many amongst the suffering masses, find this spurious, nonsensical argument perfectly logical and nod their heads solemnly in agreement.
Declaring with fervour: "Yes.... Nigeria needs restructuring!"
Me: Of course Nigeria needs restructuring. Every nation probably does. Every organisation does. Even factory shop floors are continually being restructured in pursuit of greater efficiency.
Entire disciplines are devoted to studying how work is organised and how processes can be improved. One of the best-known philosophies is Kaizen, the pursuit of continuous improvement.
But Kaizen does not take a factory where nothing works and magically transform it into a unicorn.
Kaizen begins with something far more fundamental:

A factory that is already trying to work.

The work ethic exists.

The corporate culture exists.

Personal and professional integrity exist.

People show up on time!

Machines are maintained. Procedures are followed.

Management manages. Workers work. Quality matters.

Waste matters. Time matters. Accountability matters.

Then Kaizen enters and asks:

How can we make this better?

It studies the shop floor.

It examines work methods.

It identifies waste, unnecessary movement, bottlenecks and inefficiencies.

And then it proposes changes - often small, incremental changes that, accumulated over time, make an already functioning organisation considerably better.
Kaizen builds upon the strengths of the existing system.
It does not manufacture those strengths out of thin air.
And that brings me back to Nigeria.
Before we prescribe restructuring as the cure for everything that ails us, perhaps we should ask the more uncomfortable question:

What exactly are the strengths of the Nigerian system upon which this new structure is supposed to build?

If we carry the same culture of:
Extraction.
Entitlement.

Impunity.
Incompetence.
And Gofment Pikin.
...into a beautifully redesigned political structure, then what exactly have we restructured?
We have simply redesigned the architecture through which the same people continue doing the same things.

The Nation That Gave Us Everything

Cry, my beloved, beautiful Motherland, Nigeria!
You who did all you could for us when you were strong and virile.

You gave us free education.

You nurtured us. You opened doors for children whose parents could never have afforded the opportunities you placed before them.

And now, in your old age, you suffer destitution at the hands of those to whom you were once Alma Mater, a kind and generous Mother.

You raised us - I speak for my generation.
And we repaid you by devouring you....

When I consider the fact that squander-mania has continued virtually unabated in the 40-plus years since that documentary was made....
...that Nigeria still stands in any recognisable shape or form is as great a miracle as any nation in history can boast of, and a testament to the seemingly inexhaustible riches bequeathed to us.
A British Prime Minister is said to have once quipped that the amount of public money routinely stolen in Nigeria in a single year, if similarly extracted from the British system, would be enough to bring the country to its knees.
Whether or not the remark is authentic, the point it makes is difficult to dismiss: few nations could withstand, year after year and generation after generation, the scale of organised corruption that Nigeria has endured and still remain standing.

Back to 2026

And so we return to where this note began:
#BBCNews: London restricted highly polluting cars. Now, a new study suggests that children's lungs are getting healthier.
This is what GOVERNMENT does. This is why government exists: to set out policies for the good of the people. Government exists to make life work better for ordinary citizens, not to rob them.
Look at Nigeria:
What the taxman misses, the FRSC checkpoint on Falomo Bridge, or elsewhere, and their many other law-enforcement partners in crime will somehow ferret out of your bony, clutching fingers, leaving you and your family to go "without"one more day, yet again.
Pleased with the ingenious ways they have devised to feed on the struggling masses, they retire for the weekend and may be found at the most extravagant parties and nightclubs, congratulating themselves over caviar, fine wines and cigars....
Sunday comes.
They are ushered into reserved seats in church, celebrated as distinguished guests and generous benefactors, often because they are among the heaviest tithers.

Do You See the Vicious Cycle?

A system that impoverishes the people while feeding itself.
Public office extracts from the citizen.
Privilege rewards the extractor.
Society confers status upon him.
Religion supplies respectability.
And on Monday morning, the extraction begins again.
What we have perfected is organised extraction....
And dressed it up as governance.
André Gide: "Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again."
I rest my case.
Obi Akaraiwe | Don Kenobi
#BigAgendaAfrica
#ReCultureNotReStructure
#CultureNotStructure

We Started Playing Basketball Before Michael Jordan

2026-08-18T04:09:42.897-07:00

We Started Playing Basketball Before Michael Jordan

A group of young basketball players on their way to the National Stadium in Surulere sends the Old Man back to 1974 — to Edo College, long walks to the basketball court, kalokalo machines and childhood friends.

A Molue Monologue About Starting, Mastery, and What We Do With the Years

The Molue slowed just enough for the Old Man to climb aboard.

He grabbed the rail, hauled himself up and found a seat near the back. The conductor slapped the side of the bus twice and shouted something that was immediately swallowed by the Lagos traffic.

A few seats ahead sat a group of young boys, perhaps fifteen or sixteen years old. They were tall, lean, noisy and full of that peculiar energy young people possess when the day still seems capable of becoming anything. Two of them had basketballs. Another had a pair of basketball shoes hanging by their laces from his shoulder.

The Old Man watched them for a while.

"Where are you boys going?"

"Stadium, sir," one replied.

"National Stadium?"

"Yes, sir. Surulere. Basketball practice."

The Old Man nodded.

"Basketball..."

One of the boys bounced his ball lightly against the floor of the Molue.

The conductor spun around.

"Ah-ah! No break my motor o!"

The boys laughed.

The Old Man smiled.

