Why A Lot Of My Followers Left My Church

• Popular OAP, Daddy Freeze

There are not too many lettered people in the country6 today that would tell you they do not know the radio personalitypopularly known as Daddy Freeze. He is that popular. Mention the name Daddy Freeze at any gathering and you can be sure that heads will turn in your direction. This is because this outstanding broadcaster has, over the last few years, built for himself a scary reputation, attracting a large following of lovers and haters alike. Thousands adore him to no end. They respect his views as a Christian, most especially his courage to call out great and powerful men of God, challenging them to show to him where it is stated in the scriptures that it is mandatory for every Christian to pay tithe. In same manner, thousands loathe him. They despise him and everything he stands for. They are also Christians, but they find it unthinkable that one of their own could come out to question some of the doctrines their spiritual fathers and revered pastors have embraced so fiercely which they consider embarrassing to the church of God. They hate Daddy Freeze’s guts and he knows it. Ordinarily, this intense hatred would’ve bothered anyone. But not Daddy Freeze, whose real name is Ifedayo Olarinde, a native of Osun State. He was born in Cluj Napoca in Romania. His mother, Smaranda Olarinde, is Romanian. Daddy Freeze, one of Naija’s most outstanding On Air Personalities with COOL FM, has proven over the years that he is one man who never shies away from what he firmly believes, no matter the pressure to make him do otherwise.

But, surprisingly, Daddy Freeze has slowed down greatly on his criticisms of men of God. He is no longer as critical as he used to be of them and their conduct. These days, it appers he simply chooses to igore them and concentrate on other things like the state of the nation and political matters. His church membership too appears to have reduced. He had such intimidating following. City People’s Senior Editor, WALE LAWAL (08037209290) spent close to an hour chatting with this gentleman with an incredible knowledge of the bible. He opened up on why he has reduced his criticism of pastors and why his church membership went down . Enjoy excerpts of the interview.

First, let me start by talking about your church, the Sheeple Movement, tell us what has been happening. I know that a couple of years ago when you started, you had lots of young people gravitating towards your church, but it appears that is not the case now, am I correct?

Yeah, you see, the trend is, everyday there are new people and sometimes you lose old people. There are some people who believe my job is to attack pastors, so the moment I slowed down on attacking pastors and started more of dialogue, I lost a lot of members. I think that, for this set of people, they have misunderstood me totally. I am not doing what I’m doing because I take delight in fighting pastors or am just out to embarrass men of God. No, that’s not what I’m about or what this is about. The message is much bigger than that. Now, I believe there are people who are in the church who need to hear the message. Those of you who are outside, you don’t really need my message. Let’s also talk to the ones inside. Let’s show them the scriptures, let’s discuss with them. Let’s help them keep an open mind and see maybe they’ll be convinced about our message. But nobody’s going to be convinced about our message if you insult their spiritual leaders. So we adopted a more conversational approach if I can put it that way.

I was going to talk about your fight with some men of God, why Daddy Freeze slow down on taking on pastors?

Well, the answer is quite simple, you cannot keep using the same methods and expect to get different results. To tell you the truth, I’ve noticed a slight change in the approaches of many pastors and churches. You can tell now that within the last one year, no pastor has come out publicly and say come and sow your dollars. I don’t even need to say anything. If you come out now and say to people come and sow your dollars, people will bash you for it. Daddy Freeze doesn’t even need to say a thing. So, our work in that regard has been done. Some pastors even ask for normal things like support, because whether you like it or not, supporting the church is scriptural, and I’m not talking about tithes and offering here. I’m talking about support and support is scriptural. Luke chapter 8 teaches us about how Christ’s ministry was supported, so there’s nothing wrong in asking for support. There was a pastor who, during the pandemic, came out and asked for support after he finished his sermon. People just posted the last part of that sermon and everybody just came down hard on him, criticizing him for asking for support in a time like this. But the man hasn’t done anything that’s out of order, this is what churches normally do. So, our intention is not create hostility. And you must agree with me that for a very long time, people refused to see any form of wrong in the dealings of their pastor. So, we also had to show that these people are human beings. Paul and Barnabas brought the gospel to the Gentiles and by the way, we are Gentiles. They had to tell them that, look, we are human beings like you, we are not Gods. There was a time in the book of Acts when people wanted to start sacrificing to Paul and to Barnabas, and Paul and Barnabas had to come out and say, look, we are just people like you, no need for all these things.

Before you slowed down, you were taking on men of God every passing day, insisting some of them have not been following the scriptures to the letter. How much would you say you have achieved in terms of getting our men of God to be upright?

