Thought Picnic: Victuals that feed the few

Inspired by this opinion piece by in Kay Musonda in ModernGhana titled, African Pentecostalism Has Given Birth To A New Breed Of Mentally Lazy Christians Who See God As A Rewarder Of Mediocrity, I contrived this ditty, emphasis on contrived.

Victuals that feed no one.

In the pursuit of the spiritual,
We have lost the individual,
As priests have taken the scriptural,
Made it into a begging ritual,
There is, therefore, no rigour of the intellectual,
For temples now inhabit the spectacle of the visual,
Therein we hone the instinctual,
From what was of the perpetual,
The clergy gains from the conceptual,
The laity left lazily ineffectual.

Nigeria: On the abandonment of Hope, 2, accused of witchcraft

Let Hope be seen

The picture was haunting and it was heartrending, one of a seriously emaciated boy being fed from a water bottle by a heavily tattooed Caucasian lady on a street in Nigeria. [Independent]

The boy who got given the name Hope could hardly be 2 years old and was apparently thrown into the streets by his ‘parents’ because something, someone, somewhere had convinced them that he was a witch.

I am of the opinion that we really have no witches in Nigeria, my idea of a witch is one who commands certain supernatural powers for the spectacular, like something out of the Exorcist.

We create Hope daily

However, what we have in Nigeria is collusion to do evil, the vague dread of the supernatural according to the words of Lord Lugard and a complete ignorance of mental illness. This is compounded by the activities of evil, malicious and outrageously malevolent people who have built a reputation on trading on the fears, anxieties and misfortunes of the public by choosing the easy target of stigmatising children as witches and wizards.

Once the public is mesmerised by the preaching of these false prophets, purveyors of heresies and unspeakable evil, children become the brunt of their frustration leading to heinous physical abuse and the torture of children in the guise of exorcism and consequently the abandonment of children like Hope.

Rescuing Hope

It is a sad reflection on our society in 2015, that it has taken a Danish woman to take this child off the streets and nurse him back to health. Anja Ringgren Loven is before anyone screams White Saviour Complex, the new Mary Slessor in the self-same regional community just over a century ago where twins were put to death for the ignorance of the biology of reproduction.

Anja Ringgren Loven runs the African Children’s Aid Education and Development Foundation (ACAEDF) which she founded with her husband David and it now homes 34 children rescued from the consequences of religiously-inspired superstition that majors in stigmatisation rather than emancipation of spirit, soul and body.

The abusers of Hope

I have in times past written about the evil ministry of a self-described apostle Helen Ukpabio who thankfully was expunged from the UK before she had the time to spew out her venomously hurtful sermons that castigate the vulnerable to enhance her reputation. It is my view that anyone who uses religion to incite violence against the vulnerable, especially children should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and taken off our streets.

We are so far behind in understanding and protecting the rights of the child, our womenfolk, and the disabled and other minority groups in our society. What we cannot afford in our quest to leave the primitive for the civilised is to allow the likes of this apostle of wrath to thrive in any part of our society.

Many a Hope helped

The picture of Hope and Anja has captured our hearts and hopefully it will capture our minds and our actions, all that have by misfortune and circumstance been given the rotten lot of Hope, find loving, caring, hopeful and encouraging places of succour to become healthy and wealthy members of our greater humanity.

I could not find a website for the African Children’s Aid Education and Development Foundation (ACAEDF), it would have offered an opportunity for us to contribute to the work of this amazing Good Samaritan organisation.

Making better Hope stories

However, the biggest challenge we face is the need for us as individuals and as a society to begin to think for ourselves about what kind of society we want to be by addressing the various issues of abuse and ignorance. We need to apply more rational thinking to the use of religion for the betterment of humanity rather than for the ostracism of the vulnerable.

Most importantly, we need to stop condoning evil practices done in the name of religion, culture, tradition or some belief system, if it hurts even the smallest amongst us, we have failed as a people and we need to repent of our tolerance of this and work for meaningful change to give everyone a chance to participate in our humanity rather than be victims of the mobs we join with to mete our Neanderthal violence.

We have a choice to let the children laugh and thrive amongst us and see less of the situation that brought Hope into focus.

Nigeria: Another rotten church exploitation - brides without grooms

These foolish things

“But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” I Corinthians 1:27 (New International Version) Parallel Verses.

I have chosen this Bible verse to illustrate what passes for religious abuse in Nigeria, where pastors get their flock to indulge in farcical gimmickry, and the flock like sheep follow the shepherd down the precipice of ignominy.

A pastor in the Winners Chapel franchise and I have written about them many times, I dare say, it was a church I did attend in the late 1980s in Nigeria, had asked all the single ladies who want to get married this year to attend church in wedding dresses.

Gowns on clowns

Pictures which I saw on Facebook were really from Linda Ikeji’s Blog, the popular Nigerian gossip rag that one must admit has one of the biggest followings in Nigeria. We are people like that.

