Mandatory Love is a synonym for Hate

In continuing with earlier conversations on the probity of religious teaching, I will attempt to address myself to a simple matter – Love.

This is an area where religions, in a very rare show of ecumenism, always hasten to claim the moral higher ground in debates with their secular interlocutors.

This is probably because of the universality of belief in God's synonymity with ‘‘agape’’ - often used as a cloak behind which the major and distinct differences in the teachings of each religion are hidden.

I have said before that having an objective conversation in the Third-World on any issue, let alone religion, is difficult because of the gross income inequality and rampant abject poverty our people experience.

The fact that finding the next meal is a real challenge for the majority of our people, clouds the better judgment of even the most well-intentioned among us - to such an extent that we will believe in anything that helps us meet our immediate needs.

A starving man just wants food, no matter what it takes to acquire this food. 

So that if you tell him a belief in Christ will provide it – then he’ll believe in Christ. If you say Allah, so be it. 
If you say Buddha or Museveni or Besigye – they’ll follow you – so long as it leads to food.

It shames me to relate the escapade – but I actually once visited an upcountry Ugandan district, called Kiryandongo, posing as a pastor; and by the end of a fortnight had amassed quite a following of very committed congregants who literally donated money to my ‘‘church’’, believing whatever doctored gibberish I was telling them to be divine revelation.

Few memories in my life are ever bound to be as compelling as the look on those thirty or so pious, pliant, upturned faces of the women and men, or sheep, who had me for a ‘‘shepherd’’, during that ill-fated week.

Ill-fated for the sheep, that is – but certainly lucrative for the shepherd.

The ‘‘Satanist’’ movement has realized the trick and is now also cashing in significantly, since God’s solutions seem to have become ‘too slow’ for most believers.

Ritual sacrifice and other barbarous practices of traditional spirituality, things that had only a few years back gone out of ''fashion'', are registering a major recrudescence among urban populations; as people become more desperate.

The Kibwetere incident in the 90s, in which a Roman Catholic extremist torched hundreds of Ugandan congregants in a promise of heavenly ascension, will certainly not be the last, as long as Africans remain poor.

This is why almost all religious faith in Africa is premised on utility; the need for a job, a good marriage, a cure to a disease, a pregnancy, a promotion at work etc. etc. – things that, in many cases, human governments in other parts of the world have been providing excellently for generations through functional health care systems and sound fiscal policies.

Consequentially, the average believer in Africa only reads the bible or Quran in such a way that they seek to affirm God’s ‘‘promises’’ for their material lives – rather than have a purely spiritual experience to religious faith.

This belies the all too prevalent phenomenon of inter-Church migration, especially in the Pentecostal Movement - where congregants regularly skip from one church to another, because they are told that the next pastor has more 'anointing' or 'speaks more directly to God', and therefore works more miracles.

While the ''winning'' pastors celebrate; the jilted pastors comically (and bitterly) refer to this act as Church Prostitution!

This is why it’s so difficult to explain atheism, which basically reminds you that earthly problems can only have earthly solutions, to the average African person.

Returning to the subject of altruistic love which religions, especially Christianity, seem to jealously own; we find that the Christian concept of love – based on the teaching of Jesus, is actually very immoral.

The scripture at John 3:16 – which is the cornerstone of Christianity, seeks to underscore God’s unrivaled love for humankind, through the subjection of his only son to torture and death at human hands.

We could infer that Jesus had a selfish motive for his actions – by seeing all he was rewarded with after resurrection and ascension. 

He was made joint-ruler, seated at the right hand, and given more power than he had before etc. etc.

So clearly, Jesus had a vested interest in his 'temporary death'.

But let’s have some charity and examine Jesus’ ‘‘sacrifice’’ on its own merits;

Apparently – those who accept this sacrifice are rewarded with eternal life. But what about those who reject it?

They are assured of eternal damnation!

In short – you don’t have a choice over the sacrifice, since no one in their right mind would want to suffer forever. 

There is no safe way in which you can reject God’s ''love''.

Why not?

Because it’s your only salvation from an original sin?

How did you get that sin?

Your great grand-father disobeyed God.

Even in simplistic human logic; the immorality of this is profoundly breath taking. 
How do you punish a person for the sins of their grandparents?

This is exactly the rationale of Christianity – and informs the almost fanatical obsession with which Christian ministers and laymen preach the gospel.

 Accept our love, or die!

Imagine trying to court a woman and giving her those two options; ‘‘Look honey – I love you, and you need to love me for your own good, since you stand to gain a lot. If you can’t love me however – be prepared to die a miserable death …’’

How affectionate! 

Jehovah has proven himself a lover whose advances can only be rebuffed at mortal peril.

Another angle of Christian Love that needs be explored is the idea that it’s inward looking. 

God’s love, according to the Old Testament, is clearly limited to his chosen nation i.e. Israel.

So that when the Mosaic commandment instructs Israelites to ‘‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself’’ – the neighbor being spoken of is a fellow Israelite, and not an Egyptian, Moabite or Philistine; and certainly not a Ugandan!

When Christianity is traced back to Judaism and an attempt made to link the two theologically, Christians usually fall over each other in trying to explain the distinction between the Covenant (represented by the Old Testament Jehovah) and Grace (represented by Jesus).

The idea is put forth that for some reason Jehovah’s mind was changed after the book of Malachi, when Jesus interceded on behalf of wretched mankind; agreeing to die for us to ameliorate God’s ire.

Apparently, by this time – Jehovah had had enough and was planning to wipe man off the earth.

Nothing is ever said about the fact that for the centuries when the Israelites were killing other desert tribes with Jehovah’s permission and often on his express instructions - Jesus was in heaven too.

He was probably looking on and probably being consulted by his dear father before Joshua was directed to exterminate the city of Jericho, for the unpardonable crime of being philistines.

Yet all of a sudden – when this same Jesus, thousands of years later decides to intervene ‘‘for all mankind’’ – he becomes such a hero!

Not that I'm questioning Jesus' heroic credentials - but shouldn't we at least be skeptical?

This isn't something that can be simply explained away with the common broadbrush - ''God's ways are higher than man's ways'' - because this would simply imply a whimsical God who uses mankind as a plaything, a guinea-pig of sorts.

The elementary history lessons African children receive in school would suffice to tell us that Christianity and Islam were simply handmaids of European and Arab imperialism respectively - the former political, and the latter essentially economic.

Christianity went to Britain through Roman Imperialism, and came to Uganda through British Imperialism.

In short, without the colonization of Africa, it wouldn't be too misleading to infer that there would be no African Christians or Muslims, at the scale we see it today. 

This rather trivial argument cannot be neutralized unless one claims that it was either Jehovah's or Allah's will (or both) that Africa be colonized.

It is undeniable that no one has ever been killed essentially for believing in God i.e. in the name of atheism. People have only been killed for believing in the ''wrong'' God i.e. in the throes of inter-religious warfare.

For - if a man possesses not a belief in God or divinity to sustain him; the only thing left to believe in is man; the consuming idea that mankind is all we are, and humanity all we have.

And while Albert Camus has called suicide the ''final philosophical question'' - a man is not truly capable of killing himself.
Suicide, is when we kill that which tears us from ourselves - the stranger within.

Suicide occurs when a man loses the fight against that thing which is not him, but erases his memory of himself.

If Abrahamic religions really promoted universal love – they wouldn’t happily threaten their opponents with hell, whether these opponents are atheists or members of other sects, let alone other denominations.

And most importantly – God would lead the way by forgiving Satan first.