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Jan. 27, 2005 I am from Nnobi, in Anambra state, Nigeria. So I know a cult when I see one. And we had one at Nnobi that lasted a long time – until Musa died. The day I heard that Musa died, I could not believe it. He could as well have been Jesus Christ, but I never cared. Neither did many Nnobians. After all, the good book noted that a prophet has no honor in his hometown. But for thousands of his followers who came from all over the globe on a yearly pilgrimage to the Holy Land of Nnobi, Musa was a prophet. As a student of Nnobi High School, I used to watch them walk along the street of Afor Nnobi, barefooted, and in red and white gowns. Musa’s Sabbath Mission was the greatest industry Nnobi had, so we never really minded. But passing the highly fenced walls of the tabernacle, I always wondered what was going on in there. The recent death of about 400 souls including 78 children in Kanungu, Uganda, was shocking in many regards. The members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments could no longer wait for God to call them. They were in so much hurry they had to facilitate their journey to heaven. And they took with them children who were not old enough to make decisions on their own as to who God is, where He lives and why He exists. They were simply tired with this life on earth that they packed up and left. Of course, this wasn’t the first time members of a cult chose to go and meet God. In Jonestown, Guyana, in 1978, 914 people poisoned themselves with cyanide-contaminated cool aid under the guidance of Reverend Jim Jones. In Waco, Texas, in 1993, 80 followers of David Koresh of the Branch Davidian set themselves on fire. And in California, Marshall Applewhite and 39 of his Heaven’s Gate members quickly killed themselves in other to hitch a ride with a spaceship flying behind the Hale-Bopp comet. And there were many more. Because it had happened in Vietnam, in Switzerland, and in Canada, Karl Marx and his friend Friedrich Engels could not be right. In this case, religion was not simply the opium of the poor. The Heaven’s Gate members were not necessarily poor, at least, not in material sense. Neither were members of the Order of the Solar Temple in Switzerland and Canada. Probably, the poverty of the mind is the reason why mass suicide attracts those who could not wait to get to heaven. Robert Altman described a cult as a group of people who could not get enough people to make a minority. And it is significant in the sense that one-fifth of people on earth will support any idea any crazy person could come up with. So any philosopher who could not get one-fifth of the people to support an idea deserves to be relegated into a cult and would remain a cult until they achieve the status of a minority. What is interesting about the Ugandan cult members was that they had a goal to restore the Ten Commandments that they believed to have been distorted. How they achieved that by killing themselves is beyond my comprehension. Started in 1987, by a Catholic Church catechist, the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments had as members, former catholic priests and political activists. They accused the Catholic Church of ignoring some of the commandments and believed that their leaders talked directly to God. The media analysts blamed poverty, AIDS and total disillusionment as reasons why the Ugandans were pushed into believing the teachings of a charismatic cult leader. It is obvious that the feeling of emptiness and suffering fuels the passion for religion. The multiplication of churches in places like Nigeria is an indication of that. The market for meaning to life is booming. It booms most in those societies where nothing works. And so it is that poor Ugandan souls, whose forefathers knew nothing about Moses and his Ten Commandments, were the ones who were locked up in a battle for the restoration of the Ten Commandments. The challenge this cult posed to the Catholic Church is another aspect of this tragedy that needed to be re-examined. In their book, THE END OF THIS GENERATION, this cult articulated several doctrines that opposed the teachings of the Catholic Church. If only they had learnt about their Nigerian counterparts, they would have simply formed their own church and stayed alive and in business in this only planet we know. Some questions that beg for an answer include what omnipotent God will need the help of fuel and fire to get His followers to heaven? The God that took Elijah straight to heaven on a chariot? What kind of God will give man free will and ask another man to brainwash others for Him? When did God cancel the idea of coming down Himself, as a thief in the night, to take his people? When will religion, a personal relationship with God be moved out of the hands of men who claim they know Him better? When Nietzsche said that God is dead, he was castigated as a nihilist. But God dies when men succumb to the temptation of the void. Which was exactly what the Ugandan cult did. You and I kill God when we establish absolute values and eternal truths. If God is here, why should men run after Him? Unless God has disappeared? How then do men know where to run to and find Him? Nothing kills God like men who allow uber-mensch (free spirit) to die. Which is what one sees in many religious fundamentalist - from cults who can no longer wait for God to come to those who want Sharia or nothing else. Some of the questions we need to begin to ask ourselves are, does religion exist to relive suffering or perpetuate it or both? Are we being subjected into obedience? Did God die to make us guilty and indebted to Him? Are we living under any kind of slave morality? Are we, through religion achieving something that shows our better self or just a decline of faith? If there were no souls and no eternal life, what will our values be? How did Jesus’ death lead to the atonement of our sin? How do we explain the trinity? Could it be possible that the God we think we know never exist? He who asks questions, our elders say, never loses his way. The idea of manipulating God for personal benefit is very rampant around the globe. People magnify their own idea of God and make others believe it. Everywhere, people are creating God in their own image. The French writer, Voltaire noted that, “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him”. Man needs God to account for zero. Man needs God to explain faith. Man needs God to rationalize reason. And when the God in circulation is inadequate to answer some of the questions of Man, Man invents a new God. I was not at Nnobi when Evangelist Musa died. But those I spoke to told me that day; it was as if God died. ------------ About the author: Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo is a freelance writer based in New York. Email: rudolfokonkwo@aol.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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