"Basketball," he said again.

Then he looked through the window at Lagos passing by.

"You know something?"

The boys turned towards him.

"We started playing basketball before Michael Jordan."

There was silence.

One boy frowned.

"Michael Jordan?"

The Old Man looked offended.

"Yes. Michael Jordan. Is there another one?"

The boys laughed.

He leaned back in his seat.

"Let me tell you a story."

1974

The Old Man smiled broadly.

Yes. That Michael Jordan.

"Back in the day at Edo College, we would trek from the New Site to the Old Site, which had by then become Idia College, to play basketball. It was quite a trek, but when you are young, distance is a very different concept. You simply walked. Nobody counted steps. Nobody congratulated you for exercising. Nobody wore a watch to announce that you had burnt 427 calories.

"You wanted to play basketball, so you walked to where the basketball court was.

"But somewhere along the way, just before the gate of the old Edo College site, there was a kalokalo joint."

Now, for those born after civilisation apparently improved, kalokalo was our colloquial name for slot machines — the famous one-armed bandits. You slipped in 10 kobo, pulled the lever and waited to see whether the machine had suddenly developed an interest in your financial wellbeing.

Ten kobo was real money then. It was roughly the old British shilling, which ultimately became 10p. And naturally, being schoolboys with basketball on our minds and highly questionable investment strategies, we stopped there.

The entourage, as I remember it, included Okojie, Alaba, Emeka, Idehen, Kehinde Osemwegie and, I believe, Chiamaka.

Kehinde and Alaba are no longer with us.

I'm talking about 1974.

The Kalokalo Investment Strategy

I've got to say this: there was something peculiar about Emeka.

The rest of us apparently possessed absolutely no talent whatsoever for gambling. We would put our money into the machine, pull the lever and watch our wealth disappear.

Emeka?

Emeka would win.

Sometimes twenty 10-kobo coins would come tumbling out. Two whole naira! That was a mini-fortune to schoolboys in 1974. And he wouldn't do it just once. Sometimes the fellow would win two or three times.

Eventually, being budding scientists, engineers and economists, we developed an investment strategy based entirely on empirical evidence: whenever we were down to our last 10k, we handed it to Emeka.

And boom!

The machine would start coughing up coins.

Nobody sabi the juju wey him been dey use.

The Old Man chuckled. The boys were listening now.

He paused.

"Where was I?"

"Basketball, sir."

"Ah!" He slapped his knee. "Yes. Basketball."

A small digression: 10k was what we called 10 kobo — one-tenth of a naira. Today, 10k refers to 10,000 naira. Funny how the same three characters inflated so quietly.

Where was I?

Ahh, Michael Jordan...

We Beat Michael Jordan to It... Sort Of

We were playing basketball in 1974, around the period when a young Michael Jordan was beginning the journey that would eventually redefine the game.

Wonderful.

Do I go to bed at night thinking, But Lord, I started before MJ!?

No.

What would be the point?

Starting first was never the point.

Michael Jordan was blessed with extraordinary gifts, yes, but gifts alone do not explain Michael Jordan. Plenty of people have been gifted. Plenty have been tall, fast, athletic and naturally coordinated. Plenty of boys have picked up basketballs and discovered that something about the game came naturally to them.

But Michael Jordan took whatever nature had placed inside him and worked on it relentlessly.

He carried the flame and then fed the fire.

He developed the discipline to do extraordinary things on a basketball court and, in doing so, inspired people across races, countries and generations. Jordan put a little bounce into millions of people's steps. He made children believe they could fly.

But beneath all the mythology of Air Jordan — beneath the shoes, the advertisements, the championships and those impossible moments when he seemed to remain suspended in the air while gravity waited patiently for him to finish what he was doing — Jordan provided something far more useful than inspiration.

He provided a roadmap. And that roadmap was work.

What Can Happen in Ten Years?

Think about this.

1974 to 1984. Ten years.

By 1984, Michael Jordan was already an NCAA champion, an Olympic gold medallist and one of the most exciting young basketball players in America. He was about to enter the NBA and begin the professional journey that would turn him into a global icon.

Some of us had started playing at roughly the same time.

But there is the difference.

While we were playing basketball, Michael Jordan was becoming a basketball player.

Those two things sound similar. They are not.

One is an activity; the other is a vocation. One occupies your afternoon; the other begins to shape your life. One is something you do when the opportunity presents itself; the other is something around which you begin organising your time, your effort, your discipline and, eventually, your identity.

And that raises a question far more important than whether Obi Akaraiwe touched a basketball before Michael Jordan did:

What have I been doing for ten years that I should have mastered by now?

The Ten-Year Question

Ten years is an enormous amount of time when applied deliberately.

Think of what ten years of writing can do to a writer. Ten years of engineering to an engineer. Ten years of business to an entrepreneur. Ten years of studying history, learning an instrument, practising a craft, developing an idea or building an institution.

Not merely ten years of being around something.

Ten years of working at it.

Ten years of showing up when nobody is applauding. Ten years of making mistakes, examining them, correcting them and trying again. Ten years of reading what other people have discovered, learning from people better than you, discarding bad habits and acquiring better ones.

Ten years of being willing to discover that something you believed yesterday was wrong.

That is growth.

You may not become Michael Jordan. Most of us won't. That isn't the point.

The point is that ten years of deliberate effort should leave you somewhere radically different from where you began.