Linda Ikeji’s Blog - Pics: Women looking for husbands storm Winners Chapel Enugu in wedding dresses

The ladies were bedecked in bridal dresses, all without grooms just as bridal houses saw the opportunity for brisk trade, renting out dresses as zippers and corsets might have caused a fitting frenzy in the ladies rooms just before the prayers of supplication and blessing.

Between God’s tactics and man’s stupidity

This is where I have issue, in fact, I have many issues with these corruptions of the Christian message and the drama that ridicules the whole purpose of religion and much else.

The verse above clearly states, “God chose the foolish things …”, it is God doing the choosing; how that comes about is open to interpretation, but I cannot find ways to suggest that verse instructs that we should act foolishly so as to shame the wise, nor does it suggest we should celebrate weakness to shame the strong.

This reads as a tactical ploy of God that is not in the gift of man to deploy, where men attempt to do this, everyone appears foolish, and there is no redeeming factor towards wisdom apart from compounded derision.

For those brides who went to church in their bridal dresses, nothing is said of bridegrooms ready to sweep them off their feet, rather, they were wishing and hoping and ultimately being presumptuous.

Shamanist grottos in church buildings

Herein is the problem, we go to our churches broken, needing, sick and desperate, a hungry crowd open to atrocious exploitation and manipulation by people standing at the pulpit as men of God.

However, the reality is we have the mind-set of ritualism, the church building has become the forest grotto where the Shamanist priest invokes the gods with incantations and the worshippers have arrived seeking instant solutions convinced of the fame and the powers of the priests. Anointing, we call it.

Obviously, we must leave a gift for the deities, something must be given in exchange for what we desire. That gift is now passed off as a seed offering. Though never under duress, very few in need ever think they would get anything if the tray is not filled with a generous gift. Where we have little, we are overcome with a guilt complex, the widow’s mite is now too little for the church.

Sadly, this is what things have become, it is like the temptations of Jesus Christ with the Devil’s chorus, “All this I would give you, if …” Yeah, if you can prove who you are; if you jump and show off; if you bow down and worship or in churches today, if you sow a seed. It is all full of conditions when the gospel stresses the things of God are free, free, free, and free.

The Bible Gateway – The Temptation of Christ [Wikipedia]

The women suffer, always

Then again, it is the women that take the brunt of the abuse, they are the ones exploited for their singlehood as if it takes only one to get married or women should be more desperate especially as the biological clock ticks away, and society disrespects or dishonours extended spinsterhood.

Once they get married, they are on another conveyor belt of possible exploitation if they cannot bear “the fruit of the womb” in Church-speak. The man is never once medically assessed for fertility or the motility of his sperm to clinch the deal. The onus is always on the woman.

Yet, these women who came forward were expecting to get married within the year, the possibility looms of meeting, courtship, engagement and marriage all happening in less than 12 months.

Unworkable marriages

God have mercy as the thrill and euphoria of getting hitched wears off and the man begins to wander because neither party to this travesty was compatible, but hapless and foolish victims of manipulation, exploitation and circumstance, orchestrated in church by the chief priest who proclaims – “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.”

Friends, no match is made in heaven, the match is made on earth between imperfect people and they have to work hard at it, daily tending the love and easing the hurt, it is not a fait accompli of life. Sometimes, it does not work and when it doesn’t be ready to get on with your life.

The miserable lives we live

The woman again, desperate is back in church trying to save her man from the other desires that provide him expression and satisfaction he cannot get at home. It becomes a vicious cycle where the unworkable marriage instigated by the spectacle of risibility and the hare-brained scheme of the pastor, who laughs all the way to the bank on the pains of his flock. It is unconscionable and manifestly evil, it sickens to the high heavens.

What then gives rise to wife-battering and much else? Frustrations, many frustrations. A lifelong relationship that should be given time to mature with interaction and engagement is turned into a magical trick of dead seed to tree in an instant – without roots, deep roots at that, it would die.

I think, I have written enough already. Marriage is not happiness, if you are not happy as you are, the risk of marriage bringing happiness is temporal and it would fade.

Opinion: These Narcissistic Religious Homophobes

You don’t know me now

I just got on the train in London, and there I recognised an old friend from secondary school, this was 13 years after we left school and 8 years after I last saw him in Nigeria.

We had hardly exchanged greetings before he asked, “Where do you church?” it was a Sunday, and I was not coming from church nor going to one. As I answered, that I was not going to one, the conversation ended there, and it was like I had become a nobody, invisible and inconsequential.

Now, this was someone who in secondary school was not just a friend, there was much else that happened between us, that is another story.

A fiend of a friend

However, today, that memory was revived when my friend who is somewhat like a kid brother too, Bisi Alimi shared on Facebook a letter he received from a ‘friend’ who he had not seen for nigh on 20 years and on seeing Bisi’s appearance on CNN with Christiane Amanpour wrote an atrocious missive questioning Bisi’s sexuality and much else.

