Poverty
is a sin, poverty is a disease, poverty is a curse, poverty is a crime, poverty
is this, and poverty is that. As my society descends more into a social anarchy
and as more and more people fall below the poverty line, the above statements
becomes the cliché, clause, phrase or even spiritual cache by which different
class of people in different clone of fighting, defeating, rejecting poverty live
in my society.
Moral value decline and we put on the garb of spirituality. We
live in self-denial, in high hopes that tomorrow would be better and the
prosperity message take root in our local churches and spiritual centres every
day. Yes some can argue that moral decline is not subject to poverty in itself
but moral decadence reign supreme when people’s will are twisted by poverty;
inability to feed or even get the basic necessities of life. Immorality can be
breed by prosperity but the type of immorality breed by prosperity
is mostly that of self-indulgence but poverty has the capacity to twist the
best of mind to the most depraved and it has a way of showing the animal
tendencies in mankind. Thus the immorality breed by poverty is one that is
induced and capable of turning the best of men to savage in quest for survival.
Poverty is indeed a crime against humanity. Some people are of the school of
thought that the true character of human is revealed in the two extremes of
human existence; poverty or prosperity but human nature can be pushed beyond the limit by those two extremes. The
attitude of the best of man has been found to be very viscous, depraved and unpredictable
in time of extreme conditions like war, famine, genocide etc. The mild extreme
conditions will see some few brave men stick out their neck for something but
as the stake gets higher only those that can pay with their lives can make the
cut of men with character. The genocide in Rwanda witnessed the best of men
betraying brotherhood in quest for individual survival. Men who stand aloof
from afar are those who enjoyed the luxury of passing judgement and verdict on
those with good morals or character content in time of such extreme conditions but those
who were first hand witness in the situation know that man at best is still man
at his best. As the soul of the country is being subverted by the abyss of poverty, millions lose their soul by the day in search of daily bread
and millions will continue to yield more to the pressure and circumstances of
their environment but we would continue to live in self-denial or
self-righteousness until actually one is in direct receiving end of what
poverty really is.
As
we get to the extreme condition of poverty in Nigeria, morality vanishes in tonnes
by the day and we now safely and securely hide under the cloak and clothe of
spirituality. We live in self-denial of the reality around us so that we can
boastfully show everyone who cares to know that God indeed answers our prayer.
What was once a society of community, where people care and value one another
now turns into an individualistic society where people are only concerned about
how they and their immediate family is fed and in some cases only self.
In the political clime what cannot be achieved as dividend of democracy can be
achieved by selfish ambition of political alliance. Our factories and companies
vanish and the business taking up those spaces are churches and religious
centres. The fastest growing business in Nigeria is the church and this is the
only business that continues to grow irrespective of the economic downturn. The
irony of it is that as those factories and companies’ collapses and people lose
their jobs by millions and family lives become devalued, churches spring up
employing just the pastor, sometimes with the immediate family while on very
few occasions or when the church expands or become a mega church, some of
pastor’s cronies are employed. I often thought the church was a place where
income inequality was meant to be redistributed; where the gaps between the
haves and the have not will reduce. Alas that is not the case as some will
rightly argue that the church is not a charity centre but the church surely
rely on charity workers that cannot feed their families to function. I thought the whole Levites
were placed on salary in the bible because they were not expected to work in
the first place. No wonder the churches are springing up every day. And when
the church cannot become charity, why can’t church members be encouraged to give
to poorer church members as the people did in early church where those that had
brought to church so that everyone had; those that had and those that did
not. The rich give the Pastor because it is the gift of a man that makes way
for him. That is why the churches are springing up in every corner; everyone
that has a gift which is meant to edify the church now has to trade it to earn
a living! I guess we can now connect with what Jesus meant by people making
merchandise of God’s gift. Now it is actually convenient for one person to be
extremely rich in the church where there is someone daily praying for food and
shelter in the church. No place was it mentioned in the early churches that
such was ever prayed for, because people that had catered for those who
never had. How then can we balance the equation when we can only chant God
bless you to that brother who is hungry and in need of cloth. It seems our
faith is validated by the two extremes of the haves and the have not where those
that have believe that God is on their side and the testimonies of the haves is
meant to whet the appetite of greed in the have not. Our worship is unto God
but in it the people should be strengthened on the challenges and on how to
march on in the Christian faith without succumbing to the pressure and demand
of the society. It is not time to preach
prosperity that fans the ember of greed whereby people begin to look for money
at all cost to worship God and serve self-lust and desire. It is the worship of
Mammon and not God. On our altars, there are testimonies that break people's
spirit and there are those that just fan the ember of greed. Testimonies
concocted by men to impress men. Those testimony do not glorify God and they do
not edify the body of Christ
Comments
Post a Comment