Saturday,
April 28, 2012
What is the Christian leader’s
justification for playing God, especially in this case when the name by which
President Mills is called has nothing to do with the Great Commission that
should be the substance of this Methodist Bishop’s concern in his propagation
of the Christian faith?
Or has President Mills’ being called
by that name prevented the Methodist Church from achieving its objective in
Ghana?
Let’s not go into the history
behind the Methodist Church because it is nothing to placard as sacrosanct.
This Obuasi Methodist Bishop should know better not to rake the past. Even the
present isn’t glorious for the Methodist Church.
If name-calling alone were to be
the ticket to heaven, no one will go around spreading anything about Christ to
convert anybody to Christianity. Just bandying about names should open the
gates of heaven, right? But it isn’t so easy.
Even in his own days, Christ acknowledged
the existence of other forms of religious activity. The worshippers of Baal
were as active in his days as he was, seeking to institutionalize a faith that
conflicted with the bedrock of Jewish existence, Judaism. Otherwise, why did
Scribes, Sadducees, and Pharisees take him to task and orchestrated his
betrayal and consequent crucifixion?
If some are lucky today to call
themselves “Christians,” they do so because of the ultimate sacrifice that
Christ made. Otherwise, how can they, repudiated and denigrated as GENTILES,
count themselves as the children of the Christian God who set apart the Jews as
his Chosen People?
It was in fulfillment of Christ’s
Great Commission that Christianity got to our part of the world, even after
those who led the spread of the Gospel had themselves been tainted by the bad
faith that their political and economic systems had roused through the
enslavement of Africans.
These so-called missionaries were
the other side of the slavery equation who were needed by the Establishment to
promote legitimate trade with the very people that they had nearly decimated
through the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
Until they discovered the
treasure trove that Africa was, they had always flinched at the thought of the
continent which, to them, was nothing but the “Dark Continent.” But the discovery
of human and natural resources for rabid exploitation changed the situation to
their advantage and our misery.
There’s a long history behind all
that we see happening today. Let no Christian leader think that we don’t know
the difference between seeming and being. There is no difference between the
Christian God and any other believer’s God. The difference lies in only the
name that each gives that Supreme Deity and the means by which the believer
enters into communion with that God.
The foundation of Christianity
was laid by Jesus when he identified Peter as the “rock” upon which he would
build his church. Then, before that church could even begin claiming to be the
bastion of Christianity, Jesus in vested his disciples with the Great
Commission (Mathew 28 verse…) to go “ye into the world and speak to all
nations, converting those who will believe…….”
Until then, the injunction had
been established proclaiming Jesus as “the way, the path, no one goes to the Father
except through me.” That enlightenment is only for Christians, not all human
beings on earth!!
To reinforce this Christian view
of the transcendental, we must be reminded that the death and resurrection of
Jesus binds it all together for only those who believe in Christ as the Saviour.
No other religious figure (historical or mythical) has ever died and
resurrected. That’s the firm belief of Christians which even raises the idea of
rapture (as explained in the Book of Revelation).
But all these sweet-sounding
matters of faith are relevant to only Christianity. All other religions and
faiths have their own explanations for what they are built on, the life beyond,
and how to prepare oneself for it. They care less about what Christians regard
as the foundation of their faith or how they go about worshipping their God
through Christ.
Every religion has its own
articles of faith and how it should be upheld and propagated to mobilize
followers. If an adherent falls foul of such articles of faith, sanctions are
imposed. It’s all human-centred so that discipline can be enforced for the
religious group to remain intact. Do we know whether God cares about that
practice, though? We don’t have any means to know and shouldn’t deceive
ourselves.
It is clear that the heinous
crimes that the church leaders commit all over the place result from this kind
of posturing—the tendency on the part of these so-called Men of God to dig deep
into the Bible for ideas to serve their parochial interests, which they then
bandy about as a fait accompli from God.
Which of them has seen God before
to come out in the open to play God? My study of the Bible hasn’t yet revealed
to me that anybody has ever seen God before. Even Moses, who can be acclaimed
as the one to have walked the closest to God (by virtue of his being chosen to
lead the Israelites out of Egypt) couldn’t see God’s face.