This was my contribution to the commentary that followed on Facebook:

“This is what tires me about people who profess to be Christians, they ignore the person for the purpose of their religious pomposity. I have no time for people who having not seen me or interacted with me for ages think they suddenly can begin to impact any aspect of my life in anyway.

The effrontery of intrusiveness is not only disrespectful, it negates whatever purpose they have in mind and it is utterly annoying to think we all think the same deluded and blinkered way.

These hardly travelled ignorant nonentities who suddenly think they know the world and the expressway to heaven make me sick. Very sick indeed.”

Whatever I am is not your business

I make no bones about the fact that I love gays, anyone who has followed my blog or the catalogue of my writings over the last decade would have noticed that I write a lot about homosexuality, amongst other things as child sexual abuse, the abuse of women, religious abuse, heinous cruelty, intolerance within humanity, human rights and else.

Yet, I do not believe my sexuality is for public discussion, it is my business alone who I decide to love and share my sexual favours with, it should be of no concern to anyone but myself and whoever in a consensual liaison decides they want to spend intimate and quality time with me.

The pursuit of happiness, my happiness, is mine and mine alone to pursue, I do not subscribe to the communal or society view that I should be assimilated into certain cultural or traditional norms to satisfy those with familial, filial or some other relational affinity to me.

I am human, first

It is no secret that I am not married, I have never married, I do not have children and well, basically, I cannot have children after chemotherapy. I have made peace with myself about what my life is, I am blessed, and I am a survivor.

Most importantly, I am human first, I celebrate humanity, I celebrate diversity and seek to be a better person with thoughtfulness, understanding and knowing that if I have not walked a hard, long mile in another’s person’s shoes, I am far from pretending to the full knowledge of their experiences.

The marriage debate

After that Anti-Gay Bill was signed into law in Nigeria, I have been quite enamoured by the greater tolerance and reasonableness amongst many straight Nigerians who have elevated their core humanity above beliefs, traditions and altars of gruesome impugning accusation of others to embrace diversity, justice, fairness and human rights. They have displayed a very rare example of Good Samaritan humanity recognising that difference is no excuse to persecute, prosecute and execute.

Blog - Nigeria: Arrest Him! He's Homosexual!

On the matter of marriage, I am quite open-minded, much as I have never experienced one for myself, I have no qualms about whatever pairing of sexes decides to consecrate their union and have that recognised by civil law with all the civil rights that accrue to respecting that that relationship is in and of itself unique and separate from every other partnership.

We all know that there was no advocacy for same-sex marriage in Nigeria, a society where homosexuals are hardly expressive, talk less of seeking the kinds of freedoms of expression that we freely enjoy in Europe, in particular.

Same love celebrated

However, at the Grammys last month, the rapper Macklemore performed his amazingly unifying gay-rights activism song, Same Love and Queen Latifah conducted a mass marriage ceremony of 34 couples, many of whom were same-sex couples.

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Queen Latifah, Mary... by dm_51b0b9210644b

Lyrics - “Same Love” by Macklemore with Ryan Lewis, featuring Mary Lambert

Earlier this evening, I read that Bizzle, a ‘Christian’ rapper had given the lyrics of Same Love a typically contemporary homophobic Christian rehash with all the traditional railing, vituperation and stereotypes trotted out by those who subscribe to such beliefs.

He thinks he knows best

Slate, the magazine did an analysis of this corruption of Same Love in the broader context of attitudes to homosexuality from those of a particular religious persuasion with the title - Bizzle’s Response to “Same Love” Reflects The Narcissism of Today’s Homophobia.

I would excerpt parts of the write-up liberally in the following paragraphs, but I beseech you to read it in its entirety, without prejudice and with an open mind, then reflect.

Slate - The Narcissism of Today’s Homophobia

“Homophobic people seem unable to see past themselves, to transcend their most rudimentary emotions and arrive at a place that’s often reachable only if we apply a modicum of reason—often spurred by empathy—to challenge old mental habits.”

“The late philosopher and psychoanalyst Elisabeth Young-Bruehl once wrote that those with narcissistic prejudice ‘cannot tolerate the idea that there exist people not like them.’”

“Borrowing another concept from psychoanalysis, homophobes may be especially likely to project their own narcissism onto others as a way to deflect taking responsibility for their own issues.”

They know nothing of the other

“The fixation of some straight people on the sex acts of gay people is another incarnation of homophobic narcissism.”

“But gay advocates are not asking for any and all relationships to be validated as marriages, just same-sex ones that otherwise meet state criteria. And gay people don’t claim equal rights based on our desire to have gay sex; we claim equal rights based on the argument that there is no good reason to treat us any differently from straight people, that granting such rights harms no one and helps millions.”

Usurping God’s place

What I found most profound in that article was this indictment of the narcissist, “It also reflects the narcissist’s limited capacity for empathy—an exercise in stepping out of the self to imagine the feelings of others.”