If you started something in 2016 and you are still approaching it in 2026 with essentially the same knowledge, the same discipline, the same mistakes and the same level of competence, perhaps the problem isn't talent.

Perhaps you have accumulated ten years of repetition rather than ten years of growth.

There is a world of difference between ten years of experience and one year of experience repeated ten times.

The Danger of Worshipping the Starting Line

We place far too much importance on beginnings.

"I was there before him."

"I thought of that idea years ago."

"I started doing this before it became popular."

"We were doing that in 1974."

So what?

The starting line awards no medals.

Being first gives you time. It does not guarantee that you will use it. Someone can start ten years after you and pass you because, while you were admiring your head start, that person was learning, practising, failing, correcting, adapting and improving.

That is one of life's uncomfortable truths.

Seniority is not mastery. Longevity is not excellence. And experience is useful only when experience teaches you something.

The calendar does not automatically make us better. Work does. Reflection does. Correction does. Humility does. Persistence does.

And perhaps most importantly, the willingness to remain a student does.

Fifty-Two Years Later

The Old Man looked at the basketball in the boy's hands.

"1974," he said quietly.

"Fifty-two years ago."

That little group of Edo College boys could not possibly have imagined what the next half-century would bring. We were simply walking to play basketball. We stopped at kalokalo, laughed, lost our 10k, watched Emeka perform his mysterious financial miracles and then carried on to the basketball court.

Somewhere else in the world, another boy was discovering the same game.

We did not know his name.

We could not have known what he would become.

That is how life works.

The future often begins very quietly.

Greatness rarely announces itself at the beginning.

The first basketball does not know whose hands are holding it. The first page does not know whether the person writing it will become a great author. The first experiment does not know whether the young scientist conducting it will change the world. The first little business does not know whether its founder will build an empire.

The beginning tells you almost nothing. What matters is what happens afterwards.

What happens tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, and the day after that.

For ten years.

For twenty.

Perhaps for a lifetime.

What Will You Do With Your Ten Years?

Yes. The ending will feel much more like prose if we keep the dialogue but stop giving every action its own line:

The Molue began to slow. One of the boys looked through the window and announced, "Sir, this is our stop." The others began gathering their things, and the Old Man nodded.

"Go."

The boy with the basketball stood up, then hesitated. "Baba..."

"Hmmm?"

"So what happened to you? Did you keep playing?"

The Old Man stared at him for a moment, then laughed. "Young man, have you not been listening to anything I said?"

The boys laughed too. The conductor slapped the side of the Molue and shouted, "Stadium! Stadium!" and they began jumping down one after another. The last boy stepped onto the road with his basketball tucked beneath his arm.

The Old Man leaned towards the window. "Young man!"

The boy turned.

"It doesn't matter when you started!"

The boy smiled, and the Old Man pointed at the basketball under his arm.

"What matters is what you do with the years after you start."

The conductor slapped the bus again and the Molue pulled away. The Old Man settled back into his seat and watched the boys disappear into the Lagos afternoon.

Edo College, Idia College, childhood friends, Kalokalo. 1974. Michael Jordan,... 6x NBA Champion

He smiled at the strange procession of memories. Fifty-two years had passed, and perhaps that was the lesson after all: the starting line tells you almost nothing about where a person will eventually arrive.

What matters is what you do with the road ahead.

#OldManInTheMolue #MolueMonologue #Mastery #PersonalGrowth #Excellence #NoteToSelf

Don Kenobi

#CultureNotStructure
BigAgendaAfrica
#ReCultureNotReStructure

The False Corporate Intellectuals

2026-08-16T01:50:54.997-07:00

The False Corporate Intellectuals

The modern workplace is increasingly better at talking about work than doing it. A critique of corporate theatre, false gurus, HR excess, and why organizations must rediscover the simple discipline of getting things done.

PREAMBLE: The False Prophet Analogy

We have false prophets in religion.

We have false messiahs in politics.

And we have their corporate equivalent: the false corporate intellectual.

You know the type. They know all the vocabulary — alignment, engagement, collaboration, transformation, culture, agility, psychological safety, stakeholder management, cross-functional integration — whatever new phrase has just emerged from the alphabet soup of corporate management.

They always seem to have an explanation for why something did not work.

And, even more remarkably, they always seem to have a slogan for what we should do next.

But somewhere along the way, the workplace stopped being primarily a place where people came to do things.

That, I think, is where we went wrong.

I. THE WORKPLACE WAS ONCE A PLACE TO SHOW YOUR METTLE

There was a time when the workplace was where you brought your learning, your technical skills, your experience, your judgement — your unique perspective as a human being sitting near the pointed tip of human evolution.

You were supposed to know something.

You were supposed to be able to do something.

And after spending a year in an organization, there ought to have been something you could point to and say:

I did that. I made that better. I solved that problem. I reduced that cost. I built that system. I improved that process. I delivered that project.

Increasingly, however, the modern corporation seems fascinated by something else: the appearance of being smart.

I saw this repeatedly during my corporate years. Among some of us rebels, we developed the habit of sitting quietly at the back of presentations, observing the so-called high flyers.

Someone would present, and inevitably one of them would raise a hand and ask a sophisticated-sounding question. Often the person already knew the answer. The question wasn't meant to discover anything — it was meant to be heard. It announced to the room: I am here. I understand this. I am one of the smart people.

And invariably, these were often the people receiving the highest rankings — even when their body of work for the year struggled to justify the reputation.

