EFF spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi and actor Tumisho Masha got into a war of words on Talk Radio 702 over controversial comments made by Rivers Church pastor Andre Olivier.
The pastor's weekend sermon sparked widespread debate and anger among people who criticised him for comments he made about black people during the sermon.
Many celebrities including Tumisho Masha, who was at church when the sermon was delivered, came out in defence of the pastor.
Tumisho received major backlash on social media as Twitter users took aim at him for defending the pastor.
Pastor Olivier has since apologised for the comments made during his sermon.
Speaking on the radio station Tumisho said that he stands by his statements, despite the backlash from social media users.
"There seems to be some misunderstanding around what I said, and around what the pastor said. All I said, I do not believe at all that pastor Olivier and Rivers Church are racist. And I stand by what I said."
Tumisho added that over the past few days he's received a lot of tweets from angry people who hadn't heard the sermon.
“I have gotten quite a lot of tweets, most of them very angry people who hadn’t heard the sermon nor had they really understood anything but want to weigh in, be really insulting and say some really disparaging things, but its ok.”
Tumisho admitted that some of the pastor's comments were controversial, however he sometimes says things that are controversial for both black and white people.
"There have been many instances where he has actually asked a lot of the congregants to leave the church in terms of white people who didn’t believe that black people should join the church."
The EFF has since accepted the pastor's apology:
Mbuyiseni said that as the EFF they initially intended to go to the church to "deal with the pastor."
"We were planning to go and deal with the pastor physically to uproot racism. We were mobolizing our members to march onto the church on Sunday but we had since been in the process demobilizing because he has since apologised."
Mbuyiseni said that they have accepted the pastor's apology but still stand by the call for him to be suspended as there has to be some repercussions for his comments.
"He is showing remorse- so we will no longer be going into the church to confront that racism."
Mbuyiseni called Tumisho out for his comments in defence of the pastor. "It's going to be very tempting to be online listening to Tumisho and not reacting to him."
The EFF spokesperson also said that Tumisho's "generalised statements" have to be challenged.
"There's an important thing that Tumisho has said, a generalisation about racism and white people that I would like to challenge."
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