That is why I have found myself writing this blog, I have been always intolerant of intolerance and mostly, I cannot countenance those who lack the capacity and proudly demonstrate their incapacity for empathy.

These are the many who have hardly walked an inch in the shoes of another and already presume they can dictate, prescribe, proscribe, censure and control the lives of others because they know best, believe better and are secured in their holier than thou tents to look down on the ‘dregs’ of humanity passing God’s judgement from on high.

Decade Blogs - Editi Effiong - Dear religious people, let's kill all the gay people

Decade Blogs

Editi Effiong approached me to write a blog my #YourBlogOnMyBlog Series, having no clue about what he intended to write about, since we do have a good rapport on Twitter, I was quite grateful for the offer.

This piece one after my heart, it pertains to the struggles of a now visible community that has always existed in Africa, but have been denigrated, maligned, prosecuted, persecuted, harangued, abused and murdered by fellow Africans.

Our religious leaders and politicians have fanned the embers of barbarous lynch mobs to take the laws into their hands to find justification in acts too heinous for words.

I am so grateful to Editi that the email below was my response to him on receiving his contribution to commemorate my Decade of Blogging.

Blog - To Celebrate My Decade of Blogging

Thank you very much for the blog you have written for #YourBlogOnMyBlog Series, I am really touched by your sense of justice, compassion and humanity. Not many people out there are able to speak for minorities so diametrically opposed and different from them in more ways than one, especially a straight man speaking up for the right to life and the pursuit of happiness of gay people.

Before your eyes glaze over with unaffected indifference, please hear him out.

Dear religious people, let's kill all the gay people

Last week, we got the news that two men were murdered somewhere in Nigeria, having been caught having homosexual sex.

Apart from a small bubble from a minority corner of Nigerian social media, the event was hardly reported in mainstream media. This was unsurprising. After all, gay people got killed doing what, according to Nigeria's Parliament, is an unforgivable sin. It is not hard to see how big a national priority the gay problem is - it has been fast tracked through the National Assembly, in order to protect “our culture and way of life”.

As it happens, the “Gay Marriage Law”, which has NOT yet been signed into law by the President, has already claimed victims. Instead of the suggested 14-year jail term the law prescribes, our people may have decided to cut the process short, and take the law into their own hands by eliminating the ‘evil’ people from our society.

Before making any arguments on this unfortunate issue, I have to state a few facts: I am a heterosexual man, married with child, a practicing Christian, and a teacher of children. I also hold the belief that marriage is a union between man and woman - this is based on my religious beliefs.

I am also a believer in the right of adults to make personal decisions, as long as those decisions do not affect me, or my own rights. As such, if two men or women decide to have consensual sex, then so be it. Is it against God’s law?

I know exactly what the laws of the Bible say, and it is that judgement belongs to God. If gay sex/marriage is against the laws of God, then people engaged in it will be served their judgement along with everyone else on the last day, just like the rest of us imperfect souls.

Aside from the above, I am friends with a few gay people.

That manifesto done, I will ask the question: Why do we think attacking gay people (and even murdering them) is in anyway humane, righteous, or even regarded as a considerable action in a modern society? What have gay people done to us? Isn’t the right to life fundamental?

Gay people just want a right to life. Just like the one we've granted the actual criminals in our government.

They want a right to just live and exist in their own country. And they are not queuing up on the streets with placards asking to be allowed to marry (and even if they were, don’t they also have the right to?).

They aren’t even asking for decently reasonable pieces of the national cake like armoured BMWs, or presidential pardons. They're not threatening to burn down the country if one of their fellow homosexuals isn't made president by 2015.

Gay people aren't asking to be allowed to have sex with 8 year old kids, and marry them.

Gay people are not the ones stealing one-third of our oil resources in the Niger Delta, or asking for the right to operate illegal refineries. They are not skimming off billions of dollars’ worth of national wealth in form of falsely tendered oil sales balances.

No, those rogues are not gay people. Those demands and outright takes are from God fearing ‘straight' people, most of them ministers and prominent people in local churches and mosques. And before you claim homosexuality is a Western import, remember that our prisons are filled with people having sex with same gender. By our prisons, I mean Nigerian prisons.

But we must kill all those gay people. Because they're the sole, significant source of our national problems. What's more? The Holy Books say we should kill all the gay people. Or don’t they? Because God, in all his might, can't make judgment on his own anymore, and needs our help. And God had also recently declared that we should stop loving our neighbours as ourselves, as that's just old school stuff.

Luckily, that part of the Christian holy book that said "Thou shalt not kill" survived the new world order. A prophetic rewrite left that verse completely whole, with just a tiny clarification clause added. For our pleasure, Genesis 20:13 now reads "Thou shalt not kill, except if gay".

We are a holy people, Nigerians. We are so holy, we could have stoned Jesus for not being holy enough. So we have decided to fight God's wars for him. Since God has decided to not exterminate gays, we will show Him how it should be done.