That is when you begin to understand that a corporation can gradually develop two economies:

The economy of work
The economy of impression

The dangerous moment comes when the second begins paying better than the first.

II. THE PROFESSIONAL COURTIER

Every organization has them.

They understand people. They understand power. They know whose jokes to laugh at, which meetings matter, when to speak, when to disappear, and how to make important people feel good in their presence.

There is nothing wrong with being personable. Emotional intelligence matters. Relationships matter. Trust matters.

But good feelings are not, by themselves, output.

A contractor does not complete a difficult project merely because everyone feels good.
A compressor does not become more efficient because the team had an excellent bonding session.
A production target does not become reality because everyone attended a workshop on collaboration.

At some point, somebody has to do the bloody work.

III. THE DOCTRINE OF WALKING ACROSS THE CORRIDOR

A trivial example that reveals a larger problem

I once encountered a piece of corporate wisdom that sounds wonderful when first spoken:

"People send emails to colleagues sitting just around the corner. Why don't they simply get up, walk across and talk to them?"

Everybody nods. Wonderful. Human interaction! Collaboration! Breaking down silos!

Except — stop applauding for a moment and actually think about it.

Suppose I need twenty pieces of information from four or five colleagues nearby. One is in a meeting. Another has gone for coffee. Another is on the phone. Why should I walk around hunting for each person, when I can send five concise emails and keep working while the answers come in?

That is not antisocial behaviour. That is asynchronous communication — one of the principal reasons information technology transformed the workplace. We spent tens of millions of dollars on computers, networks, and messaging systems precisely so that every exchange of information would not require two human beings to be physically present at the same moment.

Yet here comes the false corporate intellectual, telling us the enlightened thing to do is walk around the building looking for people. Why? Because collaboration.

Ten such interactions a day, even at thirty minutes each in interruption and searching, is five hours. Exaggerated, yes — but exaggeration exposes the absurdity.

When exactly am I supposed to work?

And a perfectly legitimate question: what if I don't particularly like the fellow? Must productive cooperation require friendship? Why can't two competent professionals exchange information efficiently, courteously, electronically — and then get on with their jobs?

IV. WHEN COLLABORATION BECOMES PERFORMANCE

Collaboration is good. Communication is good. Employee wellbeing is good. A healthy culture is good.

But almost every good thing has a point of diminishing returns.

You can have so many meetings about collaboration that nobody has time to collaborate on actual work.
You can spend so much time discussing communication that communication itself becomes an obstacle to execution.
You can become so preoccupied with engagement that the organization forgets what employees were engaged to accomplish.

And when results deteriorate, what does the modern corporation often do? It reaches deeper into the alphabet soup:

A new initiative. A new acronym. A new task force. A new transformation programme. A new culture survey. A new consultancy. A new PowerPoint deck.

The organization keeps reorganizing the machinery around work because confronting the simpler possibility is uncomfortable:

Perhaps we have forgotten how to work.

V. THE POTTER

Forget Harvard Business School for five minutes. Forget McKinsey. Forget organizational psychology. Forget the PowerPoint presentation.

Go back to the potter.

Imagine a man making clay pots in an ancient village. What was his objective? To make good clay pots. Pots that didn't crack. Pots that held water. Pots so good that people travelled from neighbouring villages to buy them.

If he succeeded, perhaps he trained his son. Perhaps apprentices joined. Perhaps eventually he employed twenty people — and now we have the beginnings of an organization.

But its purpose remains beautifully clear: make excellent pots.

Everything else exists to support that objective. Training exists to make better pots. Hiring exists to find people capable of making better pots. Accounting tells us whether making the pots is profitable. Technology helps us make more or better pots. HR should help us attract, develop, and retain the people who make the pots.

The moment any supporting function begins believing it is the purpose of the enterprise — something has gone wrong.

VI. WHEN DID HR BECOME THE CORPORATE NANNY?

This is where the argument can easily be misunderstood.

I am not arguing against HR. I am certainly not arguing for brutal workplaces.

People are people. For as long as they keep returning every morning and giving an organization a substantial portion of their waking lives, that organization owes them more than a salary. They should be treated with dignity, heard, developed — not driven into the ground in pursuit of targets.

And the evidence is overwhelming: people who enjoy their work often contribute more than people who despise it. So employee wellbeing is not the enemy of productivity.

The question is one of balance:

At what point did parts of HR move from helping people perform their jobs to becoming the nanny of the corporation?
At what point did making people comfortable begin competing with making the organization effective?
At what point did avoiding discomfort become more important than confronting poor performance?
At what point did process become more important than outcome?

And, most importantly — at what point did we forget the pots?

VII. THE FALSE PROPHET AND THE FALSE CORPORATE INTELLECTUAL

The false prophet does not speak obvious nonsense. If he did, nobody would follow him. He says things that sound profound. He knows the vocabulary, the audience, when to lower his voice and when to shout — how to produce the emotional response that makes people believe something important has happened.

The false corporate intellectual operates the same way.

The vocabulary is different.
The microphone has become PowerPoint.
The congregation has become the executive committee.
The sermon has become the transformation initiative.

But the test should remain the same:

What happened afterwards? What became better, faster, cheaper, safer, more reliable? What did we build? What problem did we solve? What customer became happier? What employee became more capable? What value did we create?

If we cannot answer those questions, perhaps we should stop being impressed by the vocabulary.

BRING BACK THE WORK | Make Making Pots Great Again!

