Daddy Freeze, Christmas and “the Paganization of Christianity”

An ancient Jewish proverb says: “If you wish to strangle, be hanged on a good tree.” It means, if you must rely on an authority, you do well to make sure it’s a reliable one.

This was my deduction after watching an hour-long YouTube interview with Daddy Freeze by Abimbola Adelakun in July 2019.

For those who might not be familiar with these two figures, here’s a brief background:

Ifedayo Olarinde (popularly known as Daddy Freeze) is a Nigerian broadcaster who who propelled himself to national fame in 2016 by calling out and virulently criticizing the doctrines and practices of popular pastors and ministers in Nigerian churches. His regular boiler-plate rhetoric against Pentecostal clerics carved for him a niche, and in 2018, he declared himself the founder of the Free Nation In Christ Online Church (or “Free The Sheeple” movement).

Abimbola Adelakun is an Assistant Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas. She is also a columnist with Punch Newspapers. Her research interests include Critical spirituality, Pentecostalism and Pentecostal culture, religious creativity and modern African cultural performances and expressions. She identifies as a “non-theist” and is obviously a Secular Humanist.

With the pedigree of both the interviewer and interviewee, I was hoping to gain some insights into the ideological underpinnings of this man who is frequently vaunted as an “undefeatable critic” of Nigerian Christianity.

But after ten minutes of listening to this man talk, I cringed at the wide gap between his bombastic claims and his supporting arguments. By the time the video got halfway through, I bristled and pressed “Stop” because I could no longer stomach his harsh, bullying tone and mutilation of basic facts, history and logic.

Since he touched on the topic of Christmas, I’ve decided to revisit that interview and address some of the things he said. His words appear in blue while Dr. Adelakun’s words are in green.

I’m going to throw some light on Christmas … A lot of people argue that, “Oh yes, we agree Christmas was a pagan festival, but Christ came to replace it.”

This a straw man. Whatever pagan worship that was occurring on December 25 prior to Christ, lacked any coherence or a chain of continuity that could be directly traced down to those observing Christmas today.

Granted, many customs, words, concepts and styles of one civilization pass on down and influence one another. But if some of them had pagan significance at some other time or place, it doesn’t mean it still does.

The fact that December period was observed in some old festivals doesn’t mean that they have the same influence or significance today. After all, people can choose any day of the week or month to observe whatever is of importance to them. You don’t have to forge a connection between theirs and the past.

Not to mention, our modern calendar is not the same as ancient calendar of other cultures.

Let me give you this example: you are the river goddess, I’m Christ, okay? We are both born on the same day. It makes no sense for us to shift Christ’s birthday if it happens to fall on the river goddess’ birthday. Hey, we are both born on the same day, let’s do it together, you understand? But we know the Christians are separated from the river goddess’ worshippers…

This is a vapid oversimplification of paganism and it does nothing to strengthen his argument.

Pagan religions don’t specify a date for the nativity of their deities. Most ancient festivals were based on local geographical weather, seasonal cycles, moon phases, and astrological dates. In plain terms, their festivals rarely fell on the same day each year.

For example, Tammuz, which the Encyclopedia Britannica defines as a Mesopotamian “god of fertility embodying the powers for new life in nature in the spring” had varying festival periods in the pagan calendar.

Easton’s Bible Dictionary says his festival was observed in Chaldea in “the month of July, the beginning of the summer solstice.”

The Fausset’s Bible dictionary says “an annual feast was kept to him in June” at Byblos.

The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia says the “mourning by Tammuz was celebrated in Babylonia by women on the 2nd day of the 4th month… [while in Syria his death was celebrated] in midsummer.”

Now Christ was born three months before Christmas, and you took him from his birthday. You didn’t bother finding out what day he was really born and of all days you are matchmaking with the river goddess.

This is a frozen argument. The claim of Jesus being born on September or October is debatable, but Mr Freeze says it dogmatically. No one is definitely sure which exact month Jesus was born on, neither does it matter. What matters is that He was born.

The allegation of matchmaking a deity’s birthday to another also assumes that all ancient cultures or geographical locations used the same calendar or shared the same concept of their deity’s “birth.”

People like Daddy Freeze suppose that if something once had a pagan significance, it must always be of pagan significance! That’s untrue.

