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Sacrilege that the clergy-politics connection breeds

By Wole Oladapo
25 July 2022   |   1:52 am
The unveiling of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s running mate provided the country with a much needed comic relief from the many tragedies that Nigeria has become.

Tinubu. Photo/facebook/officialasiwajubat

The unveiling of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s running mate provided the country with a much needed comic relief from the many tragedies that Nigeria has become. Some widely circulated photos and videos showed some poorly dressed bishops and priests at the unveiling of the ill-fated Muslim-Muslim ticket, as though in an attempt to validate the party’s position that religious balancing of the ticket is useless. Nevertheless, it is extremely concerning that the comedy thrived on the sacrilegious, an intentional transgression on the sacred to pull a political fraud on the public. I maintain that its participatory nature makes it even worse than other forms of sacrilege we have come to accept as the norm.

 
In an official justification of the sacrilege, Bayo Onanuga, Director, Media and Communication, Tinubu Campaign Organisation, wrote: “They are not big names in Christendom yet, they are gradually building up their missions.” Two things are of extreme importance in that statement. The first is that it matters that the comically dressed bishops and priests are not big names in Christendom. The second is the hope that is expressed on behalf of the bishops and priests. With great certainty, Bayo Onanuga assures us that those rather unknown, comically dressed clergymen too will arrive, for they have already found their political ladder to spotlight, like the many big names in town did at some point in their journey. His choice of the word “yet” captures the import of the entire message, that their arrival will automatically command public acceptance and recognition.
 
The two nuances of that political statement are loaded with meaning. They expose the mutual dependence between capitalist Christianity and jegudujera politics that is practised in Nigeria. The ministries of buyable church leaders provide charlatan politicians with the necessary religious validation they need to sell an ill-fated ticket. In return, the monetary excreta from the politicians’ stolen-money-inflated bowels gratifies the greed of the low-level bishops and priests, whose eyes are set on the glowing apparels of the celebrated bishops and priests but not on Christ.

In short, Bayo Onanuga asks us to look to the clergy-politics connection to unravel the mystery of some of the big names we have in Christendom. Actually, no serious-minded Nigerian needed this to be pointed out by anyone else. If you remove the denominations in which ascent to venerated offices is proceduralized and the few, uncompromising clergymen who labour in the open to attain the heights that they occupy, you have left individuals who network their way into the limelight through a mix of tested and trusted business models and psychological manipulation. That is the undeniable reality that stares us all in the face.
 
If a wall does not crack, lizards will not make a home in its belly. Unpopular clergymen would not be chasing morally depraved politicians for money if Christianity, in part, had not sold its highest title to Mammon. Because of the respect accorded big names, some clergymen with container-sized cathedrals would cajole, hoodwink, or even hypnotize their followers and take gbomu-le-lantern loans to raise enough money to buy the title of a bishop. Sadly, the title does not always automatically manufacture wealth, fame, and the privileges that come with them. But collaboration with worthless politicians does, for, besides payoffs, it guarantees return patronage as long as the gold-minded clergymen deliver satisfactorily. But is it appropriate to scold and excoriate adults as if they were toddlers?

 
As long as Christendom celebrates big names, those who are yet to have one will do everything to have it. As long as Christendom adores big ministries, those with little flocks will continue to covet big religious empires. If we do not stop measuring success in ministry with wealth and size and spread of churches, the anointing of those who have neither will continue to turn to annoyance, and they will continue to mortgage their calling for financial security. Who does not want to rank among the successful in their chosen field of endeavour? On this note, those who have derided those emergency bishops and priests owe them an apology. Isn’t it even a tragedy that those mocking the bishops and priests do not realize that they are together with them in the grand theatrical performance? The entire society writes the script. The bishops and priests took the acting roles, while their mockers took the spectator seats. Who should really be mocking whom? The fart, like Dan Duala perfume, smells all over us.
 
No one will be bold enough to throw faeces on your father’s grave if you do not first desecrate it with stinking rubbish. Politicians are well aware that our respect for religious leaders is based on the size of their cathedrals, the strength of their congregation, and their social status. That is why they went to that length to costume clowns for the theatrical amusement of religious simpletons. The capitalist Christianity with which politicians conduct business stinks, and we are all complicit in it. We feed it into continued existence with our money, sweat, and emotional attachment. Instead of mocking clergymen who are smart enough to exploit political opportunities for financial breakthroughs, we should be busy cleaning up our own mess.

We should begin to respect humble laborers who model Christian living in their kiosk-sized churches, while tempering our admiration for big clergymen who live in unexplainable wealth. Our amen should not rend the heavens only when clergymen with presidential connections lead the prayer.
 
In sum, we must discard the religious caste system that we have instituted in Christendom. In faith, there is no privileged birth. Everyone is born of the Spirit of God. Once we single some class of individuals out for veneration above and beyond what we give everyone else who shows the same quality of devotion to the faith and its community, we run foul of the very essence of Christianity. In Christianity, grace is given for service and not for status. Once service, rather than title, starts attracting the dignity it deserves in Christendom and piety enjoys pride of place, it will be difficult for politicians to normalize subjecting the Church to ridicule by collaborating with some black sheep of clergymen.

The lines will be clear enough for all to see, and the black sheep that stray yonder will be seen for what they truly are: hirelings. Never for once should we forget that the sacrilege that the clergy-politics connection breeds is hatched by the strangely inordinate value we place on big names in the fold. May we be guided that any religion that constantly clogs the wheel of societal progress will inevitably go into irrelevance. It is time we disentangled Christianity from politics, and the laity’s part in this is to stop feeding the entanglement.
Oladapo wrote from the University of Ibadan.

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