IN 1911 Joe Hill, the American labour activist and songwriter, wrote “The preacher and the slave”, the opening verse of which goes like this: “Long-haired preachers come out every night; Try to tell you what’s wrong and what’s right …”
Now a hundred years on things haven’t changed much. Men, preachers and religious teachers who declare themselves to be God’s representatives on earth are still at it – “try to tell you what’s wrong and what’s right”. So, perhaps we can change Hill’s lyrics from “Long haired preachers” to “Long have preachers”. Yes, they have been at it for a very long time, well before Joe Hill and this game is going on unabated.
In some cases they merely want to separate the gullible from their hard earned money but of late there appeared a virulent and particularly nasty breed who would settle for nothing less than draining their followers of all their humanity. An example of the former is that glib so-called leader of the City Harvest Church in Singapore. He was convicted of fraud in trying to siphon off millions from the church building fund for his and his wife’s personal ambition.
The latter case involves those violent terrorists who masquerade as religionists to usurp the teachings of a great religion and urge their followers to commit murders as a passage to heaven. These people all claim to have special relation with the Supreme Being and project themselves as God’s emissaries on earth.
Some of us may wonder who in their right mind would be taken in by such charlatans? Quite a number it appears: many suffer great financial hardship (like in the case of the Singapore City Harvest Church some of the followers have to break into their piggy banks to make their monthly contribution the “church”) while others like the followers of the so-called Islamic religionists are prepared to suffer great physical hardship and even death.
Why so? I contend that it is the combination of two related factors: fear of death and love of God. Though we seldom want to think about it but the reality is that we are too conscious of our mortality. We all know that one day the long arms of the Angel of death with embrace us and we want to seek assurance that the next phase of our existence (if indeed there is one) will land us in a happy place — in the bosom of God, in other word, heaven.
However, it is generally accepted that entrance to this abode of bliss needs to be earned. One needs to live a life of truth and of goodness to qualify.
“Truth and goodness,” what does that mean? To navigate through the labyrinth of life and to be constraint by the need of truth and goodness is so taxing.
We would rather have someone whom we believe to the agent of the God telling us exactly what to.As Martin Buber (1878-1965), religious thinker, author, educator, said, “The world wants to be deceived. The truth is too complex and frightening”.
Yes, we all want to have the shortcut to heaven. The problem with such a “shortcut” is that it can short circuit our mind. Because of our faith and belief we tend to dispense with our thinking and reasoning faculties when confronted by people who make claims to power deriving from their special knowledge or association with the Almighty. It appears that all these “long haired preachers” need to do is to put on suitable religious looking garb and utter selected verses from some religious texts completely out of context to suit their own ends.
They can mesmerize their followers to commit the silliest of acts and even the most horrendous of atrocities on the promise of a direct route to heaven.
It is very tempting to let this depressing situation drive us to despair and to declare that the problem in this world is religions. As John Lennon sang “Imagine there is no country, and religion too…”
Much as I love that song I believe that the problem is not religions. The problem is man and his propensity to laziness and not to use the God’s gift of the mind, the faculty of reasoning.
Let me end with a reference to an excerpt from the Christian Holy Book. In Matthew 22:36-38 it is written that a lawyer asked Jesus a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
To which Jesus replied: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. (my emphasis) This is the great and first commandment.”
So next time if those “long haired preachers” put forth their edicts about “what’s right and what’s wrong” don’t just mindlessly accept it.