The days of the week and months of the year were named after pagan deities. They had pagan significance in the past, but it doesn’t mean they still do so.

Friday was named after Frigg and Thursday after Thor. That you hold a religious service on a Friday doesn’t mean you worship Frig. Neither does having your religious festival on a Thursday mean you worship Thor.

The names, Mercury, Venus, or Mars for planets were originally pagan names. But no one today supposes that planets are deities.

And you can’t hide behind Jewish calendar because during the Babylonian captivity, the Jews renamed some of their months in Babylonian terms. The month of Abib was renamed Nisan and another one was even named Tammuz! Yet no one would accuse Jews of worshipping Tammuz.

This time it was a god, Nimrod with Christ. And then you say you’re replacing Nimrod with Christ. Oh brilliant! But you’re still celebrating with Nimrod’s tree and the Yule and the mistletoe and the gifts and the parties, so where is the Christ?

It’s there

This is where he sounded so lopey that it was embarrassing for me to watch or listen to. Notice that even Dr. Adelakun who had no intention of defending Christianity had to point it out to him: the Christ you say is absent in Christmas is there. But daddy Freeze sees Nimrod.

Many anti-Christmas/anti-Easter zealots are like a close circuit; they read the same set of hogwash, rehash the same lines of arguments and repeat the same trope of misinformation which they never bother to fact check in any objective or valid sources.

So most of the time, when you’re dealing with the “Christmas-is-of-pagan-origin” folks, you’re stuck with a self-perpetuating and self-validating worldview. Mr so-and-so (who isn’t even a scholar in the field he’s pontificating on) says it or wrote it, and he is in our coterie, so that settles it.

I’ve written about the fatal flaws of the “Nimrod-is-god” assertion and I do not wish to repeat it here. Both the Bible and history indicate that Nimrod was never worshipped as a deity (whether a “father god” or “king of the gods”); he founded no religion and has no valid link to deities in the Babylonian, Persian Greek, Roman, or Nordic pantheon.

In plain terms, the old theory of the “Babylon connection” of Nimrod, Semiramis and Tammuz to pagan deities (both ancient and modern) is at best, tabloid sensationalism.

I don’t see it, unfortunately. I don’t see it. What I see is the paganization of Christianity and here is the biggest point that everybody misses, Christ never asked for his birthday to be celebrated. Never. There were many years that Paul went to meet Peter… no birthday. They remembered to do so many things but never remembered to celebrate his birthday? It was never part of the doctrine.

Daddy Freeze’s Free the Sheeple movement is simply one of the versions of the Sacred Name cults or Hebrew Roots movement. These are aberrant religious groups that teach that all of Christianity except theirs is irredemably infected with hellenized paganism, that Christianity went off the rails right from 325 AD.

Yup, no one got it right for 1700 years. The real name of God was lost, the name of Jesus was paganized. The gospel was paganized. Everyone was in darkness, lost and doomed for hell until the light came on in the 20th century when some pockets of people knew “the restored truth.”

And what’s their truth? That using the Hebrew name of God and Jesus, following the laws of Moses and disavowing apostle Paul and the epistles of the New Testament as “Greek pagan corruption” brings you to the light…yes, new light. Doesn’t that sound familiar yet?

So when Mr. Ifedayo goes off in tangents and tells us about how the only two birthdays in the Bible were instances where men were executed (the second through a chain of manipulation and indirect assassination), he’s not deriving this from either Scripture or history, but his cultish ideology – the kind that is inconsistently selective about pagan origins.

According to Browser’s Book of Beginnings, the earliest evidence of a game that featured two opposing teams kicking, tossing, and aggressively advancing a ball in opposite directions was practiced 5,000 years ago in Egypt—as a fertility rite. Sounds like football doesn’t it?

So why do they rail against Christmas and still play or watch soccer?

There are so many issues with Christmas. The paganization is not even the date (which even is paganized), the paganization is even the celebration…

In the Bible, Jesus is called a Lion (Rev. 5:5), Satan is also called a lion (1 Pet. 5:8). Using Daddy Freeze’s logic, Jesus is Satan!

