Prophets of doom prey on the poor

Pastors are using toxic 'healing' and measuring faith in donations, writes Fred Khumalo

You wanna be rich, famous and glamorous overnight? No, don't become a pop musician - that's too much work, and it's "sooo last year".

Just start a church. The more controversial the teachings, the more outrageous your claims of salvation, the more successful you're likely to be.

"For each and every person who does not have employment, the first port of call is to start a church," said Professor David Mosoma, deputy chairman of the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities.

"People of this country believe. If you say 'God has said ...', they will follow you.

"So, because of that vulnerability, people exploit it for financial gain ...

"Churches have become more like business. Some, when you walk in, there are ATMs or speedpoints.

"Your devotion is measured by how much you give and it creates your status more than your faith," Mosoma said.

The year has been a bounteous harvest for new, "solution-based" churches.

Maybe that's an exaggeration. Many of these churches - ranging from Prophet Paseka "Mboro" Motsoeneng's Incredible Happenings to Prophet Penuel Mnguni's End Times Disciples Ministries - have been around for some time, but it was in 2016 that they came into their own.

Blame it on social media, or blame it on the commission, which this year escalated the work it started last year with a view to probingthese churches, mainly their finances.

The commission was startled to discover how each of these churches has what people in the advertising fraternity would call a Unique Selling Proposition, in that each church has its own carefully tailored message, and how would-be congregants would access the efficacy of the pastor's preachings.

When you google "Pastor tells congregation ..." you get numerous options: pastor tells congregation to eat snakes, pastor tells congregation to eat grass, pastor tells congregation to quit school, pastor tells congregation to strip, pastor tells congregation to eat hair.

Last month there was a new entry to the colourful and mind-boggling options: pastor tells congregants to spray their troubles away - with Doom!

Prophet Lethebo Rabalago of Limpopo hit the ground running - telling his congregants to inhale the fumes of the famous insecticide that comes in an aerosol can.

Prophet Rabalago believes that modern man is at the mercy of countless pests gnawing away at his soul - not unlike bedbugs that suck our blood as we sleep; or cockroaches that poison our food.

To respond to these threats and challenges, the good pastor prescribes Doom to kill these enemies of modern man right where they are - inside the individual's body.

It's the same logic that was used by Pastor Lesego Daniel, who cajoled his congregants into eating grass in order to be closer to the Lord.

Of course they will, sooner or later, get closer to the Lord because their bodies will sooner or later succumb to complications wrought by the consumption of toxic substances.

All of this would have been hilarious if it were not so tragic.

The proliferation and apparent success of these new prophets tell us there are willing followers. The tragedy is that these followers truly believe in the efficacy of these grass-eating jamborees.

There are thousands of people who will do anything that these charlatans proclaim. I call them charlatans, but their followers call them prophets.

My immediate instinct has always been: how can our people be so dumb as to believe this nonsense?

A friend's comment was: "You've never been desperate. When you're desperate, you will do anything, even if it does not make sense, even if it's totally humiliating and dehumanising."

He says people who go to these prophets are those who find themselves buffeted by the howling winds of modern life: mainly joblessness and disease.

Many prophets tell their followers the reason they can't find employment is because their bodies are dirty and impure.

They therefore need to be cleansed, in any of the various ways that I have enumerated.

Yet others will genuflect before these so-called prophets because they have been promised riches. Yes, sir, many of these charismatic leaders unashamedly call their churches "wealth centres".

It does not help that some of the leaders have resisted opening their books to the commission. What are they hiding?

Others, during the hearings this year, resorted to tactics that can only be described as subtle intimidation.

Archbishop Stephen Zondo, for example, appeared during the hearing escorted by armed security guards.

There were even threats against commission chairwoman Thoko Mkhwanazi-Xaluva for instigating the probes.

Maybe we're truly living in those times that the scriptures refer to in Matthew 24:24 - "For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect."

To deceive, if possible, even the elect. So say the scriptures, but let's leave this thought there.

One of the felicities of being South African is that our constitution allows and guarantees each citizen unfettered freedom of religion and association.

There are no restrictions on who can start a church.

schisms within the religion as people leave their churches and start their own, with their own understandings of the teachings

No qualifications necessary. Overhead costs? No sweat. Pitch a tent if you like. And then ask congregants to make weekly or monthly contributions towards the erection of a permanent structure.

Those churches that already have money, such as the super-rich Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, are outstripping the competition by building places of worship as fast as if they were going out of fashion.

Universal has 156 outlets in Gauteng alone. That's a lot of people. That's a lot of tithes.

The lack of regulation means some churches have been able to function like private businesses, with the tax benefits of not-for-profit organisations, says Mkhwanazi-Xaluva.

But Dr Ilana van Wyk, an anthropologist and researcher at the Institute for Humanities in Africa at the University of Cape Town, who has written a book, A Church of Strangers: The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in South Africa, is at pains to defend Pentecostalism - which has given rise to many of the "non-traditional" churches - or rather to give a philosophical premise for the rise of Pentecostalism.

She said in an online forum, #Trending: "Because the main tenet of Pentecostalism and, by extension, charismatic churches, is that it is the individual's responsibility to read and understand the teachings of the Bible for yourself, to further your relationship with God ... you can also disagree with your pastor.

"This focus on the individual means there have been lots of schisms within the religion as people leave their churches and start their own, with their own understandings of the teachings they have read."

Point taken.

But the reality is that in many of these churches the pastor tends to be so central in the lives of his congregants that they seemingly can't even think for themselves.

Everything he says - from eating snakes to drinking petrol to subjecting themselves to the fumes of Doom - is accepted as gospel.

That even goes to the members' willingness to part with huge amounts of money in the belief in the mantra "The more you tithe, the more generous the Lord".

It is against this background, then, that the commission has been focusing on the finances of the more high-profile cases, possibly to detect instances of money laundering and related crimes that take place at these churches.

The commission is not in itself perfect, but it's a good start and will hopefully help unravel the mystery of these churches, sort out the good from the harmful.

While we treasure the constitution and the freedoms entrenched in it, we have to remember that freedom has to be tempered with responsibility.