S. G. Elton: The Untold Story of a Mandate for the Early Christian Church of Nigeria
A white missionary mentored several notable men of God in Nigeria, and then, towards the end of his life, stood away from them, watching aloof with mixed feelings as they succeeded in ministry, amassed wealth and disregarded his warnings and prophecies.
In 1937, an Englishman named Sydney Granville Elton left his home country of England armed with a mandate for the Christian church of Nigeria. He was thirty years old. He was an elder at the Apostolic Church at Shrewsbury, a town in the historic county of Shropshire, which was famous for being the birth place of Charles Darwin. He was sent as a missionary to Nigeria by the Apostolic Church headquarters at Penygroes, Wales. His task was to do what missionaries were so known for doing: establish and oversee schools and churches in the name of the maternal international mission—the Apostolic Church Mission. Besides these, he was to do no more and no less.
But arriving in Nigeria, Elton got caught up in the pervading atmosphere of revival that swept through the nation, the revival that began in 1918, at the close of the First World War, and that continued until the late 1930s. This was the revival that birthed the first indigenous African churches which culminated into what was called the Aladura Movement of 1918-1930. These indigenous churches sprang up among the Yoruba people in the southern part of colonial Nigeria. They were the Precious Stone or Diamond Society (founded at Ijebu-Ode in 1918 under the leadership of Joseph Bayo Shadare), the Cherubim and Seraphim Society (of Moses Orimolade and Christiana Akinsowon, founded at Lagos in 1925), and The Church of the Lord (Aladura, founded by Josiah Oluwalowo Oshitelu at Ogere in 1930).
These churches were characterized by a prophetic-healing form of Pentecostalism, and were so named ‘spiritual churches’. They emphasized visions, dreams, prophecies, trances, speaking in tongues, believer’s baptism by immersion, holiness, various possessions of the Spirit, including the presence of the Holy Spirit made evident in charismatic gifts and visible signs and results.
These churches were independent in their practices; they were not affiliated to any western mission or denomination. Yet, all over the country, and overseas, there was talk of the mighty move of God among these unlearned, semi-literate men. A few years later, George Perfect, an Apostolic Church missionary and co-worker of Elton, would write: ‘The Spirit-filled African revivalists ARE revivalists with a capital ARE. They get white-hot with the fire of God … They set Nigeria on fire.’ But as at 1930, despite the establishment of these indigenous churches, God was not done yet. More men were to be enraged by the fire of the ongoing revival, and many more were to be raised.
One could say that this raising began in 1928, when the fire of revival fanned brighter than ever before as Joseph Ayodele Babalola strode onto the scene, cloaked in an immense, incomparable power of God. At the time, he was just twenty-four years; a motor mechanic and steamroller driver for the Public Works Department, he had no ministerial training in any of the mission churches besides that he was the son of an Anglican priest.
It was sometime between September and October of 1928, as he was working at the Igbara – Oke road construction, that his steamroller stopped and, for a whole week, he could not place a thumb on what was wrong nor was he able to fix the roller. Then at noon of 9 October, while again making futile attempts to repair the roller, a voice audible as the roar of thunder called him into God’s service, like Saul of Tarsus experienced on the road to Damascus. What followed after this encounter was seven days of fasting in a secluded place, after which Ayodele Babalola burst forth with power: he healed a boy that was dumb, delivered a woman who had been pregnant for four years by giving her a cup of ‘sanctified water’ to drink, and then, by prophecy, dethroned a local king who withstood the message of the gospel.
‘The Spirit-filled African revivalists ARE revivalists with a capital ARE. They get white-hot with the fire of God … They set Nigeria on fire.’ —Pastor George Perfect
The next year, 1929, following instructions given by the Spirit, Babalola joined the Faith Tabernacle Congregation, a local mission church with headquarters in the United States. It was shortly after he joined, in July 1930, that his fame went abroad when he raised a boy to life after praying and then jingling his bell three times over the dead boy. Soon the whole town was gathered to him. This led to the great Oke-Oye revival, a revival that was, among other things, marked with unprecedented miracles, signs and wonders. The dumb spoke, the lame walked, the deaf heard, lepers were cleansed, lunatics were restored, several Muslim and idol worshippers surrendered their tasbīḥ and charms for burning and were converted. Within five days over a million people had trooped to the revival grounds.
