The celestial integrity movement, a youth movement in the Celestial Church of Christ, has warned all Nigerian movie producers and movie makers, especially the Yoruba movie sector to stop using the celestial church garment for bad movies and sending wrong signals about their prophets.
According to a statement from the movement’s spokesperson, Paul Alade, “Celestial Church is a divine Church from God. The using of white garment to portray the church and the shepherds in a bad way is highly condemnable and we won’t fold hands and allow people to dent the image of our church. Thus, we will not take it light with anybody using our garment in a bad way”.
The movement was founded by Samuel Bilewu Joseph Oshoffa, a former carpenter born in Dahomey (now Benin) in 1909. It is mainly located in Africa and in the Afro-descendant communities in the world, particularly in Benin and Nigeria.
Raised as Protestant (Methodism), Oshoffa had a divine revelation on 27 May 1947, during a solar eclipse, in a forest where he was lost. He felt called to pray, to heal the sick, and to raise the dead, and he founded his church in September 1947. Having appointed himself through the guidance the Prophet, Reverend, Pastor, and Founder, he occupied the highest office of the movement he had just founded. The hegemony he exercised on doctrine and discipline issues made succession difficult after his death in 1985 in Lagos, Nigeria.
The Celestial Church of Christ (CCC) was recognized and authorized by the Republic of Dahomey (former name of Benin) in 1965. From 1976, the church launched an evangelistic campaign in the former colony of the French West Africa, which became independent in 1960. From the late 1990s, this church has shown its willingness to use the Internet as a privileged means of evangelization thus allowing the many existing branches of the church within the African Diaspora (United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, France, USA) to maintain contact with each other and with Nigeria, the country in which the church is the most popular.
The movement has continued to grow since Oshoffa’s death, but has also suffered setbacks—the most immediate being severe difficulties related to the matter of succession. Oshoffa was succeeded by Alexander Abiodun Adebayo Bada, who was head of the church until his death on 8 September 2000. Bada was briefly followed as leader by Philip Hunsu Ajose, who died in March 2001.
There was a dispute over the succession to Ajose, with some declaring Gilbert Oluwatosin Jesse the leader, while the majority recognised the Reverend Emmanuel Oshoffa, son of Samuel Oshoffa.