When I was young, we lived on the outskirts of town. We were close enough to hear the sounds and smell the smells drifting out of urban life. We walked to school on bare feet on paths plastered with dust in the dry season and smeared with mud in the rainy season. On either side of the paths were tall grasses. Now and then a rat mole, or a wild cat, or a squirrel, would rear its head out of the grass, just checking the weather and the environment.
There were no super markets, no open bars or sidewalk eateries or billboards advertising Jesus Christ and the healing powers of prophets. There were just two churches; Catholic and Protestant set far apart from each other. And just one mosque set even farther apart from the Christian churches. I went to the churches alternately but I never made it beyond the pews to the altar for communion; I mean the wafer.
There were shops in the centre of town and a daily market selling foodstuff that we did not produce at home. At least that is how I remember it. Forty years ago. At least that is how my memory plays its game with me.
When I was young, I was fascinated most by the glitter, solemnity and pomposity of the church. I was naive about the ways of the church and its tactics and public relations. What was more, there was no lack of well oiled rhetoric and monopolistic rhapsodies; an empire greedily collecting tolls in the name of salvation.
Indeed, the elegance and purity of the men of God were breathtaking; essentially a blueprint of saintliness on earth and a pathway to heaven. That has changed.
When I grew up and understood myself more than I had when I walked the dusty or muddy footpath to school, I remembered the two churches and the lone mosque, why, because the population of churches seemed to have increased with my own growth.
Now, everywhere I go, there is a church or a billboard screaming the miracles of a lifetime and advertising the benefits of patronizing one church or the other. The churches compete on the billboards. Their miracles wait to be savoured inside their buildings.
I have come to realise then that the daily frustrations of ordinary life drive men and women to these churches in pursuit of relief and comfort hardly found in the daily grind of a society made hostile my the same men and women.
Failing to derive lasting comforts from the advancements of modern science and technologies; enslaved to modern inventions, willing servants of their material flesh, men and women are desperate for salvation through man-made theology sold in mega business Christianity shopping malls called churches.
There is no lack of shrines and altars. The towns are crowded with shrines and altars and new synagogues and makeshift temples. The substance of this multitude of commercial religious resorts is not far to seek. Desperate fear.
Poor humans have ceased not in hatching new grief for themselves as they relentlessly pursue prosperity. Now impinged by pathological and mental afflictions, they bustle to the commercial temples, to every altar available, kow-towing, prostrating, bowing, loudly proclaiming oath upon oath and trying to purchase salvation.
They begin to wonder whether they may not be the subject to some devilish power. To their faltering minds overloaded with materials, it comes as a rude shock when they realise how little they know about the world of true comfort.
Is it a wonder that those richly stinking with money, hundreds of plots of land, rows of houses, fleets of cars and all the like, instead of heading to Kribi or just even Down Beach in nearby Limbe to sniff fresh salt air and savour grilled fish and sip cold beer, would rather lose their sleep to queue for a consultation meeting with a mean prophet for the purchase of cheap salvation?
The other day, I bumped into a documentary on BBC. It was aptly titled ‘My Mad World’. It focused on the healing of mad people in Uganda. Some of the mentally ill persons were recruited from Uganda’s mental asylum called Butabika. A certain Dr. Hassan Serwada was the team lead in the whole business of ex exorcisation. Not any different here in Cameroon, except the mad people seeking healing here live normal lives in their homes.
Miracle making pastors know about the devil; the medical doctor needs patients, the vet needs sick animals, the coffin maker needs corpses, the policeman needs suspects, the lawyer needs criminals… and so for a modern day prophet to perform miracles; he needs demon possessed persons. What I am telling you is that our modern prophets would never drive a demon out of its abode – the human body – otherwise they would sooner than later be out of business.
Our modern prophets need demons to permanently possess individuals so they remain in everlasting business chasing devils for a fee.
