Enoch Adeboye, the general overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), has revealed that one of the church’s pastors was arrested abroad for addressing a gathering with the phrase ‘ladies and gentlemen’.
‘Ladies and gentlemen‘ is a salutation and irreversible binomial used in entertainment, sports and theater since the 19th century. The salutation is unlike most English language-gendered irreversible binomials which typically place the male term before the female term.
Speaking at the church’s monthly thanksgiving service in Lekki, Lagos on Sunday, Adeboye said some people who attended the event got the pastor arrested for being “discriminatory and offensive”.
The 82-year-old cleric said the pastor was accused of failing to acknowledge other gender identities, specifically non-binary individuals.
Adeboye expressed his concerns about the world’s moral decline, stating that the incident is “one of the signs of the end time”.
“The end is nearer than you think. Things are getting worse and worse. To warn us to wake up. We should wake up. They arrested one of my pastors somewhere abroad. What was his offence? He was going to speak and he got up and said ‘ladies and gentlemen’. That was his offence,” he said.
“Some people reported him that he is discriminatory. They claimed he said ‘ladies and gentlemen, saying what about those who are neither ladies nor gentlemen?’.
“That is how far the world has gone. You think things are bad. You do not know all the details.
“We are closer to the end than before.”
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