From throughout history to the present day, Christians have always carried the burden on behalf of mankindand this includes people of other religions.
I resent it when we are made to retreat from positions that have always been part of pillars of our beliefs and religion.
The essence of Christianity, the heart and soul of this religion of mine, is based on a couple of powerful,poignant and strong pillars.
Today, I find it ironic that the very basis and strengths of Christianity are the ones used against it to weaken it.
I am one of those who are sick and tired of other religions, non-believers and others, riding roughshod over Christians to muffle our religion.
Yes. I sad “our religion”.
Looking at me, you would not believe that I was once an altar boy and served Mass said by Archbishops.
As a Christian, I loved the unfailing expectation of tranquillity. I never doubted the instillation of hope in those expectations.
Because of my faith, even today, I cannot distinguish between the physical and the spiritual. I believe in the hopes of our Christian intentions and in the maturing of our prospects.
I learned then that Christianity is a strong belief in that we cannot prove but is that which gives us power, hope and humility that we can explain. I learned that, to this day, the strongest pillar of Christianityis its power of forgiveness and how it is so personal between the believer and God.
Because of its power to forgive and its tolerance, Christianity is abused around the world and appears to be presiding over its own demise.
But I fear that Christianity is being made to backtrack on many of its values to appease other sectors of our world community.
The Bible is deliberately being misinterpreted to soothe and suit people and activities once existing outside of the purity of Christianity. I feel threatened when man-made laws enacted by governments say it is all well for a man to sexually engage and marry another man.
My Christian values are shaken when the laws of a government allow a woman to marry a woman.
Sometime last year, Pope Francis, confronted by the issue of homosexuality, was widely quoted as having said: “Who am I to judge?” when reporters on a flight with him from South America had an audience with him during the trip.
I remember feeling unmasked. I remember feeling betrayed. If the Pope cannot make, not a judgement, but a statement to reiterate the teachings of the Bible of which he is an apostle and pupil of, then who should?
Is Christianity sacrificing its values to please certain worldly individuals and nations? Why has the Bible suddenly become conciliatory over homosexuality?
The Word of God is permanent and is not affected by the revolution and evolution of so-called humankind.
The Word was written before motor cars, piped water, Nike shoes, cellphones, and Microsoft. The world will change but the Word cannot change to accommodate worldly developments. We fit the Word; the Word does not fit us.
So it amazes me when Christians are brutalised and killed in countries of other faiths and no Christian leadership is vocal about it. It worries me when people of other faiths seize control of governments and impose their religion on individuals who have their own religion but the Christian world keeps quiet.
I am not crazy.
Look at what is happening in the Central African Republic. For a long time there, Christians have been abused, tortured, discriminated against, killed and worse but it was all put down as internal conflicts.
Christians there fought back on their own and hit back; and they hit back really good. They did unto them what was done to them. As soon as Christians took the upper hand in their owndefence, we started hearing about tolerance.
It is tolerance when Christians are being murdered and abused by Moslems but it becomes a human rights issue when Christians fight back to protect themselves from their attackers?
Is Christianity backpedalling?
The Americans, for example, are a funny lot. While their paper currency declare that “In God We Trust”, their constitution demands separation of state from religion.
America has changed its values because of fear.
A nation founded on stern Christian beliefs (pardon slavery), America has decided to throw all away to accommodate even its own enemies.
They purport to want their freedom so much that they offer themselves the opportunity to destroy those same values that give them freedom and those that had made them different from all other nations.
They demand and receive the freedom to destroy themselves and their nation in the name of individual rights.
It is doing that in the name of tolerance yet America is no longer the ‘melting pot’ of well-intentioned immigrants but has become a conglomerate of individuals who challenge the values of the same country they strived to be part of.
Recently, in the US state of Oklahoma, Satanistschallenged the state government to permit them to erect a statue of Satan “to complement and contrast” with a Ten Commandments monument placed at the state capitol.
“The statue will serve as a beacon calling for compassion and empathy among all living creatures,” Lucien Greaves, a spokesman for the Satanic Temple, said. “The statue will also have a functional purpose as a chair where people of all ages may sit on the lap of Satan for inspiration and contemplation.”
No longer a moral leader of a so-called free world, America finds itself threatening African countries that refuse to allow homosexuality and legalise same sex marriages.
It was pathetic to hear America and the United Kingdom threatening to withhold aid to countries that suppress homosexuality.
A news report of Kenya deporting Somalis back into Somalia elicited derogatory comments from Americans against their own government who feel that their own government should follow the same example at a time there is debate to pardon millions and millions of illegal immigrants (mostly from Mexico) in the United States.
But there is also growing discontent towards Somalis who appear to be concentrated in the state of Michigan, while some complain that Mexicans and Puerto Ricans have taken over America.
What happens to the contenders in the long run does not really interest me. The simple truth is that like America, Christianity has allowed the alteration of its doctrine to accommodate and appease individuals instead of keeping believers within the original doctrine.
They worship in churches, in elaborate palaces, in cathedrals. They worship in backyard spaces, in living rooms and they worship under trees.
The Word must remain the same and should not be doctored to fit circumstances.
I remain a Christian. My faith is a personal issue. Unlike in other religions, I am not forced to believe. In my world, there is no infidel.
I derive my strength from my belief in Christ. I can never allow this to be taken away from me because it is a personal possession. My faith is something personal between me, the believer, and my Lord.
On a personal level, I find it amusing that for the first time in my exiled life, I find myself agreeing with Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni.
The cultural purity of a nation should not be sacrificed for a few pennies from overseas.
While we may want and demand our individual freedoms, those freedoms should not allow us to destroy the nation upon which the whole nation depends.
