By Aramide Oikelome and Hadiza Muktar, Lagos
It all happened at a recent women’s prayer meeting in Ogba, Lagos. The preacher, Pastor Mrs. Patience Eworo, was charging her listeners on the need to be spiritually alert and vibrant as women so that satan and its agents do not enter their homes and territories.
Then, she called a Bible passage and requested that someone read aloud for others to hear. Instantly, a sister rose to the occasion. Apparently, she had no traditional Bible in her hand. She picked her Blackberry phone, scrolled to the particular passage and was about reading when the preacher stopped her.
“Where are you reading from, Sister?” asked Pastor Eworo. “From my phone ma”, answered the worshipper.
“Please don’t bother to read for me. I want somebody with a Bible to read. That is part of the complacency we are talking about. These days, people find it trendy to come to church without Bibles. All they do is hang their phones in their hands or bags and engage in all forms of chatting while service is going on. This generation needs a re-awakening. We are fast losing track of God’s standard,” chided the preacher.
At another occasion, three men got arguing about this idea of uploading the Bible into handsets and mobile phones. At the beginning, one felt it was something ideal and smart, especially in this age of advanced technology, but, at the end of the discourse, they all concluded that such moves often cause distraction during worship, because, the phone is usually on and calls, text messages etc, can come in at any time.
Commenting on the trend, Dr. Bola Akin John, President, International Church Growth Ministry, believes that the use of IT gadgets for or during worship is a case of extremism.
Said he: “It is a case of extremism. The Bible says: “Search the Scriptures, not phone the Scriptures. It is to showcase the advancement of technology, but should not take the place of reading or studying the word of God and taking footnotes, jotting down messages and inspirational quotes.”
“Now, many people no longer come to church with their Bibles. Having the Bible on the phone or Ipad reduces the ability of people to read and study the Bible on their own. Now, there is class consciousness and pride in the church. It is also easy to get distracted and engage in other activities on phone will the service is going on.”
He went on: “While preaching, use of Ipad can cause unnecessary distraction if a page is missing and the preacher has to search for it while preaching. It was recently discovered in America that despite the advancement of technology and online publications, hard copies of books still sell more. People still love to read and make notes, which they cannot do with iPad or telephone reading. Unfortunately here in Nigeria, many pastors and preachers are using it to show off their status and to impress people. Personally, I don’t preach with it. I still prefer the old style.”
Akin-John also queried: “If all your references and messages are stored on iPad, what happens when it crashes?” He therefore advised that such gadgets should simply be to complement the role of traditional Bibles or Quran, which, according to him, remains non-negotiable.
“I believe that the use of iPad and IT gadgets should simply be to support, not to replace the hard copy. The human touch should still be there. You get many things by reading the hard copy of the Bible; you get inspiration, revelation and insight. You can do cross-referencing and thoroughly search the scriptures, but you cannot do all these when reading from the iPad or telephone. “Lastly, I believe the trend is just a wave that came and will soon fade away. People will soon change to another style,” he noted.
An Islamic scholar and counsellor, Saheed Salman, made it clear that one feature of Islam is knowledge and in no way did Islam frowns at technology. “Islam advises us to benefit from technology and to make use of technology to boost what we are doing. On individual level, there are uncountable Muslims with gadgets where they have downloaded Quran to read.
“Talking of the mosque, one does not need a gadget to observe Solat since all that is required is that verses of Quran be memorised offhand. For public lectures, Muslims go with iPads and other gadgets to record the lecture and note one or two points,” he said.
“To the best of my knowledge, among the Muslims, I do not see any challenge. It should be encouraged,” he added.
A pastor, who wishes to be addressed as Pastor Olukolu, also spoke from Christian perspective on the use of gadgets for worship. He noted that the Bible made it clear that knowledge will increase.
“The Bible let us know that in the latter day, knowledge shall increase and that is what we are seeing today with the use of gadgets. The Bible we are carrying is hard cover, which nowadays has the soft copy versions available. If one is using gadgets such as iPads, phones for Bible, it is simply fulfilling what God has said in His words that in the latter day knowledge shall increase. So, we cannot disqualify or say something bad about those people that are using the gadgets,” he argued.
Pastor Olukolu also stressed that gadgets have helped a lot in the aspect of religion. “In some churches, projectors are used in seminars and workshops, because, some people will not come with Bible and at the same time, will not carry gadgets along. So, with projector, they can see and read the word of God”, he said.
“The use of gadgets has rather increased the faith of believers because through it many people have received Christ into their lives. It has made religion to be easier and made it to go far beyond our own expectations.
“The Bible makes us to believe that the end will not come until Christ has been preached all over the world; pastors cannot go round the world, but through the different forms of gadgets, the gospel is spreading all over the world,” he added.