When he requested to see God,
what was he not told? The Bible says that God told him that he (Moses) couldn’t
do so because even if he saw God’s back, he couldn’t cope with the effect (what
would happen to him).
Moses didn’t press the issue and
was satisfied to take away the tablet containing the 10 Commandments that
nobody since that day has ever been able to obey to the letter and spirit. Let
these Christian leaders tell me how many of them has been able to obey the 10
Commandments from the beginning to the end.
Do we not have evidence of their
snatching people’s wives, committing fornication and adultery, calling God’s
name in vain (especially if they want to extort things from members of the
congregation), defaming others and giving false witness/testimony?
Are they able to live by Jesus’
precepts, especially in making the choice between mundane material things and
the life of modesty, self-denial, and moderation? How many of them haven’t twisted
arms to live in luxury, putting aside the very reminder from Jesus that it
would be as difficult for the rich man to enter heaven as it would be for a camel
to pass through the eye of the needle?
In all that he did—and despite
all the enormous powers he had at his disposal—Christ taught humility and lived
it. He has made me come to know that Christianity is a faith, a lifestyle to be
lived (through deeds) and not professed (by word of mouth, which is what our
Christian leaders are known for).
In my many years on this earth, I
am yet to come across a Ghanaian Christian leader who lives Christianity as a
lifestyle. All of them are glib of tongue, quoting profusely from the Bible to
support their own ideological or doctrinal persuasions—and sometimes to fight
specific narrow selfish cause of selfishness, greed, and insidiousness.
Let somebody point me to a
selfless, devout Christian leader who is working for the improvement of standards
in the country and I will go right-away to worship at his feet till death do us
part.
My study of the “Religious
Experience of Humankind,” a course in Religious Studies that Professor Garbah
of the University of Cape Coast excellently taught, leads me to believe that religion
is nothing but a tool with which human beings find meaning to their lives on
this troubled, sickened earth.
That is why to the Ghanaian,
anything that can’t be understood or solved is given to God (the origin of the
expression “Fa ma Nyame”). It is only a momentary or transient way of placating
oneself or others affected by the problem being pushed to God to solve. It
doesn’t solve problems but can prevent the spilling over of emotions to cause
trouble. Ghanaians appreciate that spirit of tolerance couched in “Fa ma Nyame.”
No more, no less.
Again, because religion is a tool
to find meaning to one’s life, everybody who recognizes the religious aspect of
human existence, turns to it for whatever spiritual succour there may be. And
that is why we have numerous religions all over the world.
If Christianity were to be the
be-it-all-and-end-it-all, will there be the need for any other religion in this
world?
For as long as adherents of the
various religions use their faith to solve their religious problems, they will
do all they can to propagate their faith to enlarge membership.
More often than not, I hear
Christians condemning other faiths (probably because of what they perceive as
no one going to the Father except through Christ, who is presented as the light
and the path). That is what dogmatism and bigotry leads to.
Hardly do I hear non-Christians
(be they Muslims, Buddhists, African Traditional religionists, Hari Krishna followers,
or Rosicrucians, etc.) badmouth or scare Christians about the life beyond.
By arrogating to themselves the
power to determine who qualifies to enjoy the life of bliss in the hereafter,
Christians overstep bounds and create unnecessary tension. They impose their
one-sided religious preferences on others, seeing themselves as the paragon of
virtue, yet swimming in vice all over the place only to shift the blame to the
devil for tempting them too far.
Some of these so-called Men of
God are a nuisance, especially in these “end times” when false prophecy and
posturing for material gains have become the order of the day.
President Mills is called “Asomdwehene”
for all that the name implies, even if under his watch incidents bordering on
political violence occur. These incidents are nothing new. We don’t know
whether he is behind all these incidents to blame him or try to divest him of
that appellation.
What we know is that he is an “Asomdwehene”
and we will continue to uplift him as such. If God is jealous of that
name-calling and will tear him away from us to be chained in the hottest part
of hell for that matter, let him do so. We are fed up with this empty posturing
by all these so-called Men of God.
If this Methodist Man of God has
nothing to do, he shouldn’t do it here!! We will be better off without such
irritating utterances, if he cares to know!
E-mail: mjbokor@yahoo.com
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