One of grand inquisitors confronted me on Twitter with a couple of tweets, after I wondered in my tweets how much allowing gay people to live as they choose has affected the economies of Western countries. I decided to save this gem:

@eseblogger: @EditiEffiong We Shld therefore allow them to have their in humane way of live? Wht is the correlation btw nations Prosperity and being gay

In English - We should therefore allow them to have their inhumane way of life? What is the correlation between a nation’s prosperity and being gay?

I have no disagreements with Mr Ese. I’m only begging for mercy. Just like he was shown mercy, after he was dropped on his head as a child, leaving him per viable, with clear danger of growing up brain damaged. But he was shown mercy, and allowed to live. Look at him today! He's not only overcome his early life misfortunes, but is even able to construct complex phrases like "inhumane way of life".

(Disclaimer: my highly prejudicial investigation of Ese’s life history comes from nothing more than a disdainful glance at ONE tweet from him. Sort of the way we pronounce people guilty and deserving of death, only on account of being perceived as gay).

Ese, you represent the moral pillar of our generation and I applaud you for keeping the torch burning. I hope His Incorruptible Eminence, Rt. Hon. David Bonaventure Mark, is proud of you.

Before we all rush out with flame torches and pitchforks, knocking on door to door to execute God’s judgement, remember that the next gay person to be ‘brought to justice’ may be your own blood. How strong will your convictions be then?

Nigeria: Atrocious Abuse in the Church Remains a Problem

Cruel and unjust punishments

With the way we espouse religion to a fundamentalist and extremist extent, it is important to highlight elements of our association with Christianity as practiced that must be condemned in totality.

First, the case of witchcraft exorcisms where two teenagers possibly stigmatised and victimised by their community were placed in the hands of psychotic, sociopathic and sadistic church leaders who bound them and starved them for 3 days leading to the death of one.

I am at pains to find the manual of exorcism these people used to go about this bizarre activity that just demonstrates cruelty unspeakable, all in the name of God.

False teachings and devilish acts

Whilst there might be passages in the Scripture that address witchcraft, the exorcism act which is called deliverance should not constitute harmful and cruel punishments with torture techniques that one will not find in a gulag, all in the name of God.

The idea that a somewhat spiritual affliction can be fought with physical means is foolish, if not idiotic, but we are held in trawl of these fantastic and spectacular acts that leave us in dread of the supernatural from a bad perspective rather than be in awe of the miraculous, if that is what is to be expected.

Wrong treatment for a problem

Then again, in another development, a mentally-ill man was taken to a church for prayers and possible help, which that pastor suggested could be offered, all in the name of God.

Being left in the care of the pastor, by circumstance, happenstance or carelessness, the man having been prayed for and then taken for psychiatric help was left in the care of a stranger and eventually went missing.

Whilst, there is nothing to suggest the pastor is responsible for the disappearance of the man, we live in a society superstitious enough for some to assume and suggest the man has been used for macabre ritual purposes.

Shamanism taking the fore

In fact, it is strange that the parents of the man who sought the help of a man of God for their son with faith in Christian practices now begin to believe that the disappearance of their son is linked to ritualistic purposes.

Though the pastor has been released from custody, he is at best careless considering the person put in his care was vulnerable and should have been under constant supervision, for that alone, there is a case to answer though how to follow that through is not clear.

However, the greater issue here is our lack of understanding of mental health issues which we deem spiritual and usually associate with spiritism, witchcraft, and other black arts.

Understanding mental health issues

Whilst one cannot entirely contemn this long-held belief system, we need to approach mental health from a more logical, systematic and constructive perspective, employing professional psychologists and psychiatrists to analyse, diagnose and suggest ameliorating therapies.

Besides, it is important to know what the mental disability is, which could be anything from autism, through anti-social behaviours to bipolar disorders, and many other conditions that we just lump together as madness.

Some of these conditions could be environmental or even chemical imbalances that we take to churches where people are barely trained to understand what they are tackling that they resort to shamanistic rituals pretending to alleviate suffering which they are not in fact doing.

Reread, revisit, review, repudiate

In all, if we are to rely on the miraculous for problem resolution, it is only right that we go back and study the gospels and the Acts of the Apostles to appreciate and understand what they did to help people in circumstances where modern medical practice would almost equate the kinds of miracles that were wrought then.

If any of the acts involve cruelty, punishments, force or any exertion beyond voice of command, we should begin to suspect that the purveyors of such solutions have no such power to help than to violate, brutalise and abuse the vulnerable – there is no licence given in the Scriptures for abuse nor should we condone such from any who portend to have spiritual authority over us.

Let us be smart about abuse in churches and condemn such in totality, there are many horrible things done, all in the name of God.

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.

Opinion: Redeem your integrity not the auditorium

¹¹ And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, ¹² for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, ¹³ till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; Ephesians 4:11-13 (NKJV)

Religious chicanery

You get to a point where certain events in religious circles begin to create the impression that a particular portion of their holy scriptures has been misread or that the reading to our hearing and the actions that follow are completely opposite to that intended piece.

