But why are people so gullible though?

You know, I think I would naturally fit into the description of a monarchy pragmatist. At heart, I am or should be an anti-monarchist in line with my general politics. In practice, I don’t really care. I was working out how much the monarch costs each of us in the UK and at £102 million last year and a population of 66 million it comes to a grand total of: less than £2 per person – which is pretty negligible, if you ask me. Shrug. At that price, if they bring joy to people – let them. I don’t begrudge their lives of luxury and fame and the whole monarch thing is an interesting addition to life here in the UK.
So I was more than happy to acknowledge Queen Elizabeth’s death on Facebook. In the previous years I have been more than happy to post positive posts about her, congratulations on her 70th wedding anniversary with Prince Philip etc. The general consensus is that she reigned with great character, duty, restraint, and I am more than happy to endorse that because that is it appeared to me too. In candour, the question of colonialism and Empire is a tricky one, not least because I do not know that much about it. Put putting that aside, it seems that Queen Elizabeth was a very good Queen, and deserving of all the accolades that have been poured out on her. I am just trying here to establish the point that I like Queen Elizabeth and all that she stood for (barring the messy business of colonialism and the Empire and all related aspects.)

With that all said, I honestly think that the homage paid has crossed a line. I have been absolutely flabbergasted (not really! – do people even still use that word?!) to see people queue up for multiple hours to see her coffin. Just a few hours ago, when watching those people pay those respects to the coffin, with all the military uniforms, it hit me – this is actually an act of worship! That is, what these people are doing is performing an act of worship, whether they acknowledge it as that or not. A few days ago (poss yesterday) a newscaster referred to it as a “sacred” act. Sacred?! Really?!

In a way, the way the media have been talking about her over the last few days, and emphasising her duty, her service, her sacrifice, it is almost as if they have been subtly teaching the populace that this person was so special that her death is actually deserving of a special kind of almost religious reverence. And perhaps due to being constantly bombarded with coverage, or perhaps due to the fact that many people are having a hard time at the moment with the cost of living crisis, and disorientation caused by life just now, this seems to strike people at a point where they are vulnerable. Because I suspect that that is the reason so many people have come out and put themselves through considerable hardship, staying out in the cold and rain, to pay their last respects to someone who unquestionably lived a life of unimaginable luxury and privilege – and at our expense too! It also occurred to me that that hardship is somehow like the ascetism or self-flagellation of a pilgrimage. There was actually a woman on TV who was on a crutch, yet she had refused to use the accessible queue designed for people who are less able-bodied – in short, people just like her. She seemed to imply that this would be in some way cheating, that the whole point of her endeavour was to put herself through hardship, or to do it “the proper way”, in her own words, to achieve this great goal of paying her respects to this coffin. So she duly queued up for much longer in the able-bodied queue. And I thought “Wow!”

Another thing that gave me pause for thought was this: the way everyone was treating the new King Charles. Now here is the thing, this is probably very similar to the way they have always treated him, but with some extra deference now that he is actually the Sovereign. I have certainly watched this countless times and never thought anything of it when it happened with the Queen herself and the younger Royals such as Prince William, Prince Harry and their wives. But somehow, watching it happen with the new King Charles made me see this in a new way. People were screaming their heads off for the chance to interact with this man, who is after all a man. There was a lady who kissed him, and was very excited about it. There was a young girl whose hand he shook, who then proclaimed that she was never going to wash her hand again. It is almost as if people are taught that the correct or appropriate way to interact with the royals is with this heightened deference. And the crazy thing is that people do it! Watching those queues today, at one point the correspondent said “If you were not able to come out here…” (to wait in the Queue) as if the implication was that as a good patriotic citizen you should be trying your utmost to come out. I don’t know whether it is necessary for the continuation of the Monarchy to cultivate a certain mystique about it. However let’s face it. What it boils down to is having lots and lots of money, and the unfathomable power associated with being the ceremonial head of the State. The fact that King Charles has just acceded to the throne does not automatically imbue him with some kind of divine wisdom or omnipotence. When people act with such ecstacy, it is almost as if that is what they are suggesting, that the role itself actually confers special powers in a magical way.

You know, years ago I wrote an ebook about the Nigerian Pastors, comparing them to the historical Yoruba “Obas” (Kings) who were literally worshipped as gods. I argued that because this mentality of worshipping our leaders was already so established in Yorubaland, it was so easy to transfer the same worship to pastors. Because to be candid, many Nigerians do worship their pastors as if they actually were God, to the extent where what their pastor often definitively defines what the Bible actually means (even if as an onlooker you can demonstrate otherwise). Another personal maxim of mine is this: if people can act in one way in one part of the world, then because human nature is fundamentally the same, people can do that same thing anywhere. And I honestly believe that this exaggerated reverence given to the Royal family is the British equivalent of this Nigerian worship of Obas/Pastors. So if anyone out there thought or assumed that Westerners are not/no longer capable of worshipping fellow human beings, then I hope that this saga has shown otherwise. When crowds are screaming to see the new King, how is this different from the crowds in Nigerian churches screaming to interact with the pastor? In a post about a particular prominent Nigerian denomination, I suggested that it was only a matter of time before they made up a song to worship the General Overseer himself, (where all true Christian worship should only be directed at God.) And yet this is essentially what the British National Anthem is, a song of royal praise, automatically ascribing the values of “noble” and “glorious” to whoever the reigning monarch might be. In the Nigerian-led church denomination I saw people literally screaming with joy as they sprinted to the chair where the General Overseer. How is this different from people screaming with adulation as they throw themselves at Charles?

