The Other Face Of Christian Religion

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By Jennifer Onochie.

                   In our societies today, there are people who are convinced that just believing in God and living moral lives are simply not enough, so they must invent new ways to demonstrate their faith. Agreed! people grow great passion for serving God but the problem is they get so caught up in this that they forget the God of the work and chase after the work of God.

The bible is like a manual, a guide to our faith but there are still some persons who wish that God can come physical and dish out these instructions to us because there are now different interpretations and arguments concerning the actual meaning of passages in the bible, some of which are very devastating. The bitter truth is, no one actually knows all; and so we have to apply caution in all of our actions towards religion, less we become fanatics bearing in mind that religious fanaticism comes not from deep faith, but a lack of it.

We all have the right to believe in whatever we want to believe .God has not made us judge over anyone; then why condemn what others believe in? There is the belief that our appearance is a major factor in our faith. Thus you find some people who feel that we have to dress in flowing garments, avoid the use of any form of make ups or materials that could enhance our beauty. There are some others who oppose this point of view. They believe that to serve God you don’t need to look shabby, but presentable. In all of this I think our main focus should be on moderation; and if at all we decide to strongly adhere to any of these two beliefs, we should not shove it down other people’s throats.

 I strongly believe that God is more concerned with the way our hearts look. All that should matter to us is that our appearance does not make us sin or lead others to. Of course this is my own opinion; this is what works for me and if I think the next person should believe in this, I don’t have to force or blackmail the person into doing so.

             The growth in the number of churches in Nigeria is as fast as wild fire. Thousands of churches spring up each day, each one with its own beliefs and ordinances and even various interpretations of the bible, this is called freedom of worship. I am yet to come across a place in the bible where the name of any church is mentioned. Why then should Nigerians continue to suffer religious prejudice?

Some churches have norms which they say have been handed down to them; there are however some others who believe that in serving God only those things which have been written down in the holy book should be adhered to.

In spite of the fact that we are free to worship wherever we deem fit, does it mean that every street and corner should have a church? I am not saying that it is wrong to serve God by owning your own church but what happens when this is done not caring about the welfare of others? I believe the issue of church establishment is one issue that must be looked into by the government and those in authority.

In schools there are several students who feel they have been called or are led by the spirit to establish their own churches, this, in no way is a bad thing to do but the means by which this is done is highly discouraging.

In some higher institutions, students are often sent out of reading rooms because a pastor and his group have paid some illegal sum of money to the porters to make the reading rooms available for their church services. This situation is usually worse on Sundays, when most Christian congregations worship.

 On this day you find out that even the walk ways are used for church services and then it is either you go to the library (which cannot accommodate all students) or forget about reading for the day. This is a problem that affects not only the school setting but also other environments especially our homes. There are streets on which you can find not less than five churches and it becomes a bigger problem when a home has two of them as neighbors, one on the right hand and the other on the left hand of the compound. Such a home literarily becomes a night mare for its occupants who practically become full time members of the churches around them, leaving them with no time to rest, relax or study with the church speakers and instruments going off with different sounds.

 This problem can be more unbearable in some situations; for instance when you spend the better part of your day at the office and coming back home to rest you hear one of the churches around you preparing for an all-night worship, when you have a sick family member whose recovery depends on whether or not such person is able to get enough rest, when in school you have an exam and you go to read only to find out that the reading rooms have been occupied by various prayer groups. At this point it is almost impossible to wonder whether or not God, in whose name many claim to be taking these actions, really approves of all of these.

Again I will advice moderation. Government should also put in place measures to ensure that even as they allow freedom of worship, they also consider the welfare of others.

It is not the number of times we go to church, or the number of church societies we identify with that matter, our personal relationship with our maker matters the most. It is not enough to tell people that we are Christians, our actions especially those unconscious steps we take should be able to speak for us.

It is very important that we are mind full of the things we say and do concerning religion less we offend God. Moderation must prevail in all of our actions.