This Oke-Oye revival was not curtailed, however, for it soon spread to other locations, to Ibadan, Ilesha, Efon Alaaye and Ghana. This consequently led to severe trials and persecutions for the Faith Tabernacle Congregation. The colonial government, fearing that they were fast-losing the people to these servants of God, cooked up a list of allegations in order to contain and kill the revival. They accused the revival of being a lawless movement. Babalola was apprehended and locked up in prison for six months. Leaders of the Faith Tabernacle were subjected to severe victimizations and molestations. Above all, their place of worship was locked up and services were banned. Some of them were detained in police cells and later arraigned before the court for alleged criminal offences such as disturbing the peace of the people with vigil prayers, administration of ‘sanctified’ but unhygienic water to people for healing, dissuading people from using modern medicine, etc.
In utter frustration and desperation, these FT leaders wrote to their leaders in America to come to their aid. Unfortunately for them, their maternal leaders refused to help, giving the baseless excuse that ‘it was against their practice to go to other countries for the work of the gospel unless through Christian literature only.’ Besides, the FT in America held conflicting viewpoints with the Nigerian FT concerning the workings of the Spirit. The FT in America, for instance, taught that speaking in tongues was demonic, and the FT in Nigeria was a tongue-speaking church. Hence, they could not help. It was a painfully controversial time for the Nigerian FT. Like a child turning his back on his mother, they had nothing to do but to disaffiliate from FT America.
Upon learning about the Apostolic Church Mission in Great Britain, a mission church which held similar views with them about the person and workings of the Holy Spirit, these FT leaders wrote quickly in request for aid. Their distress signal was picked up on the radar and answered as soon as possible: in September 1931, three delegates were sent to Nigeria: Pastors D. P. Williams, A. Turnbull and W. J. Williams. This led to the establishment of a new denomination called The Apostolic Church (TAC) in 1931. Seven leaders of the deposed Faith Tabernacle were ordained pastors in TAC that same year, and then, in 1933, moved to the rank of apostles. (The Apostolic Church [AC], an offshoot of the 1904 Welsh revival of Great Britain, established after the pattern of Hutchinson’s The Apostolic Faith Church, strongly believed in the ministry of prophets and apostles, and in them being the leaders of the church.)
It was after The Apostolic Church (TAC) began to thrive and more hands were needed on deck that S. G. Elton was called upon in 1937. But Elton, arriving at such a time, was convinced beyond doubts that God had not brought him to Nigeria to raise and nurture the Apostolic Church and her offshoots. God had not brought him down here to establish denominations. Rather, God had brought him because of the ongoing revival, because of the men in whom He wanted to pour Himself into. God had brought him to establish lives. Elton was so taken by this conviction that, in 1982, he declared, perhaps wildly: ‘I want to warn you, and serve you notice, that I’m going to have my interest in Nigeria, whether you like it or not. I may be a white man, but this is where my inheritance is. God has ... brought me to Nigeria … and nobody will take me back to a place where I’ve got nothing.’ And indeed, Elton was true to this cause till the end: he never, even for once, since 1937, returned to England for any reason.
By character, Elton was a man who liked to ascertain the credibility of an instruction before jumping into it. Prior to leaving England, he underwent three stages of revelations from God, over a period of six years. First, in November 1932, he received prophecy concerning him being used by God in ‘a ministry unto others’ after God had laid hands on him in his own home. Two years later, on 14 July 1934, God said He was sending both he and his wife to Nigeria. Then, a third time, in 1936, at a meeting of the church Council of Apostles held at the headquarters in Penygroes, Wales, he was called to be a missionary when someone prophecied: ‘Send my servant Elton to Nigeria.’