As the convention of a renowned and popular church with a following seeded around the earth in the millions drew to a close, the leader of the congregation launched into an appeal to extend the current auditorium where the people were gathered to a 3 kilometre square tent of proportions that will make the eyes water that those who have the misfortune of sitting at the back might well need at least high-powered binoculars or dare I say a telescope to see the pulpit.

Crowds are masks for trouble

Surely, there is a need to gather for fellowship but there comes a time when size becomes an unwieldy exercise in gargantuanism that other issues of health and safety are a foreboding for a dangerous experiment in crowd control and egress if an emergency occurs - this could spell disaster.

Even in religious settings, we are not given the licence to discard logic and reasoning for the sentimental belief that all is well when the intellect is given to perform a ready and needed function.

Evidence of the fact that things can go seriously wrong was revealed when a 5-year old was apparently abducted from the vicinity of that convention, called Redemption Camp.

It might well be a rarity, but for the parents and relations of that little girl, it is the closest thing to hell on earth at a place when heaven was supposed to meet with the congregants. If the girl does end up being found, and I hope she is promptly reunited with her family, the happiness that ensues should not overshadow the reality of the fact that crowds make it almost impossible to guarantee the safety and protection of little ones, as it also offers cover to those with ulterior motives to operate.

A public relations deficit

Now, this is not the first time that a child has disappeared from a gathering of believers. In another mega-church, the child was missing for two long years until it was returned to its family just recently.

These megachurches whilst majoring on selling the elixir of hope within grasp but out of reach also seem to be poorly equipped for dealing with these matters, as the news story suggests, “It was not the wish of the church that the news of the abduction be leaked to members of the public.”

It begs the question how you intent to find an abducted child without informing the public and engaging the public because, short of a miracle of sorts, it might well require sighting and eye-witnesses as far afield as possible to get that child back.

Poor social responsibility

This theatre which by its size will be larger than any sports stadium in the world might well be the size of some of the largest calderas of mainly dormant volcanos and dormant volcanos are not by any means extinct.

Besides this, the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway that services this camp and many others that line up that road does not have the capacity today to handle the traffic and movement of people and goods for these meetings with tailbacks that upset the already poor traffic conditions in the Lagos megalopolis.

To literally triple the crowds that throng that camp borders on the highest level of community social irresponsibility that has been witnessed in that country where religionists had attained an exculpatory status from being questioned about what they do – it is as appalling as it is atrocious that this idea was conceived, it would be like tripling the size of a body without consideration for the arteries necessary to keep that body alive and well.

He gave some opportunity for show

More galling is the way the appeal was made for funds to build this monstrosity whose idea will give the Tower of Babel a run for its money, in fact, I am now of the persuasion that they all be inflicted with a confusion of tongues so that this hare-brained and ill-thought out scheme is abandoned with the urgency with which it was announced.

From what was reported, no idea was given of the total cost of this project, but the words of the leader were transcribed as follows:

“We need N1 billion from ten people. If you are one of them, please see my personal Secretary after we finish today, we also need N100 million from those who can afford it, if you are in that category. Please see my personal Secretary as well.”

“Nonetheless, we need everyone’s involvement. If you can afford N50 million, N20 million, N5 million, N1 million to as low as N100, kindly make sure you participate.”

Money, just money

If by that token, 10 people each stepped forward to donate these sums, the total will come to NGN 11,760,001,000.00 or at today’s exchange rate $73,280,622.39 and that is if 70 people stepped forward for that challenge out of the thousands gathered there.

The real money and pledges could easily take that to multiples of a hundred, just because they all want to see one man talk, you wonder whether the concept of delegation is anathema, for someone opined recently on Twitter that the organisation has produced more pastors than Nigeria has produced doctors since independent, I presume that is just anecdotal, it could be researched to ascertain its veracity.

Subscribing to the basest of our human instincts, I would suspect the billionaires club will have all the accoutrements of privileged access, helipad to land their choppers, fast-track to their thrones ensconced in the altar – they all have their reward already.

What we heard

But back to the quote that sits atop this blog, what we heard from that reading was more like – And he required some to give 1 billion, some 100 million, some 50 million, and some 20 million and 5 million, for the competition of the saints for the work of his ministry, the building of a larger temple for Christ, till we all come to the unity of derision of the excess and wanton abuse of responsibility in the name of Christianity.

This is not what we should hear, but as they act and do, this is what is happening as one preacher said, it is the junk religion in the celebration of Mammon.

My view

Now, is nothing wrong in building a large auditorium but that should be with reference to more than just putting up the building. One would have thought the reason why private jets are acquired by the glitterati of the preachers world was to visit parishes and outposts rather than attempt to create a new Jerusalem place of pilgrimage in Nigeria which has no particular significance apart from what is beginning to look like catering for the cult of personality.

