Nigerian Christians Suffer From Amnesia

(By Temidayo Ahanmisi) - Nigerians play too much.

You defended the sheer insensitivity and idiocy of people claiming that a man who survived the Chapecoense plane crash did so because he was reading a Bible.

Reasonable people saw it for what it was. Tactlessness and possible lack of good breeding.

You insisted they were glorifying God.

Now right in the house of said God, with more open Bibles than one can begin to count. More believers than on an aircraft, another tragedy.

Of course the rational query should be:

Does holding or reading a Bible only work for plane crashes and not building crashes?

You suddenly suffer from amnesia. You no longer remember how Jehovah killed one of the Beatles for disparaging Jesus, per your claim. You no longer remember how your God purportedly visits people with disasters for looking at his children cross-eyed.

You now run around doing your God's work. In your usual fashion.

Now the usual yodelers are going about with that tired "these atheists are at it again".

You are all full of your usual mischief and shit. That's all you religious nitwits are about. Lying propaganda. Filibuster and crap.

Suddenly anyone who wonders at the irony of people going to church to pray for protection against death, and then getting killed, is now an atheist.

Look we cannot run away from the truth. Prayer is at best an emotional palliative. There is no proof it does anything besides make the one who prays feel calmer, more settled from the feeling of surrender.

Imagining Jesus' Obituary 2000 Years Ago

(Sam Roberts)--Sam Roberts, an obituary writer for The New York Times, imagines how, given the facts available then, his predecessors might have reported the aftermath of an execution in the Middle East one Friday two millennia ago.

Jesus of Nazareth, a Galilean carpenter turned itinerant minister whose appeals to piety and whose repute as a healer had galvanized a growing contingent of believers, died on Friday after being crucified that morning just outside Jerusalem, only days after his followers had welcomed him triumphantly to the city as “the anointed one” and “the Son of David.” He was about 33.

For a man who had lived the first three decades of his life in virtual obscurity, he attracted a remarkable following in only a few years.

His reputation reflected a persuasive coupling of message, personal magnetism, and avowed miracles. But it also resonated in the current moment of spiritual and economic discontent and popular resentment of authority and privilege, whether wielded by foreigners from Rome or by the Jewish priests in Jerusalem and their confederates.

Still, Jesus had been preceded in recent years by a litany of false messiahs. He followed a roster of self-styled prophets who promised salvation and, with their ragtag followers from separatist sects, cults, and fractious rebel groups, were branded as bandits by the governing Romans, ostracized by the ruling priests as heretics in a period of pessimistic apocalyptic expectation, and already lost to history.

The Bible In A Vulgar Hand

The book thus put in every vulgar hand,
Which each presum'd he best could understand,
The common rule was made the common prey,
And at the mercy of the rabble lay.
The tender page with horny fists was gall'd,
And he was gifted most that loudest bawl'd:
The spirit gave the doctoral degree,
And every member of a company
Was of his trade and of the Bible free.
Plain truths enough for needful use they found,
But men would still be itching to expound:
Each was ambitious of th'obscurest place,
No measure ta'en from knowledge, all from grace.
Study and pains were now no more their care;
Texts were explained by fasting and by prayer:
This was the fruit the private spirit brought,
Occasion'd by great zeal and little thought.
                    John Dryden, 1682 (Religio Laici 822-38)

"Nigerian Pastors Need to be Born Again," Etcetera

Etcetera

Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again” (John 3:1-7). 

Pastors are supposed to be the conscience of the society. They are supposed to be God’s representatives here on earth. Like Elisha in the Bible, they are supposed to warn the people about the dangers of disobeying God and guide them to the path of righteousness. They are supposed to lead by example.

Today, some pastors are the problems of the society. The lifestyle of some pastors is contradictory to what they preach. It has got so bad that when a man introduces himself as a pastor, he attracts immediate suspicion. Scandals and controversies have eaten too deep into the church like an incurable cancer.

Like electric poles, churches are springing up all over the country and their general overseers or CEOs are fast emerging as the richest men in the country. Some Nigerian pastors represent their stomach instead of Christ. Churches have been turned into banks and business centres with branch pastors given targets for increased turnover by headquarters.

Most of these new breed churches only preach prosperity because preaching salvation will impact negatively on the church’s GDP. Some of today’s pastors, after their failed attempts at finding a means of livelihood, hire a classroom and start a church.