Religious experience: Of what relevance is religion to Cameroon’s under-development problem?

Work resumes in Cameroon after a long Easter weekend of so much religious activities. The shocking thing is that after all that, the same civil servants now return to the same vices that have destroyed public life in Cameroon and set the country way behind on its development. Religion by itself doesn’t quite help; it is virtue that it does not teach that changes men and makes their leaders the responsible men they should be.

For Christians, Easter is easily the most intensely religious of all the feasts of the Christian calendar. The Easter weekend begins on Thursday with religious services that continue almost non-stop until Easter Sunday, the climax and grand finale.
The Catholics add to that the re-enactment of the ‘stations of the cross’ and all-night praying on Thursday. The intensity of the experience is often overwhelming, and people assume a piety that gives the impression of a new life. Until they return to their daily business. Then it is business as usual.
Public officials resume the habits of embezzlement, abuse of office, tribalism, and all the many endemic vices that have much undermined Cameroon’s public life.
Muslims are no different. They return from the month-long annual fast appearing chastened and resolved for a new life. Until they too settle down to daily routine; and behold it is business as usual.
Given the frequency of these religious events and the enthusiasm with which public officials (and the rest of the public) are attached to them one would have thought that a young country like Cameroon would since have enjoyed a major developmental leap forward, thanks to Christian leadership. But no, Cameroon has instead fallen much behind on its development.
The question to ask is if in reality the religious experience i.e. church going, ceremonies; liturgical rituals and practices, have any or as much transformational power as believed or presumed. Does church going or membership of a religious body in itself lead to character change?
Why is it that Cameroon’s leadership class, most of whom are practicing Christians and Muslims, are simply unable to lift the country and its people out of poverty? Why is there a conspicuous lack of commitment to development by Cameroon’s leaders? Why are they unable to be trusted with the welfare of the nation?
If Christianity and Islam fail to provide a successful leadership ethic, might it not be high time to question the real value of the religious experience. Is religion really worthwhile?
Is it not possible to believe in God and live a decent and dignified life in full respect of God’s Will, setting aside the doctrines and practices of the churches which have failed to lift humanity?
Looking down the history of human civilisation it is disturbing to observe that religion has been the cause of more wars and conflicts than any other single cause or disagreement among men!
There has been just as much conflict and wars between the different religions as there have been within the same religion. Catholics and Protestants have been in as much armed disagreement as Muslim Shiites and Sunnis.
Which school boy did not learn of the Crusades, a long series of religious military campaigns waged by much of Christian Europe, at first to take back land that was previously under Christendom from Muslims? There were also sweeping military campaigns in the Middle East and North Africa in the name of Islam.
In the 16th and 17th century and for a hundred years, Catholics and Protestants were engaged in a seemingly unending series of wars causing so much bloodshed. In our day Catholics and Protestants fought with each other in Northern Ireland for more than three decades.

Pakistan
In India, Hindus and Muslims fought each other until Muslims moved to settle in the province that became Pakistan in 1948. Buddhists and Hindus have been fighting in Sri Lanka. Central to the thorny problem of the creation of two states in the Middle East is religious intolerance between Judaism, practised by the Israelis, and Islam, practised by the Palestinians. If religion leads to so much misunderstanding and bloodshed among men then the case must be strong for the argument that at last religion by itself is not what man needs, but something else that religion and religious bodies have failed to teach.
Indeed there is a whole atheistic movement that declares inability to believe in God, or even in his existence. This is partly because the supposedly almighty, all-powerful, all good and all-wise God as portrayed in the various teachings of religious bodies, they find unacceptable.
Why would an All-powerful God, for example, allow so much evil and misery on earth? The German philosopher Leibniz, who believed in God resolved this question by simply accepting that even the existence of evil is evidence that this is ‘the best of all possible worlds.’
But the French philosopher Blaise Pascal, mathematician and probability theorist was more prudent in his atheism. Knowing many decent and respectable people who believed in God and in a life hereafter, Pascal took the unusual view that even if we do not know if God exists, let us play safe rather than risk being sorry, too late!
Still the question of the relevance of religion remains. Thomas Paine, one of America’s founding fathers addressed this question in a book he titled ‘The Age of Reason.’ Paine was a convinced deist but became uncompromisingly hostile to religion and the Bible.
He held the strong view that any alert human being could easily learn about God’s Will and Word from nature. For an 18th century America that was so deeply religious, Paine was hated for his views.
Ghandi, the Indian sage, probably held the same view when he condemned “religion without sacrifice,” as being a deadly sin, meaning paying attention to religious ceremonies and other external rites but avoiding the sacrifice of living by virtue and example.
The argument has been strongly made in some quarters that Jesus Christ himself did not found a religion, and did not need one. He brought the Truth from His Father above which he taught mankind. The word ‘church’ which he used is said merely to refer to the ‘community’ of those who had made sense of his word and wanted to live by it.
In fact, Christ was always impatient and hostile to the religious groups of the day. He strongly condemned the religious practices of his day as being lifeless and hypocritical, practices which could not advance them spiritually.
Judaism, the Jewish religion, up to this day is very formalistic. There was a whole list of dos and don’ts that adherents were expected to fulfill each day to be considered to be true believers. One study counted 127 dos and don’ts just to fulfill the Sabbath.
Jesus Christ systematically condemned that kind of prickly and lifeless religious practices of those days as being worthless. If your camel falls into a hole on the Sabbath, take it out, or if you must go to the farm to harvest food for your meal on the Sabbath day, do so without fear.
That way Christ deliberately and fearlessly changed focus from external deeds to the quality of man’s inner life, which he said matters. If you give your neighbour something, for example, do it in such a way that the left hand does not know what the right hand has given, for only the Father in Heaven who sees it will reward you.

