Religion - the emptiness of Literature in it

[dayo Phillips-arogbokun]

Perhaps, the reason why no one has since posted anything on this column is due to the dare sacred intricacies surrounding religion in Africa i.e the social misunderstandings and the given seeming agnosticism that potentially trail African minds regarding religion. the diverse and vast religion circles and cycles diminish in a gulp of no return. africa cannot be said to have had much problem in communicating the ritual of their revered religions unlike in the west where religious literature was active. a look at the medieval era -the post dark ages- religious literature (literature for christ and none other became the text de song for every poet who loves his life. any poem that does not celebrate christ/God (trinity) is atheistic, thus death hangs on such poet. such was the beliefs of the sage-order that managed the state. these general behaviour had never been as acostic in Africa as it were in europe, for here in Africa there are many religious affiliations. even some Africans are di-religion and even tri-religion if not tri-religion. it is the religion that puts food on the table that pleases the worshipper. Doctrine though is also one of the main factors that influences the distintegration of a large order into smaller fragments. today, the other churches (protestant, pentecostal, anglicanism etc) all stem from catholicism. i would say in all that the emptiness of this column exemplifies/reflects the position of religious literature in Africa.

[Kabura Zakama]

In my experience (which is little), people tend to separate religion from literature. A friend of mine, who writes poetry, was appalled that I wrote a religious verse! His opinion was that writing a 'religious' poem degrades poetry. Our acceptance of religion as sacred tend to push us off the path of writing 'religiously' or on religion.

[Kabura Zakama]

We had a discussion about this at the weekly Sunday meeting of the Abuja Writers' Forum of 22 March 2009. We concluded that religion is rich in poetry and we can use poetry to promote religion as long as we are not preachy.