The woman called Mystery Babylon had a cup in her hand; the Lord has a cup in his hand (Ps. 75:8). Using Daddy Freeze’s logic, God is mystery Babylon.

Pagan kings sat on thrones and wore crowns; the Lord sits on a throne and wears a crown (Rev. 1:4; 14:14). Using Daddy Freeze’s logic, the Lord Jesus is pagan.

Pagans worshiped the sun; the Lord is the “sun of righteousness” (Mal. 4:2). Pagan gods were likened to stars; the Lord is called “the bright morning star” (Rev. 22:16). Using his logic, the God of the Bible was “paganized.”

Someone needs to school Daddy Freeze (and Reno Omokri, another kook in the barrel) that taking a stand against paganism shouldn’t be taken to foolish extremes. If you want to fish for pagan origins behind every bush and shelf, you will have to reject the Bible as pagan!

All of the following practices or beliefs mentioned in the Bible were also known among pagans: raising hands in worship, taking off shoes on holy ground, a holy mountain, a holy place in a temple, offering sacrifices without blemish, a sacred ark, a city of refuge, bringing forth water from a rock, laws written on stone, fire appearing on a person’s head, horses of fire etc.

That some primitive tribes worshipped trees in the past doesn’t mean people decorating trees during Christmas today are worshipping trees. That’s the dumbest argument in the book.

When was Christ’s birthday celebration decided? 317 years after He died! Oh wow, it took you 300 years, and who decided it? The Council of Nicaea and Constantine who worshipped the sun all his life and “gave his life,” why because there was a problem in his kingdom. Come on.

This was the lowest water mark. Anyone who is so lacking in intellectual dignity to the point of claiming that the Council of Nicaea and Constantine decided on Christmas shouldn’t be taken as an authority on any Christian doctrine, no matter how large his YouTube subscribers might be. It’s simply irresponsible for Daddy Freeze to spout such an outright falsehood for public consumption.

At this point in the video (at 20:00-20:06) you could see the look of “My goodness, I can’t believe you’re this wack” on Dr. Adelakun’s face.

Okay, so I think this is where I’ll disagree with you. First of all, the things that you highlighted, it’s like you seem so much invested in faithfulness to an origin rather than looking at it as an appropriation of the past to meet the exigencies of the present. So if we say Jesus… [DF rudely interrupts her mid-sentence to ramble].

There is really nothing you can do because what you have called Christianity today is a composite of all these past paganism, Jewish culture…

[DF quickly interjects again aggressively]:

My Christianity is a Christianity that starts in the red Bible which is the highlighted words of Jesus. Anything else that history has is history’s business.

Notice how he contradicts himself. He appeals to history to bolster his hypothesis that Nimrod is the figure being honoured at Christmas and leans on Constantine and the council of Nicaea, but when he was given a picture of history that conflicts with his bias, he quickly throws history into the bin and dives into that oh-so-cool solo scriptura jibe.

Daddy Freeze only considers history as  valid so long as it supports his abstractions, fancies and self-canonized authority. This is a very unreliable man, a hack who pretends to do serious research – a false teacher who shouldn’t be teaching you – that is, if you don’t wish to go astray.

Circling the Bunkers

A Russian Bunker Source: Flikr.com

Sometime ago, I met a learned man. My aunt in the United States introduced me to him and he gave me an appointment to see him at the faculty.

Aside from being a respected professor in his field, he is also a clergyman in the Anglican Church.

My meeting with him was purely regarding my career, but as we began talking, he started to admonish me on my personal life. He began to tell me stuff about my thoughts and relationship with God which no one – not my relatives or anyone else – could have known except by supernatural means.

I looked on in surprise with my mouth almost ajar as he probed into my life and appealed to the biblical story of David and Goliath and how with God on my side, I will become victorious in life. I knew right there that the Holy Spirit was speaking to me through him.

By the way, that’s not the first time that God would send someone to strengthen me in my time of despair. The first time I experienced that was in 2014 during my Masters at the University of Ibadan.

A Christian professor from another faculty suddenly walked up to where I was seated before the lecture started and told me a certain thing which no one else knew. At that time I was depressed and was about throwing in the towel, but what he said gave me hope and confidence in God.

