COMMERCIALISING RELIGION: TITHING THROUGH SPEED POINT

MBABANE - Did you ever imagine that one day the process of passing the plate amongst congregants in church for them to pay their tithes would come to an end?

Well, if you did not, then think again because that process looks likely to be a thing of the past in the not so distant future.
Some local churches have since introduced speed point machines on their premises, and congregants are encouraged to use them as a convenient way to give offerings and tithes.
The Times SUNDAY visited one famous church in Mbabane and found a speed point at the information centre.
This is similar to what has been found in neighbouring South Africa where the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL) concluded that money, and not God, was now the cornerstone of unregulated and unscrupulous churches.

The commission uncovered that churches had been turned into money-making schemes where church leaders were not only charging congregants a ‘consultation fee’ before giving them blessings or praying for them, but they were also running fully operational shops where holy water, oil and clothing were sold to congregants at marked-up prices.
This is on top of installing ATMs and speed point machines on the church premises.
The CRL has since urged parliament to deal speedily with its report on the commercialisation of religion.
In Swaziland, Bishop Steven Masilela, the President of the Swaziland Conference of Churches, said they would welcome a similar probe but if the investigation is on regulating the church, then the church leaders should be at the forefront of such a process.

“This is because this is a spiritual matter and it wouldn’t be easy for government to understand and deal with yet we know and understand each other,” the bishop said.
Reverend Johannes Mazibuko of the Mbabane Alliance Church differed slightly as he said probing the church would be interfering in a space that government should not even touch.
“If government identifies a preacher who is conducting a business through the church, they should approach him individually and not involve all churches (tingafi ngamvu yinye),” he said.
Mazibuko stated that even in South Africa, the churches should have been approached individually and tax demanded from those found to be doing business. But both preachers fully agreed on one thing – that there is no problem in congregants paying their tithes through speed point machines.

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