First things first, I must say that this journey is not a journey I can finish in my lifetime because it didn’t start in my lifetime, it is a journey that is several centuries old. And you’re not going to just wish it away over night. It’s a long haul. But yeah, we’ve begun to see progress. Many people are beginning to see that the way they were doing things was not sustainable. It’s hard in a world where the top ten richest people in the world are not tithers, they are not Christians yet you’re telling them the doctrine that if you don’t give us tithe you will not make money. The first question is how does a man who is out rightly atheist, practices no religion and doesn’t even believe in God? How is he the second richest man on earth? How did he single handedly make the most money in 2020 during the pandemic? So, you see, the questions start to arise, its no longer hidden. Now, people are beginning to see for themselves that you cannot worship God with money. Secondly, people are beginning to realize that why Nigeria is on the extreme crutches of poverty is because of religion.

There’s a church not far from my house that took over a former factory as the parking lot for their members that attend service on Sundays. How do we reconcile this? How do you close down a factory owing to economic reasons but then a church that does not earn any income except from what it gets from the people, it recycles the people’s money, how does that church now buy over the space of the factory and then we are complaining of poverty? What are we producing? Let’s look at one of the world’s most dynamic economies and most prolific producers -China. In China, it is illegal to put a child younger than eighteen into a church or mosque. So, it is the most irreligious country or earth. It’s one of the producers of everything on earth, including the phones we’re having this conversation on. Look around you, people who are atheists are not only developing their country but also developing the world. Countries that are out rightly irreligious after China, China is the most irreligious country on earth, after China topping the list, we have Germany, the UK, we have Canada, these are some of the least religious countries on earth and these are some of the places we run to. So now, the essence of religion and spirituality is to build us spiritually for the hereafter. Now, of course, there are promises. The Lord said seek me first and everything else should be added. So, it is seek the Lord and so He would add everything else. You see, one of the problems we have in Nigeria is that we base our faith on ignorance, Hosea chapter 6 verse 4 is very clear, it says my people perish because they don’t know me. So, we base our faith on ignorance instead of knowledge because if you base your faith on knowledge as Christ said in the book of Matthew chapter 13 verse 12, please let me quote this, if you read this from the New Living Translation which explains it in the most detailed, it says, ‘to those who listen to my teachings, more understanding will be given and you will have an abundance of knowledge. But those who are no listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken from them.’

The more you listen to Christ’s teaching, the more you realize that you need to love your neighbor. The more you realize that you need to work and be innovative. The more you realise that for you to prosper, you’re not going to do that by praying. The most prayerful nation on earth is Afghanistan and Nigeria comes second and you can say something about the two countries. Meanwhile, the least prayerful is China followed by Germany, and Canada and the UK. You can see the trend in that direction. So, the more pastors start to preach and say, look guys, let’s help you with your spiritual need, let’s help you with your salvation regains its value, but as long as they’re telling you that they’re apostles of prosperity into this land, then things will never get any better. Nigeria has the largest number of people living in extreme poverty. If there is any apostle coming out of this land, he should be a disciple of poverty. Because that’s one thing we are very good at, we know how to make and create poverty because it’s all we’ve done since 1960. Don’t forget that in 1965 when Nigeria was already a wealthy nation, Singapore barely got its independence amidst a lot of poverty. Today, Singapore rose from poverty to become one of the wealthiest nations in Asia and their passport is rated as the second most powerful passport in the world. So, if there is anything we are good at, its turning prosperity into poverty.

I’m still curious to know why no one has taken you up on this. You’ve always made it clear that you were willing to come up to a debate to any man of God, I am surprised that, as we speak, no one has openly challenged you to a debate, or has there been one that the general public is not aware of….

(Cuts in) None. None, Instead of challenging us, what they normally resort to are threats and curses and insults. And you see, if I make a statement and say tithe is not a Christian thing and that its wrong for Christians to pay tithes, and then you come out and curse me, and threaten me, at the end of the day, you have not answered the question. Even if you want to threaten, if you first came out and said, no, according to this gospel, here is an example of Christ collecting tithe, here is an example of Peter paying tithe to Christ, here is an example of Timothy paying tithe to Paul, if you had come with that and then cursed me and insulted me, it’s different. But you see, at the end of the day, people are beginning to wake up. Now, a big man of God will not challenge me to a debate because he doesn’t stand to gain anything unless he wins. And to win is going to be a lot of hard work. And if he loses, he might lose his congregation. So, that’s one of the issues, nobody wants to gamble their congregation.

That’s where the big issue for them is. Because if you take on a Daddy Freeze and you lose, that could very well spell doom for the church…

(Cuts in) You will lose your congregation, you understand? Yes, there are still some people that will still follow you eventually and all, but then, at the end of the day, the ones who are willing to study the bible will definitely have issues with that kind of theology.