When someone asks you why there are numerous billboards by our roadsides, with photographs of pastors on display, respond emphatically that it is not about Jesus the Christ. Rather, it is solely for the pastors’ self-promotion, self-aggrandisement, and to lift up their own egos and enhance their empty glory. What is bizarre by all standards of acceptability, has now become the standard practice for pastors.
END THE CHURCH BILLBOARD CRAZE
I do not see, feel or experience God in the proliferation of churches in Ghana. But worse of all, I cannot figure out what God and Jesus have to do with plastering the photographs of pastors on billboards. What I see behind these pastoral billboards is pretence, especially since with the passing of the years, these billboards have become more flamboyant and ridiculous.
Methinks that the pastors with their photographs on billboards are existing at the intersection of two major fault-lines: ego promotion and business promotion. These two fault-lines are not mutually exclusive; they feed on each other. The pastor is promoted, becomes popular and therefore is perceived as powerful and important. On the other hand, church membership increases, with its attendant growth in finances.
It is very odd that pastors do not see the obvious dilemma inherent in this strange practice. What would Jesus do if he should appear on his second coming and bear witness to pastoral billboards along our streets?
Besides, the billboards constitute litter along our roadsides. It will therefore be proper for the managers of our cities and towns to resolve to remove these repugnant billboards, most of which pose danger to vehicular traffic because they block the view of drivers.
THE ORIGINS & MOTIVATIONS
To fully understand this strange phenomenon of church billboards, I wish we could track the history of this practice and establish the following: Who was the first pastor whose photograph was placed on a billboard and erected by the roadside? What year was it? Who suggested this idea to that pastor?
For the proliferation of what has now become common practice, I wonder what informs the thinking to mount a billboard with a pastor’s photograph. I am imagining a couple of scenarios. A wife (First Lady) tells her husband the pastor: “Sweetheart (or Sugar Pudding), why don’t you also erect a billboard by the roadside to promote our church? Everyone is doing it ooh! My dear, your photograph will look great on the billboard.”
In another scenario, the leading church elder comes up with the brilliant suggestion: “Prophet, we need to put up a church billboard by the roadside, with your photograph. I will arrange for a professional photographer to take your photograph to be used on the billboards!”
A third possible scenario places the pastor or prophet at the very centre of this billboard craze. Each time the prophet sees church billboards with pastors’ photographs, he salivates over them and says secretly in his heart, “Hmm! I must do this too! My photograph will look fine by the roadside on a huge billboard!” So he asks the director of church communication to explore how to go about to join this craze.
I can even imagine the photo-taking session. The pastor goes through the motion of what to wear, the colour of shirt and suit, the tie, the kerchief in the breast pocket—the whole thing! Madam First Lady joins the photo-shoot; the smiles, the poses. And viola: the photograph of a husband and wife appears on a billboard by a roadside near you!
Currently, how many pastors are on display on billboards? Which pastors make it the most on billboards? When these pastors see themselves on billboards, how do they feel? Pride? Joy? Fulfilment? Satisfaction? Very Christian?
TYPES OF PASTORAL BILLBOARDS
In my estimation, billboards that display the photographs of pastors fall into three main categories. The first category is event billboards. The events are mostly of church convention, conferences, and preaching sprees. For such church events billboards, the photographs of a selection of high-profile famous pastors are strategically lined up with their names, titles (e.g. Dr, Prophet, Reverend). Event billboards are typically very large, and are mounted at major road intersections in cities like Accra and Kumasi.
There is also the seasonal types of billboards for religions occasions like Christmas and Easter. For instance, as Christmas approaches, pastoral billboards have increased in number; and sizes too! Clearly, they are in big business; Christmas is their cocoa season so this is harvest time. This phenomenon suggests that there is eagerness to make money this Christmas season (or to win souls for Christ?).
The leading billboard trend over the past decade feature advertisements of 31stDecember Watchnight services. Churches are increasingly becoming creative with the choice of adjectives in branding Watchnight services to the point of ridiculousness. In high expectation to enter the New Year, one could choose to “Crossover”, “Flyover” or “Jumpover”. I wonder if people who are drunk on 31stNight sneak-over into the New Year!
A third common type of billboards with pastors’ photographs serve as location announcements. These billboards are mounted to provide direction to the premises of the church. Some churches are ambitious and consider the mere name of the church on their billboards as inadequate so they add exaggerated photographs of the pastor/prophet and increasingly, of the wife.
What is obvious from these self-promotion billboards is pastoral egos; and of ordinary mortals who in an attention-grabbing posture, display super-Christian pretentiousness, and scream by the roadside: “Look at me, look at me! I have arrived, I am a high-profile pastor!”
WHAT WILL MARY SAY?
As a mother and grandmother, I can envision how grief-stricken and scandalized Mary, the mother of Jesus will be if she should take a peek into Ghana and bear witness to the desecration of her beloved son’s name through pastoral self-promotion along the highways and byways of our country.
The financial gains some religious leaders in Ghana are sponging out of Jesus will cause Mary’s heart to ache beyond measure. The life of her young 33 year-old son was wrung from him. He was brutally murdered through stabbing and hanging on the cross as if he was just a common criminal. Mary did not benefit financially. But today, pastors from across our land are living large from reaping from the Jesus industry.
No comments:
Post a Comment