My pastor beats his wife… how can I help?

Dear Praise,

I have been battling with what to do with this classified information until I stumbled on your column and became convinced that you might just be the right person to help out with this case. I worship in a fast growing church in Porthacourt and the calling of God upon my pastor is not in doubt.

His wife was my closest friend when we were in school. I noticed she sometimes absents herself from church and I couldn’t put my hands on the problem until my pastor travelled for a speaking engagement abroad and got closer to her only to discover that he had been beating her. I was too shocked to realize some of the elders of the church knew about it but everyone is afraid to touch God’s anointed. Please kindly help out with what to do because she secretly told me that she feared for her life because the last time he almost choked her to death.

Chidera, Port Harcourt

Hello Chidera,

Thanks so much for being a friend that cares and God bless you out for reaching out on behalf of your friend and I hope my counsel would help because we have had to wade in on cases like this at several times and I am to be as plain about it once again even though the religious people may not agree with me.

• The person beating your friend is not a pastor the person beating her is her husband who is a man and not a man of God.
• We confuse the two in Africa and that is the reason people get away with evil simply because the people allowed it.
• What is happening is classified as domestic violence and it is more or less a criminal offence when it begins to move in the direction of attempted murder in which choking could be classified as one.
• That man behind the pulpit could be your pastor but the man at home is a citizen of the federal republic of Nigeria and therefore a human being that can be prosecuted and convicted if found guilty
• The covenant of life is superior to the covenant of marriage hence you must save your friend before she gets killed.
• Touch not my anointed that they use to perpetrate evil in Nigeria was not talking about an individual in the Bible it was a scripture meant for the nation Israel.
• Every child of God is anointed including the lady that is being assaulted so God’s anointed is being touched and being harmed.

Now here are my suggestions:

• Find a way to report the case to a human rights activist agency or an NGO that specializes in domestic violence
• Also lodge a complaint on her behalf with the police or any agency that can help. In Lagos we have the office of the public defender I don’t know what works in PH
• Find a way to report to her parents as well so that they can find a way to evacuate their daughter before she gets killed. And trust me the man you call the pastor may not be mentally stable hence the need to subject him to some form of psychiatry test.
• That man must be subjected to serious counseling and made to sign an undertaking before the two of them ever come together again.

Please note that the law doesn’t recognize religious titles so people should not hide under that title to perpetrate evil. Please save your friend before her so called anointed man anoints her to death.

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Is it right to marry a lady your cousin has dated before?

Hello Praise,

I met this lady recently and fell in love with her only to discover she used to date my first cousin and this is troubling me. Even though my cousin swore to me that nothing sexual ever happened between them but it’s tough for me to continue. What do you think sir?

Chris, Lagos.

Dear Chris,

I am trying to lay my hands on what the problem is and the only question that readily came to mind is to ask if you have ever dated someone’s daughter or cousin in your life?

Why would you want to judge her by what happened in the past? What if it wasn’t your cousin she dated? And what if you were the one that once dated her cousin?

I don’t believe we should rate people based on their past. What would happen if you found out they were sexually involved? Are you a saint without a past?

What matters at the moment is who she is not who she used to be and once you can accurately process that I think you are good.

On a lighter note if she tells you tomorrow that she is the only daughter of Bill Gates would this your sentiments still matter?

Bro fall in love with a person not a past and in case this matter keeps troubling you please let her go lest you make her life miserable.