Opinion: Religious Soakaways of Talent Needed Elsewhere

Lurch from church to church

As I made for church this morning, I could not help but notice that hardly beyond my temporary abode, I could count 5 churches within the space of 50 yards.

This was no church district like some industrial or a Business Park, but a non-descript residential area with a few corner shops and a prominent fast food restaurant, to allow a liberty of description I rarely give to those places and a busy street running into a junction.

Whilst, each church had some highfalutin spiritual name, with a few of the usual suspects headed by some Nigerian folk, I could not but wonder about the variance in doctrine, dogma, diktat and culture that precipitated the deluge of mushroom churches all around London in grand buildings, converted garages, school halls or strange shelters that we so need that many.

Why this many?

Now, the revelations of Scripture might vary as one might see the dispersion of light through a prism depending on the angle of observation, but is the perspective so different that each person who seems to have the hunch must have their own church and following?

More so, I am concerned about the brain drain that this spate of churches has brought on society, I am of the opinion that many who eventually decide to enter some religious ministry is of probably some other more useful talent and ability, a professional with a different first vocation that probably has had a lot more to contribute to their field of expertise before they withdrew their services for this venture for souls.

I make bold to say that leaders of these outfits do have innate abilities of study, research, standards, articulation and communication that the wider society can so benefit from that we are now missing.

Talent at the pulpit

Academics with knowledge and perspective able to mentor impressionable young minds to excellence and genius, sometimes they could also be the level heads in dispute resolution, all withdrawn from our sadly moribund institutions that education is failing graduands at all levels.

Medical practitioners with skills that our hospitals need, considering how someone opined recently though without reference that a church in Nigeria had produced more pastors than Nigeria had produced doctors since independence.

I cannot corroborate that assertion, but when we read of health statistics and outcomes in our medical establishments that look like a published account of the road to a hellish existence, you wonder why good doctors are not in hospitals but in churches.

Skill to the versed

Engineers that we need for projects for growth and development such that me might not need foreign expertise to man the simplest activities; the engineers with their sense of precision, attention to detail and particularity have left our buildings, bridges, roads and infrastructure in the hands of others either overburdened or ignorant of what to do, some of our best engineers are building spiritual bridges to heaven.

Accountants with an eye on the figures, the costs, the budgets, gatekeepers on the judicious use of capital by reason of checks and audits, besides the ethical and principled perspective these career migrants could bring now totting up the accounts on God’s bank account in the church.

This is not to say that professions are not well manned, but we cannot ignore what has become the religious soakaway of talent where people who have a calling and gift for the society and the communities they exist in have deserted this great calling and crowded into the religious business.

Fishing for gold

This should also be bothersome because many of these crossover professionals to religion do not have formal seminary training apart from adapting the fundamentals of their profession to religious ends.

It is understandable that many professions do not offer great financial reward as it does seem that churches with the crowds that can attract depending of the charisma and the spectacular draw of the leader can become a banking breaking venture with returns that make the eyes water.

Peddling promises like croupiers in the casino of God, the followers are inspired by good talk to gamble on the assurance of better returns than any monetary system can offer, the spectre of hope dangled in sight but just a bit out of reach to keep the lure engaging enough with it being attainable.

Absent accountability

The mushroom churches also appear to have leaders that belong to no formal or established religious hierarchy, they have absented themselves from oversight of independent authority or have extricated themselves by schism from their mother congregations that they are no more accountable to any church organisation, authority or the flock that they oversee, they metamorphose from men of God to gods of men and with that comes error and more opprobrium upon the whole institution of Christianity because there is no order.

We need to get some talcum powder and antihistamine for our itching ears, our desire to seek out those who make us too comfortable to check ourselves or our leadership on the core principles of the faiths we have espoused that we become lobotomised flock conferring infallibility on our leadership excusing every indefensible thing out of dread, shame or embarrassment.

Shut these places down

It goes without need for much reason that these churches or religious establishments will first become lightning rods for public criticism and before long politicians might get interested and it would be a great pleasure to see these mushroom churches exterminated like vermin for they have become a pestilence giving haven to duplicitous leadership that act with impunity without consequence.

Let us reason about what this means for us as individuals, the way we congregate and the people we allow to hold sway in leadership over us with question or curiosity – it is an unhealthy state of affairs and repugnant beyond words.

Don't name the teddy bear

Emotional religious agitation

This is sometimes a minefield in which a minesweeper would be blown to smithereens. The standards and rules that govern the interpretation of religious norms or in this case whims.

So suddenly in the last few years the sensibilities of certain old Middle-Eastern religions have been so easily bruised that our modern and civilised world is dragged back to the middle-ages of hysteria and histrionics fuelled by unscrupulous leaders of thought who test their influence by inflaming the mob.

This was evidenced in the cartoon riots of last year where I wrote a series of blogs starting with one which seeks a humorous God, a God that can laugh and sometimes laughs at the delusions of puny human-beings.

Flags in wrong places?

One nation belies a readiness for controversy and contempt by having symbols of God on its flag; they condone the trampling and burning of other nation’s flags and it would be unthinkable the outrage that would be mustered if the same action is meted out on their flag.

The mob was then gathered to protest the presence of the Saudi Arabian flag amongst all other world flags painted on footballs donated to Afghan kids. One would think the anger should have been directed at the Saudis for creating a situation where the symbols of faith might be denigrated in unintended and benign circumstances.

