Voltaire once voiced how “In the beginning, God created man in His own image, and man has been trying to repay the favour ever since.” The history of fallen humanity is that we have, since the sin of Adam, fashioned God after our image.
One could say that sinful humankind not only seeks to shape God after its image but that it also moulds other people, especially followers, after the leader’s likeness.
Such seems to be the story of Mr Mbonye and his movement. I say this, not to slight him or his followers, but as an observation. If anything, Mr Mbonye himself states the same, in his message Opening the Eyes of your heart Pt 2.
Accordingly, if Mbonye’s followers believe God sent him, he states, then they must necessarily believe that he is their reflection. ‘The image that you see’ he says, pointing to himself, ‘that is you.’ ‘If you acknowledge me, to be sent of God to you,’ he adds, ‘everything that you are seeing is you.’
He goes on to add how ‘It is important to capture your image… You need to know your image, I am telling you that your image is here. Study it, look at it, behold it, such that you are not confused (or) shaken.’
Judging from social media impressions and other conversations, he has succeeded. Many ‘remnants’ (as his followers call themselves) have him as their profile picture, with quite a number changing their social media names to include ‘Elvis’ or ‘Mbonye.’
The ‘remnants’ have no identity apart from him. As he states in the same sermon, he is the exact image to which they ought to conform. As Mbonye is, he says in that sermon, so are they.
The Making of a Cult
A cult, by essence, is a movement built around a venerated person. Here, the highest aspiration of the members is their formation into the image of the leader.
Boze Herrington in The Atlantic lists seven signs of cultic activity which include, among others, opposition to critical thinking, separation from the Church, and seeking inappropriate loyalty to leaders.
The leader is the god and goal of the movement.
Mbonye believes his meetings aim at forming his followers after his form. Occasionally he will critique critical thinking as carnal while lambasting the traditional Church as ‘pharisaic.’
Without critical thinking, his followers receive whatever he says to them without question. And by labelling those who disagree with him as ‘Pharisees’ he ensures his followers do not listen to anyone else. Distancing himself from the traditional Church, he marks himself as separate from the Church universal and its 2000-year old heritage.
The ‘remnants’ see him as a special one, in his genre, exalted above all men, to whom all the nations owe their due.
Therefore, his followers find it natural to lick his boots ‘in awe’ of his ‘transcendence.’ In their thinking, he deserves their worship— they call it ‘honour’— as God’s mouthpiece, the same way Christians revere Christ.
Many ‘remnants’ indeed have prayers addressed to him, and if you may recall, a popular Ugandan musician professed to know no other god but Mbonye.
Like Nebuchadnezzar, he has erected his image, to which all his followers bow, with all gladness.
Inevitably, Mbonye is to the ‘remnants’ what Christ is to Christians. Not only is he their cult leader, but he is also the image into which they must conform. And make no mistake about it, the man means what he says, and knows what he is doing.
The Bible’s Warning against Idolatry
Voltaire’s observation is spot on, for sin sends us sideways from the centre — Christ — to fashion gods after our image. In so doing, we convince ourselves that we are repaying God’s favour, that we are truly worshipping Him when we bow down to a man. But beyond all contradiction, human-centeredness is idolatry.
Idolatry is so subtle to see but ensnaring and suicidal. Biblically speaking, the people of God have always found idolatry so appealing that Scripture contains numerous warnings against it (Deut. 4:16, 23; 5:8; Ex 20:4). God, knowing Israel’s misguided desire to seek the visible manifestation of the invisible God in their midst, sent warnings against setting up tangible images as His representations.
The premise of the warning against idolatry is that Israel at Sinai saw no form of God (Deut. 4:9-21). Therefore, they must guard against making for themselves visible images of God.
The prohibition against making images of God is more pronounced when we know that Christ is the only living and visible Image of the invisible God (Col 1:15). According to this Image, God made us, and into Him, we are continuously conformed (Rom. 8:29). It follows then that Christians are to bear no man’s image, name, or identity — but Christ alone. Anything contrary is idolatry.
The other thing about idolatry and human-centeredness is that it reeks with pride. When a person makes themselves the centre of attraction, they inevitably and arrogantly elevate themselves above others.
As we recall, God drastically altered Nebuchadnezzar’s seven-year menu and his home address for taking himself more seriously than he should. ‘Brother Nebu’ even caused his subjects to bow to his image (Daniel 3, 4) thinking that he was ‘exercising his rightful dominion.’ In reality, he was idolatrous and arrogant.
Now, humility is a rare commodity among the ‘remnants’ (and I say this with the full awareness of my need to grow in it myself). Arrogance litters almost every conversation with a ‘remnant’ (wait for when they comment).
But ‘pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall’ (Prov 16:18). When pride is the marker of a movement, you can be sure Christ is not its leader.
Heed Sound Teaching or Tickle Itching Ears?
Therefore, everyone who names Christ has two choices: to either seek sound doctrine or scratch itchy ears. Speaking of true prophecy, the Bible forewarned us about many who will reject the biblical doctrine.
For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. 2 Tim 4:3-5
We must beware of teachings that scratch us ‘the right way.’ God’s Word is not a scratching shard that soothes our itchy rashes. It is instead a surgical sword that slits deep to remove the tumour of pride and idolatry (Heb. 4:12) and conform us to Christ.
The Christian message is not one of self-elevation but self-humiliation (2 Sam 6:21-22; John 3:30; 1 Cor 3:5-7; 1 Pet. 5:5-6). But humility only grows where God’s Word alone is exalted on the pulpit.
Thus, if we are Christians, we must belong to a local church that soundly exposits Scripture. When God warned Israel against idolatry, He asked them to refer to His Word which Moses wrote (Deut. 4:14). The prayerful study of and submission to the well-exposited Scripture is our only safeguard against idolatry.
And as Christ returns, may we not be found conformed to any man’s image but rather transformed by the renewing of our mind, through His Written Word.
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