I have been thinking a lot recently about why religion continues to hold such a big relevance to us as Africans. Aside our constant need to be told what to do by total strangers who say they have a closer connection to some God none of us has seen before, I have realised also the power of the social contract, which keeps most of us in line.
Social contract is a term I remember vaguely from school, a loose term encompassing the implicit agreement between a government and a people, you pay your taxes and we look after you, or something to that effect.
This is the same principle on which religion has spread throughout our society, and why it would be eons before we as a people, whether Ghanaians or Africans, move away from that mentality.
After buying into the social contract of religion, it becomes difficult, virtually impossible, to get out of it. After all, oftentimes we have no choice in the matter, most of us are raised that way and by the time you know better that is the only way of life you know.
So we become immersed in the lie, even when we realise it’s a lie there is no way out; because of another little thing I call the social obligation.
The social obligation refers to the need to conform, to fit in so as not to be an outcast from the society you have to live in. It’s why people get worried when they haven’t gotten married by a certain age, or have gotten married but don’t have kids after a certain period, and, I’m sure you get my drift by now.
I have realised the social obligation is what keeps most of us in line when it comes to religion, even more than the need to feel someone else is in charge of our fate.
Because so many people are living a lie that I do not see how they can wake up every Sunday morning and go to church. Because it’s difficult to fathom how you get some ideas beat into you all the time, live in stark contrast to those ideas, and yet still claim to hold true to those ideas.
It is a stark contradiction that makes me conclude most people keep persevering with religion because of the social obligation. I realised at a time that I always sounded like a phoney when praying, because I had done some very un-Christ like things just a short while before that, so I stopped altogether.