Of COVID-19, Religion, and Conspiracy Theories

(By Farooq A. Kperogi) - Coronavirus and Exploding Conspiracy Theories of Religious Crackpots

Of COVID-19, Religion, and Conspiracy Theories

The novel coronavirus is not only devastating humankind, it is also disrupting the settled certainties and spiritual verities of religious fanatics for whom atavistic and superstitious frames of reference are the only ways to make sense of the world around them. 

I’ll start from fringe members of my own religious community. When the new coronavirus first emerged in China, a lunatic fringe of the Nigerian Muslim community celebrated it and said it was Allah’s punishment against China for mistreating its Muslim minority population.

They said the clearest indication that it was divine pestilence to avenge the persecution of Chinese Muslims could be seen in the fact that all Chinese people were compelled to cover their whole bodies in ways that were reminiscent of the sartorial choices Allah enjoined Muslims, especially Muslim women, to make, which China denies its Muslim minority.

I recall telling a religious crackpot who made this silly argument early this year that it wasn’t the first time that people had covered their bodies in response to a pandemic. The 1918 Spanish Flu, which killed nearly half a million Nigerians and more than 50 million people worldwide, caused people to wear face masks.

Miracles

(By Hymar Idibie David) - MIRACLES. 

You stare at the handsome, three-piece suited up man on the telly as he approaches a row of people holding up rectangular sheets that proclaims illnesses, diseases and other physical conditions. His suit is white. He always wears white when ministering to the sick.

As usual, your imagination makes up for the lack of audio. When he speaks, you imagine what he is saying. In your little corner of the world, 'imagination is everything ' is not just a badass quote.

"Healed! " he roars and a woman jerks and goes down.

"Out of her! " he thundered and another woman, a white woman, starts vibrating like powerful volts of electricity were running through her body.

You switch off the television and return to shuffling papers. You are tired of miracles.

Faith this, faith that. Believe this, believe that.

Hey, if you love me, prove it. Don't make me ask you twice. Or three times. Don't tell me something about having faith moving mountains. I just want to use faith to cut some stubborn grass in my own backyard. Leave mountain matter for pro climbers. 

If you love someone, you go out of the way for them. You bend every rule in the book. You bypass every law. It ain't even up for debate. 

Actions speak louder than John 3:16. Burn me. 

Miracles and Wonders, Faith and Diaspora: On Tope Folarin's Miracle

Source: humboldt-foundation.de

(Aaron Bady)--Read Tope Folarin’s “Miracle,” in its entirety here.

That “miracles” are not real is, I think, a secular assumption that many of Tope Folarin’s readers will share. Some of us might say that we believe in miracles, and we might enjoy indulging in the fantasy of divine intervention, or biblical stories that describe Jesus’ ability to turn water into wine, or a few loaves and fishes into many loaves and fishes. But to turn one thing into another thing is the provenance of medieval alchemy, and we are moderns. We might say we believe in angels, but we tend to put the lives of our loved ones in the hands of doctors, instead of prayer. We believe in science.

Miracle, by Tope Folarin

Source: missoulian.com

(Tope Folarin)--OUR HEADS MOVE simultaneously, and we smile at the tall, svelte man who strides purposefully down the aisle to the pulpit. Once there, he raises both of his hands then lowers them slightly. He raises his chin and says let us pray.

“Dear Father, we come to you today, on the occasion of this revival, and we ask that you bless us abundantly, we who have made it to America, because we know we are here for a reason. We ask for your blessings because we are not here alone. Each of us represents dozens, sometimes hundreds of people back home. So many lives depend on us Lord, and the burden on our shoulders is great. Jesus, bless this service, and bless us. We ask that we will not be the same people at the end of the service as we were at the beginning. All this we ask of you, our dear savior, Amen.”

"When God Is Not Enough," by Rudolf Okonkwo

In the middle of Lagos- Benin expressway, before the Ore junction, sits a rusty disabled car with a partially burnt-out engine. It has been there for weeks, abandoned by the owner and by the state. There is no light where the car rests, yet thieves have managed to visit at night and extract anything of value in the car. Meanwhile, at their home in FESTAC, a patriarch and his family are preparing to travel to Onitsha. They have packed their luggage and taken them into their Honda Pilot jeep. They pray for God to grant them safe trip. The parents speak in tongues and the children sing choruses. Their neighbors and friends come out and wish them journey mercies. As they drive, they play gospel music and sing more songs and praises. Near the site where the rusty car rests, the patriarch of the family swings the car to avoid a pothole. By the time he regains control of the car, he is face to face with the disabled car. The last thing that comes out of his mouth before the car slams into the abandoned car is, God.

Over two hundred years ago, the French used to attribute everything to God. They revered their leaders as people chosen by God. They worshiped their clergies as men anointed by the Almighty, even as evidence mounted that these men and women of privilege were ruining the lives of the poor French citizens. In a sporadic uprising, the French society yanked off the yoke of ignorance and subservience and kicked out the so-called men and women handpicked by God.

Why Faith and Family?

We Africans are reputed to be notoriously religious. Our faith is not divorced from our everyday life.  More so, in Nigeria, our faith imbues our everyday actions and behaviors.  This is evident in how much faith or religious-flavored expressions have permeated our everyday parlance.  And that cuts across all strata of social interactions.  “God dey,” once the solace of the poor, I am told, has also become a succor for the rich.  Someone once said to me, “Father, na before dem dey talk say ‘God dey’ na poor man prayer oh.  Now na rich people even dey pray am pass.”

We are familiar with the passion with which many Nigerians forever cover everything with “the blood of Jesus” or perpetually “cast” and “bind” and then send whatever it is “back to the sender” or “to the bottomless pit.”  Indeed, “God pass dem.” Phrases like “to God be the glory” (a favorite of Nollywood home videos), “na God” and “by his grace” have become acceptable ways of acknowledging greetings and compliments. Some of my non-Nigerian friends, all thanks again to our enchanting Nollywood movies, tease me to no end with “my broda, we thank God oh, we thank God oh.”

All of this indicates that, for good or bad, faith orients our lives, albeit in some quarters, shallow faith and popular religiosity lead to faith schizophrenism, an unstable, inconsistent or contradictory mentality or approach to faith, a situation where one is neither here nor there.  This results in an eclecticism that drives one, as we say, from pillar to post, as one traverses all kinds of churches, spiritual homes, shrines, and beaches—in the name of searching for healing and answers to prayer.