Organizations need culture. They need empathy, collaboration, excellent HR, people who understand human motivation.

But these things must orbit the purpose of the enterprise — not replace it.

The workplace should once again become a place where human beings bring their knowledge, experience, curiosity, craftsmanship and judgement together to accomplish something worthwhile.

A place where reputation follows contribution — rather than contribution being inferred from reputation.

A place where the quiet engineer who fixes the recurring problem matters as much as the executive who speaks beautifully about transformation.

A place where the person asking the clever question is eventually asked an equally important one:

What have you actually done?

Because ultimately every organization, no matter how sophisticated, is still that ancient workshop.

Somebody is making the pot.

Somebody is buying the pot.

And if the pot is no good, eventually all the corporate intellectualism in the world will not save the potter.

Never forget the pots.

Obi Akaraiwe | Don Kenobi

#BigAgendaAfrica

In Memory of Jason Arday: Work, Dignity, and the Search for Peace

2026-08-14T19:51:25.832-07:00

In Memory of Jason Arday: Work, Dignity, and the Search for Peace

There comes a point when people simply want peace. But peace should not mean surrender. It should mean reaching a place where you no longer need anyone's approval to breathe.

My First Thoughts

My first thoughts were simple:

At some point, enough is enough, and people just want peace.
Suicide, though… that weakens the argument.
Because peace should mean reaching a place where you no longer need anyone’s approval to BREATHE.
Rest in peace, Jason Arday.
#dk

Then I thought:

Obi, you know you have more to say about this. Why are you holding back?

And the truth is, I did.

So I took a deep breath, sat down, and wrote this:

What Did They Do With My Life?

One more time: at some point, enough is enough, and people just want peace.

I remember something from the years immediately after the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, when the archives of the secret police were opened and ordinary people discovered that they had been watched for years. Files had been kept on them. Their movements had been recorded, their friends noted, their conversations documented, and the most ordinary details of their lives preserved by people apparently convinced that all this surveillance mattered.

One woman in Poland, after reading her file, reportedly reacted with something close to bewilderment. It contained years of utterly mundane observations: She left home at 9 a.m. carrying a red umbrella. She returned at noon. She took her dog out at 3 p.m. And on and on it went. Years of it.

Her response, as I remember it, amounted to:

If this was my life, what did they do with it?

Exactly.

Okay. That was my life. So what? How did following me around with notebooks save Communism? How did recording the colour of my umbrella advance the revolution?

There is something deeply disturbing about human beings becoming so consumed with another person that they begin documenting, judging, whispering, watching and interpreting everything that person does, as though the mere act of observing another human being somehow confers importance upon the observer.

Which brings me back to poor Jason Arday.

At Work You Meet All of Life's Rejects

I do not know his full story yet. I will. But something I read brought back a passage from Of Gods and Negroes, by Don Kenobi. I believe he was working for a multinational when he wrote it, and the passage appears to have grown directly out of his experiences in corporate life.

He wrote:

“At work you meet all of life’s rejects.”
Sounds totally opposite to all you always believed? Then listen more.
Here were life’s failures, contented to have a roof over their heads, fighting and jostling for favours, debasing themselves by kissing ass all day. And then, between the time they closed from work and resumed the next morning, they tried desperately to climb back up the self-esteem ladder.
So while it was apparently acceptable for the boss to look down on them, they tolerated no such nonsense from other members of society: slow drivers, people on the sidewalks and, of course, wives and children.
Society was thus made dangerous by the existence of these creatures who could be seen daily commuting to work in their all-too-flashy business suits. But don’t blame them too much. They are the working classes.
Everyone not born in a palace or sired by a king should become a member of the working classes at least once in the course of their lives. They should subsequently become employers of labour, even if the labour force consists only of themselves.
Not an easy proposition, but better than wasting your life kissing the agenda of a Board of Directors: faceless men and women you may never meet and, even if you did, probably would not enjoy being in the same room with.

I’ll paste a link to the entire chapter in the comments, if I remember.

But there you have it.

When the Noise Gets Inside You

There are some deeply unpleasant characters in our places of work, and anyone who has spent enough years inside a large organization knows the species: the gossiping, the backbiting, the petty jealousies, the pulling down, the deliberate “shortening” of the runway for talented people, the resentment of ambition, and the quiet determination to bring somebody down to size because he or she has committed the terrible offence of wanting to do great things, or simply wanting to do ordinary things better.

It is exhausting.

Imagine trying to work in an office while someone on the other side of the wall drills continuously into the concrete behind your head. You can tolerate it for a while. You can concentrate despite it. You can even learn to pretend that you no longer hear it. But day after day, year after year, eventually the noise gets inside you.

That, I think, is what people who have never experienced a genuinely toxic workplace sometimes fail to understand. It is rarely one spectacular incident. It is accumulation. A remark here. A whisper there. A deliberately obstructed opportunity. An unfair appraisal. Another little attempt to cut you down to size. Each individual incident appears survivable, even trivial, but eventually the drilling never stops.

And eventually the noise gets inside you.

Emotional Intelligence and the Corporate Courtier

Management science even has an accommodation for all this. We are admonished to move higher up the scale of “emotional intelligence,” and entire libraries have been written about how to manage your boss, manage your colleagues, read the room, control your reactions, make yourself agreeable and generally become sufficiently likeable to climb whatever ladder happens to be leaning against the corporate wall.

I found much of that disgusting from the start.