And before anyone attempts to post a comment on this opinion, engage the reasonable side of your disposition before you script the objectionable side of your views, allow the latent Christian attributes to gain ascendancy over sentiment and emotion expressed with fanatical abandon.

Nigeria: No Country for Vulnerable Children

The regularity is inuring

Pastor accused of raping 12-year-old girl, I have read too many headlines like this in Nigerian newspapers that I have no more bothered to read the story, as if it is so commonplace, I am almost dangerously inured to it.

Something about this story was striking, in fact, too many things in this story meant a good 12 hours after reading it, I had this nagging feeling that I had to comment on the issue.

A vulnerable young girl had been brought over from the village, vulnerable in the sense that she was only two weeks in the city, she could speak neither the local language nor English and she was staying with her aunt besides the fact that she was just 12.

That a 12-year old could not speak a word of English in Nigeria in 2012 is the subject of another day, but it calls for serious discussion.

Groomed and raped

This was an Igbo girl in Yorubaland and besides her aunt, there was this neighbour, a Pastor who apparently is Yoruba who could also speak Igbo and so the conversation started where the Pastor began grooming the girl, lured her into the detached communal toilet, covered her mouth and raped her; by first sodomising her and then taking away her virginity.

Her aunt almost caught them in the act and upon inquiring of the girl, she learnt of what had happened and apparently immediately rushed the girl to hospital where she was examined and it was found that she had bruises to both her anal and virginal regions with sperm residue found in the vagina.

A victim to exculpate the criminal

The Pastor had however fled and in the process commenced an unconscionable damage limitation exercise that included stigmatising a vulnerable 6-year old girl who was labelled a witch by his church members; she was brutalised and paraded in public having been accused of bewitching the Pastor leading to his helplessly falling prey to being a rapist. This is no sarcasm; this is what the people really did believe.

This poor 6-year old girl was then left under the exorcist ministry of this rotten paedophile to be delivered of her witchcraft powers – the tale reads like a Steven King horror novel, only that there are real victims involved.

Interminable days

Meanwhile, it took two days after the rape of that child for her aunt to report the crime to the police and it took another two days for the Pastor to be apprehended. A couple of days later, the Pastor was released without charge into the community as if absolved because the courts were not in session to charge the man with any offence.

In fact, the charges were dropped by the police as they are wont to in cases like this, the most the perpetrator suffers is the demand that he defrays the hospital costs of the victim and the rotten paedophile is granted bail to return to the scene of the crime amongst other vulnerable persons where he can intimidate the witnesses and pervert the course of justice.

Now, the police are taking the heat for their lackadaisical attitude to this heinous paedophile criminality that they have suggested when the courts are back in session the paedophile pastor will be charged.

The dread of Syncretism

The spokesperson for the state police command is Ngozi Braide, a lady and I cannot say if she is a mother too, who was filled with as much indignation and rage as to acknowledge that the girl was raped and concluded with - “The pastor is in charge of a white garment church in the area. He will be charged with sodomy. He was released on bail because courts are not sitting but once courts resume, he will be charged.” Really? Just sodomy?

Herein is the big problem, African-initiated white garment churches have a brand of Syncretism that melds elements of animist and Shamanist belief systems with Christianity and it derives most of its doctrinal teachings from the Pentateuch, reciting the Psalms with the fieriness of people under altered states of consciousness, given to mass hysteria whilst believing in demonic possession, witchcraft and voodoo relieving people of their free moral agency.

The unpalatable sway the leaders of these sects hold over the community literally gives them criminal impunity and even in the face of compelling evidence, they are able to operate outside the ambit of the law for the fact that people fear them and whatever powers they might abuse to extricate themselves from criminal sanction.

We are embarrassed

The society at large is scandalised and embarrassed by incidents of paedophile criminality that they will rather sweep the matter under the carpet than agitate to have it prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

The victims however receive no psychological help beyond medical examination to prove that the child has been violated and medical establishments do not take on the social responsibility burden of addressing the long term consequences of the sexual violation of minorities, we generally assume time eventually heals the pain and wipes out the memories of such events from the mind of the child.

Witchcraft stigmatisation

The poor child who was stigmatised as a witch might probably have had learning difficulties which the illiterate and ignorant may not understand, these helpless children especially if orphaned are ready brutalisation fodder for unscrupulously rotten religious leaders to mesmerise their flock into believing incredibly atrocious tales.

Injustice is compounded by evil under the guise of religion leaving child victims in their wake as if this is no country for children.

A grave injustice lingers

We need to re-school ourselves and begin to give the vulnerable a voice, the cause for justice for the victim must be paramount and above all allegiances no matter how deep – when a child is raped or stigmatised, it must become a compelling priority to see to it that all perpetrators, conspirators and accessories to that criminality are corralled and charged accordingly to ensure no other children suffer at the hands of these purveyors of reprehensible evil.

