BISHOP Peter Awelawa Akinbiyi is one man of God one would always enjoy listening to. "He has been many things in the past 60 years. As a minister, he started as a lowly rated catechist, but today, with a doctorate degree in Church History and many books to his credit, he is the bishop of one of the high profile dioceses of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion). He has been bishop of the Diocese for almost five years and now reflects on the journey so far and explaining why the Anglican Church in Nigeria has launched a War against Nakedness. Excerpts

How bas it been in the past six years? What were your initial expectations when AVMMC was translated to be a Diocese and would you say your experience so far has matched your expectations?
Before I came to Lagos, I had been a bishop somewhere and right from my election, my idea of being a bishop had been anchored on three things-evangelism, aggressive evangelism; establishment of churches and empowerment of the youth. These were the areas that engaged my attention in my former station and when I got to Lagos, I met what they called the mission and vision of the diocese which incidentally tied with my own ideas. We inherited diocese of about 128 churches and a little over a 100 priests. We thank God that today, the Lord has helped us to establish close to about 65 churches and we have spent more than N200 million to buy land for the building of churches. I am particularly glad that we have multiplied our membership.

We thank God for He has re­ally helped us in the realisation of our mission and we believe that He will do more as we now try to consolidate in building churches and establishing more. We are also looking forward to how we can establish ourselves financially so that we don't depend on the assessment alone.

Is that why we have the Covenant Seed Scheme?
The Covenant Seed Scheme is mainly for evangelism for buying land and building churches. We are now trying to consolidate by going into economic ventures so that in future, 50 per cent of our in­come will come from earnings from investments being made today.

What form of investment is the church likely to go into?
By the grace of God, we intend to go into real estate. We intend to buy land, building hostels for colleges and schools, and we want to establish so many primary and secondary schools where our children will not only be taught well but given the right orientation, taught to fear God and obey Him. I must stress here that the primary reason for establishing schools is not to make money but then, a little income might come from there also. These are the areas we are looking into so that we can be able to break even, take care of ourselves and take care of some other people that look up to us for assistance.

With all these plans, what are your projections over the next five years?
In the next five years, we believe that the Diocese of Lagos West would have grown to maturity. I am believing God that we would have overcome the idea of depending on assessment only. We would have established more churches and we would have tripled our number. Above all, I believe that the Lord would have used us to bring more people to the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

What would you say is the place of the Anglican Church in Lagos now, Lagos being a cosmopolitan city with unique characteristics compared to other cities in the country?
In Lagos, we had two dioceses before, now we have three dioceses with the creation of the Diocese of Badagry. Within a few months of the creation of Badagry Diocese, it has started to make waves, it has started to establish new churches. This was a diocese created on March 4. So, we can say confidently that the Anglican Church in Lagos has impacted greatly on the people's lives.

Even though we are not the only church in the city, if you put the three dioceses together, we account for a sizeable number of Christians in the state. There is a peculiar challenge in the cosmopolitan nature of the state and city in that the crime rate is high and this is a call to duty for all Christians and churches. So, we have introduced programmes and teachings that would give our members the correct orientation and by our aggressive evangelism scheme, we hope to reclaim for the Lord Jesus, lost souls.

We want our members to lay good example, so we preach and teach that members should follow the injunction of our Lord Jesus Christ in all things and at all times. I believe that we have made progress but there is still a lot to be done.

What is the war against nakedness about? Is it part of that vision to respond to the unique challenges of Lagos ?

The War against Nakedness is not a Diocese of Lagos West initiative. It was initiated at the national level by the Anglican Church. It is a programme of the women but we have embraced and publicized it so much in our Diocese because we believe that when the eye sees, then it goes to the heart and pollutes the whole system. When you see a woman who is naked or half naked, who exposes the areas which should be private, then any man who is not very disciplined will have an urge.

It degrades womanhood because even when Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, God provided cover for them. God gave them the skin of animals as their dress. So, ab initio , God did not create us to be naked, why then are ladies stripping themselves naked now? It promotes promiscuity and exposes woman­hood unnecessarily.

Most times, when going for wed­ding in the church, the man is well dressed, in a suit, but the bride is half naked. Who is that woman exposing herself for? Who does she want to admire those parts that she decided to expose? Is it the man to whom she is getting married who would live in the same house with her for the rest of her life, with whom she would share her bed and body? No, she is selling herself to other men. Obviously, it is not to the man but other men and that is the beginning of problems in marriages.

The Bible says that our bodies are the temples of God and that is what we are tying to impress on our children, not to join that trend. We are teaching them to carry that body with dignity in realisation that they were created by God for a purpose. We are also targeting the parents to stop sewing clothes that expose their bodies for the children. This is a war that we all have to fight to reclaim the moral higher ground. Without morality, the society is doomed.

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