Naming a teddy

However, nowhere has this religiosity taken on a more bizarre twist than when a teddy bear named after a child in a class which by happenstance is the name of the prophet – the teacher of that class is now in danger of a fine, corporal punishment and jail.

The charge sheet reads like we have a terrorist on the loose; insulting religion – in the 21^st Century? Showing contempt for religious beliefs – one wonders what is more contemptible the reaction or the lack of a global authority on the core elements of Islam apart from reading the biorhythms of the local imam who feels to excite his people to insurrection rather than exhort them to peaceful co-existence in a global village?

Obviously, we can ignore the sentiment that the said teacher had left the enlightenment of the West to help children in a war-torn region realise a place in our global village – but that is of no significance – enlightenment in an educational setting takes second-place to religious temperament which is never subject to logic, common-sense or reason – it is the supreme fount of discord.

Taking apologies for God

Whilst international condemnation has been made of this absurd tendency to be offended in general without being essentially committed to the real tenets of the faith, the idea that an apology can be made to assuage tension is interesting.

Someone somewhere seems to be able to take apologies for God or the prophet – it reminds me of one story in the Bible where the people took so much offence at the breaking down of the altar to their symbol of worship; reason seeped into the reckoning and the people were persuaded that if that god was so angered, the god might as well visit wrath on the offender - thereby people can still be at peace with each other and that very powerful god can show strength that would bring enemies to their knees in worship and obeisance.

It might be so easy to say that these mobs are technically taking on themselves personification of God or the prophet for the self-aggrandisement – it does nothing to promote their religion; rather it heaps opprobrium from possible adherents on their faith, beliefs, convictions, integrity and allows all to question their sanity.

The NOT dogma

What we have is a simplistic dogma codified in – see not, touch not, feel not, hear not, read not, think not, write not, draw not and speak not – obviously, this means no one gets offended and surely no progress in humanity and we recede to the stone age from whence we came – it does not augur well at all.

Are we on the path to true religion when we pander to such dark-age inquisitions masquerading as holy anger that simply is public insurrection by those too idle to do worthwhile things in their communities and for humanity at large?

Addendum

That Bible story (Judges 6:28-32) The Message version.

28 Early in the morning, the people in town were shocked to find Baal's altar torn down, the Asherah pole beside it chopped down, and the prime bull burning away on the altar that had been built.

29 They kept asking, "Who did this?"

Questions and more questions, and then the answer: "Gideon son of Joash did it."

30 The men of the town demanded of Joash: "Bring out your son! He must die! Why, he tore down the Baal altar and chopped down the Asherah tree!"

31 But Joash stood up to the crowd pressing in on him, "Are you going to fight Baal's battles for him? Are you going to save him? Anyone who takes Baal's side will be dead by morning. If Baal is a god in fact, let him fight his own battles and defend his own altar."

32 They nicknamed Gideon that day Jerub-Baal because after he had torn down the Baal altar, he had said, "Let Baal fight his own battles."

My reading of this is simple, someone caused great religious offence that the adherents were ready to go out and kill the offender - reason intervened – let that religious entity fight its own battles if it feels so offended.

Sometimes, we need to let God, Mohammed, Jesus or whoever else we dare to worship fight their own battles rather than allow ourselves to become instruments of riot, death and discord.

Pope in Brazil gives no abortions message

Where are the Catholics?

The Pope has landed in Brazil and there is no doubt that he would be thronged by faithful adherents of the Roman Catholic doctrine and dogma as they gather for a message of hope, of peace and of love.

And that is to be expected, the encouragement to keep with the truth and the admonition to keep away from trends and fads that have no religious bearing on bringing succour to the people.

There is also a kind of disaffection amongst worshippers, people are looking for a livelier God, a kind of worship that includes reverence but also involves the whole of their being in vision, hearing and motion - the type that you would find in Protestant Evangelical churches to which Brazil is haemorrhaging followers.

A message for now?

It would appear the message of hope that the Pope takes to Brazil is the anti-abortion message, one that was at variance with medical realities - a few years ago, a 9-year old girl whose life was at risk if she took the pregnancy to term and the parents decided on an abortion - her parents were excommunicated because the life of the unborn child was more precious to keep than that of the suffering child who might not survive the ordeal of giving birth.

In that circumstance, the parents refused to risk the possible lose of their daughter and prospective grandchild to be succoured with the epithet - God giveth, God taketh away. Nobody, not the doctors nor the church could guarantee the survival of either party should the foetus have come to term.

Of doctrine and of relevance

Indeed, unborn life must be protected, but a humanity of circumstances has to be involved too; religion was made for man to help achieve peace, contentment and balance, it is not an ideological set of dogmatic rules upon which man should be offered as sacrifices to maintain an unconscionable status quo.

Too many times through history, we have allowed such machinations to deprive others of the right to live or exist; driven by some force that portends to speak and act for God, men arrogate to themselves powers that do not belong to any man on earth to exercise terror and dominate the pliant; this should not be so.

We know of the poverty, the disease, the illiteracy, the crime and destitution in certain communities in Brazil - the followers of Catholic doctrine must ask their Holy Father one question - How does the anti-abortion message change our lives for the better, how does it raise Brazilians out of desperate circumstances?

Basically, does the anti-abortion message have any relevance to those who hunger, who suffer, who are deprived and who need a different kind of help?

Even I am listening for an answer in the comfort and security of my Western affluence.