(By Joy Isi Bewaji) -
Religion is the bedrock of our
confidences and convictions.
Reinhard Bonnke succeeded in
the 90s with his exaggerated revivals in Nigeria.
Adeboye succeeds every first Friday
of the month, leaving travelers along Ibadan-expressway pulling out their hair
(the irony of that situation: a god worshiping mission that makes people swear
and curse in god’s name for hours of traffic they have to suffer just so a few
can practice a religion).
Christ Embassy succeeded on
Television. No ministry is yet to beat the hours dedicated to Oyakhilome’s
theatrics.
Religion succeeds in Nigeria.
Because we are not people given
to anything apart from an obsession with things we cannot see or have any
control over, whilst all that we see rot away and are destroyed by our innate
corruption.
This cute online revival will
change nothing; even if we gather half the numbers in Nigeria to spread their
faith on third mainland bridge and cry out to God (apart from that good feeling
that plasters your heart after belting out and sweating on a few hallelujah
songs).
This is the era of knowledge.
We are not Israelites under Moses. Salvation has come. Jesus has come and died.
What else do you want?
We have had too many spiritual
revolutions. What we need is a mental one.
You cannot pray Nigeria to
greatness. It is impossible for God to move in a country where we allow our
police to discard rape cases with the wave of a hand, and our politicians rob
us blindly. It is not up to God to save the rot in our educational institutions
or fix the drainage on our roads. It’s up to us. And we can’t do any of that on
our knees. We get shit done in 2017 by cerebral drudgery.
Religion is like soda. It’s
Coca-cola. That drink isn’t going to save anything. It’s feel-good… and like
Coke, we are addicted to this feel good process. Every Sunday we go to church
to get our feel-good tablet. Then we have to come out of that fix after a few
hours and face the issues that have been haunting us for decades, still
unsolved. Still in need of a different approach.
Religion makes us vulnerable,
self-centred and clearly delusional. It attacks our rational and coherent
capacity.
Things are moving well in your
life and a miracle occurred in your life and you finally got an answer to
something that had been bugging you in your life because you prayed. But your
prayer doesn’t have the depth or promise to change the problem called Nigeria.
Your little success is beautiful. But what does it matter when every part of
the country you call home is a wreck.
If you have beautiful lips but
your body is ravaged by cancer, what then does it count for - those beautiful
lips?
#HallelujahChallenge will
succeed bigly. That’s a given. Not a miracle.
Why then are y’all so surprised
that you can gather 50,000 people online? Revivals are our biggest
achievements. The most educated will bow to a man of God who couldn’t pass his
WASSCE exams. It is why we are what we are.
Stop being so shocked that
people want to serve God. It is what we do. It is the only thing we do well.
When we are done, we go back home and justify a paedophile, or delay the
transaction of a debt, or bear false witness. Or choose any of the 100,000 ways
to live sinfully. Then the process continues the next Sunday. Like a dark
cycle, like playing russian roulette, until your own dark faith and
spinelessness kill you.
God, however, wants you to get
your knees up and go challenge your Local government for a start. He wants you
to write a petition and follow through in regard to Queens’ College. Or choose
any 100,000 ways to fix your country.
Try #ScienceChallenge, a hashtag that hopes to
promote facts through experiment and observation, and see how far that will go.
It definitely will not get 50,000 people questioning why we, a people of over
170million, cannot produce our own malaria drugs.
Do you know if they close the
borders of Nigeria we will all die? Over 90% of our daily needs are imported.
Even toothpick.
But prayer is the key.
Smh.
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