Yes we are religious but are we a godly people?

While we may beat our chests and pride ourselves as a very religious
people, but can we say we are really godly? I was having a
discussion the other day with this acclaimed free thinker friend of mine, and we got
into an argument about religion.  He was of the view that religion as
we have been practicing it in Nigeria has caused so much havoc and
affected our thinking such that we have allowed it to replace hard work
to the extent that we pray for our problems to disappear rather than
looking for pragmatic ways to solve them. We talked back and forth on
religious issues in which he disagreed that there was anything like heaven or hell,
but I did agree with him on this one point, which is that, religious
beliefs should complement rather than replace rational ways of solving
problems.

This later got me thinking on how we have become even more
religious than the people who brought these foreign religions to us.
Take Christianity for example, the white folks who brought it to us
have over the years become less religious and more secular in the way
they run their society yet we see how their system works, and is indeed
orderly and less corrupt. Our dear country on the other hand has
become more religious, less orderly and our system is failing and very corrupt,
what an irony!  We now have mega churches with huge resources
at their disposal which they have invested in commercial ventures and
setting up of schools to the tertiary level. They charge high fees which many a times 
cannot be afforded by the very congregation that contributed the funds used in building these
schools by their faithful contributions through tithes and
offerings. 

These churches are preoccupied with registering their
presence abroad so they can be called international churches instead
of focusing on their main purpose which is spreading the gospel to the
farthest parts of the world where the gospel is urgently needed; such
places abound in our part of the world. The missionaries in addition to 
bringing their religion also built hospitals to take care of the sick with few 
catholic hospitals from that era still operating till this day while new ones have
not been built by churches of our time. 

We need to remind these churches that they are derailing and should get back to 
their supportive roles of complementing the efforts of government. Religious leaders 
should be good examples of how to live chaste and godly lives. We need to go beyond
being religious people to being a godly people in our dealings with
each other. We should allow religion play complementary roles in
seeking solutions to our every day problems, after all, faith without
works is dead.

If we can apply the above to our daily lives, there is no limit to how we can rise as 
a country and in a very short time we would be a reference point for emulation in the comity 
of nations.