Persistently, Consistently Avoiding God In Cameroon

By Fr. Peter A. Foleng

Today, we know of prominent members in our Cameroonian society who have died and left their mourners spellbound, when members of their societies have forced them to remove the mortal remains from their temples. We have learnt of the spiritual warfare between the Christians and Rosicrucian Order in Cameroon. It is no longer a secret that the Rosicrucian Order (AMORC) is well established in Cameroon.

The Rosicrucian Order designates itself as an immense fraternal organisation in the world. It claims that it is out to bring all people together who try to explore and understand the universe in which they live, so as to live a much happier life.

The order is, in no way, interested in being referred to as a religious organisation. They would rather prefer to be known as a metaphysical philosophy, which seeks to unveil man's latent faculties.

For the Rosicrucian, God is not a person but some cosmic energy, some universal conscience, which exists in everything. Therefore, for the Rosicrucian, the word God is not part of his vocabulary. This seems to be the order of events in our Cameroonian society. Much has been said about the exclusion of religion and consequently morality and the natural law from our school curriculum, so no question of ignorance should come in.

In our country, it is not necessary to be religious, moral or prompted by the natural law to be qualified for any appointment. That is why all academic qualifications are asked for except a religious and moral qualification. We are reaping the fruits of consistently and persistently excluding God in public life in Cameroon.

A few years ago, the Head of State, His Excellency Paul Biya in his traditional end of year address to the nation attributed the peace that reigns in Cameroon to "the sense of responsibility, the calm, and the courage of Cameroonians … without which nothing would have been possible." (Paul Biya, CRTV 8.00 pm, December 31, 2001).

At that time, the devastating effects of the volcanic eruption in Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo shocked the world and were fresh in every mind. Many lives were lost and many villages destroyed. The one of Mt. Cameroon simply buried a few palm trees and a few metres of road leading to Idenau. Instead of thanking God for this, we attributed it to human wisdom and expressed our thanks to a cosmic body, heaven: "Thank heaven, Cameroon has, in the main, been spared."

Can we say the destruction in Goma is because the people do not have "the sense of responsibility, the calm, and the courage?" In the most recent past, we have had the Tsunami, the Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and many other natural disasters.

Without being a Prophet of doom, unless the Cameroon administration reinstates religion, morality and respect the place of religion and morality in the lives of people, more and more misfortunes would befall the country.

Comments

[ngeh cosy cosmas]

My dear learned brothers of the fourth arm of government,i raise my right hand up and salute your courage at all u write like the above article, u are indid a true window on the world,heaven alone will reward u, keep the good work on and on and ..................
stay blessed and take care

[Martin Fru]

I agree with you father.
There is need for moral education in Cameroon. We were taught that "the of the lord is the beginning of wisdom".

[Che Sunday (Dr.)]

People,
Cameroon immorality or lack of has nothing to do with religion. When people are stupid enough to go looking for answers about the existence or non-existence of God in secret societies such as the Rusicrutians, what do you expect? Moral education starts from the home, not at school. Parochial educational institutions are well within their right to teach religion in their schools, but don't force it down the throats of others. You become a christian because you believe. Belief, is not subject to proof. The morality void created in Cameroon has more to do with people wanting an escape route out of poverty than lack of religous suation. As such, they are willing to listen and try just anything that will offer them some alternative. They listen to fake doctors who claim to have a cure for all kinds of ailment, listen to false prophets who claim to have means that will allow one walk into any embassy and be granted an exit visa, purported money doublers are awash and making a good living because people are dumb or naive enough to fall prey to their tricks. Does the priest really believe that proclaiming God at every mishap will keep us immune from natural disasters? Was it the lack of prayers that resulted in the Lake Nios deadly gas emmisions?
What use are prayers when those praying have little confidence in the prayers they say?

[Ejike Mouluh]

The TWIN devils of the Third World are Devotion and Poverty.

A greater proportion of Cameroonians attend Sunday church services than any country in Europe or North America! That does not make Cameroonians any better off than Europeans or Americans. The latter are known for real kindness with food and real toughness with fire.

The weakness in devotion is that it inculcates permisiveness and excessive forgiveness. But for this weakness, the incompetent demagogues lording it over Cameroonians would have been replaced by peace or by force. Such nonesense is just unacceptable in the West where no one takes nonesense lying down.

[Richard Sony NgwaR]

COULD ANY CAMEROONIAN WHO READS THIS CIRCULATE THIS WEB LINK TO ALL THOSE YOU KNOW. IT MAY SEEM UNBELIEVEABLE, BUT IF YOU HAVE ANY DOUBTS, JUST EMAIL ME AND I WILL GIVE YOU BACKING OR MORE EVIDENCE TO THIS STORY. OUR COUNTRY REALLY NEEDS HELP.

The weblink is : http://ambazonia.indymedia.org/en/2003/04/375.shtml

My email address is [email protected]

[Roland Ngong]

Power is like opium.Strange things happen to some human beings when they wield power.They become intoxicated as it were;they automatically think they can "walk on clouds";they either start worshipping strange "gods" (oduduwa) or joining sects or lodges where human sacrifice is sometimes required or worse, asking their citizens - as in the case of late President Macias Nguema in next door Equatorial Guinea -to worship them and/or place their pictures in churches next to those of Jesus or the Blessed Virgin Mary.
I went to a school where "Religious Knowledge" was a compulsory subject.I am now in my late fifties and when I look back, I thank the Good Lord everyday for that experience early in my life. It taught me the basics:not to worship false gods or join some of these strange sects (Ogboni) in the hope of getting more power and money; it taught me to use power and money for a positive purpose - not for oppression. It taught me not to steal or covet what does not belong to me - even if I was able and capable and the opportunity arose for me to commit such an act and get away with it.
I am not overly "religious" (whatever that means!)and I also do believe that power and material wealth do contribute to man's wellbeing. However,thanks to my acquaintance with religious knowledge,I also do have a conscience that emphasises the "essentially transient nature" or "nothingness" of power and material wealth - particularly when they have been acquired through fraudulent or occult means and used either for vain personal aggrandisement or for the subjugation of the less fortunate in our society.
The Reverend Father is quite right. When one considers the acts of moral decadence (corruption, immorality, greed and vanity) now pervading our society, one wonders - at least I wonder - whether a strong moral armour in the form of religious knowledge, worn and anchored at an early stage, would not have turned the tide.

