There’s a lot of KwaSizabantu environments, laments church leaders

News24 recently released a series of damning investigative reports detailing how some church members suffered physical, sexual and psychological abuse at KwaSizabantu Mission in northern KwaZulu-Natal.  

The mission also faces accusations of fraud. 

The South African Council of Churches (SACC) says the allegations are worrying. 

“Apart from the fact that it’s gross, it’s dastardly, it’s abhorrent and almost unthinkable, except that it’s happened so often,” says SACC general-secretary Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana. 

“I don’t think it has to do with church per se but has to do with the culture of power, when power is exercised over people – emotional power, psychological power and of course religious power and if you combine those powers with the much more abiding powers of patriarchy then you’ve got a toxic coil.” 

He says some church leaders prey on congregants’ weaknesses.  

“It’s all emotional games, it’s power games and that power can be played emotionally and by social norms. All of these things we need to have them expunged, we need to get them out of the psyche of people.” 

Mpulwana admits churches can be breeding grounds for gross abuse of human rights, but says churches are a microcosm of society.  

“The name KwaSizabantu, the very choice of the name, is itself a fraud. It is a fraud, it is a fraudulent way to draw people into an emotional trap that gets them to live with rape as a part of KwaSizabantu. The point I’m making is there’s a lot of Sizabantu environments within the sanctuaries of our homes and within our churches.” 

General-secretary of the Evangelical Alliance of South Africa Moss Ntlha shares the sentiments, adding the KwaSizabantu scandal is a “tragedy”. 

“It is just a tragedy in that a lot of abuse happens in the name of God, in the name of revivalism, in the name Christianity and religion.” 

Ntlha says the allegations tarnish the sector’s reputation. 

“It is an absolute tragedy because many people will feel that they have no other choice but to distance themselves from the Christian faith and anything that looks like organised religion because the leaders in that environment are just as corrupt and as dishonest as anyone you can find.

“All power that is put in any human being, whether it is political power, whether it is economic power, whether it is media power or religious power. The problem with religious power is that hides behind God and you can’t very well interrogate God,” Ntlha adds.