If you see an ardent football lover who is also a believer and moral crusader, he cares less about the faith the defenders of his preferred team profess. The tattoo on the body of his best striker does not matter to him. All he wants to see is a harvest of goals but none against his preferred team.
Pray you don’t have an ailing daughter who needs an emergency surgery. The gender of the surgeon to open her up will not be an issue. The relevant question will be if the surgeon is a specialist in his/her field of medicine.
Music is tonic to the soul. If you are a lover of music, you would have started humming and dancing to the music of a gifted musician before you realise the singer is an “unbeliever”. His inward and outward appearance is not too important.
That is humanity, but aren’t we all humans?
Freely, we identify with the successes of achievers in different spheres of life, not minding the depth of their faith or their moral rectitude. Why then do we flaunt doctrine over humanity when it is convenient?
We claim to love God but withhold love from fellow humans. In place of compassion we choose the doctrine. It is usually not about God. It is more about the preservation of our ego, in the eye of the public.
I watched this movie – Adire. Adire is the story of a sex-worker-turned-entrepreneur, named Adire, who specialised in handmade lingeries that unintentionally commanded a large followership of women in the Christian fold.
Adire used “worldly things” to repair ailing marriages in the church that marriage counselors could not heal. With designer brassiere, she drew straying husbands back to the arms of their wives. Adire leveraged compassion to “win souls” where doctrine and “spirituality” failed.
The church disowned a young Abeni who strayed to an unwanted pregnancy. The church lost Abeni. Sad. The pastor’s wife preferred to prepare for Abeni’s funeral than restore a living Abeni back to the kingdom. What a life!
The pastor’s daughter is human too. She is not immune from societal influence. Just like her late friend, Abeni, she swallowed the forbidden fruit, the seed of which had started germinating but her mother would not have their “reputation” tainted.
The pastor and his wife preferred to protect their status than preserve an innocent life when the pastor’s wife dared to snuff life out of the foetus inside their daughter with attempted abortion. It is not about God as they would make the world believe. It is more about the preservation of their ego.
Of a truth, Adire exposes the hypocrisy in religiosity. It shows how the church rejects the sinner plus his sins. It reminds us that we were first humans before religion. Abeni did not deserve to die.
If you are like me, who is not a regular visitor to the movie world, and you are yet to watch Adire, I suggest you do to refresh the humanity in you. It’s available on Netflix.
There is a place for doctrine. It instills discipline and self denial to focus on doing the right things but when there is a conflict between doctrine and compassion, choose compassion. God is love.
©️Akin Oluwadare
15 January 2024
