How Some “Churches” Kill
A news report has stated that the Tanzanian Government has arrested a Pastor, Boniface Mwamposa after twenty people were killed and a dozen others injured in a stampede during a Church meeting in the Northern Tanzanian city of Moshi.
According to that story, “the stampede occurred overnight when his church members were being ushered through an exit so they could walk on anointing oil!
More than two decades ago, at Mount Carmel centre , about twenty kilometres from Waco , Texas in the United States of America , an apocalypse preacher , David Koresh who practiced “ spiritual weddings “which enabled him to sleep with his followers of all ages , caused the untimely death of many of his members in a gun duel with agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigations ( FBI ).
There was such a sect in Uyo in the late 90’s. Iso Jehovah is known to have replicated such a “ religious community” where sex was free for all in that community. Till today , some adherents of that primitive religious adventure are still paying with their lives having been afflicted with all manner of infections and diseases they contracted while in that unholy commune at Nnung Oku.
That tragedy in Tanzania is the new normal occurrence in several parts of the world. The custodians of the fifth commandment “thou shall not kill” are the ones traumatizing members, causing death, bringing sorrow and tears among people who look up to them for spiritual anchor, emotional stability and hope.
These tragedies are not limited to churches though, as Muslims also die in stampedes when they converge in their “holy sites” in Saudi Arabia but the incidences in several churches have become scandalously alarming.
Church adherents have died in hurriedly built facilities, many have met their end struggling to receive handkerchiefs, anointing oil, holy water, and whatever artifacts which so called “men and women of God” give out as items of better life and good fortune. It is however, regrettable how persons end up dying while running to embrace life.
Several churches, apart from causing deaths directly through accidents also bring about death indirectly by teaching their adherents against taking advantage of innovations in medicine and healthcare for healthy leaving.
Members are taught to avoid drugs like plague while blood transfusion is seen as an abomination. The example of a couple, Mr & Mrs Emmanuel Onokpise of Abata close, OrileIganmu, Lagos who would rather have their baby die than be administered blood transfusion is a ready case in point.
There are churches which expose their adherents to slow death through prescription of a regime of long schedules of dry fasting at monthly, quarterly and yearly intervals. These ones do not care whether one is a minor or aged. The Pastors do not bother about the medical condition or history of members. Often, the demise of victims in this category is from exhaustion and dehydration. And at the end, such circumstances are framed as the “will of God”!
Which God would have worshippers starve to death? Is it not boldly written that humankind “shall live to fulfill” a purpose? Is it not clearly written down that “one shall not die but live to declare the works of God”?
Many churches have become hospitals and places better described as points of no return for the ill and sick. Someone falls off a Keke and dislocates a bone and rather than go to a hospital, is taken to a church.
Someone suffers from Diabetes Mellitus, acute malaria, cancers, benign prostrate, HIV and the destination to find a cure is a church? In the 21st century?
Children who are afflicted with measles and other early childhood diseases are taken to church which basic diagnoses is “spiritual attack” which “requires prayers and fasting “as a means of “deliverance”! Not a cure oh but deliverance. There are incidences where pregnant women resort to churches for pre – natal attention and delivery. Several women have lost their lives from complications arising from such ignorant act.
The promoters of these indiscretions lose sight of the fact that the missionaries who brought the Christian religion built hospitals to attend to the healthcare needs of persons in their environment of operation.
Another emerging disturbance is the noise pollution emitted by many churches during weekday sessions and Sunday worship. They do not bother about the sensitivities of other members of the public. They blare music, shout prayers and sermons through heavy duty loud speakers and in that process, kill innocent persons slowly.
Noise pollution is a serious health hazard. We grapple with traffic noise, noise at the work place especially industrial sites and noise in the market place. These “noisome pestilence”, unknown to many causes stress; raised blood pressure, heart rate which leads to cardiovascular diseases, cognitive impairment, hearing loss and headache.
It is high time the relevant agencies of government intervened to remind churches about the fifth commandment “Thou shall not kill”.
