The evil aspects of religion

IN the words of Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician and physicist, “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” More atrocities have been committed in the name of religion than anything else in the annals of history: Let’s explore atrocities in the Christian faith. Catholic Church: The Catholic Church is replete with demonic atrocities as to make a pagan blush. History of Atrocities in the Catholic Church: The Crusades: A series of religious wars from the 11th to the 13th centuries that resulted in the massacres of innocent people. Persecution of Scientists: The suppression of scientific inquiry, leading to the execution of people like Giordano Bruno, an Italian philosopher and poet (1548-1600), and the imprisonment of Galileo Galilei,  Astronomer, 1564-1642). Colonialism and Genocide: The Church was involved in the colonisation of North America, Latin America, Indians and Africans, which included forced conversion and the genocide of indigenous peoples. Slavery: The Church supported and funded the African slave trade from the 15th century to the 19th century. Sexual abuses: The Catholic Church was implicated in the cover-ups of sexual abuses of children by priests and other clergy members from the 20th to the 21st century. 

Documented cases of sexual abuses

 United States: The USA identified about 18,000 victims of s3xual abuse from 1950 – 2016, and the Catholic Church paid about $5 billion in settlements to victims. Canada: S3xual abuse cases were so widespread that it covers most of Canadian provinces from the 20th to 21st centuries. This resulted in the multi-million dollar settlements by the Church as follows: St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, $104M settlements, Montreal, Quebec, $14.7 million settlements, Halifax-Yarmouth, Nova Scotia and $10 million settlement.  France:  About 216,000 victims were abused between 1950 and 2020. Thus far, about £63,000 has been paid per victim. Germany: About 6,000 victims were abused from 1946 and 2014. As of 2023, the Church has paid about €40 million settlements. Spain: About 200,000 children were abused, and thus far, the Church has paid about €2 million in settlements. Australia: About 4,400 victims were abused, and the Church has paid about $276 million settlements. Africa: S3xual abuse cases have been documented in about 20 countries across Africa.  Unfortunately, there are no documented records of victim compensation.

Pentecostal churches: The Pentecostal movement started in the USA, in 1901, by Charles Fox Parham. By the time the movement got to Africa, it was on a different level, with different machinations.  There’s hardly any organisation more skilled at fleecing the gullible than the Pentecostal church.  They adopted various strategies to scam their members as follows: Miraculous Wealth:  They promised stupendous wealth, only after sowing seeds and paying 10 per cent of your earnings to the Church. They back up their scam with scriptural tests and demand unwavering obedience. They promised a harvest of abundance directly proportional to the amount of seed sowed by the “mugus.”

Mike Murdock is a charismatic Pentecostal pastor in the USA. He’s so brazen that he would urge his “broke” listeners to borrow $1,000 from their credit cards or use their rent money to sow seeds.  Even the magicians, 777 or rondo-rondo weren’t this brash).  Pastor Murdock is not unique in this scam.  Here are other scammers: Pastor Creflo Dollar: He repented On July 5, 2022, for past teachings on tithing.  He now believes that Christians should “give” based on their ability, rather than a mandatory practice. (What do you expect from a scammer who called himself “Dollar”?) Pastor E. O. Adeboye apologised on October 4, 2024, for previously stating that not paying tithes could prevent one from entering heaven.  He clarified that his statement was a mistake and not supported by the Bible. Pastor Benny Hinn recently acknowledged past mistakes, admitting to “ruining people’s lives” with false prophecies and distancing himself from extreme prosperity gospel. Incidentally, non of these pastors offered to return the vast sums of money they collected as a result of their scam.

READ ALSO: Nigeria’s elite blame tribe, religion, region to hide nation’s failures — Obasanjo

Fear Factor: This is another strategy deployed by Pentecostal pastors. They will preach fire and brimstone, and quote all manners of scriptures, from the biblical Floods, to Sodom and Gomorrah, to the 42 children mauled by bears for mocking prophet Elisha.  The interesting part is that, there were no eyewitnesses to any of the tales. To the extent that these biblical stories were written by human beings, they could all be fake stories designed to put fear in their congregations.

Anointed men/women of God: Another strategy employed by Pentecostal pastors is to arrogate themselves, as the emissaries of God. They claim to speak for God, as if they possess God’s private phone number. They will lay hands on people’s head and mutter some gibberish as prayers. Come to think of it, have you ever wondered what those hands were doing before they laid it on your head? Just a thought.  But if you think my thoughts are far-fetched, listen to the leaked conversion on the internet, between apostle Sam Okpe, and pastor Martin Ogbolu.  In the conversation, they discussed their sexcapades with members of their church. They talked about a pastor who likes to perform oral sex during praise and worship before mounting the pulpit. Now, imagine such pastor laying his hand on your head. Now, you know why some issues get worst after prayers by some pastors. The two pastors in the conversation also talked about a female apostle by the name of Chikere, or is it “Animashaun”? Supposedly, Apostle Chikere enjoys threesome, and offered to arrange the orgy with members of her church. They mocked apostle Chikere’s penchant for speaking in tongues during copulations with endearing words like “Ewo”, “Labam”, “Labam…”

What a virtuous woman. While not being judgemental, are these pastors fit to be moral arbiter to others?  Aside from the nauseating and distasteful aspect of the conversation, how are these pastors different from those of us who believed that churches are scams? What happened to the principle of “what happened in Vegas, stays in Vegas?” Make no mistake, these vices are not the exception, they are the norm for majority of the Christian denominations. If there’s any silver lining in the sordid conversation, it is that, the activities discussed by the two pastors, appears to be consensual, as opposed to the Catholic priests who specialise in “banging” innocent little boys.

With the widespread and systematic fraud in the Churches, one can only hope that the Nigerian government will soon follow the example of Rwanda to shut down these “den of thieves” and convert their properties to schools, hospitals, and homeless shelters.  This is my submission.

•Okhiria, M.P.A, writes in via [email protected]