Blind men going to see Elephant-God

Let us be so daring as to liken God to an elephant; and let us be so imaginative as to envision one billion blind men going to ‘see’ our God the elephant. And let us further envision the one billion blind men severally and partially ‘seeing’ God the elephant, as they file past, by feeling their target with their hands and each individual in turn shouting his excitement at discovering that the elephant is like something else that they have previously touched and felt in their blindness.

In the ancient famous story or parable, which originated in the Indian sub-continent from where it has greatly spread to other parts of the world, six blind men go to ‘see’ an elephant. The blind man who feels a leg shouts that the elephant is like a pillar; the one who feels the tail shouts that the elephant is like a rope; the one who feels the trunk shouts that the elephant is like a tree branch; the one who feels the ear shouts that the elephant is like a hand fan; the one who feels the belly shouts that the elephant is like a wall; and the one who feels the tusk shouts that the elephant is like a solid pipe.

In the said parable the six blind men next compare notes only to find out that they are in complete disagreement about what the elephant looks like. The disagreement is only resolved when a man with functioning eye-sight passes by, sees the whole elephant, and explains to the blind men that they are each right and wrong  in as much as they have been touching different parts of the elephant. And that is when the blind men discover that they are blind!

Back to our scenario of one billion blind men going to ‘see’ our God the elephant. From every clime, zone, and belt across the globe blind men and women in their scores of millions come to touch and feel the Elephant-God.

Some exclaim that God is a Catholic headquartered in Rome; some that He is an Anglican headquartered in Canterbury; some that He is sometimes a Southern Baptist, sometimes a Northern Baptist; some that He is a Pentecostalist headquartered nowhere; some that He is a Lutheran who came to maturity with Martin Luther.

Some exclaim that He is a Unitarian one-in-one God; some that He is Trinitarian three-in-one God; some that He is a Mormonian God of latter-day visionaries; some that He is a Sixth-Day Arrivant;  some that He is a nine-dimension Bahaullahian God capable of revealing more of his dimensions as human perception advances across the ages; some that He is a naturalised Jewish Jehovah amid alien peoples; some that He is a ‘Level 4’ sun-and-moon God incarnated in Pennsylvania’s Hyung Jin Moon of World Peace and Unification Sanctuary Church!   

And in my home continent Africa, the scenario is simply one of staggering variety. In terms of sects, they are currently in thousands. Some sects feel Elephant-God with hands of cult arsonists; some with hands of polygamy propagandists; some with hands of lucrative prosperity gospel; some with hands of an exact one-tenth sacrifice.

And right here in my beloved country, where charity begins and ends, some feel Elephant-God with hands of Rubaganists, some with hands of Namirembenists; some with hands of Nakaseronists; some with hands of Namung’oonanists; some with hands of Najjanankumbinists. And yet others feel Him as Sserwadanists, some as Kayanjanists; some as Bugembenists; some as Kakandenists; some as Mbonyenists; some as Manjerinists; some as Bujingonists – list without end...

As a mere echo from a distant and forgotten past is St Paul’s protestation: “I say, is Christ divided? One of you says, ‘I am of Paul,’ another, ‘I am of Apollos,’ another, ‘I am of Cephas/Peter’…Were you baptised in the name of Paul?”

Prof Timothy Wangusa is a poet and novelist.

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