13/04/2021
5 Major Reasons Africa is Poor – Religion (Part 21)
_A comprehensive study by Rev Walter Mwambazi_
Any serious Pan-Africanist will easily recognize a quote attributed to the late President Jomo Kenyatta who apparently said, “When the Missionaries arrived, the Africans had the land and the Missionaries had the Bible. They taught us how to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them, they had the land and we had the Bible.”
Odd and as funny as this may sound, it is a deeply troubling but true statement. All one has to do is look at the evidence, what Scripture calls “the fruit” and there you have your answer.
It is so ironic that Jesus said,
“Beware of false prophets [including many so-called missionaries and preachers], who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves [imperial elitists]. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit [peace, joy, love etc.], but a bad tree bears bad fruit [greed, murder, strife, exploitation etc.] A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them"
Look at the work of the colonial masters; tell me, does it qualify as good or bad fruit? The answer is obvious.
Even though there were those who genuinely brought the gospel and were ready to die for it as missionaries, they too were part of a larger plan by those behind them to accomplish their diabolical plan for control of resources, and what better way than through religion?
Below is the first of the five tools used to bring about the poverty we experience today.
CONTROL OF THE MASSES
Religion has been used time immemorial as a means to control the poor. This is done by instilling the “suffer now and benefit in the afterlife” mindset. It is this teaching that caused a great awakening of the protestant movement in medieval times when Martin Luther learnt the shocking truth about the mother church after his visit to Rome.
Religion controls the poor by teaching what is termed the “suffering” model. It is thus touted as a mark of piety and emphasized by “works”. If you suffer more, you get a greater reward in the afterlife epitomized by bliss.
Three key factors are erroneously emphasized.
👉 #1. Martyrdom
Taught and emphasized to young zealots who then senselessly commit su***de and suffer great pains to further the agenda of their leaders. Poverty and suffering are usually a great breeding ground for recruiting such people and then indoctrinating them with this teaching.
👉 #2. Suffering
“Pie in the Sky” is their lot, not “here and now”. Slavery, colonialism and the current status quo has been and continues to be fueled by this teaching. The idea is to show the poor that suffering is the greatest “works” that can be done to gain piety (holiness).
👉 #3. Money/Materialism is evil
Perhaps the worst paradigm as it opposes a “positive mental attitude” and justifies poverty in the minds of those who suffer from it. All money, property, ambition, assertiveness, confidence and the pursuit of success and wealth is seen as embracing worldliness and greed and thus are evil. Better is one to suffer and live in mediocrity than enjoy and live in success and prosperity.
Now The Law of Attraction declares that you attract precisely who and what you are. We are the sum total of our paradigms because these affect how we think and behave. What we think ultimately becomes who we are. Our character indeed shapes our destiny and that is always affected by what we focus our minds on all the time.
Now whatever we focus on, expands. And furthermore, whatever we believe, becomes. Unfortunately, for the majority of Africans under this religious spell, they do not realize that they already repel wealth. They view the wealthy as Satanists or evil worldly people.
They hold religious activities at a higher level than wealth creation activities. Anything connected to work and making a living is always placed at a lower place than religious activities. A typical church leader will reprimand a church member for missing church because of work. This reinforces the idea that work is evil, materialism is evil, career and financial pursuits are evil and that only church related activities are holy and right!
This could not be further from the truth!
I will be showing in subsequent articles precisely why this type of thinking is actually worsening poverty here in Africa. This type of thinking causes what neural linguistic programming calls “incongruence” and short circuits anyone’s efforts to create lasting wealth.
The irony of such thinking is that those who are in it still want and believe for money all the time as...
👉 It is seen in their endless tithing, seed sowing and other such giving which is done with the hope of becoming wealthy!
👉 It is seen in their endless prayers for “things” and declarations for breaking poverty and curses and screaming recitals against any generational setbacks.
👉 It is seen in the endless intercession whose focus is not souls and evangelism, or love and light but “bless me, bless me and bless me more Lord”!
How is that even right?
Sit inside a typical Charismatic intercessory session and hear what prayers come up. Most prayers are for financial breakthrough. Now if this is the case but poverty reigns supreme here in Africa including countries with the most powerful and richest pastors in Africa like beloved Nigeria, then something is inherently wrong!
If the pastors of these churches can become super millionaires and own private jets, but their congregants and nations still rank high in terms of poverty levels, then either the message is not true, or there is a problem with the receivers.
It is my view that the problem lies with the programming – that message which in its truest sense is not designed to emancipate and free people from the shackles of sin in its entirety – nope – instead it’s designed to free them from one form of prison, only to enslave and lock them in another prison – a prison for their minds.
This prison will keep them locked in poverty for their entire lives to the benefit of those elite who need to maintain this status quo.
It was a great African thinker who termed it the relationship of the horse and the rider and in this case, the common African man being the horse, and those who perpetuate this religiosity as the riders!
Next I will now tackle the concept of Kingdoms and Empires and show you how religion is used to justify such models and perpetuates it.
Do not miss!