In the case of this Anglican Venerable, although I treasured his counsel, I didn’t expect that a man in “that” denomination would be a mouth piece for God. You see, my family were baptized and raised in the Anglican Church, but the controversy that occurred when my parents exited the denomination left a degree of cynicism in my mind.

I had little trust in anyone in a position of leadership in that church because I perceived them to be opposed to the move of the Holy Spirit. Later as I reflected on this experience, God spoke to my heart: “You can’t pocket My Holy Spirit!“

How true!

All along, I had been putting the Holy Spirit of God in a test tube of sorts. I had concluded that He could only speak to me through certain pastors or ministers that I revered or those from the denomination I approved of. That was a “we alone” mentality, and thank God for demolishing it.

This mentality is what I call “circling the bunkers.” A bunker is a defensive military shelter designed to protect people and valued materials from falling bombs or other attacks.

A bunker is mostly built underground – and metaphorically speaking – it is a fortress of ideas or practices that is specially protected or defended by individuals with an agenda.

Circling the bunkers is a preconditioned thinking in which a believer invests so much in church traditions, denominational positions, theological systems or outward labels as criteria of spiritual legitimacy and is more ready to defend these than the gospel of Jesus Christ itself.

Many believers today have sadly missed out on God’s intervention in their lives because they assumed that He can only speak or supernaturally work through their preferred or “our own” vessels.

But God can and does ministers through vessels who don’t meet up with our self-made conditions.

I want you to understand that God is not limited by denominations, institutions or human vessels. In fact, God can use a weak, despised, uneducated and a very young person to confound the strong, influential, wise and mighty of this earth.

Yet, many people have a problem accepting others on the basis of minor doctrinal differences or finicky rules:

An Arminian is teaching theology? I’m not interested.

He’s a pre-triber? Nope. Bye.

A Christian woman wearing make up and jewelries? She’s a Jezebel!

An evangelist dancing disco, wearing jean trousers, a hand chain and a even a tattoo? Have mercy Lord, he’s a false convert.

You are from that denomination where you speak unknown languages and raise your thighs when praising God? Out.

That pastor doesn’t use the King James bible? Heretic alert.

I remember when I started a Facebook Christian group six years ago, one guy demanded I put a Bible verse on all my articles because as far as he’s concerned, if a Christian doesn’t have a Bible verse for everything he writes, he’s going by “human wisdom.” He’s defending his fundamentalist bunker.

Couple of years ago, a friend tagged a pastor of a popular Nigerian Pentecostal church to my Facebook post, Unmasking the Queen of Heaven, and the man said something like:

“I was following along when he was quoting the Bible to expose this spirit, but you see when he began quoting these historical and religious non-biblical sources, he lost me. I don’t give attention to such write ups.”

Nothing new here. In the cute little world some people live in, the Bible is the only authority that must be appealed to: history must be scorned, logic should be rejected, science despitefully spat on, arts (especially African arts) demonized, theology should be relegated and unless it’s Jewish culture, it should be trampled upon.

This is what I call a “fundamentalist heritage.” It’s a constructed mental box that is obsessed with dotting every “i” and crossing every “t” at the risk of being labelled an apostate. They can take just one sentence you made and turn it back at you with a polemic of 2000 words and quotes from an entire chapter of the Bible.

We must not fall into the delusion that unless a person speaks or writes like our own pastors or reverend or elders, he must be messed up or absolutely false. This is how people miss out on God’s treasures.

I have known people who found the truth of Scripture even while they were still trapped within a religious system of deception and by God’s leading, they eventually found their way out, especially when they realized they couldn’t change the system.

God used a mute donkey to convey His message to a recalcitrant prophet. And there are times He will use poor, broken vessels to reprove, instruct, reveal His will or work in the lives of His people. That’s the sovereignty of God.

In the Bible we have an example of a prophet who discredited God’s revelation because he felt only his “clique” could legitimately speak for Him.

When God permitted a deceiving spirit to lead Ahab to his death, out of 400 prophets, Micaiah had a different message – a genuine insight into the heavenly conference. When he prophesied Ahab’s death at Ramoth Gilead, a respected prophet reacted:

“Then Zedekiah son of Kenaanah went up and slapped Micaiah in the face. “Which way did the spirit from the Lord go when he went from me to speak to you?” he asked” (1 Kgs. 22:24)

Such arrogance! Notice, he was not dedicated to God’s truth but a “party line.” Just talk like we do and you belong. This prophet felt he had a patent on the Spirit of God. He thought he had a corner on His revelation.