What was spectacular about the meeting at Wales was that, one hour later, a similar prophecy was delivered three thousand miles away in another council meeting holding at Lagos, Nigeria, in which someone confirmed by the Spirit that one coming Elton would be an apostle among them. So Elton got this telegram from the headquarters at Wales instructing him to telephone. After speaking with the president of the church over the phone, he faced Council at the HQ where he was instructed to get ready to travel to Nigeria for a brief stay of two years, to test the waters so to speak, because the weather in Africa could be severe to his wife and three-year old daughter, Ruth. Heeding to the call, Elton, aboard an Elder Dempster ship bound for West Africa, left Liverpool on 17 February 1937 and, after a brief stint of embarkation in cities such as Freetown and Accra, arrived in Lagos, Nigeria on March 11. ‘To God alone be all the glory,’ he must have written in his diary.
‘I want to warn you, and serve you notice, that I’m going to have my interest in Nigeria, whether you like it or not. I may be a white man, but this is where my inheritance is. God has ... brought me to Nigeria … and nobody will take me back to a place where I’ve got nothing.’ —S. G. Elton
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1 937, the year Elton stepped on the Nigerian soil, The Apostolic Church (TAC) had successfully established churches and schools—thanks to the white missionaries who came before Elton. It was a win-win ministry for both groups, though: while Nigerians gained funds, teachers, and a degree of protection from government interference, the British church gained the status that comes with operating an international evangelical project. They, the British church, immensely contributed to the development of the movement started by Babalola and the FT leaders by providing legitimacy, appointing native pastors, performing baptisms, opening schools, continuing the focus on healing, and distributing literature.
When Elton arrived, he and Joseph Ayodele Babalola forged a bond. Their relationship consisted of instruction and guidance, as Elton at one time or the other served as mentor for Babalola. Their relationship would continue that way for a long time, even through 1939, when, after an internal crisis with the British missionaries, Babalola left TAC along with TAC Pastors Odubanjo and Akinyele. The trio went ahead to found another denomination named Christ Apostolic Church (CAC). And when he was dismissed from his position by the Apostolic Mission board in 1954, due to the controversy he had created by inviting the Canadian leaders of the Latter Rain Movement to Nigeria, a polarizing movement which embraced the contested practice of imparting spiritual gifts through the laying-on of hands, Elton worked for CAC, through the 50s and 60s, becoming a sort of renegade evangelist from thenceforth.
But there was an Achilles’ heel in the Elton-Babalola relationship. In his book Messenger, Ayodeji Abodunde itemizes three instructions Elton gave to Babalola but which Babalola denounced. Elton criticized Babalola’s persistent and repetitive use of bell, staff and sanctified water. He explained that, even though God showed Babalola these three things at the start of his ministry, as he claimed, they were merely spiritual symbols, and not ‘instruments of miracles’ in themselves. The bell represented witnessing and evangelism, the staff was the authority given to him to perform, and the ‘sanctified water’ was a sign that his ministry would be characterized by healings and miracles. Nonetheless, Babalola refused bluntly; he saw no reason why he should compromise what worked for him because a white man said it. And till today, many of his followers still use these objects, with many putting their trusts in the efficacy of these things, rather than in God. This was one of the presages that Elton preconceived and tried to correct. He never knew that many more were to come.
Even though both men disagreed on this matter of ‘objects of miracles’, they agreed on other things. Elton was a man who strongly believed in Christian literature. He believed that reading could enlighten and liberate a man. In the 40s he distributed tracts. He translated Franklin Hall’s books (especially Atomic Power with God with Fasting and Prayer) into Yoruba, so that Babalola could read them. These books influenced Babalola so much that, when he published a slim book titled Great Power Through Prayer and Fasting sometime later, a book which contained a tract titled ‘90 Reasons Why We Should Fast’, he almost copied Hall’s book verbatim. Babalola certainly had ideas of his own from the very beginning: the importance of fasting, the possibility of healing without medicine, and the power of prayer. Yet, when given the opportunity, he borrowed language and concepts from American evangelist Franklin Hall, in order to amplify, extend, and articulate his message.
Elton criticized Babalola’s persistent and repetitive use of bell, staff and sanctified water. He explained that, even though God showed Babalola these three things at the start of his ministry, as he claimed, they were merely spiritual symbols, and not ‘instruments of miracles’ in themselves.
