Tanzanian pastor carried during service is proof of why Africans need less religion and more sense

I’ve just heard about this story with the Tanzanian pastor who allegedly has to be carried around during service and I’m neither shocked nor disgusted; merely concerned that we’re only getting worse with our sheepish behaviour, not better.

Because you see, I don’t have a problem with the pastor per se; more with the fools that agreed to be stepped on and used as stools, carriers, labourers.

Shhhhhh…don’t say it out too loudly in case ‘they’ hear us, but I’ve always had a sneaky suspicion that if the white man were to return again to try to enslave us in the very same way he did it the first time, he would be as successful as – if not more than – he was the first time around. I’ve never seen a bunch of people more given to being yoked and enslaved than the black man.

I know that our traditions and customs lie in religion – from Amadioha to Yemoja; from sacrifices for the gods to appeasing the gods – so it would seem that we have merely replaced our gods of old with a blonde, blue-eyed Nazarene carpenter and…other gods.

I’m going to leave Islam out of this, firstly because…who wan die?? And secondly because it’s usually ‘Christians’ that do this nonsense.

Pastors you have to sleep with to get pregnant? Here come all the barren women…zugo zugo zugo like demented sheep. Pastor asks you to sow your brand new jeep to the church? Here comes the sheeple…mugu mugu mugu like brainless clowns. Pastors who tell you you’re bewitched and take you through elaborate procedures to break the yoke? Here come LITERATE people, people who should be able to read their Bibles by themselves, standing by a beach at midnight with a Bible in one hand and a live chicken in the other.

Religion should be a hiding place, a place that nourishes, heals, strengthens and holds you together. It should be for succour and strength not vice and violations.

Jesus is NOT a talisman. There are NO acts which you can do that will guarantee you a seat in heaven and there is no one man who holds the kingdom of heaven in his hands – if he likes let him step on the floor or even on red hot lava. If the pastor dies as a result, just know that it was jazz, and fairly inferior one at that. There are tonnes of his co-business partners who do the same jazz and don’t die from stepping on the floor.

I know there are many people who have condemned the Tanzanian pastor’s actions on Facebook, but that is merely because his premise is so extreme. I know of plenty of Christians who ‘worship’ pastors everyday. They’re not as outrageous as the Tanzanian, but they are well dressed, articulate and impressive. They say “Gaaahd” instead of “God” and they give hope to a weary congregation in exchange for cold, hard cash. Somewhere inside of the sermons, they infuse their superiority, their exclusive closeness to God, and their preferred status with Him, and we fall for it. Every single time.

How else should we act? Don’t look to me for verses, I know none. Don’t quote them at me, they make no difference either way. But if we could maybe start by using our own minds, by asking ourselves “Does this sit well with me? With what I’ve read? With the tenets I hold to be true and valid?”

Then perhaps this foolishness can finally stop.