I was reading Reddit earlier, and someone showed a supposed photo of “the Queue”, but instead of London the photo was actually of North Koreans engaged in mass public grieving. This type of grieving is commonly understood to be insincere, what people have to do to avoid getting punished for civil disobedience. However, insincere or no, it occurred to me that this was another example of human beings worshipping other human beings. And ironically, in the Nigerian church, it was tacitly understood that the General Overseer was to be considered perfect, and his word was conclusive, in a way that I had only previously seen reserved for God and the Bible.  So he was literally like the Pope. So for instance, someone, usually me, would say “The Bible says”, and then someone else would say “Yes, but the GO says!” And then the crazy thing that would happen is that sometimes people (actually one person in particular) would say that the GO apparently said XYZ at such and such a time. And because I was not actually there, I could not categorically affirm whether the GO had indeed said such a thing.  So in other words, this man was able to take advantage of the authority of the GO to manipulate his own congregation by putting words into the mouth of the GO which the GO might or might not have said.

The point of the Bible is that it is verifiable.  If someone says “the Bible says” then the common practice is to automatically give the Scripture reference where the Bible does say that.

And then you know what?  People did not seem to realise how dangerous this is, to put the GO, a fallible human being, into this position of infallible power, to essentially make him the equivalent of God.

So then, whether we are considering the late Queen Elizabeth II, or the new King Charles III, or Nigerian pastors, or North Korean leaders, the question is why people are so gullible?
Why do we as human beings so readily ascribe perfect status to people and essentially worship them just because of their position?  And the same mindless adulation can also of course be seen in the way people scream about their favourite celebrity.
Perhaps it is the vulnerability thing I mentioned above.  Or perhaps it is because we are hardwired for worship, and most of us will happily offer this unquestioning adulation to someone or something whether that be our spouse, or our boss or the richest person in the town or whoever.

Oh, before I forget, I was going to write a story about how I too have been gullible very recently too, and perhaps in a way I was the most gullible of everyone, because I definitely should have known better, and actually, I definitely did know better!

So I have made a few oblique references to this last church that I attended, making only oblique references because there was some anger there that needed to be expressed, and yet I have been trying to work out how to express it.  In truth, the real anger was directed at myself, but on thinking through it and recognising the factors at play I have been able to forgive myself.

So here is the thing.  I have thought about churches a lot.  I have complained about churches a lot. I have sat down and analysed at considerable length just what I need in a church.  I knew all this before I started going to this church, and I ignored everything I knew.  That is why I have felt angry at myself.  On the other hand, this was during the pandemic, and my parents were encouraging me to try out another church and I was feeling lonely because of the pandemic.  Furthermore, the congregation was lovely.  I genuinely think that they were my people. Above all, I consciously made the decision to go to the church knowing that it was not perfect, and was not likely to meet my standards.  Remembering this decision is what has helped me to rationalise the decision to go to the church, and stay so long there, and thereby forgive myself. So the question I was asking myself at the time was “How bad is too bad?” Or how far from my real standards is too far?  And then I was also acknowledging to myself that my standards are somewhat hard to attain, so what is more practical or realistic to achieve in the real world?  That is, what might a realistic “not perfect” church look like?

So I stayed and stayed, asking myself this question, until the point where I just could not stay any longer. I thought to myself “No! I know that no church can be perfect, but this is simply not good enough!”  So I left, and with it I ditched the idea of being “realistic” about my expectations.  Rather I renewed my resolve to hold out for a truly fantastic church that truly corresponds with my standards, no matter how unrealistic such standards might be in our current world.  And yes, there is indeed a similarity with marriage here too, because the whole experience warned me not to drop my standards to be “realistic” about my expectations for a husband.

So then, this is where “gullible” comes in. This pastor asked for a lot of money, from his congregants, many of whom (not all) were truly struggling. And I have resolved a long long time ago that I don’t believe in trying to make money from faith, and I cannot endorse people who do. And yet this is what this man was doing, with no apparent financial transparency. Here’s the thing: as a member of your church, I should not have to go looking or digging for your financial transparency. Rather you should be upfront with it! These are the annual revenues for our church, this is how much was spent on XYZ, these are the trustees of the church, etc etc, and it should be professionally audited or whatever else needs to happen. So because that was absent, you could not categorically say what might or might not have been happening with the income to the church. Actually there were a few things that I could categorically say, which were not positive.
And then can you believe it?  I with my big blogs and my big talking still got up there, and pledged big amounts of money, grinning madly as I faced the church.  I also actually gave some money too. And right from the outset, I could see that this church did not meet my standards, but I was wondering whether I might need to be a bit realistic.

And so when I finally reached the point where I just could not stay there any longer, that was it. I  unceremoniously left and did not give even a single look backwards.  So now I am kicking myself:  why did I give money into something that I could quite clearly see was so far from my standards? Perhaps this whole story demonstrates the type of rationalisation that we people are capable of doing, even when we quite clearly see that something is wrong.