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After the demise of Babalola in 1959, Elton would continue what he believed to be God’s plan for him: to raise a new breed of leadership in the Nigerian church, who, powered by the Holy Spirit, will take the message of God’s kingdom and the all-conquering King to the very ends of the earth. In the 60s he provided platforms in Nigeria for American evangelists such as T. L. Osborn and Gordon Lindsay who were seeking to carry out evangelistic works in Nigeria. By the 70s he had become the father of Pentecostal Revival Movement in Nigeria. Seeking out young people from universities, he admonished many to lay hold of their destinies in Christ, and went as far as connecting some of them with top American evangelists. One of the university campuses he frequented then was the University of Ife, Ile-Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University). He was a known face at the Evangelical Christian Union (ECU) of UNI-IFE in the 70s and 80s, where he mentored a handful of young men, visiting twice a year, once in each of the harmattan and rain semesters.
Through the 70s, and until his death in 1987, Elton mentored several young men who eventually turned out to be the leading figures of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements of Christianity in Nigeria. Some of those men who were influenced by his ministry—some meeting and hearing him once or a couple of times—were Archbishop Benson Idahosa, Pastor Enoch Adeboye (who visited him at Ilesha every fifty days while he was a lecturer of Mathematics at the University of Ilorin), Brother Gbile Akanni (another frequent visitor at his place), Bishop David Oyedepo, Bishop Francis Wale Oke, Pastor Williams Folorunsho Kumuyi, Dr Chris Oyakhilome, Bishop Dr Paul Nwachukwu, Pastor Tunde Adesida, Pastor Olubi Johnson, Engr Steve Olumuyiwa, Rev Dr Mike Oye, Apostle Geoffrey Numbere, and several others, many of whom are scattered in several sectors of professional businesses.
Besides Apostle Joseph Ayodele Babalola, one other servant of God who was very close to Elton was Benson Idahosa. It was Elton who linked Idahosa with American healing evangelists Gordon and Freda Lindsay. Both men—Gordon and Elton—ordained Idahosa into ministry in 1971. When Idahosa quit his theological studies at Gordon Lindsay’s bible college (Christ for the Nations Institute) in Texas, U.S., he and Elton worked hand-in-hand in evangelizing Idahosa’s native hometown of Benin City, organizing crusades at stadiums and drawing people to Christ by the thousands. This continued until 1973 when Idahosa claimed to have received a call from God to begin to preach another gospel different from the gospel of salvation—the ‘prosperity gospel’. He claimed to have heard God say: ‘Begin to bless your people with all blessing; ask them to ask me anything they need, and I shall provide it for them…. I shall make them to be prosperous in all areas of their lives. I shall bless your partners and co-workers. Wake up, go to the Church in the morning, and tell them poverty died last night!’ This vision Idahosa caught would, in the long run, turn out to be the point of separation between him and Elton. As he prospered in ministry, and as Elton stayed farther away from him, Idahosa successfully garnered a following from other ministers of God who were just starting out in ministry, most notable among them being Bishops Francis Wale Oke and David Oyedepo. Idahosa could be suitably said to be the pioneer of prosperity gospel preaching in Nigeria.
In 1981, less than a decade later, David Oyedepo claimed to have received a similar prophecy from God in an eighteen-hour long vision. On the day he received the vision, 1 May 1981, he had gone to visit Elton (now called Pa Elton) at Ilesha only to discover that Pa Elton was not around. While debating on what to do next, he had heard God tell him to find a quiet place, because He wanted to speak to him. So Oyedepo rented a room at the International Hotel, Ilesha, where God revealed to him in a vision a roll of afflicted, battered, beaten, tattered and deformed people. God told him: ‘The hour has come to liberate the world from all oppressions of the devil through the preaching of the word of faith, and I am sending you to undertake this task.’
