The founder of Abel Damina Ministries and Power City International, Pastor Abel Damina has generated mixed reactions, as he said during his sermon on New Year’s Eve that drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes are not sins.
According the Pastor, these acts are often misunderstood as sinful acts when they are actually not.
“I’ve told you alcohol is not a sin. I’ve told you cigar is not a sin. If you like, put it on newspaper headline, I said it,” he said
However, Pastor Damina said he was not encouraging such behaviors, cautioning his audience to be wise in their actions.
“Am I saying you should smoke? You should have sense from your father’s house to know that cigar will cut short your life. Am I saying you should drink alcohol? You should know that if you drink alcohol, you will lie down inside a gutter. Your shirt and trousers will disappear. You should have the sense to know that.”
Challenging the general and traditional interpretations of sin, he questioned the belief that Adam and Eve’s sin resulted from eating fruit from the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden.
“Adam and Eve ate nothing. Adam and Eve didn’t eat anything. Were you there? You were not there. So how do we know whether they ate something or not? Jesus was there. Was Jesus there in the Garden of Eden? Yes. Can Jesus explain to us what happened? Yes.”
Citing Mark 7:18-21, he argued that sin is not caused by what one consumes but by the condition of the heart. “If they (Adam and Eve) ate, it’ll go to their stomach. It’ll digest and go to toilet. They’ll be free,”
According to Damina, “There’s nothing a man eats that enters his heart. It’ll go to the digestive system, and it’ll go out somehow. It is what comes out of a man that defiles a man, not what goes in. What makes you a sinner is what you’re thinking, not what you’re eating.”
What is your view on Pastor Damina’s stand?
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