Pastor Abel Damina, founder of Abel Damina Ministries and Power City International, has lit an argument with his statement that smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol are not sinful.
During his New Year’s Eve sermon on Tuesday, Damina stated that these activities are often wrongly deemed sinful, even though they are not inherently so.
“I’ve told you alcohol is not a sin. I’ve told you cigars are not a sin. If you want, print it in the newspaper headline— I said it,” Damina remarked.
However, he emphasized that he wasn’t encouraging such behaviours and urged his listeners to apply wisdom in their choices.
“Am I saying you should smoke? Use common sense from your upbringing and understand that smoking cigars can shorten your life. Am I saying you should drink alcohol? You should know that drinking alcohol can lead to reckless behaviour, and you could end up lying in a gutter. Your clothes will get ruined. You need to have the wisdom to understand that,” he explained.
Damina also used his sermon to challenge traditional interpretations of sin and morality, referencing the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He questioned the belief that their disobedience stemmed from eating fruit from the forbidden tree.
“Adam and Eve didn’t eat anything,” Damina asserted. “Were you there? No. So how can we be certain they ate something? Jesus was there. Was He there in the Garden of Eden? Yes. And can Jesus explain what truly happened? Yes.”
He refers to Mark 7:18-21 to support his view that sin is not caused by what one obsesses but by the state of the heart. “If Adam and Eve ate, it would just pass through their digestive system and be eliminated,” he said. “Nothing a person eats affects their heart. It’s what comes out of a person that defiles them, not what they consume. What makes someone a sinner is their thoughts, not their food.”
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