We can no more pretend that child sexual abuse does not occur amongst us and we should not be embarrassed to expose all those who tolerate it amongst us.

At the same time, we should be discerning of the fact that when a child is stigmatised as a witch, it is usually a distraction from other unspeakable evils and a smokescreen for contemptible deeds.

No child should ever be sacrificed on the altar of any belief system, no good can come out of brutalising the child either to save it or the community within which it lives, our dread for the supernatural must stop long before a hand is lifted against the child and reason prevail always.

It is time for children to feel safer in Nigeria.

Opinion: Miracle Cures and Against Religious Abuse of the Vilest Kind

Where I stand

There are some things are really get me seriously agitated and they pertain to rights and abuse. In the body of work I have produced over almost 9 years, I think these particularly stand out - human rights, injustice, child rights, women’s rights, sexuality rights, child sexual abuse, sexual violence, cultural and religious abuse.

There is no doubt that I also cover very controversial issues; it is just my nature to tackle those as passionately and objectively as I can.

Too vile for words

This morning I found myself on a Twitter soapbox dealing with religious abuse of the vilest kind. A church had concocted a cocktail of fruit juice and olive oil then marketed it as a cure for cancer or HIV; the prayer component of the product making up about 50% of the price.

People with chronic and terminal illnesses are desperately in need of succour and hope; they are vulnerable to the machinations of those who portend to offer palliation or cures for their ailments.

Hope like greed is easily exploited and nowhere is that best manipulated than in churches where the leaders with ethereal provenance and esoteric rituals that could border on the macabre but pass off as spiritual hold sway.

Your church as a ghetto

These churches serve as both communities and places of worship but the community aspect almost turns the congregants into members of a ghetto that project practices very different from the wider communities in which they exist. Like Nigerians in the United Kingdom doing only Nigerian things.

People need to feel comfortable wherever they go but to be exploited in this way is unforgivable.

There should be a number of inalienable facts that people should have when attending these churches which on closer scrutiny are more like sepulchres of despair engaged in commercial activity for the aggrandisement of the church leaders.

Rather than minister to their flock, their flock ministers to their every greedy need for ostentation and hedonism which they suggest are the fruits of service to God – they are not shepherds but wolves conducting assemblies with grandiloquent names that will be redolent of B-movie thrillers.

Miracles are free

Now, miracles do exist, but never for a fee, the best example of a miracle was when Jesus raised Lazarus who was 4-days dead petrifying and decomposing in a tomb for free. Neither did he charge for converting water into wine at the wedding feast where one would have expected at best a donation. It is implausible that those ministering in the name of Jesus will then demand some payment directly, by gimmickry or through the sale of potions to offer healing to those still alive but with terminal illnesses. Miracles are free, every time and always.

People should be very lucid about the function of the church and the function of medicine. They are not mutually exclusive. Using medicine is not a sign of the lack of faith; in fact faith and medicine can make the medicine more efficacious.

My testimony is that I had cancer and went on chemotherapy, according to the oncologist and nurses that came daily to dress the cancer lesions, it took up to six months for lesions as mine to dry up and disappear, but in my case, the lesions were all gone in 8 weeks. The doctors considered my response to medication and the result miraculous.

The church and healing

The church should not replace your hospital neither should your pastor replace your doctor. They have their roles. If your pastor does say to you, you are healed; you have the right to a second opinion, a medical opinion to confirm you are healed.

In all cases where Jesus healed lepers, He told them to go and show themselves to the priests, this, I believe was to fulfil all righteousness as they’ll say in religious parlance – or commonly, to ensure all boxes were ticked to allow their re-admittance into society.

Ultimately, if you are paying for any treatment and it is not to a professionally accredited medical practitioner, to a hospital or to a pharmacy for medicine, you have been swindled by a confidence trickster impostor masquerading as a pastor when they are in fact no better than bush witchdoctors.

Your pastor is not your doctor

Your pastor should have nothing against the use of doctors, hospitals or medicine, not everyone exercises feats of faith that at an instant will manifest as lightning bolt miraculous cures. Any assurance of healing should include the advice to have the medically competent confirm the change in physiology indicating healing – it is NOT a sin to do so.

As I have written many times before, never ever discontinue your medication without first consulting your doctor and only on the advice of the doctor and no other. If the pastor did not prescribe your medication the pastor does not have the authority or capacity tell you to discontinue your medicine – do not had your pills over to be destroyed as if you are attending a magician’s show – medications should be properly disposed of by pharmacies or given back to hospitals to be used by those less fortunate than yourself.

Beware!

Just be wary of those who take advantage of you in the religious space, demanding always but never giving, selling goods and snake oil remedies not independently validated by the authorities and whose rituals defy explanation whilst not informing of other reasonable choices or options you should have in this amazing vibrant world we live in today.

Source

Church slammed for selling blackcurrant cordial and olive oil drink as a 'miracle cure' for cancer and HIV : Mail Online