04 Sep 2009 |
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Our religiosity is our poverty It is one thing to know that a thing is, it is another to know what it is and why it is. A knowledgeable person may know that something is, but it takes a wise person to know what it is and why it is. To say that the standard of living of the average Nigerian is way below poverty level is to read from an old news bulletin. It is a well known fact. But the economic deprivation of the Nigerian is symptom of a deeper problem. Let us try and unearth the cause(s) of the impoverishment of Nigerians. Nigerians are not poor because of the absence of wealth, but because of the greed of a few. We are not poor because we are unintelligent, but because of a pervasive intellectual laziness, an obstinate refusal to put our God-given intellect to use so as to improve our personal and collective standard of living. We are not impoverished because of religion. We are impoverished because, despite our loud religiosity, our common life is not founded on spiritual values. Millions of our compatriots live below poverty line because immorality has banished prosperity in a land where those who steal public funds mistake immunity for impunity. But authentic development is not to be reduced to the posting of good economic indices and the availability of infrastructure. To know this is to have understood the wisdom behind the saying: “Man does not live on bread alone.” Somehow, human beings think they can live on bread alone. Money has become the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, of many in our world. Here in Nigeria, it is believed that one can pretend to love God while he or she loves money above all things. Hence, the religion of instrumentalized divinity has become a huge industry, arguably bigger than our oil sector. The fraudulent irony of such religion in Nigeria is that, instead of loving God above all things, God is loved for the sake of other things, for the sake of power and for the sake of money. This religion of disordered love disturbs the neighbourhood. It is proclaimed and practiced as instrument for meeting strategic political and economic interests. Nigerian religiosity manifests itself in the politicization and commercialization of religion. That is why the problem of Nigeria is not religion but the corruption of religion. The Nigerian is loud and noisy, and religion in Nigeria is part of this noise. But in the midst of the noise we call religious devotion in this country, there is need to appreciate the place of silence in Christian spirituality, there is need to appreciate the eloquence of silence. Religious silence is a disposition that facilitates the availability of the human person to God. The one who is truly and fully available to God is also available to his or her human neighbor. The one who is available to God and to his neighbor is the one who is able to love. The one who is able to love avoids an egotism that treats God and neighbor with contempt. Religion devoid of silence is religion devoid of love and devotion. Such religion is fraudulent because the one who fails to appreciate the place of silence is unavailable to God and unavailable to his or her neighbor, can neither listen to the word of God nor to the cries of his fellow human beings, can neither love God nor love neighbor. Love is at the heart of true religion. Where it is missing from religion, religion becomes noise pollution, a threat to peaceful co-existence, a public nuisance. Noisy religion reinforces intellectual laziness. The problem, however, is not religion but what people call religion, what people practice as religion. And that is why I speak of Nigerian religiosity. It is the way an overwhelming majority of Nigerians practice religion. Noise and deceit cannot be said to be true religion. Many Nigerians think they are. Silence has a place in religion. It enables one to stay tuned to the Creator, to, as it were, enter into the Holy of holies. It is such encounter with the Holy One that inspires and galvanizes us. It orders our desire to love and be loved. For when the affective instinct is not given a good orientation, man becomes a wild animal. To work for development is to collaborate with the Creator. But how can one collaborate with another to whom one is not attentive. Nigerian religiosity is such that the Nigerian talks and insists that God must listen. “Listen Lord, your servant is speaking,” that seems to be what many are saying. Nigerian religiosity breeds poverty. The poverty it breeds is spiritual, intellectual and moral before being material. But true religion and under-development are strange bedfellows. For to work for authentic development is to seek the good, and God is the Highest Good. That is why to practice true religion is to desire the Highest Good, who is God. And that is how the one who is sincerely devoted to religion cannot but be an agent of authentic development. The one who truly loves God makes himself or herself available for others in assuming the collaborative task of working for the good of common life. True religion requires of its adherents to be responsible. But the way religion is packaged and practiced in Nigeria encourages irresponsibility. Rather than work for the good of the person and of the land, many would rather wait for the God of miracles. “God will do it in Jesus name”. When we spend more money paying the salaries of political office holders than we pay fixing our schools and hospitals, roads and rails, do we expect God to jump down from heaven to develop our country for us. If Nigeria would cut the salaries of political office holders by 50% and the remaining half pumped into our universities there would no longer be an on again off university education. But we prefer to manipulate religion. With recurrent riots and their staggering cost in lives and property, noise pollution issuing from places of worship in the neighbourhood, gridlock on our highways causing people to miss important appointments, all in the name of religion, there is a growing tendency to blame religion for many of Nigeria’s woes. But wisdom cautions us to differentiate between religion and Nigerian religiosity. The former is a virtue, the latter a vice. Our religiosity is our poverty and our poverty is our religiosity. The manipulation of religion has retarded the development of Nigeria because religion is used to violate human dignity, and the violation of human dignity is inimical to authentic development. Time is not on the side of this country. Other countries are moving ahead of us while we pride ourselves as being the most religious people in the world. Something has to be done fast to the attitude of every Nigerian when it comes to religion. Experience has taught us that religion is combustible. Let us, from time to time, take a critical look at what we call religion so that religion is not used to stifle the potentials of this country and its people. True religion glorifies the Almighty. And, according to the famous statement of Irenaeus of Lyons, “the glory of God is man fully alive.” The true measure of authenticity of religion is whether or not it recognizes the sovereignty of God and the dignity of the human person. Anthony A. Akinwale
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