Of short tempered Christians of today

Tumie Modise | Monday September 29, 2014 11:17

One German economist once famously opined that religion was the opium of the people. In simple terms, opium is a key ingredient found in most drugs.  I generally always avoid discussing matters of religion and most times I prefer to leave those to religious leaders. The only problem is, religious leaders have only one obligation and that obligation is that they only stick to their side of the fence.  If,  like myself, you have ever been to church, you would know that the preacher is always right, that his word is the gospel truth. While at school one gets a chance to ask questions during a lesson, in church the only acceptable interruption or contribution is a random ‘amen’.

I am a firm believer that to every story told, there exists two sides. A churchgoer all my life, even I have to admit that religion, or precisely Christianity, is fast changing. If ever people who passed on a decade ago were to resurrect even for an hour, they would be very confused at today’s religion!  A little over a week ago, dozens of believers perished in Nigeria after a church owned lodging quarters collapsed under unclear circumstances. This unfortunate incident has once more turned the spotlight on today’s Christianity.

With the death toll rising, soon the debate took a turn, not surprisingly, tempers soon flared. Now, today’s Christians are very short tempered and are often very swift with their tongues. At one funeral in Lobatse over a year ago, yours truly and multitudes of other people, had the misfortune of witnessing a pastor call his colleague to order with a stern, ‘Bona wena, o tloga o ntenagone jaana!”.

I don’t have a problem with preachers losing their tempers. They are after all just human like us. My only frustration stems from the fact that we now lately find ourselves not focused on important matters of faith, but rather on defending our respective churches and leaders, not from physical harm, but from their own blunders. This is too common even in politics.  What is even more tragic is that some of us think our leaders are above reproach, that they cannot err like the rest of us. Not surprisingly, the latest ‘hot topic’ is centered on how this self-professed ‘Man of God’ could not foresee the impending disaster in his own house when in the past he had even foreseen Michael Jackson’s demise, a thousand of miles away! I think the question is fair.  But as expected, his followers have not taken kindly to the question.

As an undergraduate student, I got tipped off that taking additional courses from the Theology department was a sure way to attaining a decent GPA.  With my core course already overwhelming me, I went on and selected two courses from that department, namely; Philosophy of Religion and Psychology of Religion. Now if you really want your faith to be tested, then these two courses are highly recommended. Every time I attended the lectures, I wasn’t so sure whether I would ever attend church again, let alone even pray anymore.  This is also where I first learnt about Karl Marx’s theory, as well as a host of other testing theories, which mostly just disputed God’s existence.

I am reminded of this course because lately I suspect that some of today’s pastors must be indulging in such literatures at the expense of the Bible, as their agendas are very suspect these days. Their theatrics are mind boggling and that’s just putting it mildly. Not so long ago this same year, I wrote about this other pastor across the border that made his followers eat grass. At the time I joked about the incident. At one point I even secretly wondered whether he might have a point; that grass may have a hidden nutritional value, which we are not yet aware of.  A few months down the line, perhaps in his quest to shock and awe, he went a notch higher, made his followers lie on the ground, and like Jesus walking on that still sea, he then casually walked over them. This time though, he has done the unthinkable, and I don’t even think it’s the last yet. Visual tapes are circulating around and they are showing him make his followers drink petrol. Yes petrol, that very same toxic (and flammable) liquid that our vehicles run on. They swear it tastes like pineapple juice. What’s next, human manure that tastes like Woolworths caramel cake?

Curiously, our religious leaders still remain tight lipped. Even health experts are quiet. We are being tested.