By Editor
Founder of the Latter Rain Assembly, Pastor Tunde
Bakare has explained what led to the standoff
between him and General Overseer of Winner’s
Chapel, Pastor David Oyedepo, some years back.
In a recently published interview he granted the
Punch, Bakare when asked his take on anointing oil,
mainly used by Christians for prayer purposes,
responded: “People like to create their own Tunde
Bakare. I love God, I love people, I love the godly
and the ungodly and I try within my God-given
ability to teach the truth.
“The reason I fought with my friend, Bishop David
Oyedepo, and tore his book, I remember when we
resolved this problem in London, we came out of a
plane, he took me aside and said he was angry with
me because I tore his book. I said I didn’t tear your
book, I tore my book. That is fine, you wrote it, I
bought it, so it was my book I tore.
“I saw errors in that book because he said the
anointing oil is not a symbol of the Holy Spirit, that it
is the life of God in a bottle. How can you write that
and I would let it pass. No! If the anointing oil is the
Holy Spirit, then Jesus is a lamb walking on four
legs.
“These are metaphors and when you have the real,
you leave the shadow. Besides it is for the sick in
the New Testament. So, you can anoint the entire
church if they are sick and I would wonder how a
sick church can bring healing to a dying world”.
On his description of Nigerian churches as being a
theatre where one man performs and the others are
just mere spectators, he said “If you quoted me
correctly, I said the difference between the cinema
and the church in Nigeria is that for the cinema you
pay a gate fee before you enter, but in the church,
they let you come in before they take from you.
“When the youth pastor was ministering today (day
of interview) I said wow, if I am out of here today,
these people can continue”.
Explaining why his church has not established its
own university like others have done, Bakare said
he was not called to do that.
“I do not judge those who are doing it, because they
are contributing their quota to the system and they
are helping the society in the area of infrastructure.
“But I would have a question mark on the whole
thing if part of what is going in there are the
offerings of the people and their pastors’ children
and members’ children cannot attend that
university. Almost all the top universities in the
world started from Christian organisations.
“My daughter graduated from Emory University in
Georgia, United States, which is owned by the
Methodist Church. Oxford and Cambridge were
established by churches.
“If their real intention was mission and to educate a
crop of leaders that would share the light, I
commend their efforts. But if it is money-making
and profit-driven, then I don’t know what to say”.
Responding to a question on why Latter Rain has not
staged conventions like other big Nigerian
churches, the running mate to General Muhammad
Buhari in the 2011 presidential election, opined that:
“It is not wrong to have an annual convention, it is
not wrong to have Shiloh or Holy Ghost Congress.
“I have been invited to the congress about three
times but I just didn’t have the time to go. Up till the
seventh year of the Latter Rain Assembly, we had
what we called Annual Believers’ Convention, but I
stopped it after then. Look at the population of
people in church today and we have negligible
righteousness. So, something is wrong.
“I am not condemning what people are doing. If they
are called to do what they are doing, God would
reward them. But if it is just a clever ploy to
continue to control and manage people, one day
they would say ‘to your tent oh Israel”.
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