By Abimbola Ojenike
This morning was not one of the Sunday mornings that I woke up excited to go to church. I had learnt that my church would be having a talk show this morning on “what women want from men”. I thought I needed to get something more refreshing and empowering from the 2 hours of the week I have to spend fellowshipping before God than to learn about what a woman wants from me. So I got myself up and left home for the church next door.
I got to church during the Sunday School question time. From the line of questioning and discussion, I gleaned that the topic was something about overcoming temptation then a woman stood up in the congregation, hurriedly gathered her wrapper, grabbed the microphone from the Usher and asked “if temptation make me feel like killing myself to go meet Jesus, will I meet Him?” The congregation roared in laughter and side talk began “why” “that’s suicide” “that one na sin, no be temptation”. The visibly livid woman wouldn’t let the judgmental congregation drown her voice. “I say I wan drink poison, I don tire”, she cried out even louder perhaps thinking they didn’t her well.
When the man on the pulpit was shouting “praise the Lord” apparently to call the congregation to order, I thought he was, at least, going to “encourage the woman in the Lord” even if she wouldn’t find succour among God’s people but he began to preach at the woman on how suicide is a sin, how the person who kills herself will not meet Jesus. He even probed indiscreetly “who told you you will meet Jesus if you kill yourself”. A voice from the congregation rescued the church from the coldness and ridiculousness of laughing at a hapless Sister thinking of ending it and then a gracious old woman escorted her out of church.
After that spectacle, everything else was like a joke-the lifting of hands, the closing of eyes, singing and speaking in tongues. It would have been my longest one and half hours in church if not for the coincidental kindness of my friend, Olasupo Owoeye who sent me an article from a Canadian Law Review on duplicative litigation, issue estoppel and the death of mutuality.
I got another rude awakening from my article when the preacher was given a “word of knowledge” that some people in the congregation are thinking of committing suicide and God is ready to break the root of suicide this morning. Really, Pastor?! Then, I made my way out of church during altar call without any feeling of guilt.
I trudged back home thinking: what is wrong with those of us who carry the Bible, who profess love to God; who speak and sing in tongues but show no real concern for the heartbroken people in our congregation? What a monumental tragedy it would have been if the troubled woman had left church today to go and drink poison? What is the whole idea of God, of churches, of seeking the fellowship of the brethren when the outburst of a person on the verge of suicide is like stand-up comedy to our ears? What is this strain of Christianity that invests in humongous billboards, church building and look and feel while making disproportionate and half-hearted investment in the wellbeing of the very people that God cares about? How did we get to this point of insane insensitivity where our default reaction to a person threatening or actually contemplating suicide is laughter?
The whole idea of God is to make us more loving to our fellow humans; to restore human dignity to what God originally intended. The world has no need of churches where people show love to an unseen god and indifference to the broken people around them. More than ever, many more people would need someone to show them love, to lift them up; to bring them hope in these hard times. Our earliest experience of a church was that of a place of hope, of strengthening and empowerment. This prevailing type of loveless christianity is looking like a big joke, a serious hypocrisy!
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