Rogue pastors must not be allowed to preach water and drink wine

Life, at times, can serve you lemons. In fact, reality can be stranger and nastier than fiction.

Throw religion, nuptials, an apostle and a post-modern society in the mix and you are in for a shocker.

And such is what stunned the nation recently when a couple in Nakuru had their big day of wedding bells ring rounds of distress.

All boxes for a wedding had been ticked, or so it seemed.

Come D-day, a pastor subjected the would-be couple to the most embarrassing roller-coaster in search of an elusive medical certificate as a precondition for marriage.

The circus eventually ended in the abortion of the wedding.

OUTLANDISH

The requirement that a couple must produce a medical certificate as a precondition for wedding is as eccentric as it is outlandish. It is neither anchored in law nor scripture. It is an individually crafted doctrine that defiles scripture. Indeed, such would be a nasty God who stops the bliss of a marital union because of a medical condition. On this one, anyone can smell a rat!

Whatever the pastor’s reasons, what is not in doubt is that he was myopic, judgemental, indifferent, merciless, sanctimonious and had little appreciation of the Golden Rule… regrettably, an eerily common thread among fundamentalists of his ilk. It is such incongruity of the clergy’s acts and the scriptural framework that baffles the laity. It is such perversion of truth that increasingly dilutes faith in religion.

It is utterly fallacious, for instance, to argue that an ailment of any nature should disqualify a couple from tying the knot. Not even premarital sex should be a hindrance, for the realities of the post-modern world are that it is impossible to find purity of body after a certain age, gender notwithstanding. This dynamics even informs the reforms shaping up at the Vatican.

CULTIC DOCTRINES

Yet, the Nakuru fiasco is neither isolated nor the most absurd. History has recorded a constellation of heartbreaking and bizarre cultic doctrines manufactured and peddled by rogue pastors and their followers. In Nairobi alone, the scale of subliminal brainwashing that takes place everyday is enough to scare a right-thinking person.

Clearly, the madness of holier-than-thou is not confined to the dubious churches. Even the mainstream churches, with pedigree intellectual and philosophical anchorage, are caught in the most duplicitous curve.

And this is what is ailing Christianity. There is just too much of self-righteousness, hypocrisy and puritanical bigotry that ultimately shames and even kills God.

Small wonder, Mahatma Gandhi was mesmerised by our incongruous behaviours that he crisply observed “I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

CULPABLE MASSES

Of course, Gandhi did not just mean the clergy. The masses too are culpable. That is why it beats our wits why our corruption or negative ethnicity breaks the charts in a country that largely professes Christ. Just where is our conscience?

Still, shouldn't we all fret when so-called pastors liberally mix their personal illusions, self-interests and ego with spreading the Gospel? And shouldn't we not be troubled that in the most sacrilegious a manner, we venerate and idolise some of these pastors, turning them into near-messiahs?

And this is because the liberal Christian order easily bids itself to shenanigans.

In fact, Christianity’s concept of forgivingness and not to judge has exposed itself to abuse and exploitation.

That is why our pastors conveniently tread the simplistic path of prosperity.

Indeed, a good number of the shenanigans have excelled in the warped and manipulative rhetoric of the prosperity gospel and selling indulgences.

Further, their crafty designs have disposed them to those who afflict the oppressed.

SOCIAL JUSTICE

You have witnessed churches in a stampede to roll red carpets, sing hosannas and offer comforts to the wealthy who have no sense of social justice or mercy for the disenfranchised. This strategic bonhomie of State mandarins and the church is troubling.

But just why should we be bothered? Indeed, we have to hold pastors and their agents to high standards of accountability because first, they claim to subscribe to a scriptural framework, whose tenets are absolute. Second, theirs is a powerful mission that affects the primal centre of human beings — the soul.

INFLUENTIAL

Religion, Italian thinker Louis Althusser aptly observed, is an ideological State apparatuses, and therefore extremely influential in society.

Indeed, religion largely helps to fashion societal orientation and attitudes towards good and bad.

They thus cannot go unchallenged when they flout the very instruments that guide their enterprise.

I have written before of the need for a robust regulatory framework for religious institutions.

The State, camaraderie aside, cannot abdicate its role of protecting citizens from crooks in cassocks.

Thus, we should establish sound vetting, training, and regulation of churches.

If we are hammering sobriety into the matatu world and taming exam cheating, we must put a leash on the rogue pastors.

Mr Wamanji is a Public Relations and Communication adviser. [email protected]