Separation of State, Church is absolute

Dr Enole Ditsheko | Monday April 13, 2026 06:00

My bold proclamation was that ministers of scripture are by calling, apolitical to be of counsel to the rulers when need arises. I addressed my president and sensitised him to the fact that I would not be counted among his praise singers if there were missteps in his administration. President Duma Gideon Boko smiled broadly. My church has been a member in good standing of the Organisation of African Instituted Churches (OAIC) since 2013. Whenever this coalition body calls upon me to represent it, I shall deliver a pointed message to the political leadership without fear or favour because everyone knows the role of the Church and what ordained messengers of God ought to do and speak. We must refuse to toe the line as pressure mounts to compromise Christ’s standards.

It was not the first time I preached to the nation. I did so in July 2016. Having lived in constant fear of the Directorate of Intelligence and Security Services (DIS) since 2008, I read from King Solomon’s proverbial line; “Where there is no vision, the people perish...” and drew parallels between the state of Eritrea, whose 10 football team players, at the end of 90 minutes against the Zebras in 2015, refused to return home on one hand, and the happiness index ranking Botswana number 137 from 146 countries in the world, on the other hand. I pointed out that when citizens live unhappily, as the Eritreans and Batswana do, it is akin to perishing, as recorded in Proverbs 29:18. Even before I left the pulpit at Boipuso Hall, I knew I had invited wrath upon myself. However, I was unbothered because I declared the truth about the prevailing climate of fear and unhappiness, which characterised the period 2008-2018. Before Botswana commemorated its golden jubilee, my home was burglarised on the 10th September 2016, in what the police chief described as a clandestine operation by the feared DIS agents.

They targeted only laptops, iPads, and tablets because I was continually publishing pieces that challenged the administration. When President Mokgweetsi Masisi occupied the highest office, I addressed a pointed message to him, urging him to make a legacy by ensuring that the Constitution was rewritten from our points of view, and to keep all ethnicities equal. This, I stated without fear, because it was an open secret that he had been associated with the Pitso ya Batswana advocacy group. Political leaders need everyone to counsel them; more so, they must hear from religious leaders on moral issues. Thus, I am deeply concerned about the trend toward bridging the distance between the Church and political activism, disguised as collaboration.

Elsewhere, I have published that the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa (UCCSA) has been the quasi-state church in Botswana since Botswana’s independence in 1966. This attitude set tongues wagging for the longest time. Until Rev Benny Stegling declared his opposition party leanings, these polarities were never a topic of discussion inside Lontone of old times. Because the Botswana Council of Churches (BCC) publicly aligned with the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) across six decades, the Evangelical Fellowship of Botswana (EFB) and OAIC have always been sidelined at national events. Since November 2024, it has been somewhat “payback time” to demonstrate the total shift of power from the European-exported churches led by the UCCSA to the marginalised blocs. By virtue of the sitting president identifying with the Pentecostal denomination through the First Lady, who is a devout member of Pastor Mmoloki Mogokgwane at Arukah House of Restoration Church, and himself a self-professed supporter of the African-initiated St. John’s Apostolic Faith Mission (Botswana or South Africa matters not), we have seen a major paradigm shift.

I was within the circle of conversations that birthed the first-ever Thanksgiving service where I preached, and it was obvious that the chairperson of the ministers’ fraternal, Rev Colonel Reuben Moatlhodi, wielded no authority as his direction was disregarded and overturned on many occasions. He was a frustrated chairperson, while fellow pastors from the Evangelical Pentecostal Botswana (EFB) bloc rejoiced and made no bones about the fact that the mainline churches had to taste their bitter medicine of always rubbing shoulders with the political leadership, while others watched from the sidelines. The tables have turned so much that it is the EFB, OAIC and BCC trailing them. The BCC ministers stayed away from the 2024 Thanksgiving service en masse.

Let me point out the problem I have always had with the Church frolicking with political leadership. Look around and tell me which of those churches does not have chunks of land? Every corner of every settlement, churches which nailed their political colours to the masthead, own land. Some were unscrupulously allocated these sites by overlooking the due process that land board authorities consider. Such sites have come under dispute, and in some instances, land board decisions were overridden by political directives. When the OAIC was under the leadership of Assistant Bishop Tebogo Philemon Motlhagodi, a well-known BDP functionary, I raised my voice the loudest about partisan politics.

The BDP politburo invited the OAIC in 2018, at which the executive committee was pressured to mount a spirited campaign for the 2019 election using the coalition, and in exchange, the OAIC was to receive a luxury caravan to serve as its head office. Motlhagodi, an elder at the Faith Gospel After Christ Church (FGAC) headquartered in Ratholo, the BDP foiled the church’s invitation to the then opposition leader, Duma Boko, to officiate at its service because it was viewed as providing a platform to launch himself, whereas the party had become accustomed to seeing the FGAC as its safe territory. St. John’s Botswana, headquartered in Francistown, became Boko’s launchpad in the campaign trail leading up to the heated election of 2024. The camaraderie was sealed through very familiar members of the Umbrella for Democratic Change doubling up as the church executive committee. Hardly a week in office, President Boko, reminiscent of the only leper among the 10 who were healed (Luke 17:11-19), joined St. John’s Botswana at Gaborone West. President Boko worshipped with St. John’s Botswana at Thoteng ya Lotlhware headquarters over the Good Friday-Easter weekend. Perception matters, and we cannot be expected to ignore what our eyes are seeing. In a nutshell, the president of this country has St. John’s Botswana and Arukah as his two favourites. Perhaps there is nothing wrong with a man making a personal choice, and we should not grumble about that.

