Covenant Narrative

When asked about how the RCCG was established, the present leaders and elders of the church usually begin by citing a biblical verse:

For who hath despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven; they

are the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole world (Zechariah 4: 10a)²⁴.

The genesis of the church is likened to the “day of small things”²⁵ of “the select stone” in the hands of God destined for great rejoicing at the end time. It is in the story of “small beginnings” that RCCG’s present import in the socio-cultural and religious landscape of Nigeria is anchored.

In addition to the text of “small beginnings”, another text of overarching significance that is often mentioned is “covenant”.²⁶ This concept of covenant is used to underscore the nature of the promises and agreement which God is said to have made with the founder regarding the establishment and sustenance of the RCCG. References are made to this image of “a covenant”

as being the historical foundation upon which the church was erected. This “covenant reading”

of the historical context of RCCG is carefully expounded by the founder’s successor and chief theologian of the RCCG, E.A. Adeboye, on whom the next chapter of this study will be devoted. Other senior pastors of the church also make frequent reference to this “covenant”, often insisting that if there is any success being experienced in the church today, “it is because of this covenant”.²⁷ For Adeboye and other leaders of the church, just as the covenant (Berith) Yahweh made with the children of Israel was the culmination of a new relationship between God and the children of Israel, so also the covenant between God and the founder was a landmark in the history of the RCCG and Nigeria. A recent statement of this covenant and its content put it thus:

God, like He did with Abraham, established a covenant with Rev. J.

O. Akindayomi to the effect that He would meet the needs if [sic, of]

the church in awesome way, if only members of the church would serve him faithfully and be obedient to his Word. It is upon this covenant that the Redeemed Christian Church of God was built.²⁸

24The Holy Bible (Authorized King James Version), Get Move International, 2000. All Bible quotations are from this edition, unless where otherwise indicated.

25 For the use of this verse in RCCG's narratives of origin, see the small pamphlet RCCG in Prophecy by Tony Ojo (1997) and “'Redeemed' in Prophecy” by J.A. Lawanson, Redemption Light, vol. 5, no. 10, Nov. 2000, p.9.

26This is a recurring concept in many of Pastor E.A. Adeboye's preaching and sermons. Adeboye and many of my interviewees also made generous references to “when the Lord established his covenant with the founder...”

(Personal interview with Funso Odesola, 1 June 2001, The Redemption Camp).

27 Paul Bankole and Olaitan Olubiyi, “We’re Highly Favoured by God”, Redemption Light, vol. 7, no. 5, June 2002, p. 21.

28 RCCG at 50, p.16. There is a verbatim reproduction of this text in Redemption Light, vol. 7, no. 7, August 2002, p. 7.

When RCCG leaders allude to a covenantal foundation for the church, therefore, they see themselves as the foundation of a new nation of the “redeemed” analogous to the nation of Israel liberated from the bondage and slavery of Egypt. This nucleus of a nation is the yeast that will enliven the rest of the world by spreading the word of God and preparing the world for the “end time”. Olusegun Bankole (2001: 12), a senior pastor of RCCG, draws further implications for the covenant narrative thus: “the covenant between God and his faithful servant and friend, Pa Josiah Akindayomi is at work... The church is in the forefront of God’s purpose for the establishment of his kingdom on earth”. In a related strand of thought, the covenant has been described as “Mount Sinai encounter” between God and Josiah. At that encounter, “God gave the laws that would govern the new church to Rev. Josiah Olufemi Akindayomi”. As the covenant established a new people, so it also established a “new order”

which carried a vision of the enlargement of the church’s activities and presence throughout the world.²⁹

The narrative has shown signs of expansion in such a way that the present generation of leaders in the church conceive the RCCG to be “the key vessel for the last revival” of humankind (Ojo 2001: 69). This imagery of “vessel” or “ship” of salvation is a favourite of Aladura groups such as the Celestial Church of Christ (CCC) as Adogame (1999:147-150) has made clear. There is a difference, however. While Aladura groups will apply this imagery to the church as a community of the faithful, RCCG pastors apply it to their leaders such as Josiah and his successor, Enoch Adeboye. Tony Ojo (1997: 1), for example, writes that while the Bible is the documentation of the word and work of God for the benefit of humankind, so also it is necessary for pastors of the RCCG to embark on “the documentation of the mind of God in His plan for the world through the Redeemed Christian Church of God as revealed by prophecies of His anointed men, Papa Josiah Akindayomi […] and Pastor Enoch Adeboye […].”³⁰ As we shall discuss in chapter 6, from the covenant narrative emerges the symbolic significance of the name of the church which Adeboye has insisted must never be modified in any way.

29 Wale Adeduro, “Beyond Jubilee” Redemption Light, vol. 7, no. 7, August 2002, p. 6.

30 One is tempted to understand Tony Ojo’s assertion here as putting Josiah’s and Adeboye’s prophecies on the same pedestal with the biblical revelation. According to him, these two leaders of RCCG represent “true prophets of God that point the body of Christ [that is, the church] in the way of truth, revealing the mind of God to His own people, for where there is no vision, the people perish (Proverbs 29: 18a)” (Ojo 1997: 4).

2.2 The Founder: Josiah Olufemi Akindayomi