Our Father, Who Art In Heaven…

A few days ago, I joined a VIP bus from Accra to Kumasi. Nothing new there, really. I do the journey between the two cities on a regular basis.

But two interesting things happened on the bus that again were nothing out of the ordinary but which subsequently set my idle mind churning.

Just before we pulled out of the terminal, the driver stood up in the bus, introduced himself and politely invited us to bow our heads in prayer. He led us in committing the journey into the Lord’s hands. A hearty “Amen” greeted his prayer, and we set off. I proceeded to doze off even before we got to Tesano. I was tired and the air conditioning was soothing. I am not sure if I snored. Who cares anyway?

I next woke up when we got to Linda D’Or Rest Stop at the Bunso junction. I stretched my legs and got a drink and some biscuits before we boarded the bus ten minutes later. The lady seated next to me had bought some jollof rice with chicken. I observed that she bowed her head and closed her eyes in silent prayer as she stretched her hands over the meal, inviting the Lord to sanctify it. I politely declined her kind invitation to join her. In any event, she only had one fork.

Now wide awake, I tried juxtaposing the two short prayers in my mind as I watched the dense, evergreen vegetation fly by. It is clear to any casual observer that the Ghanaian (and for that matter, the African) Christian is a prayerful person and never keeps the Almighty far from his daily routine. From sunrise till sundown, God’s name frequently escapes from the lips of the Ghanaian. A simple “How are you?” usually elicits “By the Grace of God” in reply, which in turn elicits “We thank God.” “I will see you tomorrow/next week, if God permits” is a standard parting shot after a meeting, whilst “Thank God for travelling mercies” is a favourite post on Facebook. Bus and street evangelists warning of eternal damnation is another standard fare of Ghana’s street culture, whilst gospel music is a popular music genre.

Of course, all this is aside the megafest of marathon Sunday church services, all-night services, crusades, conventions, retreats, gospel concerts, choir practice, bible study, and a host of others that together points to the Ghanaian Christian as a very religious person indeed. It is perhaps true that set against European society, from where the first Christian missionaries arrived, the Ghanaian Christian has become like the latecomer Apostle Paul, who seemed to have surpassed his Christian forbears (or ‘adkianfo’). In other words, the European shepherds have now traded places with the African flock that they brought the message of Christian salvation to.

There are those who snort and say that notwithstanding the centrality and ubiquitous presence of God in our society, there is very little substance to show for it. They say that corruption, sexual immorality and a great deal of unchristian behavior pervades our society, even on a more shocking scale than Western society that in many cases has pushed God to the fringes of their national lives. In other words, they say our religiosity and piety as a society is confined merely to form, relegating substance to the background, and that the outward manifestation is nothing short of hypocrisy.

Tempting as it is, I am not sure I would subscribe fully to this rather harsh view of our national religious life. True, perhaps the extent of our religious fervor does not fully reflect in all the facets of our life as a nation. In many instances there is a clear disconnect between the biblical injunction and what the Christian truly believes to be wrong. But what is the full story? Let me take corruption as an example to buttress my point.

We have a serious corruption problem in our country. Simply put, another word for corruption is theft, which the bible strongly condemns. But how many Ghanaians who subscribe to the Christian faith classify corruption as theft and therefore sinful? For many, another word for corruption is ‘connection’, which is merely a means of survival in a difficult economy. They do not equate creaming a percentage off a contract’s value, or over/under-invoicing as theft, because that would effectively rope them in together with the mobile phone or goat thief, from which they reel in horror.

And so once the mind decides the parameters of wrongdoing by using a different terminology such as ‘connection’, or ‘ways and means’, it is able to function without guilt in a space that is outside those parameters even if upon close examination, those parameters are wrongly set. Effectively, ours then is a society that, though religious and constantly referring to the bible as a cardinal point in our lives, still decides pretty much on its own how it defines wrongdoing and therefore is able to find a comfortable space to operate freely and remain true to its conscience. So for instance a church-going, bible-believing headmaster may see nothing wrong with taking bribes to admit students because he sees that it is a sensible thing to do to secure his future after his retirement, especially when pensions in this country are nothing to write home about. Interestingly, he may have a strong belief that it is sinful to steal from school coffers. But admissions ‘connections’? No problem.

Another interesting one is adultery. Of course, the bible condemns it in no uncertain terms. But in our society, our views reflect the biblical edict in so far as women are concerned. When it comes to men, it is seen almost as normal that a man would stray from his marital bed. Many women have become conditioned to this and actually end up accepting into their household a child of a man’s adulterous relationship. It is a fact that many women would be laughed at if they insisted on a divorce simply because their husband has had a child with another woman. And so the mantra that ‘men will always be men’, or former head of state General I.K Acheampong’s alleged quip that it was okay for a man ‘to have a farm and a garden’ when the issue of his alleged womanizing was put to him, clearly demonstrates that to the Ghanaian mind, certain sins are not really much of an issue. We also seem to have a fairly liberal view about fornication, another biblical sin. Again, we have defined our own framework here.

I would hesitate to use the word ‘hypocrisy’ in these matters. I think we have as a society set out our own values as to what is wrong and what is not. Some dovetail with the biblical wrongs. Others do not. But somehow, like mercury in a thermometer, we have found our own level and seem to plod along.

On the whole, regardless of what some might call a huge deficit in our national life where Christianity is concerned, I think we are better off in many ways with the level of religious piety because for the most part it does act as a restraining factor, warts and all. If regardless of our religious fervour, there are so many deficits, can one begin to imagine what we would be like if religion was a distant speck on the ocean of our national life?

I certainly shudder at the thought.

Source: Infoboxdaily.com

By: Rodney Nkrumah-Boateng

#opinion247