This is why it is dangerous to follow anyone who tells you he is the only mouth piece of God, or that his ministry is the only one that carries God’s approval.

Elijah nearly fell into this trap when he said, “I am the only one left” – the only one jealous for God. But God made Him realize that He has marked out for protection seven thousand in Israel who have neither kissed Baal nor bowed to him.

I do not have a corner on God’s truth. I am not the only contender. My blog is not the only place where truths are being shared. There are many others who have been labouring before me and will continue when I am no more here. That leaves no room for arrogance.

In Matthew 23, Jesus assessed the situation and rightly called the religious leaders of His day, “blind guides” (vs. 16, 24), “fools and blind” (vs. 17, 19), and “blind Pharisee” (v. 26). They were blind because their hearts were hardened and they idolized their outward piety above their inner spiritual state.

In Romans 11:25, Paul explained Israel’s mistake: “Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in.”

Their hearts were hardened because they were blind to what God is doing. The same can happen to a Christian too – stuck up in a traditional or denominational rot and blind to the move of the Holy Spirit.

The key is to accept others just as Christ has accepted us. He “chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love…to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which he made us accepted in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:4, 6).

It was by His grace – not our works – that we were accepted, so we should extend that same grace to others. We need the ministry of the brothers and sisters outside our bunkers.

Finally, our focus should be on Jesus Christ as the sole standard (Heb. 12:2). It’s self-righteousness when we judge people by their outward labels rather than their devotion to Jesus Christ and His Word. It’s self-righteousness when we compare ourselves to others and judge them on that basis. God has only one standard for righteousness: Jesus Christ.

Touch not God’s Anointed: What it really Means

This post is a quote from the appendix of a book I am currently reading, Christianity in Crisis: 21st Century authored by Hank Hanegraaff in 2009 (published by Thomas Nelson).

Hendrik “Hank” Hanegraaff, before his conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy in 2017, was the president of the Christian Research Institute, an apologetic ministry founded by one of the brightest Evangelical minds in the 20th century, Dr. Martin Walter. For decades, Mr Hank was the anchor of “The Bible Answer Man.”

The first edition of Christianity in Crisis was published in 1993. It systematically unmasked the Word-Faith movement – a movement which threatens to undermine the foundations of the faith delivered to the saints.

The book was a bestseller and it won the Medallion Book Award for excellence in evangelical Christian literature. The new volume has been “augmented with a ‘Cast of Characters’ section that provides comprehensive information as well as biblical evaluation of the newest and most prolific stars in the faith galaxy—virtual rock stars who command the attention of presidential candidates and media moguls” (from the Introduction).

The following is an excerpt from Appendix A: Are “God’s Anointed” Beyond Criticism?

“During His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ exhorted His followers to not judge self-righteously or hypocritically. Is this necessarily what Christians do when they question the teachings of “God’s anointed” preachers and evangelists?

Many teachers who claim such anointing would say so, and many more of their followers commonly reply to all manner of criticism: “Touch not God’s anointed.”

Some of these teachers even add that such actions carry literally grave consequences. Consider what prominent Faith teacher Kenneth Copeland affirmed in his taped message Why All Are Not Healed (#01-4001):

“There are people attempting to sit in judgment right today over the ministry that I’m responsible for, and the ministry that Kenneth E. Hagin is responsible for . . . Several people that I know had criticized and called that Faith bunch out of Tulsa a cult. And some of ’em are dead right today in an early grave because of it, and there’s more than one of them got cancer.

In addition to certain Faith teachers, such sentiments may be found among various groups involved with shepherding and other forms of authoritarian rule (from diverse “fivefold” ministries to a host of large and small “fringe churches”).

The leaders of these groups are commonly regarded by their followers as having a unique gift and calling that entitles them to unconditional authority—sort of a heavenly carte blanche. To dispute any of their teachings or practices is not distinguished from questioning God Himself.

