YeKengalé

The Politics of Religion pt. 2

It was a Trumpeter, my name for those  inFoxicated (not a slip, spelling intended) friends of mine who see Trump through the ‘right’ lens, as opposed to the ‘wrong’ lens….. at least as far as they are concerned; who asked the stunningly honest question:

In a world of conflicting worldviews, which one deserves to dominate?

It’s down to that. The clash of worldviews and the fight for the  ‘right’ (pun intended) to prevail.  Another  friend also made a simple enough case.  In the land of black and white, truth and error, right and wrong, the answer isn’t very complex at all.  Pretty obvious.

 Mine!  Of course, (whether said by a Christian or Muslim, Israeli or Palestinian,  socially conservative or  liberal; gay activist or pro-lifer;   Since somebody’s version of ‘ truth’ must prevail, then let it be MINE….but of course we never say it quite that plainly.

After all, It just so happens that  The Holy Bible……. or Holy Quran, The International Charter of Human Rights, the overwhelming majority of Scientists who study Climate Change…. or whatever frame of reference   anchors our  identity to a narrative of hope and purpose,  happens to be espoused by me …..but we are ‘right’ so therefeore  we should win. So we battle it out in the law courts and in governmental departments and  in the media and the classroom.  The clash of the cosmologies is on.

And that just about sums it up for so many, our approach to social engagement. We demonize our opponents and justify ourselves by a plumb-line declared  ‘universal’ but which has the tendency to support our positions and we shut down or condemn  the voice of those who do not…..all In Jesus’ Name, or Allah’s, or  whatever ideology from Socio- Political or Academic Tradition informs the identity of the ‘crusader’  (brilliant epithet)

This is the very problem that precipitated separation of church and state. Let ideas compete in the service of humanity. It should never  be the other way round. To quote Jesus, who unashamedly is MINE, the law was made for man not man for the law.

This is perhaps the great difference between those who identify with Jesus according to doctrine, but in attitude practice the religion of the Pharisees unawares. They want to rule those they have not served and win the souls of men whose hearts remain rebellious by having dominion over them.  

In my last article, I mentioned the very real competition of worldview and praxes that exists in the African space, not just on the continent, wherever her people are in her diaspora….. between  the way and world of the Sangomas, on the one hand (or any other African indigenous knowledge system or worldview ) and on the other,  the world of the evangelical Christianity embraced by the Charismatic prophets.

By the above thinking, there is no nuance here, no agreement between light and darkness, no conversation between demons and the sanctified. I suppose my lived experience should not matter for all who would pontificate what my story should be and how I should think. But I have found as much witchcraft in my experience of the evangelical church as I have found Christ in the ways of indigenous people still embracing their traditions, and neither has anything to do with my vision of Jesus, which is transcendent of  culture (in or out the ‘church’) but resident in the heart –a kingdom of value not words – certain basic human dispositions universal known, if not universally embraced, in the human experience, and  identified in the life of the Jesus of the Gospels.

 An integrated identity  can never be achieved through domination or subterfuge.   Voices must speak their truth. Truth claims must be tasted and tested. One is Lord in name alone unless there is also the bowing of the knee.  Most Christians apparently conceive a God who enforces the latter. Though in the gospel tradition the people we see bowing at his feet are in the throes of grateful  appreciation like the Magdalenean; not a conquered enemy, whose  ears, chopped off by his disciples, he healed.

 (Selah ….if we want to convert our enemies, we must listen to them that we gain the right to be listened to…..or I suppose we can chop off their ears if we have the strength to take them captive. But alas, Like Peter, we have more  zeal than knowledge. The Legions are coming, like it or not, and they outnumber us.)

Human beings are not wired to see things the same, and so we run to the polls, courts and battlefields with our disputations. How could we do otherwise, when political and religious leadership imagines power to be the erection of a façade for domination thru cleverly designed distractions to alienate humanity from itself?