DIVERGENT CORNER

Nigerians have a special talent of skipping humanity lessons and jumping straight into spiritual convocation.

When Jesus said “No one comes to the Father except through me” I am positive that “me” in this context is like a way of living. I think it is like a moral compass, The hard choice, The quiet integrity nobody claps for.

“The way, the truth, and the life” is not about quoting scriptures, it could be about choosing to do right even when no one is seeing, defending the truth even when the lie will trend faster and get you more followers.

I always have this mental image of a step ladder leading up to becoming a spiritual human/preacher .

Nigerians have completely normalised speaking holiness louder than they practice kindness, we are experts at external display and beginners at internal work. The danger is not hypocrisy alone it’s not realizing what we are doing.

my level of goodness looks like this

Personal Ethics or the beginner stage. Having basic human decency. Don’t lie when you don’t need to. Don’t cheat because you can. Say thank you, be Polite, non of these make you a saint it makes you functional.

Social Morality: you move from “me” to “us.” You Respect laws, respect people, respect boundaries. Civilization survives because enough people decide not to be chaos agents before breakfast.

Spiritual Pursuit or the “higher power” zone; the search for purity, meaning, and transcendence. Aristotle argued that virtue must be practiced before wisdom can be embodied. You don’t become spiritual by skipping the fundamentals. You grow into it, trying to reach Level 3 without mastering the foundation Levels 1 and 2 is pure hypocrisy

Faith Without Character, Scripture actually agrees with this progression more than people admit. Jesus constantly emphasized action over appearance loving your neighbour, feeding the hungry, caring for the poor. James 2:17 basically says faith without works is dead which sounds suspiciously like “your spirituality needs moral proof.” Paul talks about the fruits of the Spirit love, kindness, self-control and not loudness, superiority, or social media sermons. In other words: spirituality isn’t meant to float above ethics rather, it grows out of ethics.

The Modern Contradiction

Here’s where things get funny and scarry for me. Nigerians will quote scripture in the morning, then insult you in the afternoon, Defend corruption in the evening then post “God is love” on their page before bed. It’s like watching someone skip leg day spiritually. All upper body, zero foundation. The confusion seems to be people mistake religious performance for moral maturity. I prefer to think of it this way- morality is the soil, Spirituality is the tree. You can’t staple fruit onto a dead trunk and call it growth.

Let’s be honest, being polite doesn’t make you a good person. It makes you… a baseline human. My algorithm looks something like this:

Levels of goodness

1 Decency( basic ethics and respect)

2 Responsibility ( laws and contributing to society)

3 Compassion (fighting injustice, helping others)

4 Influence (your character inspires goodness even without trying or forcing it)

5 Spirituality (morality becomes instinctive because your inner life is shaped by discipline and communion with God.)

Before you ever reach for that mic, maybe ask yourself , Does my life make goodness look attractive to others?”

Because the highest level of spirituality is when you don’t need to announce it, people just feel safer, kinder, and more human around you .