By Abuchi Obiora
There have been consistent outbreaks of pandemics approximately centenarily on earth since the seventh century A.D. Before then, there were other pandemics dotting human history from the second century A.D. Let us have a wholistic, yet brief knowledge of the truth, myths and fictions of those plagues and their fatalities in human community within the perspective of history.
By going down memory lane, we shall take a look at historical precedents with a view to correcting the wrong impression of an impending apocalypse for human civilization presently being peddled across the religious houses.
- THE ANTONIAN PLAGUE
Thought to be small pox, the Antonian plague or the plague of Galian which ravaged Greece, Asia Minor, and Italy in 165 A.D. took a total death toll of five million people. The Antonian plague was brought back to Rome by soldiers returning from Mesopotamia around 165 A.D. It completely decimated the Roman army.
- THE JUSTINIAN PLAGUE
The Justinian plague popularly known as the first bulbonic plague was thought to have killed half of the population of Europe. Starting from the Byzantine Empire and the Mediterranean cities, the Justinian plague lasted between 541 to 542 A.D.
The Justinian or first bulbonic plague devastated Constantinople, killing approximately 5,000 people every day, and annihilating the royalty there.
- THE BLACK DEATH
The second bulbonic plague referred to as the Black Death ravaged the world between 1346-1353, staying around in the world seven clear years.
It originated in Asia, and took lives in Europe, Africa and Asia. It is recorded that the Black Death put the whole world in fear for seven years and up to two hundred million human beings on earth died during this period as a result of the pandemic.
- FLU PANDEMIC
The Asiatic or Russian flu took a total death toll of 1 million people.
- THIRD CHOLERA PANDEMIC
The third cholera pandemic lasted between 1852-1860. One million people died across the world.
- SIXTH CHOLERA PANDEMIC
Originating in India, the sixth cholera pandemic which ravaged the world between 1910 -1911 took a total death toll of 800,000 people.
- CATEGORY II FLU PANDEMIC
The category II flu pandemic of 1918 infected a total number of 500 million people across the earth. About 50 million people, ten percent of the infected, died during the period of the virus.
- ASIAN FLU
The Asian Flu of 1956-1958 killed some 2 million people.
- 1968 FLU PANDEMIC
The 1968 flu pandemic started in Hong Kong and one million people died.
- HIV /AIDS PANDEMIC
The HIV/AIDS pandemic which was first observed in the Republic of Congo in 1976 ravaged the world between 2005 and 2012. Though 36 million people died within the period, the HIV/AIDS pandemic has been contained. It is still very much around but people living with the HIV virus can now live healthy lives with the anti- retroviral drugs.
- THE EBOLA EPIDEMIC.
First discovered in 1976 near the Ebola river in the Republic of Congo, Ebola virus disease has been infecting people from time to time in Africa .between 2014 and 2016, The west African Ebola virus disease outbreak which began in a rural setting of southeastern Guinea spread across borders within weeks becoming a global epidemic which engulfed the whole west African sub-region.
MYTHS, FICTIONS, AND THE TRUTH
With this background information, let me start to debunk the rumor of an impending apocalypse by unequivocally, saying that nobody knows when God created the world, neither will anybody know when HE will destroy HIS WORLD.
Human beings should stop speculating on things outside the capacities of human beings to comprehend as all phenomena beyond the bonds of empiricism are divinely controlled by the unfathomable wisdom of HIS MAJESTY, GOD OF ALL CREATIONS.
In the closing sentence of my District Pastor’s message to the members encouraging us to hook on to the radio broadcast of the GS which recently replaced the church services as a result of the COVID- 19-inspired lockdown, we were told “…..to spend enough time in our closets to pray for the nation and the world that God will take away this pandemic and be ready for the rapture…..”
Imploring us to stay to the Radio Broadcast, my Regional Pastor sent out an SMS to members in this manner “…. So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God….” (Quoting Romans 10:17). He continued, “….. we need more of the infallible and undiluted word of God to build our faith in times like this. Please don’t miss any of GS messages, Thursday and Sunday. His word will sustain you in Jesus Name. Amen.”
The next message from my District Pastor came thus:” I know that things are hard at this time but my God will supply all your needs according to HIS mercies in glory by Christ Jesus. Again I will like to inform you that there is going to be Morning Prayer this coming Sunday by 6 am. in the morning before we get connected to GS message later. Please inform others”.
One can easily notice the emphasis in all the messages to be on keeping the routinal services of the church and not on the discomfort and untold hardship (mentioned in a vague, rhetorical manner in one of the messages) which the members of the church may be going through as a result of the lockdown.
Not interestingly, one of the biggest church enterprises in Nigeria with an auditorium that ranks as one of the most spacious in the world whose General Overseer keeps more than one private jet and more than one university as his assets, was reported to have arranged an electronic means for the payment of tithes and offerings after the Ogun state government had scolded him for flouting the presidential lockdown order to checkmate the spread of COVID-19.
Worst still, some General Overseers deceptively told their members that COVID -19 does not exist. May be they were more interested in keeping the money-making routine of their churches than they were interested in the lives of their members; may be not!
Surprisingly in the early days of the lockdown, the General Overseers as Chief Executives of their church enterprises were competing with industry giants and business moguls in currying favors from the central government by donating billions of naira of church members’ money to the government.
One would have expected that these church GOs would have instituted in reversed order, the same channel by which offerings and tithes reach their headquarters, to provide food for the same members who had enriched the churches, the GOs the boards of trustees, and the church administrators – all of whom are very wealthy Nigerians.
