Bless Me Father

I have been meaning to go on a furious rant against men of God who have made the news for the wrong reasons recently.

Seems of late any Jim, John and Jack can masquerade as a man of God and will have no problems attracting a following. All you need is a Public Address system, a work in progress foreign accent, preferably Nigerian ( if that fails try America and don't worry if its a bit dodgy at the start, it will get better with practice). Oh, and while at it, rent yourself a school classroom or some tent from the Zambia National Service, organise some relatives and a few youths to pass for a praise team and wala! you are in business. If you are married, get to COMESA market and buy your wife one of those wide-brimmed hats so that she looks as regal as a Lozi princess. She needs to look the part of the prayerful pastor's wife.

Now, call me cynical or any other names if you will but there is just something deeply disturbing about someone who purports to be able to approach God on my behalf and intercede for my sins. And did I mention that for which service I am supposed to implicitly trust them to the extent of unquestioningly partaking of whatever act their depraved mind conjures up. I decided a long time ago that "good' people do not exist. There is no such thing as altruism. The only motivation anyone will do something is if they are going to benefit in some way or other.

So while I sympathise with for example the girls that were sexually assaulted by one self-proclaimed Bishop in Kitwe, I believe we should be getting to a point where such naivety is eliminated from our society. Surely there must be a point when one realises that the "man of God" is overstepping his boundary. Even a rudimentary knowledge of the Bible will have one raising red flags once some man of God starts taking off your underwear, or starts touching you inappropriately.

The truth is that these charlatans are simply feeding off naive men and women, mostly impoverished and seeking quick fixes to their problems. The idea that a sprinkle of some holy water or the laying of hands and chanting of a few incoherent words can spell the end of one's problem I suppose is too good a chance to let slip. And unfortunately with the wide-spread poverty in our country, there is no shortage of people flocking to these men of God looking for miracle.

Now I accept that there are people who have devoted themselves to genuinely providing other human beings a spiritual service or a connection if you will with a higher being, and get great fulfilment from doing so. Be they Imams, Pastors or Priests. These men and women will without exception encourage followers to have a personal connection with their chosen deity and only rely on the messengers for guidance and direction. With such I have no problems.

However what gets me are these con-men and women who manage to convince their followers that they possess monopoly when it comes to accessing the favors or even thoughts of God. As such access to God is only through them and by implication even God's instructions are relayed through the same mechanism and therefore command unquestioning adherence. And while doing this, they somehow sneak in and implant the idea that these favors are to be obtained for some fee (mystically called a "seed").

I also accept that poverty can extremely compromise your bargaining power. It doesn't take an expert on religion to realise that religious fanaticism is bred through these same hastily assembled churches whose only call to legitimacy is their leader. And before long you find that the same Bishop or Pastor or whatever moniker is used, becomes larger than the deity who they purport to follow. They usurp the creator, and make themselves the conduit of the creator's favours. You see their pictures on cars, in people's living rooms and even in offices. Drinking in the pride and adoration from ignorant congregants, whose ears are attuned, ready to drink whatever spews out of the imagination of the man of God. Sickening and annoying!

I have been reading Albert Einstein's biography as written by Walter Isaacson and you can't help but note that throughout his life, Einstein had the penchant for questioning authority. The question was always "why?".  And similarly I long for a time when people will interrogate authority. Why should I eat grass in order to receive a blessing for example, why should I be prayed for in

some forlorn bush when God is present everywhere, why should I allow my pubic hair to be shaved by some man of God... etc. All these are serious "whys?" that should be asked.