The quiet crisis within global Christianity is no longer hidden in prayer circles or whispered among frustrated believers. It is now visible in the widening gap between a Church obsessed with safety and a world starving for the supernatural. The centre of gravity has shifted. While religious institutions tighten their rails, some younger seekers migrate toward New Age spirituality, mystic philosophies, energy practices, and alternative metaphysics; realms the Church once governed. As Jesus warned the Pharisees, “You shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces; you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who are entering to go in” (Matthew 23:13). The tragedy of modern Christianity is not merely what it forbids, but what it has forgotten.
This theological retreat has opened a vacuum. The realms once explored by early apostolic fathers like visions, prophecy, power encounters, angelology, discerning of spirits etc. All these are being colonised by movements the Church condemns but no longer understands. It is the ancient paradox revived: when religion loses revelation, imitation becomes attractive. Theologian G.K. Chesterton warned, “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing; they believe in anything.” The New Age flourishes not because it is superior, but because the Church has abandoned its mystical inheritance at the very moment the world is hungriest for transcendence. A faith that once split seas is now afraid to split opinions.
The early apostles navigated realms modern Christians fear. Paul spoke of being “caught up to the third heaven” and hearing “inexpressible things” (2 Corinthians 12:2–4). John entered prophetic dimensions where time folded and eternity broke open. Yet today, the moment a believer speaks of spiritual intelligence, dimensions, codes, encounters, or mysteries, the religious spirit calls it heresy. This is the paradox of the age: the Church prays for revival but rejects the language revival requires. As A.W. Tozer warned, “The Church has been snared in the coils of a spurious logic which insists that if we have the doctrine we must have the experience.” But experience is precisely what a watching world seeks. Doctrine without dimension no longer persuades.
Apostolic Christianity was never built on caution. It was a faith born in fire; prophets wrestling with angels, apostles interpreting dreams, disciples casting out devils and navigating unseen realms. Today’s pursuit of institutional caution has reduced supernatural Christianity to safe Christianity, and safe Christianity cannot transform a dangerous world. The British theologian John Stott once wrote, “The greatest threat to Christianity is not persecution but professionalism.” A Church that sanitises the supernatural becomes a museum of memories, recounting past revivals but unprepared for the future’s power. In spiritual ecology, abandoned territories never remain empty; they are inherited by whoever dares to explore them.
If Nigeria just like any global Christianity is to regain spiritual relevance, it must reclaim the dimensions it surrendered. It must differentiate between the forbidden and the forgotten, between error and inheritance. Jesus’ words remain the strongest indictment: “You err because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Matthew 22:29). Revelation must grow deeper than routine. Power must rise beyond performance. The next move of God will not look like yesterday’s revivals because tomorrow requires a vocabulary the Church has not yet learned. The world is searching for a faith brave enough to be supernatural again. A faith unafraid of mystery. A faith bold enough to walk the realms it once ruled. Only then will the Church rediscover its lost authority especially in this era of bandits, kidnappers and terrorism
– Inah Boniface Ocholi writes from Ayah – Igalamela/Odolu LGA, Kogi state.
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