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Popular Nigerian Pastor and founder of Abel Damina Ministries International, Dr Abel Damina, has come under fire from conservative Christians over his comment on the remedy to porn addiction.
On Thursday, May 2, 2024, a video made the rounds on social media showing the pastor being asked how a person suffering from porn addiction could stop or totally get rid of the vice.
Responding, Damina proposed that such persons should not put pressure on themselves to stop but should keep consuming pornographic content while listening to the world of God at the same time.
The clip came from a session on Comfort FM’s Righteous Invasion of Truth (RIOT) programme in Uyo in late February.
“Don’t struggle to stop watching the porn. Don’t struggle at all. Just keep watching the porn. As you are watching the porn, spend more time hearing the ‘word’. If you watch porn for one hour, spend three to four hours hearing the word of God.
“Take not. Go get all my teachings on Christ. Just keep learning and learning. After a while, you will find out that your appetite for porn is dying, and the appetite for the word of God is growing. Before you know it, when you see porn, you will be irritated.
“Word of God will kill that appetite completely and give you a healthy appetite. That’s what to do. Don’t try to stop. In fact, keep watching, but spend more time studying God’s word, and you will find out that before you know it, your desire for porn would be gone,” the pastor stated.
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Pastor Chris and other conservative Christians react
However, Damina's suggestion didn't go down well with some Nigerians on social media, especially conservative Christians who viewed his submission as an encouragement for people to continue to wallow in sin.
Prominent televangelist, Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, weighed in on the matter by quoting Habakkuk chapter 2 verse 15, submitting that pornography is a sin that should be avoided completely.
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Pastor Chris stressed that God recognised nakedness as a feeling of shame, tracing the etymology of pornography to the Greek linguistic corpus —pony—meaning prostitute
“The indication is that once nakedness is being made public, it is a shame when you’re not a child. As far as God is concerned, that is a shame.
“It started from Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden apple. Their eyes were open and they found that they were naked and then covered themselves with leaves and hid from God. Christians desist from it. Those who believe in Jesus should not do it,” he stated.
Another prominent Pastor, Gideon Odoma of the Fortress Ministry, equally countered Damina's submission, insisting pornography is a pervasion.
“Christians have trivialised sexcapades. The things God call iniquities, we must never call it flexing.
“The Damina and Suleman terms are wrong. It as if their only objective in life is to derail believers so they have a lot of time on their hands and they find different creative ways to say the same useless things — Your sin does not matter — they find all sorts of ways to discredit as it were,” he argued.
Meanwhile, some other Christians have also reacted to Damina's sermon.
A Facebook user with the name, Restoration Arena also said, “I think the point he is trying to make is, a believer should not struggle with sin. Instead the believer should replace struggle with living the Word and walk in the Spirit. While that is done, sin appetite will die.”
“There is nothing wrong with what he said. All these people of little understanding, why judging him?” another user, Evangelist Precious, said.
Tweeting with the handle, @ab_seyi wrote, one Rachael wrote, “I am fighting tears. Lord help this man, help his followers, help him not to die like this. This is sad.”
Sandra Okafor with the handle, @okaforsandra20 said, “Even the Bible said ‘flee from every appearance of evil’. You can’t want to stop doing something and still be doing it, expecting a miracle to happen because you’re reading the word of God. As one of the cessation steps for smokers, they’re advised to throw away and move away from their triggers, be it the cigarette boxes, lighters, smoking partners, and smoking environment, because you gradually become what you’re constantly exposed to. So this advice is biblically and also morally wrong.
“You’re supposed to throw away all triggers that make you want to watch porn and as you do your part, you ask the Holy Spirit to empower you and deliver you from its grip. It’s normal to stumble but thank God for the mercies of God that bring us back to Him.”