Mark's Notebook


	Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. - Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

Confronting Caesar

Christianity Today Interview

Thursday 23 December 2004, 10:19 am
Keywords: Christian Topics , News Articles

Interview by Stan Guthrie

Sunday Adelajah, a Nigerian who came to the former Soviet bloc 18 years ago to study journalism, became a pastor instead. Now Adelajah leads a 26,000-member Pentecostal church called the Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God for All Nations, in Kiev. In the wake of the presidential election controversy, Adelajah and the church have taken a stand in support of opposition candidate Victor Yuschenko, who was poisoned during the campaign.

How did you start your church?

The first four years, I couldn't get any Russians saved. But God directed me that if I really wanted to be effective, I must go to the down and out people, and I should not expect the "regular people" to come.

So I began to reach out to the alcoholic, because that was a national problem at that point. And we began to have some results. And I think the reason for that might be because the people who are alcoholic are already down and out, and they're already blind to any color.

But God helped me with the rehabilitation of these people. In the process, their relatives and parents would see that these people are becoming normal, and they don't smoke, they don't drink, they are tidy, and they wear clean clothes. They began to have their parents come and they now began to see me as their savior. And the parents, who never used to regard or have any respect for a black man, they began to rejoice and say, "Thank you for my son."

What is your role in the crisis as a leading pastor?

Putin has said, "You Ukrainians don't have authority, because this 'sect' and these 'cult groups' are mushrooming in your country." The candidate, the [current] prime minister, who has been supported by Putin, Viktor Yanukovych, said that one of the first things he's going to deal with if he becomes the president is these "cult" and "sectarian" groups. So this actually is a threat, not just to democracy, [but] to everything we've gained during all the years of independence.

The most important thing is that 80 percent of the nation is supporting Victor Yuschenko, who is an opposition candidate, and is a godly man. He shares God, and he respects all the churches, all the pastors. This is the time God has given to the [people of] Ukraine to have a free choice of where they want to go. The people want to go democratic.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/151/42.0.html