Revolution
Little by little Christ thus caused a revolution in the existing order of religion; hate plots began to develop around him to get rid of him because of his irksome teachings that sought to destroy religion.
It is also noteworthy that Jesus Christ did not teach any theology, nor did he at all create a priestly hierarchy as the churches later created it. In fact, the Catholics, not content with the Ten Commandments, also formulated the Seven Commandments of the Church!
The New Testament, and particularly the summary of Christ’s statement of Truth which he gave in The Sermon on the Mount provides no foundation for these later additions which have only rendered ‘living the Will of His Father’ more complicated and confusing for mankind.
In the end religion and its external and often lifeless practices which Christ castigated as not helpful to the life of the spirit were fully re-established by the disciples of Christ, regrettably, to the extent that it was the same prelates of the church who found its many practices totally in disagreement with the needs of the spirit.
That’s what gave rise to the protestation initiated and spearheaded by Martin Luther, German priest, theologian, and university professor. His ideas started the Protestant Reformation in 1517.
It is perhaps regrettable to say that the reformation only broke up the Catholic Church and gave way to many other religious bodies such as the Lutherans, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, the Baptists, and the Anglicans etc. But at last religion and religious bodies had come to stay; each with their different practices yet religious, as Christ certainly did not want it. For ‘it is not those who call me Lord, Lord who shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but those who do the Will of My Father’. It can therefore be asserted without doubt that what matters is striving to live by God’s Will rather than adherence to a religion, its practices and doctrines that offer little to the human spirit and even causes intolerance, setting man against man.
After this long and grim account of the unhappy place of religion in human society it would be fair here to point to the one memorable positive contribution by religion to the development of Europe.
Interestingly enough, the German sociologist Max Weber attributes the 17th century rise of capitalism in Europe to what he calls ‘the protestant ethic.’
The early industrialists of the Ruhr Valley were inspired by a version of the doctrine of predestination.
Only a certain fixed number of humans, went the doctrine, were predestined to be admitted into Paradise. The only way one could be sure that he was among the chosen was to demonstrate this while on earth through hard work and success, and at the same time to live a frugal life.
The result of this, Weber explains, was the accumulation of capital that was reinvested, further expanding productivity, on and on. No doubt Germany, to this day, is the economic and industrial powerhouse of Europe with a manpower productivity that outclasses that of other European countries.
The Protestant work ethic is therefore one of the very few brightest achievements of religion. It is also interesting to note that if religion has failed to uplift man it is because it pays little attention to teaching virtue that it nevertheless preaches.
It is universally recognized that only the unconditional practice of love of neighbour, which translates to respect for his person, name, reputation and property are absolutely necessary for peace and harmony in society. To successfully relate to other people humans need to learn to trust and give trust as well.

Existence
To face the daily problems of existence we all need a measure of courage and bravery, hope and foresight. How do we cope with adversity? Fight or flight? Psychologists observe either aggressive behaviour or withdrawal when people are faced with unpleasantness they cannot easily cope with. Neither is in the long run good, they say. How do men ride out the occasional storms of life?
As it works out, life is necessarily an interdependent reality; we must relate to others to do business, for instance. Surprisingly men need a considerable degree of independence and self-control, which is inner growth, to relate to others successfully. We can’t afford to cheat in business, for example, or even become unnecessarily nasty to people.
When religions begin to teach the virtues not only do they begin to raise virtuous and robustly mature humans, they will be surprised to notice how closely they are in agreement. Teaching love of neighbour to a Christian child will make him just as much of a decent human being as a Muslim who had the same quality of instruction.
St Augustine, one of the Fathers of the Catholic Church grew up a badly behaved and riotous young man. It took the disgust and determination of his mother, St Cecilia, to work hard over long years to correct the young man. Cecilia succeeded through applying a combination of discipline, tireless instruction and prayer. In the end the man took to the Church and became one of its shining lights.
Curiously, it was not the church that helped the man but his mother. The connection with the church is misleading. There is yet the case of Benjamin Franklin, one of America’s founding fathers who worked on himself by himself. He grew up ill mannered and profoundly unhappy with the kind of personality that he had.
He bravely confronted all his bad habits and made up his mind that he would change every bit of his character. He identified all the character traits that he wanted to replace the ones with which he was dissatisfied.
As he recounts in his very readable autobiography, Franklin then worked out for himself a combination of practices that he would undertake each day to fix the new habit in his mind. Taking a month for each habit, Franklin gradually refashioned his character and became a greatly admired man of many abilities.
Franklin’s autobiography and the great statesman that he became have since influenced several generations of teachers of character formation and a flood of books to go with that. Many individual success stories continue to come out of these teachings.
It would appear that some religious bodies are beginning to shift attention from ceremony and externals, focusing more and more on the inculcation of virtue and the reformation of character. This we believe is the right direction.
It is out of a convinced sense of virtue and depth of character that political leadership in any country can fulfill its role with dignity and success. A political class of that ethic would respect the public good that they have the privilege to hold and manage in sacred trust.
Yet in the absence of such training for public officials, public institutions when well operated can also go a long way in disciplining people to respect public office. That also means punishing people whenever they break the rules of the conduct of office. But sorry, none of that is applicable in Cameroon. Religion has failed; training in virtue does not exist; and public officials break the law with utter impunity. No doubt, none of all the religious fervour and piety coming from the mills of religious rituals of the churches at Easter makes a difference.

Source: The Herald