[Ma Mary]

Mr Biya apparently came from similar religious roots as did many of us and even more so. Was his father a catechist? He was even a seminarian. So what happened? I do not think it is the religious roots as much as the other side of Mr Ngong's argument, the corrosive nature of power. Religion alone could not be trusted to protect people from power. Even the occult allegations are more of the effect than the cause of power. People start to do ANYTHING to maintain their hold on power, up to and including human sacrifice, because they can get away with it.

That is why the British and American systems have mistrust of executive power inbuilt into them because historical experience shows that human beings are almost guaranteed to go insane if they have too much power. Nyerere and Mandela are rare exceptions to that rule. There have even been popes who went insane with power.

There is huge turmoil in the American system now because there are people in the other branches that believe the executive is out to grab more power than the constitution allows it to have while there are those in the executive who believe that the executive is being tied down. If Margaret Thatcher had dictatorial powers, does anyone doubt that she would have used them?

[Pastor Mola a-lute Bobe]

Rev Fr. Foleng,
Thanks for the article. On the other hand, it is not enough to ask for a religoius certificate to get a job or be placed in a position of responsibility. A lot more needs to be done. Do not tell me that Biya has no religious certificates from the Petit Seminaire in Akono, nor does Achidi from CPC Bali, nor Musonge from Sasse, nor Inoni from Sasse, and a lot more. Islam preaches that good be done and evil avoided in the same way as christianity.
Look down at your benches in Church on Sunday and see those looking at you. The same people who outside the Church door behave as if they have never heard about God. Even while you deliver your sermon, some are infront of you at the same time thinking of the best ways to covet public funds and dupe the poor of their hard earnings.
Sometimes we condone their actions by accepting lavish stolen gifts for God's house. How many of these corrupt officials visit the fathers' and pastors' houses day-in day-out to, maybe, share with them them some of their stolen wealth?
The clergy who all know the said persons and their practices sit aloof and wait for full alms baskets. Could we rise up as one man and shout foul to all such practices from the bottom of our hearts. The Rosicrucian Order (AMORC) members are all by us. We accept them and allow them, and even praise-sing for them.
If all the clergy, whether catholic, protestant or otherwise, fail to effect this change, we will all stand accountable for it infront of God Our Creator.
Think forward and a change will come. By lighting your candle, a neighbour will see the light and maybe light his and then the next neigboiur and the next and the next, ... and the darkness will vanish.
Stay blessed.
Pastor Mola a-lute Bobe

[Delphi]

We are governed by satanic forces, he who wants to be believe should. Biya and his entourage are all satanic even Ni john Fru ndi. We have only one way out, to Believe in Jesus The Christ and Get Saved.
you won't understand how much you tied up or closed up in Biya's sanctuary until you get it. We are living in Cameroon with Biya, but there is another world we don't see, but this world commands us daily. Many cameroonians are sacrificed daily for Biya's sake.
Read for yourself, some of the ponts in this publication are so clear that you can bear it witness;

[Delphi]

Follow this link, know where you are living and whence your curses come.

[aza]

Father,
In reading your article, i noticed that there were many positive things said about the importance of practicing the morality that is carried in the bible and indeed the holy books of most world religions. In fact in the pre amble in particular.. you even eluded unwittingly that Rosicrucianisms aims were one and the same as christianity or more precisely catholocism. If so, why then is it evil or considered a negative force? So what if god is defined as an energy?Surely the creator can be defined in terms of all his creation, man as energy included.

The way I see it,this article is minimising the evil that exists in the corridors of power. We have 9-11 christians blame islam because the advocates were mainly moslem...Here we balme rosicrucianism...Just like the Catholic church througout history have done. The inqusition was partialy resonsible for the secret nature of rosicrucianism..You have forgoten that in the era of Judeo-Chistian- Islamic Hegemony, there has been nothing but a perpetuation of decadence, envy self iterest and moral debasment. I see no one connecting it with the afore mentioned "Religeons". Why are you therefore connecting rosicrucianism with the evil that is the polity in our country?

I can understand that the ways of this Order are strange to the populous by definition, this i assume is because of the secret nature of it. The reality is that the secret nature of theres society is historical and not moral. Ihe views of rosicrucianism are open for all to see in their publication and the internet. Even if like alot of people you find the idea of grown men taking part in mystical ceremonys strange on the surface, and surface only, you cannot comment on those ceremonies unless you understand their significance.. For you or indeed any catholic to understand them would be admission of grave sin so i can certainly say that on this point you simply cannot decare it evil..because all religeos congergations take part in mystical ceremonies. The difference is that the rosicrucians do not declare you evil..You declare rosicrucians evil..Who now is the cause of conflict amongst the almightys creation?

I am not writing to chalenge but to urge tolerance. I personally dont understand the perception of secret societies, maybe it is because i am not currently living in the cameroons so please forgive me if i have sounded rude in any ways.
Regards

[N.P Barnard]

We are today in 2019 and these words of Fr. P as I usually called him since Tuesday, 14 February 2006 are happening just as he said. We are doomed my people. God is the only solution to all Cameroon problems but with the present regime in power, Huh! I really can't see this happening as God is just an option to the regime.