PASTORS ALLERGIC TO TRUTH

Right to reply
Sir,

We are responding to a story published in your paper dated January 2, 2019, titled ‘Adultery, gossip allegations rock church’. We wrote this not just for the sake of dialogue but for the pain of seeing pastors and leaders in an Evangelical Church like ours walking far from the truth:

l Pastor Alfred Nxumalo alleges that there are only six people who broke away from the church. This is far from the truth. The Mankayane AEC has lost Mkhulu Alpheos Dlamini, one of the oldest members in the church.

This man had been with the church since the time of missionaries but has since left because of the pastor’s issues. The church has lost Babe Nimrod Simelane, Babe Enoch Mabuza and his family, Babe Themba Mabuza, Roosevelt Nkonyane, Mbongiseni Malinga, Sandile Nxumalo and his family, Sandile Dlamini and his family, Babe Nhlabatsi, Nkonzo Mdluli, Dumisani Mndzebele and Babe Sanele Mavuso and his wife, among others. It is worth noting that Mavuso was the vice chairman of the local church committee and his wife was treasurer of the women’s committee. Those who know their math can count the above list and see whether it is six people or way above that.

l The regional chairman alleges that we stood in their way when they wanted to discipline the pastor and this is also very far from the truth. What we did as elders of the church was to negotiate the terms of his suspension. We only challenged the executive committee when they came to lift the pastor’s suspension and the reason for this was that we felt the executive committee was supposed to meet the elders of the church committee before lifting the suspension.

The reasons for this are clear; we wanted to give them our side of events, since the pastor was with us throughout his suspension. We are the people who have all the details about his behaviour during the period of suspension. We challenged that and we are still challenging it.

l Dludlu alleges that we are not stating our allegations but we have written numerous letters to the executive committee stating our problems. We have written about the problems of the status of the local church committee, the problems that concern the local chairman, the problems of abuse of church funds and requested an audit by the regional finance committee and many more. If he wants us to repeat them and add, we can do that.

l Dludlu alleges that we also want things done our way. He says we want to dictate to them. We have never done that but we constantly made requests. He must remember that we have gone a long way with them in this matter, since 2015, when they brought it to the church.

They even brought a task team to reconcile the different factions in the church. They even approached some elderly people in the church for advice on this matter. They did this on their own, without us forcing them. They even reached a resolution on their own, that the pastor would stop working at the Mankayane AEC on August 31, 2017. When and where did we dictate in all the above? The only problem here is that for his own reasons, as the leader of the executive committee, he is refusing to implement decisions.

In conclusion, the regional chairman must remember that there’s a lot that we have discussed with them on this issue and if he continues to ignore the truth, we can publish each letter we wrote to them and the minutes we wrote in those meetings we had with them so that the public and the entire church membership would know the truth.

Mankayane AEC Elders

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