The Sunday Mail
Ras Good I Nunurai Rastafarian Perspectives
KEYMAN, keyman, keyman.
Rasta keyman lock your door and trod inna Zion, keyman/Because the pair of every animal was saved in Jah Ark/Inna Nyabinghi, saved in Jah Ark, Inna Nyabinghi/Rasta keyman lock your door and trod inna Zion, keyman. The above extracts are from ‘Jah Ark”, one of the most loved chants by all Rastafarians at Nyabingi tabernacles that are found around every corner of planet Earth.
The chant, one of the 101 in the Nyabinghi chant-book, is deliciously melodious but also a deeply spiritual hymn that has very few and repetitive lyrics and is of particular importance in the present era when the moral fabric of society is under severe challenge from the ills of modernisation.
In the message, the singerman is advocating for family unison in matters of prayer and worship. In Zimbabwe the rise and spread of false prophets is threatening the continued tranquillity of households. The gospel of prosperity has now overpowered the gospel of love, leaving many families broken as believers begin to pursue miracle riches than blessed love.
Rastafarians regard this as the result of the age-old fragmentation of the traditional church that has led to the proliferation of breakaway sects and made it possible for fake priests to emerge and run away with the gospel in the process deceiving the very elects who had led exemplary pious lives.
The Rastas reason that the many problems in the world today are caused by the too many different religions. “One man say him a Roman, another one say him a Presbyterian, yet another say him an Anglican. “All od them are call themselves Christian…” is one reasoning taught by elders at the “groundation’’ which refers to Rastafarian holy discussions.
The wisdom here is simple, too much religion will always pass so much confusion and this has been seen countless times through the religious wars played out by believers which are wholly unnecessary in the first place if the God being worshipped is one.
The underlying causes for the proliferation of different churches for supposedly one gospel has never really been determined but the love of deceitful money will forever be suspected as one among the chief causes which is the reason there is so much social trouble now.
In many unfortunate instances, the family is divided on whose gospel to follow. The father is an Anglican, the mother is apostolic, the son is a Presbyterian and the daughter is a Pentecostal. It is the height of family disunity whose only point of convergences to disparage non-Christians.
What now happens is that self-styled prophets unduly draw unsuspecting isolated members of the family, in many cases the mother or the daughter, to secluded places in the name of exorcising her from imagined wicked spirits but in the end perpetrate even unholier acts.
The Rasta chant above is a call to the head of house, referred to as holder of the key, to strive for every member of the household to be on the same boat to the holy place, particularly on days of worship. As it was in the days of Noah’s Ark, both male and female species were called to be on board together.
It promotes family cohesion and is the only ideal and preventive measure against false prophets, fake priests and phoney clergymen who bank on breaking families through religious division.
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