Primate of the Anglican Church in Nigeria Most Rev. Henry Ndukuba says perpetrators of domestic violence won’t meet Jesus.
The 60-year-old spoke to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Abuja on the sidelines of the church’s Joshua Generation International Youth Conference with the theme “Manifestation of the Sons of God.”
His statement was a reaction to a question on recent reports of deaths in marriages as a result of domestic violence by spouses.
In the words of Ndukuba “This is a very serious issue; it borders on sometimes unresolved childhood and upbringing matters.
“It is not just a man waking up and starting to beat his wife, he himself might have suffered some violence and often times it might have started as transferred aggression.
“And because we are human beings and because it is not only men that beat their wives, there are wives that beat their husbands.
“In any family where there is violence against the spouse whether from the man or from the woman, whether verbal or physical, spiritual or anyhow, has an unresolved relationship with God.
“It is the manifestation of hardness of heart, anger, untransformed lives and you can never meet with Jesus.”
The clergy, however, said that such persons need repentance.
According to him, “The scripture says in 2nd Corinthians 5:17 that if any man be in Christ, is a new creature, the old things have passed away and all things have become new.
“And what are those old things, the baggage that we carry, the guilt that we carry, the sufferings that we carry, the oppression that we have suffered.
“It is left for you to abandon them and let them be crucified with Christ or you carry it and you think it is part of your nature.”
