He believed that culture is formed from the consumption of artistic expression. Simply put, as human beings interact with art, they begin to adopt its ideologies and philosophies until it influences their pattern of behaviour.

The evidence of this is all around us. Popular Culture is influenced by creatives. Trends are set by influencers. Colloquial slangs are informed by social media. Oscar Wilde was right, ‘Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life’. 

These authors are not the only ones who subscribe to this position. Notable Nigerian Pastor, Emmanuel Iren who leads a church of over 4000 members with branches across the globe also holds the opinion that creatives play a major role is social development and nation building. 

In this interview, he speaks on key perspectives the church should imbibe about creatives and their role in influencing culture.

First and foremost, what do the words Christian, and secular really mean? The fact that something is secular, does not mean it is sinful. For instance, the national anthem, nation building is a secular endeavour. You can have a lot of Christians who are not necessarily putting out Christian content, but general content influenced by the ideologies of the bible and is consistent with their faith.

 I don’t have a problem with secular content creators if the values they uphold are not hazardous and harmful to the sanity of the society.

I feel we need Christian creatives, by that I mean people who are putting out Christian content, but we also need Christians in the secular space who are ready to tell stories about general concepts.

Looking at it from this perspective, there are many Christians doing this in the secular space. I think they need to be bold and know it’s okay to be a Christian in the secular space. They should realise that beyond their religious identification, the bible has a lot of moral values that are beneficial to nation building.

The church community has failed to identify as something beyond just a local church assembly. We have failed to identify that first and foremost, there are a lot of us. We have the numbers advantage; therefore, we are a market, with sentiments. We can make demands that must be abased. Because, we have not had this mentality, the church has not created any rewarding system for people who have content consistent with their beliefs. Therefore eventually people are tempted to compromise.

Christians must have a commercial perspective to content creation. Beyond clapping for gifted people in church, we must be ready to bankroll them and support them. In doing this, we will discover that these issues will begin to reduce until they are no longer existent.

For questions like this, the first problem is the definition of terms. Flamboyance is very subjective. For instance, looking at the poverty statistics of this country, if it is true that the average Nigerian lives below $1 daily, then having a smart phone, dressing nicely and even eating three square meals can be seen as flamboyant. 

The Bible is clearly against an ostentatious lifestyle, believers must realise this. However, we must also have a broader perspective on what moderation is. We must not relegate everything of good quality to flamboyance. 

I think that many times it’s a perspective issue. The average Nigerian does acquire things for function. We have not recognised that maybe some cars are more expensive because they are faster and because they solve problems. We like good things, not for their function, but to show them off to the next person. 

When you have content creators and influencers who understand that there are people in the society, not necessarily everybody, who need these things to solve certain problems and it is well within their means to afford it, it changes the context.

When we have a function perspective to the acquisition of things, all these issues will cease.

Oh, there are plans, but I am not going to divulge all our strategies to you. However, you can watch out for creatives out of Celebration Church and content distributed on platforms sponsored by our ministry.

The most important advice I have for Christian Creatives is this, ‘Don’t expect support just because you are Christian.’ The Bible tells us that Daniel was found 10 times better than all the magicians and advisers. There must be more to you than your religious beliefs and convictions. Be excellent. Solve problems. Go out there and be audacious. Finally, be proud of your Christian identity, don’t change that for anything in the world.

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