The spermatic sermon

Yesterday, November 19th, 2023, I attended a Church service at Oyarifa and I am yet to recover from a shocking experience: how could a guest pastor, respectfully invited and so cheerfully received by the Head Pastor and his congregation to preach a sermon titled “The Knowledge of God”, end up ejaculating into his sermon?

When the guest Pastor was introduced, I adjusted my prejudices in the name of God just to see if I could learn something new. Alas, I did regret!!! Half of the sermon he delivered ended up being about the virility of this man of God, how strong, viable and viscous his sperms are, and the fact that although his wife is 11 years older than him, he is still in charge as the boss man of his childless marriage of nearly 30 years.

My mind drifted to my youthful Scripture Union days when the mere thought of having sperms or even a nocturnal wet dream- a natural and frequent occurrence for us the virgin boys - would earn the wrath of his Divine Holiness, Brother Essel, the SU president.

Occasionally, as the guest pastor pranced from one end of the auditorium to the other in a bid to keep our focus on him, he would get closer to where I was seated and look me in the eyes, as though he wanted his toxic words to penetrate my soul with maximum contamination. Miraculously, I managed to keep my calm and looked him back with a straight face.

Throughout his sermon, I felt both deeply sorry for whoever this Pastor's wife might be, and very queasy for members of the congregation who might even be acquainted with her personally. Within an hour, I knew everything about his marriage: his wife's health challenges and even the nature of the power structures within their marriage.

I have always been of the view that the church is one of the most dangerous settings for young girls and women to be exposed to or introduced into. It is there that the Creator of the Universe - purportedly a Man of Jewish descendance - is invoked by a male-dominated clergy in order to justify the need for young girls and women to imbibe all the institutionalised masculine toxicity and patriarchal values that marginalize the former by the latter. In contrast, boys, young and adult men are constantly exhorted by countless scriptures to avoid licentious schemes of women if they want to remain pure and holy.

I stopped attending church services or paying attention to "men of God" decades ago. However, every now and then, a funeral or memorial service of a loved one would draw me back in there. On many such occasions, I have found more confirmation and affirmation to continue my stay away from the church as an institution rather than the opposite.

Upon leaving yesterday’s memorial service, my body and soul felt so contaminated and violated by the ghastly sermon that I literally searched for the nearest pharmacy to get some antibiotics to counteract the nefarious effects of the Pastor's vulgarity and machism and utter disrespect for the fairer sex.

Living a content life is really hard in this Christ-infested country. Just when you are cruising happily-ever-after in an emotional nirvana, a pastor, bishop, or apostle general here and there pops up on your radio, tv, on social media or even in your sleep, to convict you of borrowed and imagined sins. If you get as unlucky as I was yesterday, they may even splash some of their holy and precious sperm on your mind and say that it is part of God’s word and bigger plan for you.

I believe that I desperately need divine deliverance from organised religion and its scary men of God. But until that divine miracle manifests, I shall continue to avoid the church, its toxic environment and its vulgar pastors, most of whom, it appears, are totally clueless about basic homiletics.

BY Amarkine Amarteifio
Artist, poet, writer, sculptor
Email: [email protected]