💭 Mind Battle With Religious Brainwashing

I wrote previously about drawing the line between personalities and principles. Since I caught that revelation, I see how much easier it has been for me to move on from people and detach from things. A specific incident led me to pen that article down. When I tell you that many folks don't get it, especially when it comes to religion and a place like Nigeria, where there has been and continues to be religious brainwashing—I mean every word of it. We are approaching the end of the year, and many religious festivals are loading. One thing is certain: Nigerians love being religious; you can count on them to show up.

As a Black person who has lived abroad for a while and experienced as well as seen different forms of racism, I would be deceiving myself to even believe one bit that religion comes before race. Being naive is thinking we worship the same God and read the same holy book, so we are equal. You just wait until race comes into the equation. To be blind to the place of racism in religion as a Black person, as someone of African descent, is to exhibit signs of brainwashing because the proofs are littered all over the internet and offline. When you have been deprived so badly, your desire to belong and be loved blinds you to the very system designed to destroy and demean you. It gets me confused.

In 2024 and early 2025, I joined a couple of church-related programs online with vibrant Nigerian worship leaders. These programs are supposed to help you pray and sustain your fire in your walk with God, but the more I understood the link between religion and race, I started to question things, including sitting under the leadership of a worship leader or preacher who refuses to openly admit this thing called racism—that we all worship the same Jesus Christ. Certainly not the Jesus who would be silent to injustice, and what is the point of the death on the cross if racism is still very much rooted in religious practices and beliefs? Ideally, being skeptical already means I will not even receive "any blessing" joining their live broadcast because I am already questioning their ministry and the things they openly exhibit with their platforms. Well, no thank you.

That bit of Nigerian Christian in me attempts to prick my conscience to say I should judge no one, but the journey I have been through as an immigrant surviving racism—direct or subtle—will not allow me to be silent about religious leaders with huge followings who benefit from the same system that has brainwashed millions and set people back in a country like Nigeria, massively stricken by multidimensional poverty.

So when I joined the first day of the live October praise and prayer event, my mind kept drafting back to my principles about religion and life in general. There was a serious battle in my mind, a war, a tussle about what I was thinking and the event on my screen. I started to feel guilty for trying to "judge"—question—this person's character, and I suddenly started to see how brainwashing works. Despite the outrage with this worship leader, folks could not resist the urge to go back and join or even promote their events because, well, it's human nature to err; no one is perfect, and we are only there to pray.

This person still had the numbers; the outrage that had us questioning things, including me writing the article, died a natural death for many. Some will argue that their personal life and politics should not be our business. Well, the problem is that they are benefitting from the religious system that denies the influence of racism. Politics is life; politics is in everything. You doubt this because you simply don't get it yet. Once you get it, you finally get it.

With all the good intention as it seems with people we admire and folks that inspire us, without principles and lines we acknowledge being crossed, it equals red flags—we risk being a pawn in the game of others. Too many people are sheep in this world, swayed by the crowd and barely able to think logically for themselves. So, they follow and follow even when it is detrimental to them. There is always an excuse to keep following, to keep joining the crowd, because I will admit being your own person can get really lonely.

Who wants to be left out anyways? Having an alternative, less popular opinion against an established norm and system with rules that have been reinforced over time is an uphill battle. Folks that have been brainwashed with religion are everywhere; there is even someone you already know. They can't function or reason outside the box of religion.

I see my connections sharing the program on their WhatsApp status and all over social media; it feels like I was missing out on so much, but I have no business being under the unction of a person who crossed the religion and race line for me. I have done so with many brands, influencers, authors, celebrities, family, and acquaintances. Life is too short to live in pretense. Life is too short to waste it living with no principles, to be a sheep and not recognize where a line has been crossed for you.

As a Nigerian, you achieve so much in your personal life, but getting past the brainwashing of religion may be your biggest hurdle yet because it takes deliberate work and time to wake up. Brainwashing is easy because it is subtle in a way that victims are blind to. Nothing comes close to the use of religion as a tool for brainwashing, which is interwoven into nearly everything—culture, family, and politics.