It is the least of my worries where the president chooses to go and worship. Nonetheless, I worry that perception can form a belief about what might be untrue. If we were to believe that St. John’s Botswana and Arukah are UDC-inclined, would we be right, given the frequency with which he visits them? Would it be fair to a considerable number of members who hold different political ideologies, but who must contend with being branded pro-UDC simply because they are members of St. John’s Botswana and Arukah? We have seen this sad scenario in the UCCSA, where not every member was pro-BDP, but the general perception was that the denomination was fine being associated with the political party, simply because those who made the decisions on its behalf held their political ambitions in the BDP.

It is the case now with St. John’s Botswana and Arukah. In the rush to gain access to political power, churches lined up politicians to officiate at their Good Friday-Easter long weekend services. Across the street from where my denomination conducted its services, the Jehovah Apostolic Church in Zion, under the Archbishop Bapati Wright, had the leader of the Botswana Congress Party, Dumelang Saleshando, officiate. In Kgagodi, the minister in the State President, Moeti Mohwasa, officiated at the Revelation Blessed Peace Church. In Selibe-Phikwe, Archbishop Kesegofetse Mandelo of the Seven Rainbow Apostolic Church of God featured Minister Pius Mokgware. Ingratiating ourselves with politicians will always come at a cost to the servants of God.

These are politicians, and in their vocation, there will always be a trade-off. Nothing is for free. The expression, 'You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours', is as literal as it can get once you engage politicians. The Church must not be auctioned. When we align politically, we are muzzling ourselves, whereas we bear a moral duty to proclaim truth to power. The Church is and should be the prophetic voice. Preachers harbouring political ambitions should leave the pulpit. The Church is a place of unity, unison and unification. Partisan politics is where division, separation, and factionalism reign unrestricted. We must rise above all these and be of good counsel to our politicians without feeling the pressure that we owe them favours or vice versa. I owe my breath to no politician, and I refuse to mortgage my soul to any of them. However, between 2014 and 2022, preachers sympathetic to the BDP, by hook or by crook, introduced major reforms that affected the fundamental freedoms of worship, expression, conscience, and association.

They mooted a model that was to be called the Religious Council of Botswana. It encompassed all religions and enjoyed the overwhelming support of coalition bodies, mainly because it targeted homegrown Christian entities mushrooming from every corner of the street. The proposed Council was to be the supreme organisation that regulated all religious activities. It was this Council that was to admit and license preachers and revoke practitioners’ certificates. While the proliferation of ill-operated Christian societies was itself an eyesore, my gripe with this line of thinking was the historical truth that every Christian organisation was, in one shape or form, a splinter group. I maintain this position as a fact, and if I am challenged on another day, I can demonstrate so with ease since the Reformation era. I asked the daunting questions about the freedoms conferred on citizens and who was empowered to seize them. I sought to know whether this proposed Council was duplicating the Registrar of Societies' mandate. As a coalition of African homegrown churches, the OAIC failed to ratify the proposed treaty to establish the Council. After foiling the wicked plan, this cohort of preachers from the BCC, OAIC and EFB sneaked in the amendments that became the 2022 Societies’ Act to achieve some of the objectives that were not realised with setting up the Council. They raised the number of members from 15 to 150 before a religious society could be registered.

They put a diploma in theology as a minimum requirement for one to practice as a preacher. In exchange, the leaders of the coalition bodies were to be rewarded with specially elected parliamentary seats to address moral concerns. Besides Adventist pastors who possessed doctorates in divinity, preachers representing the BCC, OAIC, and EFB between 2014 and now have all received [dis] honorary doctorates from bogus institutions that chowed their money in exchange for a Dr prefix, just so they appeared learned to exceed the baseline of a diploma in theology required by the 2022 law. This is the most dishonourable and despicable conduct by supposedly pious men who are not ashamed to address themselves as “Archbishop Dr Somebody” after buying their way through a qualification. The Botswana Qualifications Authority (BQA) is fully aware of this disturbing trend, albeit doing absolutely nothing to safeguard the integrity of the highest academic qualification from these impostors. Rev Dr Rupert Hambira is an exceptional case who earned his doctorate in philosophy through academic rigour, and I am proud to address him thus because there is a thesis he published after years of research to earn a PhD.

It can be read in scholarly journals and online. Then the wheels came off in November 2024 when the BDP did not return to the lever of power, and the 2022 Societies’ Act was dismembered piecemeal. Immediately, the new administration reduced the number of members from 150 to a mere 20 to register a religious society. The latest development on the eve of the Good Friday-Easter weekend, scrapping the diploma in theology, was the death knell. Pastors who were at the forefront of these major changes are seething with anger right now.

But that is the price servants of God will continue to pay so long as we endear ourselves to the hearts of politicians whose numbers game can be a total miscalculation. I see this miscalculation manifesting rather too quickly, where the EFB and OAIC blocs are mentioned. We must step back and let the Church operate as God’s Kingdom. We ought to have taken a leaf from those who had the listening ears of the previous administrations. We risk being alienated in the future. (*Author is the Bishop of the New Temple of the New Jerusalem, a member of the Organisation of African Instituted Churches)