A Loveless Nation
This is not a tribute to James Baldwin or his work.
The inspiration to write this came from a social experiment I watched, conducted by a Nigerian internet prankster. I am usually not a fan of such videos, but this particular video struck a nerve.
So, this guy goes around holding up a sign that says “Say I love you for 200k”. Honestly, it was disheartening to see how difficult it was for people to say “I love you” to him.
What baffled me, aside from the hateful dismissals he received, was the subliminal assumption made by many of the people he approached that saying “I love you” meant having a romantic relationship with him.
It was more pathetic when obviously religious people had this view.
The implications of that video might fly over many heads, but it revealed a problem with our society.
It dawned on me that we are a love-starved nation, and that is a big deal. It is a problem that many people only equate love with sex and romantic relationships, including professing Christians. In fact, it is easier to find sex on the streets of Lagos than to find love (please don’t ask me how I know this).
But who do we blame for this misnormer?
In a nation with many churches, it is interesting how ignorant people are of what love truly is. I grew up in a home where we attended church every Sunday, but I heard my first sermon about the “God type of love” as an adult.
Before this, love was a transactional thing; “I serve God with my time and money, then he blesses me (shows me love)”.
You can imagine how Gobsmacked I was when I finally heard about the unconditional love of God in my twenties.
It was life-transforming.
I didn’t have to do anything for God to love me and prove it by dying for me.
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person, someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:6–8
It doesn’t stop there; God actually expects me to love others in the same way He loved.
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Not from a place of reciprocity, but unconditionally.
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 1 John 3:16
There is such a dearth of this knowledge in our religious circles that it is sadening. We will rather serve a God who wants to kill all our enemies or one who blesses us with a fat bank account as a response to our tithes and offerings. Or worse still, a God that makes us into religious hypocrites, with a false sense of piety.
Christianity, which should be an expression of the lavish love of God, has become a tool for personal aggrandizement, and that is a problem.
But who do we blame?
You cannot give what you don’t have.
Children grow up here without ever hearing the words “I love you”. Because from our reckoning, a roof over your head, food to eat, and school fees should suffice as expressions of love (sadly, these things are luxuries for many children in this part of the world).
And don’t get me wrong, they do, the reason why God gives us good things is because He loves us. He has revealed Himself as a good father. But God still goes beyond these expressions of love to communicate it, so that we are never in doubt, and His loudest expression was the sacrifice of His son for our sins.
But what are the possible effects of a loveless nation?
2020 (COVID year) was a bad year for many people, and I wasn’t exempt. But in a loveless nation, you can expect people to lock up palliatives, donated to alleviate the suffering of millions of Nigerians.
That year, I fought hard for romantic love, but I trusted that tribalism would override Christian values in a loveless nation. After facing insults, ridicule, and threats to my life, I forged ahead. Because I believe that is what it means to love, to sacrifice when things are tough, it is not what happens in a few minutes of sexual pleasure.
On my birthday that year, I proposed to my girlfriend. But trust a loveless nation to ruin the excitement of the prospect of spending forever with the love of my life.
Two days after getting a “yes”, youth like me were brutally murdered by those who should have been protecting them. They were murdered for protesting that they were being killed by those who should be protecting them (ikr quite convoluted).
The result was a deafening silence across the nation, sending shivers down every spine.
It didn’t matter that the victims waved Nigerian flags at their killers; nothing really matters in a loveless nation, not even human life.
As my birthday approaches this year, I am thankful to God that I am alive and that I fought for love. I am blessed to be happily married with children.
But it is hard to shake off the fact that many like me died for speaking up in a loveless nation.
May we never forget their sacrifice, and may it be the foundation on which we rebuild the nation, and hopefully, we build a nation on true love.