Nobody enters paid employment determined to be obnoxious, but neither should anyone have to accept obnoxious behaviour, surrender his personality or become a professional courtier simply to be liked enough to advance.

There is something fundamentally wrong with an organizational culture in which the burden of adapting endlessly is placed upon the person being badly treated rather than upon the people doing the bad treating.

You should certainly learn tact. You should learn empathy. You should learn how other people think and how your behaviour affects them. Those are marks of maturity.

But there is a difference between emotional intelligence and emotional servitude.

There is a difference between learning to work with people and learning to perform for them.

And there is a difference between becoming a better human being and becoming whatever personality the organization happens to reward this year.

And Then There Is HR

And HR?

I sometimes think Human Resources may be one of the most spectacularly failed disciplines in modern organizational life.

If HR departments built skyscrapers the way some of them build organizations, nobody would be brave enough to rent office space in them.

I wrote about this some time ago and, rather than rack my brain trying to reconstruct the entire argument here, I will find that essay.

But the central problem remains: organizations routinely proclaim values that their actual systems contradict. They speak about innovation while punishing dissent.

They celebrate initiative while rewarding conformity. They talk about psychological safety while allowing petty tyrants to flourish in middle management.

And then they wonder why talented people leave.

What If Steve Jobs Had Applied for the Job?

Consider two men who famously did not fit the corporate mould: Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

I knew about Gates when he was still astonishingly young. Around 1994, he was about 38 years old and already worth billions. Jobs had been a cult figure among some of us much earlier.

I still remember my old buddy Eugene Ikpo, RIP, walking into my room while I was reading an old Newsweek magazine.

“My first car is in the last advert in that magazine,” he announced.

I flipped through to the back.

There it was.

A BMW 7 Series.

That was around 1984. Forty-two years ago.

This little detour is simply my way of saying that Steve Jobs was already a larger-than-life figure to some of us while we were still undergraduates. And neither Jobs nor Gates was famous for fitting comfortably into the personality template HR departments would later prescribe for the ideal employee.

Yes, they were entrepreneurs.

But why shouldn’t the head of IT Services think like an entrepreneur? Why shouldn’t the engineer, the accountant or the receptionist?

Entrepreneurs are relentlessly focused on results. Why should the people they employ be focused on anything less? Why should initiative, impatience with mediocrity, a desire to improve things and an unwillingness to accept “this is how we have always done it” become personality defects simply because the person displaying them happens to receive a salary?

Your Employer Does Not Own Your Soul

Back to the poor man.

If suicide is indeed what is being implied, then it merely adds tragedy to tragedy.

No job should become so large that our entire self-esteem becomes tied to it. No title, office, promotion, appraisal, boss or institution should acquire that much ownership over a human being.

Your employer pays for your labour. It does not purchase your soul.

There is probably no simple practical advice anyone can give another human being who has reached the end of his rope. But I remember a story I wrote when I was about 24. A young man, roughly my age at the time, looked at the trajectory of his life and decided:

I don't like where this is going.

So he returned to kindergarten.

Literally, in the story.

He decided to start again.

Starting Over Is Always an Option

That idea has remained with me all these years because starting over should always remain a serious proposition.

Never be afraid to start again when you no longer like the trajectory of your life. Start at 24. Start at 44. Start at 64. Start at 84 if God gives you the morning.

There is no law requiring you to continue travelling simply because you have already spent years on the wrong road.

We sometimes remain in miserable situations because leaving appears to invalidate everything that came before. Twenty years in a profession. Fifteen years in a company. Ten years building something that no longer gives us life. We think the years already invested have somehow purchased an obligation to invest the years still remaining.

They have not.

Your past explains how you arrived here. It does not dictate where you must go next.

Sometimes courage is persistence.

Sometimes courage is walking away.

Sometimes courage is admitting, without shame:

I don't like where this is going. I am starting again.

And Perhaps This Is Where Faith Enters the Room

Believe.

Keep believing.

For how long?

Well, how long were you promised that you might believe?

Exactly.

No promises were handed to any of us at birth. Perhaps all you were ever called to do was love God and love your neighbour. Perhaps there is more. Perhaps not. But that is always a good place from which to begin again.

There will be voices telling you that you cannot. There will be people laughing as you embark on the new journey, and others who will interpret your decision to start again as evidence that you failed the first time.

Keep your chin up.

If the voices become too loud, close your ears. Go for a walk. Listen to Gregorian chants. Pray. Sleep. Wake up the next morning and begin again.

Let the Cliff Give Way, But Don't Jump

And when you find yourself hanging from the cliff edge and your fingers can barely hold on anymore, hold on.

If something must give, let the cliff edge give way beneath your fingers.

But don't jump.

Trust that the Lord you believe in has spread a safety net somewhere beneath you.

And what if there is no safety net?

Then you still did not surrender yourself willingly to the abyss. You held on. You believed. You did everything you could.

And sometimes, for a human being, that is courage enough.

Obi Akaraiwe | Don Kenobi

#WhenEnoughIsEnough #WorkplaceCulture #ToxicWorkplace #HumanDignity #MentalWellbeing #StartingOver #Faith #Courage #JaysonArday #EmotionalIntelligence #CorporateCulture #CultureNotStructure

WILL WE MEET IN HEAVEN THOSE WE CALLED “HERETICS” ON EARTH?

2026-08-12T15:37:47.793-07:00

WILL SOME OF OUR “HERETICS”

BE WAITING FOR US IN HEAVEN?

