OPEN LETTER TO YOU: CHRISTIANITY IS UNDER ATTACK ‘FROM ABOVE’!
By Jon Pen de Ngong
Dear Anti-Christ Activists,
As a practising Christian, who knows about the importance of the values of Christianity in particular and religion in general in shaping our chaotic nation, let me bring these few concerns to your attention.
You are attacking Christianity and not the particular Christians that abuse the religion! Why are you afraid of the feuding bishops and priests and instead dare God?! What is the name of that?
You are like those who blame the innocent Republic of South Sudan instead of the corrupt leaders who spoil the system, hence the image of our country in the gutters! And here is the thing that I mean.
At this rate, you are campaigning for anarchy. Humans need law and a certain level of control, especially spiritual management in addition to political one. What are you putting in place now that our politicians have killed our human laws and you, their very children, are nipping the spiritual discipline of our nation in the bud?
If I could brag a little bit, I, as a young soldier, have taken part in both political and spiritual liberation wars of our people, and I know so far what we have achieved by the price of three million souls that were offered, most particularly under Omar al Bashir and his other ideologues of the National Islamic Front (NIF) in the Sudan.
Kindly, as they say in Khartoum—Mn fadhalak, respect the souls and roles of our fallen Christians led by Col. John Garang de Mabior and Rev. Father Saturnino Lohure, besides their many comrades, who have resisted Islamic laws and Arab culture from invading Africa since the inception of our liberation concept.
Instead of cracking down on these historic and mammoth achievements, please, spend your time writing about them. It is our pride and we should not throw cold water and sand on it.
To bring it even closer home while my heart is bleeding, you, my fellow activists for the good of our society, have turned round all of a sudden and started stabbing us in the back. And this is the very thing I mean…
Instead of using the Christian values of peace, love, truth and hard work against the rampant juju business that thrives on sacrificing your souls and loved ones, you are hell-bent on attacking Christianity at the expense of other religions! By extension, you are spreading hate animosities against a particular populace in the country, I don’t mean those Christians’ confusing leaders.
And, mind you, the tragedy is to tell a backslider that they are sinning by the use of their tongue and, nowadays, of their fingertips. That individual would lung for your person and others’, as far as netting in the “Khawajat who colonized us and chasing away our ‘jak'”, say, Banydeng, Ngundeng, blah, blah…
Our dear newfound ‘Pan-African religions’ defenders, I once personally dealt with those numerous gods before liberating myself by subscribing to the Superpower One. On a personal note, as the pioneer Christian child convert in my Pen Clan of the Bor Dinka at the age of 9 in 1989, I fought Awäl head-on.
NB: This story of how a fledgling boy convert defeated the most feared deity that once survived on sacrifice of the clan’s ‘virgin of the year’ will be told another day under the title of “Three Gods In One Shrine” (talking of Animism, Islamism and Christianity scrambling for one soul).
For example, imagine you were ordered to slaughter the like of the modern-day Miss South Sudan for a people’s god in the name of a people’s good! That is the type of the religion you, the generation born after this bloody era, are regretfully demanding back. As for me and my family, Jesus has played that role on behalf of my beautiful daughter. Amen! Take my note not for granted, for I had once witnessed or performed during our dark days what you see today in Nigerian movies. I have the testimony!
Back to the main issue of my open letter to you, this new brand of activism is sheer anarchy! I do not just want to quantify it to madness. I mean the concentrated anarchy, which attempts to remove the little effort that is there and recommends nothing — just nothing — in place of religion, is called what?
Do not even bother to lecture me on atheism because the turncoat God-haters, to be specific, the mushrooming hate speech spreaders against innocent Christians in South Sudan, are not atheists, agnostics, or even Muslims…..Inshallah-ha-ha-aa, etc.
As a matter of detailed concern, the young teachers of Christian faith in my community, especially the Jolwoliech defectors, who are leading on Social Media in unraveling the Christian values and our history, including abusing our elders — the very bonds that put our people together — are not anything else but agents of societal anarchy.
I mean why would someone spend hours in writing or speaking just to convince others to ‘just leave’ their faith and values but offer nothing in place? I have much respect to the youths that are preaching on other moderate religions, however, I have total zero on those still importing Khartoum (Shari’a laws and Arab culture) upon Juba, and/or the practice of human sacrifice in the name of African religions.
I hear even the campaign on reviving ancestral spirits that thrive on division instead of one uniting faith is part of ‘Pan-African nationalism’!
To hell with that brand of Pan African religion, if so, that would slaughter a beloved child, parent, sibling, or colleague for ‘acquiring’ a supermarket or political position!
And our Anti-Christ activists do not realize that they are demonizing and demobilizing our communities from churches into those streets and villages where the people have no choice but to resort to such evil vulnerabilities! Where did this rain start beating us?
Let me mean this: with being a priest of my own Lirpiou or Deng-something, would I be secure in the land of Uju or beyond the borders of my clan as the case used to be? Look back at those ancient days where family god’s reigned: the Atuot, the Lokoya, name them, used to ‘eat’ people in my village or, at least, in my stories.
I cannot end this without mentioning the selective treatment of our national religions (those and everything else recognized in the constitution) by the political leadership of our nation. Allow me to pick with just a pinch on this new development of unfairness in the country that is proudly claimed to have been ‘liberated’.
I have seen priests being dragged or stripped naked in the public streets and imams dressing up the president and his officials in jalabiyas and turbans in the nation’s apical palace.
I have even seen His Excellency decreeing and celebrating Islamic holidays but cancelling national (leave alone snubbing Christian) ones, including even our upcoming 10th independence anniversary, the 2021’s! You know what the anti-Christianity conspiracy theorists are attacking in such national events? The little piece of Christian legacy in those gigantic achievements in our baby nation’s history! Needless to remind you of our battle cry of ‘Alleluia, versus ‘Allah-U- Akbar’. Today, Christianity is under attack ‘from above’!
To add on, I have confirmed the change of the constituted title of ‘Presidential Adviser On Religious Affairs’ to ‘Presidential Adviser On Islamic Affairs’ (strictly!). Or am I wrong, those near J1? Should I even mention to anyone that somebody in the nation’s top office is double-dealing as a security adviser and Islamic promoter around the president? And the bookish law of separation of state with religion flies out through the window!
No wonder young pickpockets, the products of the war of current political positions, the bloodbath that our current leaders one time referred to as ‘senseless war’, have started losing limbs in Panriang and lives in Juba. That, exactly, is what I am asking my former Christian teachers to cry out against, not Jesus Christ, please.
Thus far, let me not declare a conclusion because I am asking for your inclusion in this debate. And the parting question is: By attacking Christianity or other people’s faiths, are you not stepping on my individual rights, hence, breaking the Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan on freedom of worship and creed?
Therefore, I strongly urge you, in the name of the Faith I profess to, in Jesus Christ as a believer and in the Almighty God as a citizen of this world’s youngest Christian nation, the Republic of South Sudan; I dare you, O dear, to professionally attack me and the ways, not my God, please! Not my country, please!
Am’in and Amen!
Disclaimer:
I wrote this on my own behalf,
Not necessarily as Faithbook Mission director.
