Do away with religious hypocrisy

Mmegi Editor | Tuesday September 16, 2014 15:23

When President Ian Khama set up the Commission on Moral Regeneration four years ago, he did so owing to outcry from Batswana. The expressed desire of Batswana was to see the nation regenerate morally. There was too much drunkenness and disrespect for the virtues that had established us as a nation. Many of these virtues were encapsulated in our trademark of Botho.

But as the visiting minister said, today’s society is falling apart because it has rejected its age-old values. Alcoholism runs the roost. Absolute lack of shame where young men and women, and sometimes, older people strut our streets almost naked, has taken over. Yet no one can say anything because ‘they have the right’ to dress according to their choice.

Sadly the line between the ‘churched’ and the ‘non-churched’ has become so blurred it is difficult to know which is which. It has become the norm for ministers to take and abuse young girls in church and then run to the pulpit to preach. Because they are degenerates, such ministers can only think of getting more money from their faithful followers so they can go and commit more sexual exploits in the church. This is wrong for a number of reasons.

The gullible young women they use, have in most cases come to church in genuine search for spiritual identity. Some have come because they believed they would receive counselling about their social problems, while some simply needed fellowship. Moreover, the Christian Scripture, like that of most major religions, teaches sanctity. Taking advantage of the gullible and helpless is wrong.

It is wrong when a church’s central message is prosperity, especially when such wealth can only be gained by the church member who gives the highest amount as the minister calls out; “Those who want to give P200 come now! Those with P500 get ready!” and so on. Does this mean the ‘widow with only a penny’ will never receive anything from the God being preached about? Today government, especially the Ministry of Education is grappling with the issue of satanism.

Is there a chance many of the young people who flock to satanism simply got tired of the hypocrisy in the Church? Could the Church have played a more meaningful role if it truly concerned itself more with the welfare of its members? It is time the Church introspected, came together in unity and made itself more relevant.

The Church needs to make us run to it, not away from it. It needs to sort itself out and weed out false prophets, pastors, evangelists, apostles and teachers from within its midst.

                                                        Today’s thought

                     “I care not for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.”

 

                                                      – Abraham Lincoln