As if by accident, November, the month in which the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon became autonomous, was also the month, 25 years ago, when power in Cameroon changed hands from a Muslim to a Christian. The change brought general euphoria not least because the new leader was an intellectual – in fact an ex-seminarian. His arrival therefore fuelled hopes that Christian values would thenceforth hold sway in the conduct of public affairs in Cameroon.
It needs be said that, by a curious twist of fate, the old President hand-picked the new, and imposed him on the people. Had they actually chosen him, which could well have happened if they had been consulted, today the people would have been cursing their luck – or bad luck – because it is now clear that they drew a blank.
A quarter century down the road, popular disillusionment is at an all-time high.
The Christian salt in the government has failed signally to season national life. Rather than the light of the Holy Spirit shining through their acts, the most abysmal darkness has settled in. Cameroon is a high-flyer in global corruption ratings and no arm of the government shows the capacity or the will to seriously come to grips with it. Parliament is under the thumb of the Executive, all of whose kingpins are now believed to have skeletons in their cupboards. So too the judiciary which, in 1992, publicly avowed that it was validating the result of a “heavily flawed” election because its “hands were tied”.
The massive and shameless rigging reported during this year’s parliamentary and local government elections left the world in no doubt that public morality in Cameroon had hit rock bottom. Embezzlement and fraud in all its forms has become a way of life in the public sector. While ghost workers swell the government payroll every year, and while those in service get a pittance for their sweat, a few senior officials flaunt ill-gotten billions with impunity.
These people, as indeed other categories of culprits, have apparently been shielded from deserved retribution by the fact that they belong to cults. In fact cultism has become the religion of much of the government, beginning with the President who gave the grandmaster of one of the lodges a huge public reception in State House. It happened not long after the same red carpet had been rolled out for the visiting Catholic pontiff who, on that occasion, baptized one the President’s children.
Further down this moral abyss you meet this club of diaper-wearing homosexuals who use their weird affinity to access and keep high positions in the system. The picture is of a sick nation desperate for healing. It is above all a spiritual battle for the entire body of Christ in Cameroon. To paraphrase Moderator Nyansako-ni-nku in one of his sermons, the worst that could befall a community is when evil holds sway and the good fold their arms. The situation in Cameroon is desperate enough for the Church to resort to ashes and sackcloth as in Nineveh.
We do have some really spirited sermons coming out of our pulpits – lamenting, decrying, appealing, and prescribing. Now and then we do read some pastoral letters spelling out the Church’s position on these issues in no uncertain terms. But desperate situations call for desperate measures. This one is gone past the pulpit and pastoral letters alone.
When no arm of government can be credited with a modicum of integrity, we are left with civil society as the last rampart. NGOs and socio-professional groups have been making some feeble noises, which circle them about like the smoke from Cain’s sacrifice because they lack collective focus, drive and moral authority. Christians represent a decisively huge segment of this country’s population and the Church has not only the irresistible mobilizing power but the moral authority to provide Civil Society with the leadership it needs. The Church has a voice no government can ignore, in Cameroon or anywhere. Its place therefore, is in the vanguard of positive social change, not in the rearguard.
We must, at this point, commend the Catholic Church for the impact it is making through its Justice and Peace Commission. The other two mainline Churches, including ours, must buckle up and take a more assertive posture. Articulating this posture is not just the work of pastors. Maybe we can consider creating a commission for national redemption made up of the clergy and the laity, to act in tandem with the Justice and Peace.
One place to begin is for the Church to look in the mirror and see that the bulk of those who wreak all that moral and material havoc in this country are Christians whom the Church never dares to confront for their role. In this last election the reputation of the Church was dragged piteously in the mud by so-called prominent Christian politicians who did shameful things to win. Some say it is because they give of their ill-gotten abundance for the material growth of the Church. Since when did the Church become so mercenary? Is the Church of Christ for sale? What is its price that He has not paid?
I don’t want to sound sanctimonious here. We all sin daily and come short of God’s glory. But how long can the Church allow its prophetic voice to be compromised? Our country got to this low moral ebb because of the reign of impunity. In glaring cases like the ones we all know, I think it is time the Church considered giving reproof a try. After all, the Bible says, “whom the Lord loveth, He correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth”. (Prov. 3:12) As we stride into the second half of this century in the life of the PCC, let’s make our Church more proactive. Let’s put in all it takes to heal our land.
The Rambler
