Mind of Christ Christian Centre pastor and former host of Transformation with Reno Omokri, Reno Omokri, left many startled when he called out married women who value the opinions of their pastors than that of their husbands. That, according to the cleric, amounts to adultery.
His view was if someone is alleged to have been cheating in a marriage, it goes beyond sleeping with another person other than one’s spouse. He labelled any situation that gives an upper hand to a third party over one’s partner to be cheating.
“Adultery is not only when you have sex outside of marriage. As a married person, when you honor, respect and obey your pastor, in law or a friend above your spouse, you are falsifying your marriage and undermining the unity of the spouse. 2 is the company. 3 is a crowd. We offer you a job, you will consult your friend before your spouse. You don’t honor your husband, but you kneel down to speak to your pastor on the phone. Your parents and siblings know things before your spouse. Are you really married or is your spouse just a convenience?,” he wrote on his Instagram.
Conversations around women and their relationships with male pastors have captured modern media.
Since time indecipherable, pastors have been seen as intermediates liaising between their congregation and God and it is therefore understandable why people hold them in high esteem. That said, the majority of people today, chief among them being the critics of the church, holds the view that women, in particular, tend to have more respect for their pastors than husbands who the Bible is emphatic in instructing them to respect and submit to.
This school of thought spells out that women are subjected to a lot of things in life and that men of God usually proffer solutions to those. Most often, the notion goes, the problems women encounter are either marital or financial problems and that involves the husband too, thus the next likely place to turn to is the Church or pastors.
Consequently, concerns have been raised about the amount of respect that women give to male pastors compared to how they view and treat their husbands. This stems from some bizarre things some women are quick to do upon the instructions of their pastors, when in fact, they would not do the same if asked by their husbands.
What Do Others Think About it?
Pastor Isaac Atundaolu, Christ Apostolic Church
It is because women are more religious than men and also have humility than men. It is not that women do not respect their husbands but, they give more to their pastors because they believe he is next to God and also a representative of God on earth. Thus, whatever respect they give to their pastors is to God indirectly and not to him. However, women see their pastors as someone they can commune with when it comes to family issues in particular.
Pastor Okechukwu Nwafor, Senior Pastor Living Fountain Apostolic Ministry (LIFAM)
In this case, I believe charity begins at home. Every married woman should respect the spouse because your husband is head of the family, likewise married men, when you don’t respect your spouse, your respect to any other authority is fake; when the home is good, it will show outside.
Apostle Sought Out Emeka
My view on this is that it depends on the point such observation is being considered. But nevertheless, balance should be stroke in everything we do. Our pastors are worth our respect as well as our spouses.
Archbishop Magnus Atilade, Baptist Church
It is very dangerous for a woman not to honour her husband, vice-versa. Take a servant of God as a representative of God and your husband as your partner as the place for one’s spouse is different from the place of a pastor or one’s children. Husbands and wives should love and respect one another; they should also reciprocate one another’s love and be considerate of their feelings. I, for example, will not want a person to love me in an amorous way but to treat me as a servant of God. On whether to heed to a spouse instruction or that of a cleric, I will advise that depending on the subject matter to know who to give heed to but above all, one can seek the face of God to seek direction on any issue.
Jacqueline Ogoh
My take is this; No woman is permitted by God to honour her pastor more than her husband. The Bible which contains the word of God says every woman should submit to her own husband and respect him. In the book of Ephesians 5, from verse 22 to the end, you will clearly see God’s instructions about marriage there. You will also find the same in the book of 1st Peter chapter three. Therefore, any woman who is honouring her pastor more than her husband is operating in huge error (same goes for the man who treats his female boss with more love and honour than he accords his wife). God established marriage, has high regard for the marital institution he created. You can only score points in that institution, by following his words to the latter.
A few years ago, a Kenyan online magazine TUKO.co.ke did quantitative research on its 2.7 million Facebook followers to ascertain the veracity of the claim that women respect pastors more than their husbands and why it is the case. Here were some of the responses.
- Women are easy to manipulate and pastors are so good at that.
- Because women will meet the pastors in heaven, while their husbands will be in hell.
- Some women consider pastors as spiritual authorities in a way and consider their husbands as physical authorities.
- Most women’s minds are by all means taken hostage by the men of God hence whatever they tell them is the truth, contrary to what their husbands say.
- It is because some husband ridicules their wives, whereas pastors respect them.
- Churches are no longer places of worship but brothels where married and single women practice modern-day ”temple prostitution”.
- Because pastors say what women want to hear, unlike their husbands.
- It depends on the Church you attend, you should know it is God you worship and not a pastor.
- They believe pastors represent God and through them, they are talking to Him but pastors eventually prey on them instead of praying for them.
- Depends on who your wife is and who pastors her.
- Most pastors represent spiritual authority which triumphs earthly authority. Also, some women tend to be very emotional and some pastors excel at mind games.
- Because some pastors look romantic and humble.
- Only silly ladies do this.
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