What followed this declaration from God was a long period of fastings and prayer; Oyedepo fasted until the point of vomiting blood in preparation for the work ahead. In addition to this, he studied the biographies of men and women God had used and was using, and why some of these people succeeded and why some failed. By looking around this way David Oyedepo soon got inspired by the ministries of other servants of God. He was inspired by the school of prosperity of Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, by the school of faith of Kenneth Hagin, by the school of boldness of Asa Alonzo Allen, and by the school of healing of Smith Wigglesworth. In other words, apart from his personal study of the Scriptures and apart from the visions he received from God, David Oyedepo gave his ministry shape, pattern, vision, purpose and focus by studying the ministries of other leading ministers of his time.
In his book This House Has Fallen: Nigeria in Crisis, published in 2000, American journalist Karl Maier examines the state of Pentecostalism in Nigeria in a chapter titled ‘An Animal Called Man’. In the chapter he relays his personal experiences with Nigerian preachers T. B. Joshua and David Oyedepo while on visits to their churches for exclusive interviews in the late 90s. At that time, T. B. Joshua was just starting out his ministry, and was still tending to the poor folks of the city of Lagos, with many receiving healing from him and calling him Jesus to his face, at his demand—(‘Who am I?’ he would ask, and the healed would reply ‘You are Jesus. You’re not a human being.’). But by this time, David Oyedepo had become famous and successful in ministry. He had built at Otta, in Ogun State, the Faith Tabernacle, a 50,400 seaters church auditorium which, reportedly, was the largest church auditorium in the world as at then, up until a few years ago. And also, by this time, Oyedepo had embraced the prosperity gospel, a gospel best-associated with Israeli televangelist Benny Hinn, which he (Hinn) preached for decades and then denounced. Of Oyedepo’s ministry Maier wrote: ‘Career success, wealth, status in society, good marriages, plentiful children, even “miracle houses” all await those who accept Jesus through the Faith Tabernacle. The message is that the Lord expects his followers to enjoy material prosperity, and those who embrace the church, Oyedepo says, shall rise from “the dunghill to the palace.”’
In her 2013 book Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel, Canadian writer and academic Kate Bowler argues that the prosperity gospel ‘centers on four themes: faith, wealth, health, and victory.’ She writes: ‘(1) It conceives of faith as an activator, a power that unleashes spiritual forces and turns the spoken word into reality. (2) The movement depicts faith as palpably demonstrated in wealth and (3) health. It can be measured in both the wallet (one’s personal wealth) and in the body (one’s personal health), making material reality the measure of the success of immaterial faith. (4) The movement expects faith to be marked by victory.’
Summarily, the ‘prosperity gospel’ is a ‘health-and-wealth gospel’. And obviously, it is not a gospel that can be found in the Bible, neither Christ nor the early apostles preached it. In fact, in The Didache: The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, a short book written in the first century AD and that happens to be one of the earliest examples of Christian literature, it is written, as a warning against false apostles and teachers that were beginning to polarize the Christian faith in those days, that: ‘Whoever asks you for money is a false prophet. You must not listen to him.’
Taking Jesus Christ for example, throughout His ministry there was no mention of money, before, during or after his ministrations. Jesus did not collect any kobo from anyone for doing God’s work; he collected no salary, no commendation, no collection, no offering, no seed offering, no prophet offering, no fund-raising. He said: ‘Freely ye have received, freely give’ (Matthew 10:8, KJV). He did not ask people for money in exchange for miracles—whether it be ‘miracle cars’, ‘miracle houses’ or ‘miracle babies’. The basic tenet of prosperity gospel is that every miracle grows out of a seed sown. But how many seeds, as they love to call it, did Jesus collect?
Yes, Jesus had a bag of money which was kept with Judas Iscariot, but those were monetary gifts He personally received from a number of close and genuine disciples of His, as Peter also personally received in Acts 4:32-37, 5:1-10. One of such disciples of Jesus was Martha, who loved to cook for Him (Luke 10:38-42). There was no general collection in Jesus’ time; the early church of Acts of Apostles fed her congregation (Acts 6:1), that was why deacons were chosen, to oversee the distribution of food in the early church. Deacons are, by responsibility, meant to be overseers of food-sharing, as it was in the first century church. But today in the twenty-first century church they only sit next to the pulpit, fanned by air-conditioners.
