Strange Quirks of religion
With names like Dzifa Boateng and Maame Abena Mahama popping up on the Ghanaian cultural landscape, it can be said that we’ve made significant progress in dealing with the issue of tribalism and ethnocentrism in this country.
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Though that in itself is not much, it points to a shift – however gradual – from what used to be pervasive stereotypic tribal prejudices deeply ingrained in rather nebulous and subjective renditions of long past events that upcoming generations have no idea about – or have chosen to have no idea about probably to avoid the temptation of giving a hoot about what significance such bore held for their lives, if there was any such significance at all. For this, we have Education to thank and it is hoped that with the passing of each generation, will come the rise of more enlightened minds far removed from the infirmities that plague Ghanaian and African minds – against which assertion all arguments of contrariness will definitely not hold given the evidence of our current state affairs as nation and continent.
Now let’s talk religion. The outworking of religion in this country – not necessarily the tenets of the various belief systems in themselves – have proven to be an impediment to progress. I say this in respect of what Christian apologetic Ravi Zacharias notes – that judging a philosophy by its abuse is in itself an abuse of philosophical sense. However, of worthy note is the fact that, there is this notion among non religious people (and even some religious people) that religion breeds (or has the tendency to breed) narrow mindedness, cripple initiative and blind the believer to reason – a claim if we are to disprove (as a ‘religious nation’) will require us, as a first step, to open our minds for consideration of such claim.
On the one hand, we have Ghana – a nation which has experienced a rather ludicrous amount of religious insanity including pastors praying against the ‘Ebola Spirit’ and wives being bathed at night on the beach by so called ‘men of God’ in the name of spiritual cleansing. We’ve heard of congregations praying and fasting for the appreciation of the cedi against the dollar. We pray for rain and hope that it has the discriminatory sense to pour heavily in Akosombo and spare our cities of flooding.
We pray God chooses a good leader for us and then we go ahead to vote along tribal lines and for the good looks of candidates, ignoring the issues. We are always praying. It is not that prayer is a bad thing but how about some purpose-driven action? How about a demonstration of the verity that we are imbued with the power of choice and the choice of the power to make things better? How about a little more reason? Yes, when your daughter is lying subconscious under the mercy of surgical knives in the theatre, all you can do is pray otherwise, there’s more to do than just pray.
It’s sad to say that like many of our leaders who do things just for show rather than for meaning and lasting impact, we have become obsessed with religion just for the sake of it. Extrapolations of religious believes to the extent of superstition have set religion as canopy for a lot of the laziness, apathy and dare I say, stupidity that runs amuck in this country. The overstretch of religious elasticity is what births cynicism (towards religion) on the rebound. To put our situation into perspective, I will attempt a little dissection of the character of the more secularized nations. When the subject of secularism is raised, most people’s minds especially, here in Africa turn towards the United States and thence point to the prevalence of moral depravities such as school shootings owning them up to the decline in religion.
What most people fail to notice is that although such decline is partly responsible for the moral decay, the US is a special case of loud, flamboyant culture which glorifies self-gratification and the worship of money. I’d rather that we turn our attention to Scandinavia (adjudged the most secular region of the world) and its immediate neighbors. Firstly, it must be noted that secular people are not necessarily atheistic. Secular people are just more likely to focus on problems through the lenses of the physical as opposed to the inclination of religious people to give causal benefit to the spiritual.
A good read of the World Happiness Report (WHR), Global Peace Index (GPI), Corruption Perception Index (CPI), Global Information Technology Report, and Press Freedom Index, among other reports reveals the top positions of the Scandinavian nations, year-in, year-out. The statistics have shown that these nations are among the highest performers when it comes to life expectancy, child welfare, gender equality and women empowerment, literacy, schooling, crime prevention, economic quality, corruption perception and standard of living.
With respect to Gross National Income (GNI), Sweden for example, is the second most generous nation on the planet, giving 0.99% ($ 5.24billion, 10th highest in the world) of its GNI to developing nations. Norway (0.93%), Denmark (0.84%), the Netherlands (0.71%) and Finland (0.53%) followed closely behind (www.247wallstreet.com/special-report/2013/04/11/the-most-generous-countries-in-the-world;based on 2013 OECD data).
However, according to Phil Zuckerman’s Society without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment (published by New York University Press), in Sweden and Denmark where churches have had to close down, people are ‘often disinclined or hesitant to talk about religion.’ It was also observed that ‘religion wasn’t as much a private, personal issue but rather a nonissue.’ Apparently, the book notes, people in these nations associated religion with narrow-mindedness and backwardness and hence shied away from discussing the issue, at least publicly.
Contrary to what most people expect, a decline in religiosity hasn’t led to a breakdown in Scandinavian societies, looking at some of the criteria used in compiling the WHR, GPI and CPI, for example. It could be argued that there is no correlation between religiosity and the extent of development of a country or that wealth gain is what drives people to adopt a secular world view and not vice versa. Well, both arguments are up for long, tortuous, endless debates but the fact still remains that these secular nations haven not descended into the violence and doom that most people expect to come with the decline of religiosity.
Going back to Society without God (2008), it is safe to say that the Scandinavian hesitance to talk about religion and God points to a group which, atheists aside, embraces theists who are just uncomfortable revealing their religious identities or consider it a ‘non issue.’ So between the hesitant theist of Scandinavia and their boisterous Ghanaian counterparts appears the difference of understanding of religious believes (Christianity, in this case) and the method of externalization thereof.
To elaborate on this difference, let’s consider the philosophy of pre-determinism – the belief that the past as well as the future was determined at the beginning of the universe (in other words, what will be will be) – a concept preached in its various forms widely by Christianity. Hold that thought in mind for a moment.
The Christian argument for God’s tolerance of suffering is that He gifted us with the power of choice (which choice, if it is to mean anything, He must respect). The argument goes on to say that with the power of choice comes the inevitability of evil and suffering. So if what will be, will be, where is the place of choice?
How do we reconcile pre-determinism with the power of choice? Unless we argue that pre-determinism holds for the larger/apocalyptic events and is not directly effective on personal choice, then the whole foundation of Christian apologetics fails. It’s easy to see how a theory of absolute pre-determinism (which is what a lot of people seem to believe in Ghana) can breed docility and make people less likely to take initiative.
More secularized people, with their belief in self-help and will power, are less likely to adopt such view. What I humbly advocate is a toning down of our religious reflexes which I believe will definitely remove us far from crass religiosity. Hopefully, an increase in literacy rate will also provide the needed balance to keep the excesses of religion in check. If there’s anything that Scandinavia has taught us, it is that a little secularization hurt nobody.
I fear that following generations, looking back at some of our questionable actions (driven by over-religiosity), will be filled with disdain and decide religion is just a farce. Since we are more likely to follow in the foot-steps of the United States (which is where we are copying from, culturally) than in those of the Scandinavian nations, in the event of a decline in religion, let’s put a touch of proaction to our religion. Let us prove that being religious doesn’t automatically make one narrow-minded or backward. Let’s do more than just pray.
*OECD: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development