In those days
When civilization kicked us in the face
When holy water slapped our cringing brows
The vultures built in the shadow of their talons
The bloodstained monument of tutelage”.
The above cinquain is taken from the Negritude literary giant, David Diop’s poem, “The Vultures”. The entire poem, of which the above are the first five lines, speak about the oxymoron, the Christian religion has been right from time immemorial. Ask any student of Comparative Religious Study, CRS, he or she will likely tell you that what you have in the Christendom of today, are the “refined” elements of our African Traditional Religion, ATR. The first time I sat down in a full Catholic service (from the beginning to the end), was in February, 2013,. at Saint Francis Catholic Church, College Road, Benin City, where I attended the baby dedication of a former colleague. All through the Mass, I paid rapt attention to every step of the rituals. From the solemnity of the Altar Boys, to the mien of the presiding priest; the burning of incense and the sprinkling of the holy water on the parishioners, I found equivalence in the Oro Festival of my Yoruba background. The only difference, I must admit, is the ambience of the place of worship. With the benefits of worshiping according to other religions, ATR and Islam, besides the Christian faith, I am always circumspect, whenever I attend any church service. My childhood Anglican background, with an appreciable dose of witnessing Ifa ceremonies, to attending a Quranic school (Ile Kewu) with my childhood friend at Omu Ijelu Ekiti and becoming, voluntarily, a member of a Pentecostal denomination, nothing moves me anymore, spiritually. And I mean absolute, nothing. Whenever a pastor says, “hold your head and say my destiny, reject sudden death” (a common prayer point in Pentecostalism), I laugh within myself. I laugh because I can relate that to my great uncle, Baba Daniel Falade, who I watched tell his numerous Ifa clients to say “thank you, my destiny” (dupe lowo ori), in his divination room. I had in my presence asked his clients to touch the ground and touch their chests and say “my chest, don’t accept evil counsel”; the same way a pastor says “put your right hand on your chest and say in a loud voice, “my head, reject evil counsel”? When a pastor tells me that God is the repairer of destiny, I believe him because I learnt too early in life, that Ifa is the repairer of bad destiny (Ifa, a tun ori eni ti o sun won se). Ifa is also regarded as the witness of destiny (Eleri ipin). and the one who sees the inner thoughts (Arinu rode). And God Almighty is omniscient. Ifa, the devotees say, has only one son, called Ela. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the only child of God! This is why it was not difficult for the Yoruba to accept the Missionaries when they came. The Yoruba people were quick to recognize parallels of the things the early Christians talked about in their own traditional religions. How they were they were persuaded to dump their ways of worship and had the pantheon of their deities, rechristened demons, is a topic for a future symposium (apology to Fela Anikulapo Kuti). Diop, in his poem above, demonstrated how the white people slapped us in the name of baptism. Many of their followers (pastors), are still slapping “our cringing brows” till today. They do that through the instrumentality of “fear” of their “anointing”. The way pastors used their anointing to threaten congregants nowadays is the way ATR, devotees are warned not to dishonour a diviner lest they face grave consequences. So I don’t find it objectionable whenever a pastor goes into the spirit and begins to speak in tongues or prophesise. I don’t cringe if, for instance, a prophetess, especially of the white garment church, goes into a trance for a whole week. Why? Priests of the various oro cults also go into trances. And when they return, they bring prophecies. I find it convenient when a church member, during a revival service falls down, begins to speak in tongues and issues prophecies. Why am I espousing all these? Am I also equating the Lordship of our Lord Jesus Christ to that of a deity? No, and a very big no. The point I am trying to make here is that as things stand today, especially in the Christian faith, a lot of characters that are revered as Men of God, MOG, are actually offspring of some reincarnated ATR priests, who now use the Bible to replace the physical objects their forebears worshipped or served.
I believe in miracles, no doubt. I also believe there are organised or fake miracles. In the African traditional settings, there is also magic (Igbasi in Igbo or Idan in Yoruba). The initiates employ the African metaphysics of hypnosis to conjure whatever they wish. For instance, a very well versed magician, using the Yoruba hypnosis, called “abamoda (whatever I wish comes to pass), can make anything happen and people will see the physical manifestation. Those who conjure and bring to pass what is not, belong to the category known as “Adahunse (a sorcerer, who is purely esoteric). You have in the Bible too, sorcerers, like Simon, who imitated genuine disciples to perform ‘miracles’ and bewitch the Samarians. This is why, in most teachings in Bible Study Schools of most Pentecostal churches, emphasis is on “discerning spirit”, so that “believers” will know, when a pastor is employing other spirits apart from the true spirit of the Lord, who does not lie. Nowadays, the Holy Spirit appears to be in His best generous mood. He makes people travel from one country to the other without a visa or boarding an aircraft. Just astral traveling and back to base! Just watch any of the televangelists on your screens. You see a man, standing some 500 metres away and with the blowing of air into the microphone, hundreds of congregants fall helplessly over one another. At times, the pastors merely stretch their hands, and with the accompanying command of “receive”, people fall in whichever directions they turn to, even those in the gallery would “receive” from the whiff from the pastor downstairs and fall yakata. That is how powerful some pastors are. The spirit moves no doubt, and I have seen Him move before. I had gone to a church, where, in the course of the service, those of us who were “born again, but without the evidence of speaking in tongues”, were isolated and a “tongue giver” was assigned to “impart the gift” in us. Of the 12 of us, I was the only one who neither “fell under the anointing” nor spoke in tongues that day. And I was not in the least ashamed because, growing up, I knew that not every priest can go into trance. That has not changed me from being Born again or growing, later, to become “tongue blasting and devil binding”. God gives liberally at His own appointed time.
We are in the end time; a season during which the Holy Spirit moves in diverse ways. If, as Christians, we also believe that we keep laying treasures in heaven by every of our good deeds, how are we sure that the miracle credit alerts are not just mere spiritual IOUs from his heavenly bank account?
We have seen prophets, Bishops and General Overseers, who speak to God through the telephone. We have cases of some MOG, who are the real gatekeepers of heaven and know which pastors will make heaven and those who will not make it. A man of God, during the locust years, when I was looking for a job, once told me that he saw me “among white people”. The closest to that I have ever associated with were some Indians that I worked with in my previous place of work. But they have white skin; so the spirit probably hadn’t lied. Another, without any solicitation from me, also said, I will only “make it when you travel abroad”. Hallelujah! But today, I am neither hungry nor too filled. I am simply contented, while I leave the definition of “make it” to the pastor and the spirit leading him.
Again, Christianity is more of faith. It is left to those who received the dollar alerts to go to the next Bureau de Change and change their dollars. For those of us doubting Thomases, we can only wish it is fake.
Seeing is believing. When Thomas asked to see Jesus’ palms for the points where the nail pierced them, our Master Jesus did not ask that Thomas be flogged or arrested. He simply showed him the palms. Let the name of the Lord be praised!
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and then