THE noise was a cacophonic blend of cymbals, drums, guitars, trumpets and human voices from a multitude of worshippers. It was in the afternoon, the peak of production for those tilling the land, working in the offices and factories or simply taking their lunch before going for the next and probably the last round of the day’s working schedule.
The day’s worship is often extended to evening hours, ending up in the wee hours of the next day in what they describe as all-night sessions. For days, weeks, months and years, this has become the standard practice of religious fanatics who have turned the productive hours and times of rest into a frenzy of noise-making, all in the name of worshipping God.
Whether it is God who has been cruel to us or our prayers have not reached the target audience, we all troop out of these prayer sessions more devastated and helpless, looking up to others for survival.
This was the message captured by Professor Max Assimeng of the Sociology Department of the University of Ghana, Legon, in his book: Religion and Social Change in West Africa.
In the 291-page book launched in Accra last week, Prof Assimeng observes that Ghana’s economic challenges have gained root because of the use of a greater part of our productive hours observing religious practices.
“In any country where there is too much religion, economic activity goes down,” he observes in the book, explaining that “all countries that are progressing are both religious and hardworking at the same time”.
Prof Assimeng, or for that matter any other person, has not spoken against religious worship. The issue is whether we have been able to separate religion from productivity and whether we have been able to programme ourselves to satisfy both needs.
We are not more religious than others. In Japan, almost every home is like a temple where families gather before what Christians will describe as idols to say prayers before the day’s activities. They do the same before retiring for the day. We are nowhere near the Japanese who inhabit a cluster of earthquake-prone islands.
The same could be said of Indians, Chinese, Koreans, Malaysians and Arabs whose religions were not imposed on them from outside through colonialism but are ancestral inheritance which were maintained, sustained and improved upon over the years.
These are people who have achieved a lot in their individual and national lives because they blend prayers and fasting with serious thinking and hard work. If, as a student, you devote all your time to praying, without learning, you will go to the examination hall and fail; it is very simple. Maybe if you pray hard and take your lessons seriously, God will open your mind and allow the stuff to sink in.
So, if, as a people, we spend a greater part of time praying without working, we will simply not make it, as is evident now. We have some of the best resources God can generously endow any nation. It is, therefore, sad that in spite of these resources, we have to make begging a national habit. Strangely, we beg for food from countries that do not have fertile land that comes close to what we have. If it is true that God made man in his own likeness, then we here or Blacks generally are not portraying God in his true image.
Otherwise, why should God be seen as a God of abundance, affluence and happiness in one part of the world and a God of poverty, disease and deprivation in another part?
The increasing presence of criminality such as rape, defilement, money doubling and robbery in the churches is a clear manifestation that many people do not rationalise in religious matters and, therefore, embrace any creature who emerges in a robe with a long cross dangling around his neck and proclaiming himself an evangelist, apostle or prophet.
We have tolerated religious fanaticism to such an extent that we have lost the peace in our homes which have been invaded by noisy religious fundamentalists.
As Prof Assimeng puts it in his book, religion will always remain important in the lives of humanity as, “human beings would have created God if He did not exist”. In other words, religion is and will remain part of man’s existence. However, in pursuit of our spiritual salvation, the needs of the body cannot be ignored. That is why prayers should only be seen as part of the requirements to fulfil man’s desires on earth. A good balance between prayers and hard work will make the total man in the true image of God.
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PS:
Your popular From my rooftop column will take a short break after today. It will return in full blast on Tuesday, May 18, 2010.
