His Holiness, Pope Francis, leader of more religious adherents than any other religious leader in the world (and in human history, for that matter), has consistently strived to stress the communality of all those who believe in God, regardless of their religious persuasion.
His Eminence, Sultan Saad Abubarkar III, whom I consider to be the leader of the greatest number of Moslems on Earth (he certainly has more subjects than any other Moslem ruler, indeed far more than the King of Saudi Arabia) once noted that religious divisions are rather overrated, given that we are mostly born into a religion we didn’t choose for ourselves and that our religious peculiarities cannot be legitimate grounds for hatred, much less to the extent of bloodshed.
I guess the argument can be made that it is not impossible, but how likely would it have been for me, if my parents were from Saudi Arabia, and I was born in Mecca, to have ended up a Christian?
By that same token, how likely would it have been for some other person, whose parents are ancestrally from Rome, and was born in a hospital in Vatican City, of all countries, to end up being a Moslem?
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Maybe somewhere in the remotest village in the Congo or the Amazon, someone with the brain capacity of a Darwin, a Soyinka, a Newton or a Ramanujan was born decades ago but because he had no opportunity for formal education remains just another odd fellow till today.
Tomorrow, some far less intelligent fellow takes a camera to his village, makes a documentary, and describes him as a member of a primitive tribe!
We don’t have any control as to the circumstances of our birth and however hard we try, it is still ultimately only by grace that we end up making anything of our lives.
So, who is your brother or your sister in this sinful world?
My approach to the problem is to apply the test of the Culture of Christ.
Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ said: “By their fruits, you shall know them.”
That for me is the ultimate standard (it is the Christian standard, anyway, and that is my religion) and when I apply it to my fellow man, oftentimes a Moslem might emerge before me, far more of a child of God than even a fellow Christian.
Indeed even a traditional worshipper, Hindu, Buddhist or person of whatever religious persuasion might end up exhibiting more of the Culture of Christ than a fellow Christian!
I don’t know what is wrong with those who keep trying to devide us through religion but I know that God will not forgive them, be they a Peter Obi plotting religious war, while pretending to be a pan-Nigerian, or, a Sheik Ahmad Gumi talking absolute rubbish, while hobnobbing with extremists, terrorists, bandits and kidnappers.
I have found the attitude of Yorubas to religion to be one of the reasons that most endears them to me.
Some people erroneously think Yorubas don’t take religion seriously but nothing could be further from the truth.
On the contrary, Yorubas take religion extremely seriously but they also take religious freedom equally seriously and that is a sociocultural maturity I would recommend to the holier than thou hypocrites around the world who prefer to divide rather than unite in God’s Most Holy Name.
I can never be anything but a Christian but I’m not really interested whether my fellowman is a Christian, Moslem or of some other creed.
Regardless of his or her religious identity, if they bear the fruits of a child of God, they are my flesh and blood as much as any Christian who does the same.
“Oh, how wonderful, how pleasing it is when God’s children all come together as one!” Psalm 133:1.
May love lead.
Jesutega Onokpasa
