Journal of African Studies and Sustainable Development

The unprecedented and unabated proliferation of churches, prayer houses and ministries in Contemporary Nigeria posed dangers to the Christian faith, which encouraged proliferation of fake miracles tycoons and high exploitation of the congregation. It also encourages laziness and begging culture among Christ' faithful which have remained a nagging concern today. The paper adopted historico- critical, descriptive, expository and analytic methods of research . Data were collected from participant observation and consultation of books. The paper discovered that, massive poverty, unemployment, lack of provision of basic human infrastructures by Government and meaningful individuals and insatiable also human desire to acquire more material things are responsible for the proliferation of churches, prayer houses and ministries, which have also contributed in crises of faith and rivalry among Christian sects in contemporary Nigeria today. The paper recommends that, Christians should be cautious in order not to fall preys to fake churches, prayer houses and ministries whose authenticity of power,signs and miracles, prophesies displays are fake and deceptive. Government and meaningful individuals should make provision of basic amenities like good roads, electricity, clinics or hospitals, schools, employment or job opportunities, skill acquisition and poverty alleviation programmes in order to curtail unabated rise of churches, prayer houses, ministries , where people are exploited and denominational rivalry and fake ministers, prophets, deacons, evangelists and bishops prevailed.

Open Full Text (PDF)