CHRISTIANITY IN NEED OF NEW BEDROCK

Sir, 

Our present situation is characterised by a profound and desperate feeling of doubt, pride and ignorance. We are a nation that prides itself as God-fearing, but the picture on the ground tells another story. 

We are a people who speak the right theological language but who have, nevertheless, substituted orthodoxy of belief for existential commitment to God. 

A sane person knows too well that peace is not limited to the absence of war. There is no sanity in shouting peace in a nation where the preached God is money. 

Our age is one in which the power of Christianity grows faint, a period of decadence. It is my conviction that our Christianity is in desperate need of a new bedrock upon which to build its faith.

It is undoubted that we lack the best knowledge of who God is. Those who profess to know Him are failing to portray Him in words and actions. 

If our churches were fertile, I would not have written this letter to air all the dirty linen of our age; the infighting in churches, corruption in government, poverty, crimes and immorality. 

For until humankind is in a position to understand God as the ground of being and Lord, few of them will become Christians in anything but name.

A lot of Africans are suffering a form of religious schizophrenia. They are torn between their being African and being Christians. 

Leaders

And church leaders should make introspection and determine if they are still honest to their calling. Right now it is hard to be a Christian as Christianity is now accepted as nothing but a cult of joy and material pleasure. 

It has become another form of world affirmation, hence it has lost its power to transform and remake the world.

It is again my conviction that no one knows God because there is no way from humankind to God. But God has not left himself without a witness. 

Through Jesus Christ, God revealed Himself to humankind, not calling people to a new religion but to life. This is crucial. 

That is why I dislike the exclusive use of the symbolic term ‘Father’ to God because it tends to sentimentalise Him thus creating a God who is expected to give us what we want and to forgive us whatever we want to be forgiven for. 

We, as a result, feel free to do sinful things knowing too well that our father in heaven will forgive us. We become idle knowing that our father will give us all we want. And when we do not get it from our father, we are radically disappointed and lose faith.

Let God remain Lord but not in the sense of a despotic ruler who imposes laws and demands obedience and unquestioned acceptance of his sayings.

Khaya Mpembe

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: