I believe in God, the God that made it possible for the sun to emerge from the east to the west, daily, even before the introduction of the bible and Jesus Christ to Africa.
I talk of the God that provided infinite wisdom to our ancestors to look unaided to nature to find healing when there was ill health; a God that saw to safe and secure, healthy birth of all people who lived before the advent of Jesus Christ and the bible.
Where the rivers not full of life giving water before the advent of the bible and Jesus Christ? Was breathing air deficient; toxic, back then? Did it not rain to beat famine and starvation before the bible and Jesus?
Of course life was life before Jesus and the bible.
So why is the bible and Jesus of Nazareth in any way important to Africa and Africans?
What is so diabolically wrong about how Africans led their lives before the advent of the bible and Jesus Christ? What was so dark, so barbaric and so unforgivably unpalatable to Christians that Africans did which necessitated the advent of Jesus Christ and the bible?
I don’t know. I want to know.
But a very interesting discovery for me will be what the transformative socio-economic effect will be if all us became Christian?
Will we drink less? Will there be no pre-marital sex among the human race? Really? What about the assault against our African brothers? Will blacks get their dignity back? Will whites abandon their penchant to oppress? Will hunger and slavery suddenly morph away, ushering in nourishment and liberty for all?What if everybody in Palestine and Israel became Christian? Will the Middle East be safe and peaceful as a result?
I doubt if the transition will match my desire if we all became Christian right now.
You ask why? Well, the one and only reason I will offer for now is to ask you, dear reader, to put the lives of those who call themselves Christian under a microscope to see if we should all desire to be like them.
Go on, please. Study Christians and see what they do across the world, in broad day light but especially during the night when they think we the‘spiritually immature Thomases’ are not watching.
I am willing to bet my left shoe that you will find that overwhelmingly, it is better to lead a life full of kindness, full of the urgency to give without expectation in order to make the other’s life better, rather than to be religious.
In the interest of fairness, you can replace Christianity with any other religion, but my questions stand.
(Maruping Phepheng is a novelist. He wrote “What Happens In Hankaroo…” and “Of Anger and Revenge.” His twitter handle is @TheDukeP.)