It is recorded in several places in the Holy Bible that Jesus never failed to feed his teeming followers each time the followers have nothing to eat.
This truth is so recorded in the scripture on those occasions when there were nothing left in the food bank entrusted to Judas Iscariot and Jesus Christ had to go the extra mile of performing miracles to make sure the people had something to eat. As a matter of fact, the reason we read the miracle of the loaves of breads and the fishes is that there were nothing left in the food bank to feed the people with on those days, unless miracles were performed.
The billions of naira used by Nigerian church General Overseers who have become some of the wealthiest property owners on planet earth, to buy private jets, maintain fleets of expensive cars, smashing lifestyles, high retinue of security details, and magnificent church auditoria would avail much in keeping and maintaining food banks to take care of the geese that lay the golden eggs during the distressed, rainy days as may be symbolized by the recent lockdown.
Where in the Holy Bible did the new Church owners learn the acquisition and keeping of wealth? The tradition of ‘feeding the flock’ which was started by Jesus Christ was carried on by the disciples. The early Church maintained a communal system of Church administration with church elders at the top of the organogram. We are conversant with the story of Ananias and Saphira. St Paul of Miletus, evidently the greatest Christian that ever lived after Jesus Christ, had all it took to be rich. But he prefered, like his master, Jesus Christ, to be poor.
I am aware that some churches (including my church) and mosques have made some efforts in alleviating the sufferings of their members, yet, it is not enough. If Jesus Christ with no wealth fed his followers every day, there is no reason the new stupendously- wealth Church owners of today must not feed their members during such a crisis like the COVID-19 lockdown period.
The truth is that most Churches nowadays use the fear of the unknown – rapture- to keep their membership in continued obeisance as their bank accounts enjoy continuous fattening from the gains of the deceit.
Make no mistakes, the expectation of the second coming of Jesus Christ was rife during the first and second centuries A.D. as a result of the difficulties people went through at that time. Secular literature records this.
It was no less the same expectation in Niscea, Constantinople, where a council of fifty four Bishops (now called Cardinals of the Roman Church) sat together in 325 A.D to impute many far- reaching reforms in Christendom under the auspices of Constantine The Great. Some of the decisions they took, today challenge the veracity of the beautiful teachings of Jesus Christ. But we understand. Time and the efforts of great Christian reformists will correct these centuries-old misunderstanding of the great master’s teachings. What irony is it that both the royalty and much of the ruling class of that empire was erased by the Justinian plague of 541 and 542 A.D, exactly some 216 and 217 years altar the Bishops, conference.
There was palpable fear in the world during those years of the pandemics as there is today. But whether these fears are enough to justify the teaching of an impending apocalypse depends on the emotion of the teacher. This is where many Christian teachers err. Lacking in knowledge, they do not know that one of the pandemics mentioned earlier consumed the lives of 200 million people when the total population of the earth was just 600 million people.
Considering the past incidences of deadly plagues that have buffeted the earth, the present generation of humanity has seen nothing to be compared with the deadly virus of yester years. Nor is it going to see anything more than it is experiencing. The recommended but defunct codes of religious behavior and practice of some of the early religions of man which paid minimum attention to individual and collective hygiene, for example the religion of Judaism, may have been one of the factors responsible for the high death tolls of the earlier pandemics in human history. The current population of the world as estimated by the United Nations is 7.8 million people. Compared with previous pandemics, some of which did not actually and completely encircle the world as a result of less human traffic around the world in those days, the COVID-19 pandemic has only killed a negligible portion of the present total population of the world.
Secondly,it is important to understand that improvement in individual and collective hygiene, technological advance both in medicine and allied sciences, coupled with the high level of international co-operation amongst the countries of the world will limit the devastating effect of COVID-19 around the world.
Ironically, these lofty milestones in technological advancement and international co-operation is contrasted with a bustling collective myopia expressed in the mis-interpretation of COVID-19 outbreak as a sign of the apocalypse by some clergy men around the world.
This is a bad sign which shows that organized religions are having dangerous grips on the minds of people robbing them the natural gift of free and rational thoughts.
I am in no doubt that with their experiences as a result of neglect by their Churches, people will come out wiser by the time coronavirus, the infectious princess of the dark world, departs our shores. People will find out that the heart of man is the temple of God. They will find out that man can communicate from within directly with God needing no medium, not even the pastors.
If this is not so, why are the prayers of the deaf, dumb and blind who have zero – communication with the ‘men of the God’ answered by God? By the time the novel COVID-19 depart our shores, the virus must have dropped with us the novel legacy of empathy taught by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to be our brother’s keeper. The church leaders must also have learnt to maintain food banks for times like this to feed their flocks like their standard bearer, Jesus Christ did.
Having said this, impeccable signs point to the fact that COVID-19 may stay in Africa and the developing countries for a considerable period of time. Though quick in killing people and tragically fatal like malaria and typhoid fevers, COVID-19 will soon have both preventive vaccines and effective cure much of which will be localized.
Secondly, COVID-19 has re-defined the boundaries of human socialization. The mantra of ‘social (physical ) distance’ may have come to stay. Intimacy in human relationship is being re-redefined as conscious physical estrangements will trail future attempts at socialization.
Long after COVID-19, human socialization shall aim to remove the individual from the traditional sphere of selflessness to the vantage and wise sphere of self – preservation.
Abuchi Obiora can be reached at abuchiobiora@gmail.com
