Christian Myth #1: You Need the Grace of God to Succeed

It is our daily bread down here in Africa, our alpha and omega. It is the public refrain of everyone, from half baked Christians to butt kissing politicians and money seeking pastors; it is the biggest myth in the history of mankind.

I refer of course, to the sentence “you need the grace of God to succeed”. I often complain about our overreliance on religious intervention in our lives, something we do to the detriment of hard work and logical reasoning. But quite often one can look the other way because it is a matter of subjective choice, based on what one believes or does not believe. What cannot happen is for someone to state it as a matter of objective fact.

That is the cardinal sin committed by pastors of this era, and which has been compounded by one Rev Dr Boadi Nyamekeye, according to this piece on myjoyonline.

Here’s what he said, quoted verbatim “No matter what or who you are, if you don’t glide on the wings of God, you will fail. In our socio-economic turbulence you need the grace of God to succeed”

Firstly I get why pastors say that, after all you need to keep your congregation hooked so they keep coming back for more. Though in the past people were lured based on a better life in the aftermath of this earthly existence (the basis of Karl Marx’s ‘opium of the masses’ hypothesis); the shift in recent times is to promise success here on earth, and that simply cannot happen because all evidence points to the contrary.

If this pastor’s position was true, all the rich or relatively successful people would be Christians, and all the poor in society would be those who does not follow the tenets of the religion.

The situation on the ground is far from that, and indeed for centuries sociologists and anthropologists have found that it’s often the poor, downtrodden and exploited in society who seek religion as a refuge.

Besides one does not need decades old scientific data to spot the flaw in this thesis. The world is full of successful people of all colours, religious and non religious alike. In fact, most of the western world have moved to a more secular existence, with religion used as a public facade but rarely practiced seriously; yet most of these countries are ten times more successful than Ghana, ‘the most religious nation in the world’.

Pastors of this day are extremely successful, I’ll give them that; but often most of their flock are just ordinary people scraping the very bottom of the barrel to maintain a bearable existence, and even then they pour most of their meagre earnings into the church for the success this myth promises them.

If ‘gliding on the wings of God’ is the way to success, then Ghanaians must not be very good Christians. Because we go to church, pray often, pay offertories and tithes a hell of a lot more than most people, but nothing seems to change much in our existence.

Either God is not a very good listener, or that premise of him being the only way to success is bullshit.

Besides if we are to believe what the pastor said, and bear in mind he’s talking about the Christian God; then followers of other gods must not be very successful. Because God said he is the one and only God, and there shall be no other gods apart from him; that’s like the very first commandment.

So logically, Muslims, Hindus, people of any other religion, really, must be very unsuccessful. I can tell you right now, if we had a fiftieth of the wealth of the United Arab Emirates or Qatar, we would be so happy we might just jump into the Atlantic in ecstasy.

I resent the fact that filthy rich people would stand in their lofty pulpits and plant such nonsense in the people’s head, nonsense that people clearly take too literally and thus base all their hopes on.

For some reason despite eternal disappointments, people keep going back for more.

After every major speech, the President of the United States adds the perfunctory “God bless you, and God bless the United States of America”. It’s a nice touch that even though unnecessary serves as a bridge to the people; because no matter how secular the world gets religion is a very crucial part of human society.

But if you think because of that Barack Obama is sitting in his office waiting for God to come give him manna then you’ve got another thing coming.

There are many ways to success, most of which does not involve God. The words of the Rev Dr Boakye, and that of many pastors of today, is just one of the many myths upon which Christianity is built.