One of the big challenges of this century, with its increasing libertarian inclinations, is how to relate with and manage religious expression without unnecessarily interfering with people’s freedom of worship.
While freedom of worship is an authentic right, it ought to be enjoyed within certain bounds in consideration of others’ similar and other rights. For religion is like a gun, its usefulness depends on the holder. It can make society desirable, just as it can turn it into a nuisance or drown it.
Many of the worst crimes in the history of humanity have been committed in God’s name. Blaise Pascal, a philosopher of religion, credibly observes that people never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
In the development context, especially in poor societies, the dilemma is how we should allow people the liberty to enjoy their right to worship while at the same time fostering socio-economic development and other aspects of personal wellbeing. Of course this dilemma does not always arise.
Apart from their spiritual role, there are several examples where faith-based initiatives have transformed communities in education, health, livelihoods, and so on.
However, there are certain growing forms of religious practice in our society that make one increasingly believe that it will be harder to achieve many of our development goals with absolute religious freedom than it is for the proverbial camel to go through a needle’s eye.
It appears that we only strongly address ourselves to extremes like terrorism, child sacrifice and the Joseph Kibwetere kind. And even with these, with the exception of terrorism, we are more reactionary than preventive.
It is quite ironical how we keep saying that we are committed to lifting our people out of poverty and disease while we clearly know some of the factors that keep them in such deplorable circumstances and keep a blind eye to them.
Poverty tends to trigger desperation, especially in societies like ours with limited safety nets. It is tragic when desperation meets with ignorance in one body; not to mention that often in desperation, reason is the first casualty.
In Uganda today, with the heightened levels of unemployment, many people would run to whoever promises to make their lives better through guarantees for jobs, visas, or psychological consolation.
We also need answers to other social needs such as finding good spouses, taming unruly ones, keeping our jobs, healing diseases we can’t treat, and neutralising effects of real or perceived witchcraft. The alternatives we have in answering these questions, our preparedness to face them, and peer influence determine where we turn to.
Some sociologists, psychologists, and philosophers of religion have explained religion to be a human creation in response to helplessness in the face of difficult realities beyond our means. This may not be a complete account for religious motivation, but it explains much of what we see today.
Many preachers have studied the religious motivations and miseries of our society and have devised shrewd ways of packaging their homilies to appeal to the psyche of the sufferers.
Little wonder that several adverts for prayer crusades and church services go like: ‘Have you failed to find a job? Were you denied a visa to go abroad? Have you been looking for a child or school fees for your children? Do you want a car of your own? Are you suffering from Aids? Come to the man of God for your miracle today’.
Many traditional diviners, too, use catch lines similar to these. It is psychology at work!
Whereas many of us blame the victims of such psychological manipulation, we need to place ourselves in their shoes. Some are too desperate to think and are even rendered more vulnerable by disempowering preaching that urges them not to reason their faith if they want God to answer their prayers.
They are not only taught to simply believe and pray, but also not to listen to the devil that speaks through people who advise them against church mischief. All this is reinforced with the creation of a fear that the ‘man of God’ sees what is in everyone’s mind.
Arthur Schopenhauer would say, religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think. With such vulnerability that makes Karl Marx view religion as opium for the masses, ‘intoxicated’ followers are exploited by luxurious preachers through rounds and rounds of offertory and in some cases made to buy all sorts of overpriced ‘holy’ stuff.
Some preachers have asked followers to abandon antiretroviral drugs (ARVs), sprayed them with insecticide to chase demons, stepped on them, electrocuted them, and, in a recent case in South Africa, made them to take rat poison.
It is also absurd that with such a miracle mentality entrenched into the masses, their work ethic is crippled as they are made to believe that God’s grace shall just fall upon them through prayer. Responsibility for some of their problems and failures is removed from them and put on fictitious demons, thus missing opportunities to learn from their mistakes.
Since our politics is grounded on patronage, without any sanction, our political leaders instead court any religious personality with many followers so as to tap into the potential votes.
Such places will attract presidential visits and funding, which gesture is, in turn, used by the erratic preacher as a sign of strength and untouchability.
We could also speculate that maybe a government that falls short of providing social services like health, education, etc, is either too guilty to stop predatory religious leaders from taking advantage of its incompetency or it is, in fact, grateful to them for consoling and depoliticising the masses from focusing on the real cause of many of their problems.
jsssentongo@gmail.com
The writer works with the school of Postgraduate Studies and Research at Uganda Martyrs University, Nkozi.