PASTORS LIVING IN LUXURY

Sir,

As it happens often in this country, each week has its own peculiar national issues around which the public discourse for the week is formed. And last week has not been different, especially because once again, like many times in the past, the issue of pastors reappears on the desk of public discourse.

The issue of Zimbabwean Pastor Moses Chiyama of Christ is Life Ministries, in Pigg’s Peak, demanding his congregation to buy him an Audi Q7 worth E1 million, is a disgrace to this country. As a nation, we are surprised by this manner of approach. I am, however, inflamed by the manner in which those who are called ‘men of God’ and many who have developed a repugnant penchant for luxury at the expense of their congregations.

This costly appetite for opulence among pastors indicates a very disturbing trend that must be nipped in the bud before it transforms into a noxious epidemic.
This letter was written in a comparison manner, specifically drawing comparisons between pastors and local chiefs. This is because there are similarities between pastors and chiefs, which makes them almost identical. For, on the one hand, pastors and chiefs benefit from citizens.

Glorified

Pastors enjoy a glorified system of deification which makes them almost immune from questioning. In addition, pastors enjoy different types of immunity from both government and their followers. An equally shared trait between pastors and chiefs is their unabashed tendency to be unaccountable to the people whom they lead. It is no longer news that in Eswatini, the country of extreme poverty, among the 80 per cent living in penury, at least 50 per cent of them are Christians. They are compelled by the damming messages of their spiritual leaders to pay tithes weekly.

Tithes

And despite the fact that the majority of their congregants live in impoverishment, pastors still exact tithes and other monetary commitments from them. These offerings and other monetary commitments from church members are monies for the church, not monies for pastors. However, these monies are open to abuse because there is no established system of accountability to the congregants. The absence of a system of accountability makes abuse the norm and provides a luxurious life for pastors.

So long as they ‘messengers’ of the gospel, they have absolutely no need to acquire luxurious cars, private jets etc. Biblically and morally speaking, it is wrong for pastors to own properties as private jets or its equivalent and quickly defend such impropriety as a necessity in the propagation of the gospel.
The Bible never recorded Jesus as one with wanton desires for the acquisition of luxury and wealth.

Biblical records show that He travelled many places by foot. It is, therefore, inexcusable that in this day and age those who traverse the work of Jesus are given to needless flamboyance and showiness with a special knack for joining the properties class while their congregants live like beggars, and are mostly urged to live modesty and cast their thoughts away from the things of the world.

Regardless of how this issue is viewed, we must, as a nation, urgently consider reforms for our religious organisations. We must question this untamed knack of pastors for their love of money and flamboyance. We must question how they are able to acquire properties worth millions of Emalangeni without any explanations how these were acquired.

We must ascertain the resources of their luxurious acquisition to avoid a situation where pastors unscrupulously use the funds of their churches for themselves or even worse, use their churches to siphon stolen wealth through their unholy actions. Perhaps when the latitude for abuse is considerably minimal in religious organisations, the ostentatious desires and lifestyles will also lessen.

Demand

Christians must begin to demand transparency and accountability from their pastors, the same way they should demand transparency and accountability from their government, and also review its sacred cow treatment of religious organisations. For it makes no sense  that while these churches are enjoying exemption from paying taxes, their religious heads are busy accumulating wealth and living boisterously under false pretences while citizens continue to suffer.

Government must also review its sacred-cow treatment of religious organisations. We got into this mess because our government is a predator and Eswatini an expansive hunting field. We are all preys providing nourishment for false pastors.

Colleen Matsebula

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