CHURCH IS DESECRATED

“There is an evil which most of us condone and are even guilty of: indifference to evil,” Rabbi Abraham Joshua Herschel - a friend and close associate in the leadership of the movement against the Vietnam War with Martin Luther King Jr – some over 60 odd years ago displayed an uncanny intimate understanding of the insidious nature of evil.

Rabbi Herschel continued: “We remain neutral, impartial, and not easily moved by the wrongs done unto other people. Indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself; it is more universal, more contagious, more dangerous. A silent justification, it makes possible an evil erupting as an exception becoming the rule and being in turn accepted.” Herschel could well have been speaking to and about us, Eswatini society, but more specifically the church and its leadership during these troubled times.

In the just recent past, the church and its leadership has not only spectated without as much as muttering a whimper the alleged murder of emaSwati children by security forces, but has over the years remained silent and colluded with the State in perpetuating a sub-culture of injustice on the people. The sin of the allegedly murdered emaSwati children was demanding that which God bestowed on them upon their birth – their fundamental and inalienable human rights – that have been withheld and trampled upon by the hand of man, the Eswatini leadership. In recent times, perhaps with the exception of the lone opposing voice of Apostle Justice Dlamini, the so-called men and women of the cloth, including their congregants, have by their silence colluded in the desecration of the church, Bible and Christian religion in the same manner that a drunk man uses a lamppost; more for support than illumination on how God would like us to live the life He intended for humanity.

Abusing

In recent times, we have seen the so-called clergy – the doubt is deliberately planted because titled church leaders are not exactly who they claim to be – pandering to the whims of the political leadership and by so doing, abusing their positions to gain favour and appointment to public office, especially among the advisory emabandla. And once they arrive at the feeding trough, they cultivate and perfect the cult of veneration of the monarchy as the epicentre of worshipping and, therefore, are guilty of the sin of apotheosis. I reject the notion that they, whatever religious titles they have bestowed upon themselves, are so scared and afraid to criticise and condemn the injustices visited on the people by government and the leadership unless they are not true and genuine believers. They cannot be more afraid of any fellow human being, whatever their earthly position, than they ought to be of God their Creator; unless of course they are not true and genuine to their calling.

A symposium on ‘The path to justice, peace and reconciliation following the recent political developments in the Kingdom of Eswatini’ hosted by the Catholic Commission in partnership with the Council of Swaziland Churches, concluded that church mother bodies had been captured by the State. Indeed bodies like the League of Churches and Eswatini Conference of Churches have somewhat become alleged appendages of the State pandering and answering to the master’s voice. In fact when listening to some of their leaders, you are left in no doubt that their first loyalties are to earthly persons and institutions than to God.

As I see it, a majority of the men and women of the cloth are jostling for places in the queue to the feeding trough by endearing themselves to the leadership by whatever means possible they are and have unduly exposed the lone voices still standing for the truth, social justice and criticising the conduct of the State. The church has also been deafeningly silent on the injustices visited on and persecution of two Members of Parliament, Mduduzi Bacede Mabuza and Mthandeni Dube. The church has also elected to remain uninvolved in pagan practices even when these are infringing on the rights of the people.

Rabbi Herschel on June 16, 1963, exhorted President John F Kennedy to declare a State of moral emergency to address challenges faced by African Americans in response to an invite to attend a meeting of religious leaders at the White House to discuss the then growing racial tensions in the US because ‘the hour calls for moral grandeur and spiritual audacity’. Can the local church leadership do the same at this moment in time because the people find themselves in the same position African Americans were in at the time, under the yoke of oppression? The answer to that question is a firm NO!

Garments

That is because morality and spirituality are not exactly the garments in which our religious leaders are dressed and, therefore, are anathema to them. They are neither moral nor spiritual leaders because they are nothing but pretenders whose fixation is about pleasing earthly leaders in order to improve their social and economic profiles. That is why they are silent when the Bible and the pulpit are routinely desecrated.  

Regrettably, today we cannot look up to the church for spiritual leadership and guidance as well as society’s moral conscience because, courtesy of largely impious, materialistic and egotistical leadership, it has strayed from its path. Fear of earthly leaders is not a good enough excuse for the clergy to renege on their roles and responsibilities unless it is the fear of God. Meanwhile evil thrives with - owing to our fear-induced silence – society’s tacit approval.   

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