Even Benny Hinn, who preached this same prosperity gospel for decades, eventually opened up about the error, condemning this practice and theology he had for long stood with. He denounced it twice. However, and unfortunately, this practice is what is rife in Christianity in Nigeria today. Elton foresaw this, tried his best to exterminate it, but the children he one way or another helped raise turned his back against him. One of Elton’s most famous prophecies about Nigeria was: ‘Nigeria will be known for corruption worldwide but the tide will turn and Nigeria will also be known for righteousness worldwide. Many shall take hold of him that is a Nigerian, saying, “We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.”’ Presently, the one half of that prophecy is being fulfilled, the part about corruption. But the other part, the part about righteousness, true righteousness, is probably yet to come to reality.
‘Nigeria will be known for corruption worldwide but the tide will turn and Nigeria will also be known for righteousness worldwide. Many shall take hold of him that is a Nigerian, saying, “We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.”’ —A prophecy declared by S. G. Elton
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The prologue of Messenger, Ayodeji Abodunde’s classic biography of Pa Elton with specific emphasis on his involvement in the rise of Pentecostalism in Nigeria, tells of the cloud of gloom that overshadowed Elton’s last days until his death in 1987, at 87 years. The chapter is titled ‘A Most Unusual Exit’. In it, Abodunde recounts how Elton died unpopular (he actually had never lived a life of popularity), having ‘turned his back on the bab[ies] he had helped bring to life.’ ‘The gradual distancing from Elton and his message by a generation whose attention has once been riveted by it,’ Abodunde writes, ‘had begun years before [his] death, as his message began to assume dimensions that the charismatic movement he had helped nurture became uncomfortable with…. [Some] were irked by his continuous denouncing of many of the practices that had emerged in some streams of the movement…’ (emphasis mine).
‘If Elton were to be alive today,’ Abodunde writes further, ‘he would no doubt look at the [Nigerian spiritual] landscape with some ambivalence…. If [he] were to assess today the movement he played so large a role in shaping, his reaction would be a re-enactment of Ezra 3:10-13’: When the workers laid the foundation of The Temple of God, the people sang antiphonally praise and thanksgiving to God, but the family heads who had seen the first Temple, when they saw the foundations of this Temple laid, wept, so that people couldn’t distinguish the shouting from the weeping (paraphrase, MSG). Elton’s weeping would be that while, indeed, Christianity has gained large followership in Nigeria, true spirituality has been set aside, and the church has cast her eyes on the acquisition of material wealth in sound health.
Today, in different parts of the country, there is cry for a second revival. As the whole world knows, the first revival in Nigeria (1918-1930s) was selfishly split in pieces and channeled into establishing denominations and building personal empires. In a live video he uploaded on YouTube titled ‘I Am Not Gbile Akanni’, Ukraine-based Nigerian pastor Sunday Adelaja, a pastor who has come to be known for his vituperative attacks against and utter disgust for the Nigerian church, compares himself to Gbile Akanni, a Bible teacher with a discipleship ministry based at Gboko in Benue State.
Adelaja brags about how Brother Gbile, curtained away in ‘his village’ (he refers to Gboko as a village), has been praying for a second revival along with his fellow disciples, without success. How did he come to know this? A couple who used to be Gbile’s disciples, he claims, had forsaken Gbile and had come to join his ministry in Ukraine because they saw the ‘revolution’ that he was beginning to stir up by launching abusive and corrective attacks on the Nigerian church. He says: ‘I have just come onto the platform within one year and everywhere is already turning upside down.’ Adelaja believes he is the revival. But that is his own version of revival, a flesh and blood revival which is nothing but chasing façades. What genuine Christians across Nigeria desire is true revival, as it came in the first quarter of the twentieth century, as it came in the days of Charles Finney, in the days of John and Charles Wesley, William Williams, the Plymouth Brethren, the nondenominational Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), revival as it came in the days of William Booth, Charles Spurgeon, D. L. Moody, R. A. Torrey, Billy Graham, and a host of others. If there is anything that will taint this desire, this heart cry, it is the fear that another long line of denominations would emerge from it. And all might be lost again. History would be bent on repeating itself. ♦
Click on video below to watch Ruth Elton talk about her father, his ministry, and his death:
