By Michael Woira

Thinking about the twist of events that have been happening around the country, I had to seat down with my mentor and elder Col. Shaban Bantariza to share ideas on a few things happening and today I bring you what I learnt in this short though long essay which is kind of religious based.

When Jesus Christ, the earthly son of Jewish peasants Mary and carpenter Joseph comes again from the place we are taught and call heaven, you can be sure there will be stampede, chaos and tumult.

Why? Because, the last time he was here, he caused “instability” in the socio-political and religious status quo, by not only making miracles of raising the dead, making the blind see, the lame walked but more seriously, he told off the representatives of the Roman Emperor, that he, Christ, the son of man, was not only a son of God, but One with God! Incomprehensible and unacceptable blasphemy.

He went ahead to even claim that he was King what?!He did not only blaspheme, but with political intent to overthrow the Roman Empire, starting with the kingdom of Judea as king of the Jews.

There was no question about this man’s deliberate and conscious crime, and no witness needed, since he had the guts to repeat his crime in front of King Pontius Pilate and the Chief Judge Caiaphas.

At that time, the religious establishment had what is now known as the Old Testament of the prophets of old, then the covenants and the Ten commandments that God passed to Moses on the mountain, which Moses is now known to have been the precursor liberator of the Jews from slavery in Egypt symbolizing the mission of Christ who would come to liberate God’s people from slavery to evil and sin encapsulated in earthly attractions, troubles and tribulations.
So, what was the price of Christ’s crime?

Too grave for any other sentence other than crucifixion. And after that? The son of man and son of God rose from the dead and promised to return soon, and the signs would be more than localized earthquakes and tsunamis worse than tornadoes and typhoons with bones of the dead regaining their bodies and probably, in these most blinding flood light, shocking lightening’s, we would all be thrown into hell or heaven, both of which our limited human mind cant accurately define or describe since hell and heaven are super natural architectures. So, what will cause the new apocalypse when this son of both God and man comes back for us?

Number one on the list is that Jesus Christ did not leave any religion on earth in his name, did not register any religion or organization called Catholicism, Protestantism, Presbyterianism; He was circumcised, but not a Muslim, just like all Jews.
So, Roman Catholics ,Anglican Protestants, Presbyterians, American Pentecostals with all their innumerable churches, and all these religious factions which have taken over what Jesus Christ firmly left for not only his Apostles and disciples, but all humanity; Faith in the Christ that overturned tables and whipped vendors from the temple.
The Christ that rebuked Pharisees and called them vampires and hypocrites for fasting as a show to impress, when he comes, you can be sure he will be harsher than then, because at least then, believers were following the imperfect law of Moses that preached “an eye for an eye”. Jesus Christ performed miracles to strengthen the wavering faith of his disciples and believers.

Today, miracles have been a business, a trade! In our various churches, an electronic preaching, street preachers, all promise miracles, but not free of charge! Just like it was in the 16th century before Martin Luther protested the sale of “indulgences “by some authorities of the then one, universal, catholic church, and gave birth to what we now have as the “Reformed churches”.

So, miracles, which can now be procured, have replaced our faith and honest prayer to our makers in Heaven.
The bible, which is a compact library, has become a document understood by anyone who can read and write, whether English or other languages, and anyone today, on the street corner is a street preacher of the “word of God”.

This would be all right if the bible had one clear message by all, for all! But the bible, as I know it, exists as a theology, which defines our interpersonal relationships with God, individually and collectively.

This same bible also, exists as a literature, which is for the human words, in human language, that serve as the packaging material for the theology. As if this does not complicate matters enough, the bible also has the human, social culture as part of its context.

To this effect, not any literate man or woman has the capacity and competence to understand and interpret the bible to be able to decipher and contextualize every verse, every chapter and every book of the 72 books from Genesis to Revelations, such that then we can all be theological interpreters for the faithful flock of Christ.

Any wonder therefore, that we are seeing people starting up churches, based on personal interpretation of the bible? Today, anyone can become a preacher on the street, graduate into a pastor, start up a tarpaulin church structure, gather faithful’s, use some mysterious powers to make some miracles, and before you blink twice, you have all sorts of people heading there to “get healed “get a wife or husband, get a flourishing business, mysteriously gets money to build a house.

All this could be ok, in the propagation of the faith, but Christ told his disciples to” beware” because, as he stated, even the devil can make miracles, and claim to be making them in Christ’s name! Have you heard of the upsurge of cults, including the recent illuminati?

Have you heard about unending denominations, each fighting the other competing for followers, mudslinging and accusing each other of all sorts of crime and sins?

If Jesus came today, to bring the faithful back to the faith in the Holy Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, with the current theological obscurantism and falsehood, what would he do to bring us all back on track? It could be anything but not less than an apocalypse, which is why, some people often come up to prophesy the bitter end of the world, and “soon “as they claim.

Brethren, am not worthy to say what I have said above, but with faith and hope, you will all forgive me for asking us all not to kill in the name of God because certain ugly issues are happening all around the world and within our country and people are claiming to be doing so in the name of God, look at what is happening in Somalia, people even recite verses to defend their actions.

Here people are doing all kinds of evils like kidnaps, murders and several other bad acts and are attaching themselves to be religious people, when God has not delegated us to exterminate each other in His name. God has capacity to do it, if he so wished.

The writer is media Coordinator at Uganda Media Center

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