Advocates of such unquestionable authority assume that Scripture supports their view. Their key biblical proof text is Psalm 105:15: “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm” (KJV). But a close examination of this passage reveals that it has nothing to do with challenging the teachings and practices of church leaders.

First, it needs to be noted that the Old Testament phrase “the Lord’s anointed” is typically used to refer to the kings of Israel (1 Samuel 12:3,5; 24:6, 10; 26:9, 11, 16, 23; 2 Samuel 1:14, 16; 19:21; Psalm 20:6; Lamentations 4:20), at times specifically to the royal line descended from David (Psalms 2:2; 18:50; 89:38, 51), and not to especially mighty prophets and teachers.

While the text does also mention prophets, in the context of Psalm 105 the reference is undoubtedly to the patriarchs in general (vv. 8–15; cf. 1 Chronicles 16:15–22), and to Abraham (whom God called a prophet) in particular (Genesis 20:7). It is therefore debatable whether this passage can be applied to select leaders within the body of Christ.

Even if the text can be applied to certain church leaders today, in the context of this passage the words “touch” and “harm” have to do with inflicting physical harm upon someone. Psalm 105:15 is therefore wholly irrelevant to the issue of questioning the teachings of any self-proclaimed man or woman of God.

Moreover, even if we accepted this misinterpretation of Psalm 105:15, how are we to know who not to “touch”—that is, who God’s anointed and prophets are? Because they and their followers say they are? On such a basis we would have to accept the claims of Sun Myung Moon, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, and virtually all cult leaders to be prophets.

Because they reputedly perform miracles? The Antichrist and False Prophet will possess that credential (Revelation 13:13–15; 2 Thessalonians 2:9)! No, God’s representatives are known above all by their purity of character and doctrine (Titus 1:7–9; 2:7–8; 2 Corinthians 4:2; cf. 1 Timothy 6:3–4).

If a would-be spokesperson for God cannot pass the biblical tests of character and doctrine, we have no basis for accepting his or her claim, and no reason to fear that in criticizing his or her teaching, we might also be rejecting God.

Finally, if any individual Christian is to be considered anointed, then every single Christian must be considered anointed as well. For this is the only sense in which the term is used (apart from Christ) in the New Testament:

“You [referring to all believers] have an anointing from the Holy One” (1 John 2:20). Thus no believer can justifiably claim any sort of special status as God’s “untouchable anointed” over other believers.

With this in mind, it is significant that the apostle John does not use this term with reference to inspired or dynamic preaching or teaching, but to the ability and responsibility of each believer to discern between true and false teachers (vv. 18–24). Nobody’s teachings or practices are beyond biblical evaluation—especially influential leaders.

According to the Bible, authority and accountability go hand in hand (e.g., Luke 12:48). The greater the responsibility one holds, the greater the accountability one has before God and His people.

Teachers and other leaders of the Christian community should be extremely careful to not mislead any believer, for their calling carries with it a strict judgment (James 3:1). They should therefore be grateful when sincere Christians take the time and effort to correct whatever erroneous doctrine they may be holding and preaching to the masses.

And if the criticisms are unfounded or unbiblical, they should respond in the manner prescribed by Scripture, which tells them to correct misguided doctrinal opposition with gentle instruction (2 Timothy 2:25).

There is, of course, another side to this issue: criticism often can be sinful, leading to rebellion and unnecessary division. Christians should respect the leaders that God has given them (Hebrews 13:17). Theirs is the task of assisting the church in its spiritual growth and doctrinal understanding (Ephesians 4:11–16).

At the same time, believers should be aware that false teachers will arise among the Christian fold (Acts 20:29; 2 Peter 2:1). This makes it imperative for us to test all things by Scripture, as the Bereans were commended for doing when they examined the words of even the apostle Paul (Acts 17:11).

Not only is the Bible useful for preaching, teaching, and encouragement, but it is equally valuable for correcting and rebuking (2 Timothy 4:2). In fact, we as Christians are held accountable for proclaiming the whole will of God and warning others of false teachings and those responsible for them (Acts 20:26–28; cf. Ezekiel 33:7–9; 34:1–10).”

[Hank Hanegraaff, Christianity in Crisis: 21st Century, Thomas Nelson, Nashville, 2009, pp. 382-386]