Senior pastor of Lagos-based church Trinity House Ituah Ighodalo has advised governments at all levels to shut down churches again if the measure would ensure public health safety against COVID-19 pandemic.
Ighodalo said on Monday on Arise TV’s The Morning Show that the government should focus on public places like markets and bus stops, adding that churches were not responsible for the rising cases of COVID-19 cases in the country.
Asked whether the government should also shut down churches again, Ighodalo said, “If we need to. There is nothing sacrosanct about a religious house; a religious house is a gathering of people wanting to worship God. If that gathering and that intimacy in the gathering will lead to the spread of germs or disease, God, because you want to worship Him, would not say that the physical things that you need to do should not be done.
“So, if we need to shut down the churches, why not? Churches were shut down several months ago. We didn’t die, we survived. The churches learnt to go online, on Zoom. Christianity benefited from it because we now began to use more of technology to offer our evangelism and our worship of God and we quite enjoyed it.
“The Zoom meetings are not as intimate but we have managed to reduce things to house fellowships and life must go on.”
Churches in Nigeria were shut for several months beginning from March over the coronavirus pandemic.
