We've 'killed' God by allowing politicians to abuse the pulpit

Sanctuary of a small church with pews and pulpit. [Courtesy/GettyImages] Greetings from the Land of the Happiest People, Emanyulia Ingoo. Nobel laureate in literature, Prof Wole Soyinka, may think differently. He considers Nigeria the happiest place on earth. In 2021, he published a whopping four-hundred pages-plus, in very difficult English, saying Nigeria was Paradise. We have cracked Soyinka, however. I will tell you something about this. They are not happy at all. According to Africa's man of big letters, Nigerians could chop you up into pieces in Lagos, and sell you away, to be used to repair other human beings. Beware. Meanwhile, we embrace a simple happiness here in Emanyulia. We lead simple lives, in a communal simple spirit. We laugh together, cry together and cherish the common bond of shared simple living. Just now, we are gathered here to celebrate the life of a departed hero. He lived in the true spirit of Abamanyulia. Sincerity, love and courage; that is our ethos and credo. Some other day, I will tell you more about this man, who now sleeps the sleep of the brave. Suffice it to say that when we sleep here, we sleep the sleep of the brave; not the sleep of the dead. We manage our grave matters quietly, and I promise to address this someday. But, let us turn to you. We continue to wonder about your grave issues, out there. Last week, we addressed your many hungers. Granted, the thought is not original. We borrowed it from the story told by Bhabani Bhattacharya of India. Still, like Soyinka of Nigerian happiness, we must wonder why you suffer from so many hungers. In Soyinka's difficult-to-read book, they talk of people who steal and sell human body parts. Make no mistake, they will chop you up from operation theatres. They will sell you, for use in strange rituals. It is a dangerous world, full of corruption and deceit. Both are mediated by a sick political class and a rotten religious fraternity. In the end, the greatest hunger in this happy Nigerian society is the hunger of leadership. When you have cracked Soyinka's happy book, you cannot help wondering whether he is not talking about the East African nation called Kenya? Soyinka reads like satire against Kenya's unashamedly corrupt political leadership and its intercourse with a sickening religious class. This profane class in cassocks allows sacrilegious politicians to abuse each other from pulpits, as part of Church worship. The cassock wearers rent out their pulpits to rot, for thirty pieces of silver. They then sit back to enjoy listening to political drivel from their own sanctuaries. Jesus weeps. Our grandfather here used to say, right here in Emanyulia, that rot in the religious class is the mother of all rot. He would speak of religious entities as the moral and ethical pillars of society. When they are sick, nothing stands. And so Kenya suffers from the hunger of leadership today, in both religious and political orders. But it is because, mostly, the religious class is dead that Kenya suffers. The tree that would grow to heaven has set its roots in hell. We can say with the German philosopher F. W Nietzsche (1844-1900) that God is dead. Everything is dead. The Kenyan Church, especially, is dead. It has killed itself, because it has killed God. If God represents the moral and ethical axis, Nietzsche is so right! For this great thinker is not ventilating the Fallen God Theory. He is talking about the death of values, and the taking over of social space, by nihilists. When the social space is occupied by self-worshipping politicians, God must be understood to be dead in those spaces. The Kenyan politician goes to the shrine not to worship God, but to pitch for himself to be worshipped. He begins with self-adoration. He invites the holy priests and the rest of the congregation to worship him. He satanizes his opponents. The congregation claps in affirmation. They are happy to see God incarnate right there, abusing people. When the insults are done with, the men of God walk piously towards the politico. They bow before him, stretch out the right arm, supported by the left, to greet him. Money changes hands. The politicos leave. We return to the regular flow of service. But if some other politico should come in, we shall disrupt things again, to repeat the profanity at the pulpit. You must begin to understand why Nietzsche thinks that God is dead, and why we here in Emanyulia begin to agree with him. Hunger among our spiritual superiors fans our undoing. -Dr Muluka is a strategic communications adviser. www.barrackmuluka.co.ke

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