At the church I go to back home there was a program where the whole church had to read and finish the whole bible. Imagine that is like rereading the whole textbook after you are done with the module for the rest of life. Furthermore when you ask questions about the content of the book there are some things which are apparently beyond comprehension and we should not question them further. The reasoning behind this is that it is rude to question the author of life and this infinite being. In fact we are supposed to read their book and read it again and again, then thank him for making us and behave well for him to award a place in his house after we die.
Why do we still go to church every weekend if we are done with the syllabus? Does that make us slow learners? Why are we not trusted with the knowledge we have acquired. I have always found it a bit egoistic that the one who claims to be our father craves to be praised. We have to be deserving of his blessings. Every day we should thank him for being born, beg him to keep us safe, behave well so we live with him after we die.
Christianity in Africa is a scam. We are all supposed to trust that white people are the custodians of Christianity. Christianity came on a boat with people who promised us that God loves us and they are civilizing us for heaven. In the same breath, this father who wants us to play happy families in heaven watched quietly as our land was stolen right under us and was occupied by those who would be our friends in heaven. Basically our only way to be assured of a more comfortable life was to liaise with our oppressors and fight for a heaven whose direction we do not know. We do not know if heaven is the land that we are living on right now. We do not know if it is in the north, south, east or the west.
Spirituality in essence is a type of fiction in which we convince ourselves that after we leave the earth that we live on, we are still relevant. That is why we want to reach out to the dead. We light candles on graves and slaughter a goat to return a spirit to watch over a home. When things go wrong in our lives we go and knock on Uncle Tebza’s grave to ask why things are going wrong in our lives. Uncle Tebza from the grave will tell us to slaughter a cow when he never even owned a chicken in his life. Now he is supposedly craving some beef from the dead.
Somehow I am more comfortable reaching out to people who knew me personally to intervene in my life if need be. It is easier for me to believe that my relative is watching over me in their death than to go and trust Abraham from the Middle East with my life problems.
In essence in life when we reach points of confusion, we always look to have someone who will tell us what to do. That is how men like Bushiri have been able to thrive in a country where we are taught that there are some chosen people who we have to give presents to intercede for us in prayer. Our problems make us infants and we even start to call pastors papa because that is what lost children do .They look to their father for a solution.
We over theorize on issues and start to be suspicious of those who are more successful than us .In our sense of helplessness, a black person with money is said to have a snake that vomits money. It is said that they sacrificed their relatives. I personally believes that some of these stories true or not should be left at our grandmas villages as bedtime stories. No one is saying Jeff Bezos has a snake when he earns more than he should from underpaying his workers.
The conversation around wealth in Africa should be centered on creating wealth outside of capitalism or with it. Surely we should have reached a level of sophistication in our thinking where we stop entertaining rats that make money. Like really.
The chat about religion should be explored in its entirety and not just some glue with which we use to patch up pieces of our lives. Do what you want worship whatever or not. Please use your exceptional brains to think long and hard about how you are given one life that you can control and you decide where your life is going.
My name is Rorisang Moyo and I said what I said. Feel free to argue with me. I accept the challenge.