Could some people condemned

as heretics on earth

be found in Heaven?

Don Kenobi reflects on Arius, theological error,
salvation, mercy, and who ultimately
has the authority to judge a soul.

It was his turn to speak.

“Let me ask you something,” he began. “When we get to Heaven, if we get to Heaven, do you think we might find a heretic there?”

I know how that sounds. Frivolous. Maybe even a little irreverent. But sit with it for a moment, because it isn't.

Let me put it another way.

Where do we think Arius is right now?

Where do we think all those bishops — priests — ordinary Christians — who believed, sincerely but wrongly, that Jesus Christ was created... where do we think they are right now?

I ask because if theology is true, it must remain true.

If something is true on a Monday, it is true on Tuesday. If it was true this Monday, it was true last Monday. It was true a thousand Mondays ago. Ten thousand times ten thousand Mondays before that.

Truth does not expire.

If Jesus Christ is eternally begotten of the Father — not made — then Arius was wrong in AD 325. He was wrong a thousand years later. He was wrong last Monday.

He is wrong today.

But that leaves us with a question we don't like to sit with.

Where is Arius?

HERESY AND THE HERETIC

Now — I want to distinguish between two kinds of people we call heretics. Because we lump them together, and we shouldn't.

There is the heretic who wilfully leads the sheep astray. The preacher who knows better and manipulates people anyway — for money, for power, for control. The wolf in shepherd's clothing. You know the type. We all do.

That is one kind of heretic.

That is not who I'm talking about tonight.

I'm talking about the person who differed on theological grounds. Who prayed. Who studied. Who struggled and reasoned and sincerely sought God — and still arrived at the wrong conclusion.

Those are two very different human situations.

One man teaches error because he is proud, and he knows it's error, and he leads people away from the truth on purpose.

Another man spends his whole life on his knees, searching Scripture, searching his own soul — and still gets it wrong.

The proposition can be objectively heretical in both cases.

But is the guilt the same?

I don't think it is. And this — this — is where Arius gets interesting.

ARIUS WAS WRONG

Let's be honest about that first. Let's not soften it.

The Church can say: "Arius taught heresy."

The Church can say: "This is contrary to the apostolic faith."

The Church can even say: "Arius separated himself from the communion of the Church."

But none — none — of those statements is the same as saying:

"Arius is in Hell."

That distinction is enormous.

This wasn't some quarrel over liturgical furniture. Arius's error went straight to the identity of Christ. He said the Son wasn't eternally God — not in the way Nicaea confessed. He said the Son was, in some sense, made.

Nicaea rejected that. Decisively.

Christ is begotten. Not made.

So don't hear me pretending the dispute didn't matter. It mattered enormously.

Arianism is heresy. Arius taught heresy.

But knowing Arius was wrong does not give me a seat at his final conversation with God.

I don't have his conscience. I can't measure what he understood and when he understood it. I don't know what passed between that man's soul and his Maker in his last breath.

And — most importantly — I do not sit on the judgment seat of Christ.

Neither do you.

The Church has never claimed the authority to canonize the damned.

THE MONDAY PROBLEM

So here's my Monday argument again, because it matters.

If theology is true, it remains true. If Christ is eternally begotten, Arius was wrong in AD 325, wrong in the year 1000, wrong last Monday, wrong this morning.

But listen carefully, because there's a trap here.

There is an enormous difference between saying:

"The error remains an error forever."

And saying:

"Therefore the person who held it must remain damned forever."

Those are not the same sentence.

The permanence of truth does not require the eternal damnation of every person who ever misunderstood it.

And once we admit that — an uncomfortable question shows up uninvited.

If some people history branded "heretics" might be among the redeemed — why do we keep talking about them as if heretic were their eternal name?

WHAT DO WE ACTUALLY MEAN BY "HERETIC"?

There's a fair, historical answer to that.

Heretic can simply describe a relationship to a defined doctrine. Arius is tied to Arianism. Pelagius is tied to Pelagianism. Fine. We need words to talk about theological history. I'm not asking you to rewrite it.

But there's a danger hiding inside our language. Watch how quietly it moves.

We start here: "This man taught something the Church condemned."

We slide to here: "This man was a heretic."

And before we notice, we're standing here: "This man belongs among the enemies of God."

Three claims. Getting bigger each time.

The first one does not automatically prove the third one.

Even our own theology warns us about this. Formal heresy isn't just holding a wrong idea by accident. Canon law calls it the obstinate denial of a truth that must be believed.

Obstinate.

Error and culpable rejection are not the same word. They are not the same soul.

Which brings me to something even more basic.

SALVATION IS NOT A THEOLOGY EXAMINATION

Christianity teaches that salvation comes through Jesus Christ.

It does not teach that salvation comes from a perfect score on a theology exam.

That doesn't make doctrine unimportant. Hear me — the divinity of Christ matters. The Trinity matters. The Incarnation matters. Nicaea matters. Truth matters.

But just imagine, for one moment, that salvation required flawless theological accuracy.

Almost none of us would dare walk up to that judgment seat.

Go on — ask ten devout, orthodox Christians to explain the hypostatic union precisely. Ask them to walk you through ousia and hypostasis without stumbling. Ask them how one divine essence subsists in three Persons without sliding into tritheism on one side or modalism on the other.

Keep asking questions long enough, and sooner or later — all of us say something that needs correcting.

