Soul Struggle: christianity vs a caricature of Kmtyw Spirituality-gctid30159

[Ɔbenfo Ọbádélé]

Soul Struggle

http://webmail.iloha.net/news.php?user=_28&show_group=Blogs+(Tech)&show_feed=133
We continue our discussion with a poster illustrating the ongoing competition for the soul of the Kmtyw man.



No words are minced in the case of a hypocrite. The overt purpose of this exhortation is the shaming of hypocrites: those who, on the one hand, take up the the cross and bible and, the next day, turn to 'darker' matters shall we say. This is of course is often framed as a matter of tradition and modernity. There is much gnashing of the teeth in these areas and it is not just in matters of religion that this contest takes place. As an example, doctors in contemporary Kmt steeped in the expensive western medical tradition often have to worry about their patients visiting traditional healers (typically dismissed as fetish priests and the like). In that case there is very real concern about the interaction of the drug regimes with herbal remedies and the plant impurities often found in them.



After heading to Church one day the hypocrite turns to worshiping of idols the next. Note the dark clouds forebodingly pregnant with tropical rain and worse. The chicken (or rather the fowl) to be slaughtered is at hand. The skull and bones, the dead animals, the bare-breasted woman in the shrine, this is the heart of darkness one might say. This is the popular conception of fetishes, juju, voodoo and traditional Kmtyw religions. It is to be dismissed as superstition as testified to here by the clay or wood idolatry of the mask.



This has been a centuries old campaign in proselytizing of Kmt in the encounter of Christianity and Islam with traditional Kmtyw belief systems and religions. Those emblems of split allegiance are berated and ridiculed. The encomium is longWoe to you hypocrites. You lock the door to the Kingdom of heaven to people's faces but you yourself don't go in nor do you allow in those who are trying to enter...A sample headline in recent weeks in Ghanaian newspapers is along the same lines: Doom For Corrupt Leaders – Pastor PredictsAccording to the Pastor, though this year 2007 biblically was a year of double blessings, any mischievous politician or reverend minister who intended taking undue advantage of his/her position to exploit the people especially the poor and less privileged was in for "double curses".The accompanying image picked by the Ghanaweb editor to illustrate the devil is all pointy extremities as one might expect.



There is a long history behind Nkwonta's motif. Martin Meredith, discussing pre-independence Kenya, describes the oaths of loyalty the Kikuyu Central Association instituted in the 1920s:the oath involved holding a Bible in the left hand and a handful of earth in the right hand pressed to the navel while swearing to serve the Kikuyu people faithfully.... the meat of a goat replaced the Bible... White farmers reported a mood of increasing truculence and incidents of cattle-maiming and sabotage.Back in Nigeria, Rems Nna Umeasiegbu spent a decade respectfully documenting Igbo traditions, customs and stories that appeared to be disappearing and published his findings in his 1966 book The Way We Lived. His illustration of a juju ceremony is in the same vein although perhaps a few minutes later than Nkwonta pictured it.



The missionaries and colonists faced this intractable problem and the churches that were their legacy are still combating it and even apparently with greater fervour.

I recently noted that Busia commented on this issue when he asked "Has The Christian Faith Been Adequately Presented?". He framed the question as follows:Some missionaries who have served overseas have unhappy recollections of trusted converts reverting, on certain occasions, to 'pagan' beliefs and practices. The experience was all the more stunning when the converts concerned were not the more recent ones, but Christians of long standing, sometimes with fine records of conspicuous service and loyalty. The problem takes on a new dimension when it is presented as part of the general problem of the encounter between Christianity and indigenous cultures.He suggested a reversal of the typical context and advocated that the burden should be on the church to present itself as relevant to the local belief systems. In this vein, the art must reflect those themes - if only to subvert them; I suspect that Nkwonta is on board.

[Asantewa]

When Kmtyw people start to collectively realise that we wre the founders of both Christianity and Islam we will stop having internal conflicts about religion. There should be no clash between Kmtyw spirituality and these two religions as they are both derived from ancient Kmtyw histories complete with Kmtyw cultural and traditional practises. The aliens adopted these religions from us, whitened them, and then used them to oppress us in their new form... Animism and so-called paganism were the worldwide religions before colonisation of the Mother continent and the Bible (and Koran for that matter) were not the original full set of documents; both were derived from the ancient Egyptian (Nubian) Book of the Dead and certain common histories extracted to form the basis of the new schools of thought that became 'Christianity' and 'Islam' - both beautiful and pure ways of life that have become tainted by yt and aAmw cultural influences.

[Maddjet Ankhti-ra-Ovie]

It would appear that we will never resolve the issues pertaining to spiritual philosophy without understanding the Spiritual make up of our Soul domains.
 
We all have soul guardians, each guardian is the home to millions of souls. In days of old, as today, a priest king would administer to the Soul Guardian on behalf of the souls that dwell therein. Ask of me and it shall be given, the upper most parts of the earth for thy possession. The intercession on our behalf would affect all the Souls in that domain and like a strong river the current will keep carrying every one along. What we are witnessing are the ramifications of what has been asked for on our behalf. Be it that we seek change then some one with the responsibility has to do the work to bring it about. 'Here is a lamb' book of revelation.