True Religion Is Love, Identity & Purpose.

True Religion Is Love, Identity & Purpose.

True Religion Is Love, Identity, and Purpose

It does not divide humanity; it enlarges belonging.

A reflective essay on faith as love, identity beyond tribe,

and the dark night of the soul.

Did Religion Truly Divide Us?

Dear Husman,

Before monotheistic faiths, we were not united. We had 250 tribes and 25,000 gods, and we still fought, still killed, still excluded. Religion did not invent division. It created identities large enough to transcend tribe.

Today, a Fulani, an Igbo, a Turk, and a Pakistani can sit together, eat together, and defend one another with their lives because they are Muslims. The same is true if they are Christians. Religion, at its best, enlarges belonging.

True Religion Is a Love Affair

Does love distract you? Then religion distracts you. Does love fulfil you? Then religion is equally guilty. Does love make you want to be a better person, make life worth living, make the world more colourful and music more beautiful?

Does it stir your soul and draw out your better angels? I have known love with another human being that did all these things. Now imagine love from God.

What is religion if not the reciprocation of such love, multiplied infinitely?

Love Also Wounds

But love also wounds. Can love break your heart? Then count religion guilty. Can it frustrate you, exhaust you, make you swear you never want to see it again, even make you want to harm yourself?

Multiply that by infinity. So it is with loving God.

The Dark Night of the Soul

That is why the holiest people speak of the “Dark Night of the Soul”, that most unpleasant season when it feels as though God Himself has turned His back.

Mother Teresa shocked the world when her memoirs were published. For the last four decades of her life, she felt nothing, only absence. And yet she carried on, serving, loving, giving. That perseverance is the stuff of legend.

Religion Is a Vehicle, Not a Destination

Because religion is not a destination. It is a vehicle. Entering a vehicle in Lagos does not mean you have arrived in Benin City. You must fuel it, start the engine, and drive.

You will have flat tyres, maybe more than one. Without determination, even with a vehicle, you will never reach your destination.

I rest.

Don Kenobi