“Jesus Christ was a Cult Leader”

“Jesus Christ was a Cult Leader”

By: Deji Yesufu

I often argue that atheism is a religion. Atheists disagree. They claim that since atheism renounces religion, there is no way you can turn around to claim that atheism is another religion. I however explain that all religions possess tenets, laws, and rituals, and atheism is not anything different. When atheists say there is no God, they are making a religious profession – they are stating a tenet that comes with its consequent laws and even rituals or practices. Beliefs have consequences. Beliefs lead people to say certain things and do certain things. So, when I saw an atheist say that Jesus was a cult leader, I was not particularly upset. I understood clearly that she was speaking from a premise that her fundamental belief connotes. There is no doubt that a that a cursory look at the story of Jesus as either told in the New Testament or recounted by Christians, could lead an observer to conclude that Jesus was a strong figure who led a religious group – whose beliefs have, quite accidentally, today come to be widely accepted. As I preached through the book of John in the New Testament, my congregation and me are also beginning to get the idea that the Jews of Jesus’ days regarded Christ in a similar light. I will explain.

Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan is a local gathering of Christians that meet at the University of Ibadan each Sunday. We are “reformed” Christians – in that we espouse a strong commitment to teaching and living the Bible. Expositional preaching is the hall mark of reformed Christianity. It was what Martin Luther, our 16^th century forefather, did that brought about the Protestant Reformation. Since then, reformed Christians have sought to be biblical in all that they do. To achieve this, we find men who are trained to teach the Bible each Sunday to God’s people. While the missions that birth Providence Church has been in existence since 2014, we only began committed Sunday morning expositional preaching on the first Sunday of January, 2024. After seven months of preaching the book of John, verse by verse, we have reached the sixth chapter of John. And this theme of Jesus being a cult leader stands starring at us.

To write this article, I had to go and read up on Sat Guru Marahji – the Ibadan spiritualist, whose base is on the expressway between Ibadan and Lagos, and who leads a gathering of devotees in a commune. Guru held sway in Nigeria in the 1990s. Now aging fast and nearing his 80^th year on earth, Guru has not been in the news that much. But when Guru used to hold sway, he was known to be a spiritualist who correctly foretold the future; he was said to have healed a number of high-profile individuals – including General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, a one-time head of state in Nigeria. Sani Abacha, another despot, frequented his commune to gain access to the supernatural. And so on. Guru Maharaji has some high claims about himself. He calls himself the black Jesus. His followers regard him as both a spiritual leader and even an individual that approximate to God in the flesh. The question that I want to use the rest of this article to argue against is this: What is the difference between a first century Jesus living in Palestine and a 20^th century Guru living in Ibadan? Why should an atheist not conclude that the Jesus of the Bible was a cult leader – in a similar fashion that some regard Guru Maharaji? I believe that as Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan study more and more on the person of Jesus Christ as recorded in the gospel of John, answers to these questions reveal themselves to us.

The biblical account shows us that when Jesus was born, the Jews correctly predicted when and where he will emerge from within Israel. It was such a common knowledge among the religious leaders that when Herod had troubles sorting these problems out, he resorted to them and they correctly stated where the Messiah was to be at (Matthew 2:3-4). This proves that Christ emergence in first century Palestine did not take the Jews by surprise – they were expecting their Messiah at about that time. Second. Jesus had a conversation with a religious leader in John 3, Nicodemus, who stated quite categorically: “… Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God…” At church, I emphasised that phrase “we know”: apparently the religious leaders who will eventually crucify the Lord knew that Jesus was a man sent from God. They knew they were supposed to believe this man; they knew they were supposed to listen to him; yet, something within them will not permit it. There is nothing in Nigerian religious life or folklore that is expectant of Guru Maharaji. Jesus is clearly not a cult leader. But there is more.

In John 5:31-47, Jesus enters into a debate with the Jews. He had just healed a man that was bedridden for 38 years. Jesus then present four witnesses to the Jews of why he is a man sent from God and why they not only should listen to him, but they must believe on him to be saved. Jesus presents the witness of John the Baptist, his miraculous works, the voice of God the Father, and the testimony of Moses. While bringing John forward as a witness, Jesus made it clear that he actually did not need that particular witness but he brings it forward so that the Jews will be saved because it was a contemporary witness that all of them could relate with (John 5:34). John had stated clearly that Jesus was the Lamb of God who has come into the world to take away the sins of the world. Then Jesus tells the Jews that the miracles he is doing is further proof that he was sent from God. Then he lays out the fact that on a number of occasions, God spoke from heaven, telling the Jews that Jesus was his Son and that they ought to believe in him. Lastly, Jesus states that the testimony of Moses was probably his strongest witness. What Moses wrote down proves him to be true and that it is Moses that will condemn the Jews on the Day of the Lord. Guru Maharaji has no John the Baptist; Guru has no proven miracles; God never spoke about Guru from heaven; and Moses never wrote about Guru.

While we celebrate modernity and the enlightenment it brings, one of the down sides of modern times, is the discarding of all religions. The argument is that religion has been the basis of human conflict. But any fair observer of modern times will realize that it is not religion that is the basis of conflict; but the clash of ideas. Men are usually too proud to accept superior arguments. And rather than accept that a point of view is better than yours, people prefer to stand by the status quo and persecute any bright mind with new ideas. This is what has happened in the clash of civilization that came as Communist ideas clashed with Capitalist thoughts. In a similar way, the clash of ideas between the Christian West and the Muslim East is also another that nations have suffered from; particularly countries like Nigeria that have an almost even distribution between the two world leading religions.

To solve this problem of conflict, people would rather discard religion entirely. And that is where the problem of the atheist arises from. They do not realize, however, that the very basis of discarding religion is an idea in itself; which has a tendency of clashing with other ideas. The solution is not in discarding ideas entirely; the solution is in weighing each idea and coming to concrete and workable points in them. Jesus Christ is not a cult leader. Our Lord was long prophesied of in the Old Testament – the very scripture of the Jews. In his days, Jesus worked tremendous miracles. And God testified audibly that Christ was sent by him. If all three can be met in a religious leader, I will agree that that religious leader was from God. No other person has ever lived on earth that had the four witnesses that John 5:31-47 list. If you can find one person who fits that picture, I will agree with you that Jesus Christ was a cult leader. Until then, accept my thesis that Jesus Christ was not (and is not) a cult leader. Our Lord is the God of the heavens and the earth. And faith in him alone is the only way to everlasting life. Amen.

Deji Yesufu is the Pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of the book HUMANITY.