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Health

Covid-19 and New World Religion: Crisis and Compromise

Leo Igwe
Prophet T.B Joshua’s prophecy on end of coronavirus is coming to pass

In an earlier article, I have noted the emergence of a new religion, a new global religion, the commonsense religion. I argued that the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic had yielded a religion that departed from the old. This new religion overrules the older religions because, in an attempt to contain the virus, old religions capitulated and new rules and ways of living and behaving emerged. A religion of expediency holds sway. Older religions are expected to follow and observe these new religious dictates. I have drawn attention to the fact that this new religion would take over from the existing uncommon sense religions.

Uncommonsense religions have been competing and seeking to conquer and dominate nations, and also the world. The pandemic presents a common threat and constitutes a common enemy which existing religions must defeat or go into extinction. Thus the pandemic has forced the warring religions into making compromises, difficult and unprecedented compromises. It has nudged old religions to momentarily shed their uncommonsenses. Churches have been used as morgues. Stadia and convention centers have been turned into isolation centers and makeshift hospitals. Companies have been compelled to manufacture face masks and sanitizers not what they have been established to produce. People have been told to work, pray and learn from home.

The new religion has compelled older religions to observe a truce. This truce is a child of necessity that enables older religions to rally together, mobilize resources to defeat and neutralize the common threat. In the face of a pandemic such as the Covid-19, religions in their uncommon senses are endangered, at least that is what it seems. Older religions are momentarily compelled to become a part of a new dispensation, with new set of rituals- washing of hands, wearing face masks, social distancing etc. Being part of the new religious dispensation is a game of survival and renewal for the older religions As expected the new religion threatens the power bases of the various older religious bodies as it covertly appropriates and chips away their powers, compelling them to shift positions, adjust and abide by the new dispensation. The facility of appropriation of powers does not go down well with the religious authorities, and sometimes the process elicits mixed reactions, resistance, oppositions, protests and defiance.In a recent interview, Africa’s Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka drew attention to the ‘contraveners of commonsense’ referring to religious bodies that refused to observe the ban on religious gatherings in Nigeria. He blamed the government for negligence and for failing to bring the contravening religious agencies to book. In the new religious dispensation, there are compliants, the faithfuls who follow the rule, and the contraveners who go against the injunctions. The compliants are the virtuous, righteous ones. They are eulogized. The transgressors are the deviants, the sinners who are excoriated and condemned within the new religious order.The rule of the new religion is not readily accepted. The injunctions are not automatically obeyed. This is because the new religions cause disequilibrium, and disruptions in religious observance and practice. The new religion overrules everyday observance, creating a new normal that unsettles and discomforts many who are used to the old religious dispensation. While some religious bodies obey and submit to the new religion; others do not. They insist on continuing with the old older, dismissing the imperatives that made the new religion possible as conspiracies.

It must be noted that older religions do not comply because they want to eschew their uncommon sense formations. No, not at all. They comply out of necessity as a temporary step to defeat and get rid of the common enemy. They abide by the new religion not because they have renounced their rigid uncommon elements. Compliance with the new religion is a transient measure, a strategy to survive and to ensure the death and disappearance of the common threat.As I have noted, there are hardliners, those who refuse to bulge or shift positions. But these hardliners only refuse to shift until they are forced to do so especially when it becomes obvious that their uncompromising stance poses a mortal threat to the society. Any country caught up in this situation finds itself in a crisis, in a dilemma and on the path of self destruction. This is usually the case in countries with weak governments. 
Following the outbreak of the coronavirus, Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country finds itself at a crossroads of old and new religions; of commonsense and uncommon sense. So will uncommon sense overwhelm commonsense as has been the case in Plateau and Katsina states? In Jos, the Izala sect convened to pray despite the ban on religious gatherings. And in Katsina state, an Islamic mob protested and burnt down a police station. Or will the government step forward and enforce the dictates of the new commonsense religion as has been the case in Kaduna and Lagos? In Kaduna, the government arrested two Islamic cleric for organizing public prayers in defiance of the ban and in Lagos the police have been enforcing the closure of bars and public restaurants. So which religion overrules at the end of the day? The old or the new? The uncommon or common sense? Only time will tell.

Health, Regional

COVID-19 and Common-sense Religion

Leo Igwe 1 Comment
GOVERNMENT OF MALAWI: STATEMENT ON CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK(COVID-19)

There is a new religion, a new world religion. This religion has suddenly taken over from various religions. This new religion is an umbrella religion that encapsulates others-African traditional religion, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Bahai. Even the non-religious outlooks subsists under its shade and cover.

The new religion has members of these religious faiths as followers and adherents. It includes all religious minutiae but to the extent that they accommodate and abide by the new injunctions. It is not a matter of choice for other religions and ideologies to align with the new religion.

All religions must and have to abide by the doctrines of this faith regime, the common-sense religion. Some may wonder if commonsense and religion go together. Yes, they do because the creators of the old religions, religious worshippers and religious entrepreneurs are common-sensical beings.

Old religionists are also uncommon-sensical beings because they sometimes behave in ways that depart from everyday reason. Religions owe their differences to their specific uncommon-senses, to their uncommon-sense practices and doctrines, uncommon-sense prophets and personalities, uncommon-sense places of worship, uncommon sacred texts and rituals.

These differences account for religious diversity but also for religious competition and rivalry. The differences are linked to the quest for domination by the various faith traditions. They underlie the zero-sum game, the winner-takes-all, that various religions indulge. Thus religious competition is not a common-sense competition. It is an uncommon-sense battle.

Each religious tradition fights to prevail over others, to foist its uncommon-sense on others, or make its uncommon-sense the uncommon-sense for all. The history of religion is a history of successions, of substitution of one religion by another, of one uncommon prophet, message, book, place, and style of worship by another. Incidentally, these competitions have only yielded limited results.

The quests have fallen short of total domination. Thus existing religions have strongholds, that is, regions of the world where they are dominant. From their strongholds, in the east or the west, in the north or the south, they try to advance and to dominate the world.

They try to make their particular uncommon-sense the uncommon-sense for the world. That is until a global threat emerges or a pandemic such as a coronavirus occurs. These religions retreat. They sheath their swords and close ranks to confront the common enemy. These religions behave as if they never quarreled, attacked or shot at each other. They cooperate and forge alliances to find a solution; to get rid of the enemy.

As soon as the threat is neutralized or the problem is resolved, the old religions return to their various uncommon-sensical battlefronts and the fights resume all over again. That is the cycle of religious common and uncommon-sense. The coronavirus has forced a religious ceasefire. COVID -19 has become the code word for a global religious truce, and the new religion, the common-sense religion. The common-sense religion is now the world’s religion.

African traditional religionists observe it. Jews, Christians, and Muslims profess it. Hindus, Shintoists and Buddhists abide by this religion. The pope and the Ayatollah submit to it. The sheikh and Rabbi, the Ifa priest and bishop, whites and blacks, Africans, Europeans and Americans are all members of this new religion.

All that is being observed across the world including the washing of hands, no shaking of hands, ban on hajj and religious services, removal of holy water from the churches, wearing of medical face masks, working, praying and studying from home, etc are all teachings of the new religion. They are common-sense religious rituals. The prophets of the new religion are scientists, doctors, and researchers. Their advice and instructions are the new revelations. The new churches and mosques are the laboratories and research centers.

However, the new religion is a contingent phenomenon. It appears when there is a global threat and disappears when the threat that caused its emergence expires. The common-sense religion holds sway as long as the threat is out there, as is the case now with the coronavirus. Thus as the new prophets try to find a cure or vaccine for COVID-19, the common-sense religion holds sway.