Which tells us something rather humbling:

A great deal of bad theology can live quite comfortably inside a heart that genuinely loves Christ.

SO — WILL THERE BE HERETICS IN HEAVEN?

So I come back to where I started.

Is it conceivable that when, by God's grace, we walk into the Kingdom — we find one or two people there that history called heretics?

Not every heretic.

Not the deceiver who used a Bible as a tool.

Not the wolf who simply learned to speak the right vocabulary.

I mean specifically the ones who got the theology wrong — but who sought God with everything they had.

Will we find some of them in Heaven?

I think we have to at least admit the possibility.

Perhaps Heaven holds people history called heretics — while Hell holds people who could recite the Nicene Creed without missing a syllable.

There is nothing unchristian about that thought.

There may be something profoundly Christian about it.

Because Christ's most terrifying warnings were almost never aimed at people who failed a theology exam. They were aimed at people who had enormous religious certainty — and no mercy. No humility. No justice. No love.

Correct doctrine matters.

But correct doctrine is not a licence to hand down another human being's eternal sentence.

So I will keep the historical judgment, without flinching:

Arianism is heresy. Arius taught heresy.

But I will be very, very careful before I take the next step and say:

"Therefore, Arius is damned."

That judgment belongs to Christ. Not to me. Not to you.

WHAT IF WE MEET ARIUS?

And now — here's the thought that fascinates me most of all. Suppose, purely by the mercy of God, I make it to Heaven. And suppose I meet Arius there.

Christianity would not become false. Nicaea would not be overturned. Nobody would need to rewrite the Creed. Christ would still be eternally begotten of the Father.

Arius would simply have found out he was wrong.

In fact — by then, he might understand the size of his mistake better than any of us ever could.

Maybe I'd look at him and say, "Wait a minute... Arius?"

(Small smile.)

And maybe he'd smile back and say: "You have absolutely no idea how wrong I was about Him."

And maybe that's part of what Heaven actually means.

Not the vindication of everybody's earthly theology.
Not Catholics discovering Catholics got it all right.

Not Protestants discovering Protestants did.

Not theologians arriving with their books under their arms, demanding God read out the final scores.

Something far greater than that.

The end of partial knowledge.
The end of our fumbling descriptions.
The end of seeing through a glass, darkly.

Because by then... we will no longer be arguing about Him.
We will see Him as He is.

Obi Akaraiwe | Don Kenobi

#MolueMonologues
#OldManInTheMolue
#MyFrancisEssays

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The issue is what we believe the Church exists to accomplish.

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Peter Obi and the Problem of Ineptitude

We Must Design Corruption Out of the System

Boya-Jeka: Give Power Back to the People

The Questions a Serious Presidential Candidate Must Answer

Four Years? Who Asked You?

The Looming Electoral Failure of an Apprentice Nation

The Looming Electoral Failure of an Apprentice Nation

“This Prosperity Gospel? It Is of the Devil”

The Order of St. Judas Iscariot

May the Testimony of Demas Not Be Yours

Back to Judas

Rain on the Roof of the Molue

And the Rain Stopped

“Rain, Rain, Go Away”

Scripture References

Note to a “Christian” Trump Supporter

Religion Is Like a Rolls-Royce

Religion Is Like a Rolls-Royce

No - the actions of those men did not expose the inferiority of Christianity. They simply brought Christianity down to their own level.The analogy of a car may help explain what I mean.

The Purpose of the Automobile

Suppose a Man Is Given a Rolls-Royce

Christianity Must Be Judged by Christ

Look at the Christian

The Tragedy Is in the Misuse

On church succession

GRACE WITHOUT DISCIPLINE

GRACE WITHOUT DISCIPLINE

Religion Is Like a Rolls-Royce

THE GOD OF NIAGARA FALLS

THE GOD OF NIAGARA FALLSGrace, Discipline and the Calling to Become Light

“Because all things work together for good to those who love God.”He looks towards the students. He listens to the water a little longer, then says quietly, almost to himself: I think that explains it.

ALL THINGS

THE GOD OF NIAGARA FALLS

WHEN GRACE IS MISUNDERSTOOD

DO NOT HELP GOD PUNISH HIS CHILDREN

RESTORATION

THE MIDDLE OF THE STORY

THE CALLING TO BECOME LIGHT

WHEN A BROTHER FALLS

ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER

Selective Justice Is Not Justice

If There Are Fifty Righteous? Abraham’s Plea for Innocent Lives

If There Are Fifty Righteous…

Abraham Negotiates With God

Sodom’s Sin Was Bigger Than Sexual Immorality

Shall Not the Judge of All the Earth Do Right?

No Cause Makes Innocent Blood Insignificant

How Loud Must Their Cries Be in Heaven?

Who Owns God?
On Christian Faith, Immigration and Compassion?

WHAT IF?
The Church, Its Comforts, and the Destinies We Could Change

No - the actions of those men did not expose the inferiority of Christianity. They simply brought Christianity down to their own level.
The analogy of a car may help explain what I mean.

THE GOD OF NIAGARA FALLS
Grace, Discipline and the Calling to Become Light

“Because all things work together for good to those who love God.”
He looks towards the students. He listens to the water a little longer, then says quietly, almost to himself: I think that explains it.

FOOL ME TWICE
Peter Obi, Political Structure and the Refusal to Learn

Cry, my beloved, beautiful Motherland, Nigeria!
You who did all you could for us when you were strong and virile.