Tanzanian clergy often frustrates me with their focus on trivial issues, revealing how deeply a culture of money influences them. Preachers who gains attention is quickly reported to the authorities, seemingly to face persecution.
This new habit is increasingly entrenched in our houses of God, but deep down, there is a battle to win the hearts and minds of the congregation.
This article cites a few case studies in which the clergy has parlayed the influence of the pulpit to neutralize rivals who deploy misinformation and misinterpretation of scripture to nail down their selfish ends.
One lady preacher in Mwanza was loud and, at times, sounding blasphemous but was attracting large followers. In the blink of an eye, she had amassed untold wealth, and the seasoned preachers were envy-stricken. They began questioning her religious doctrine and concluded it was lacking!
The hypocritical preachers contacted the authorities about child trafficking, and before we knew it, her church was swarming with law enforcers.
Her disciples fought back, believing satanic wars were levelled against their faith. Some faithful were crying while gyrating, while others accosted the law enforcers to no avail.
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The Mama preacher was arrested with some of her senior leaders and was locked up for months without a trial. Later, after going through legal commotion, they were released to continue from where they left.
In all this legal turmoil, the parents of the children whom authorities alleged their children were abducted were never paraded in court, indicating the whole sham was a publicity stunt to appease senior clergy whom politicians depend on to pontificate politically correct messages.
Another preacher from Lubumbashi, DRC, who is married to a Tanzanian woman, was bundled out of the country for preaching unorthodox doctrine. His chief crime, which led to his declaration “persona non grata,” was just that.
The authorities did not mind that he was a citizen member of the EAC and had certain rights to live wherever he decided to dwell within it.
The authorities did not ponder the fact that taking out a citizen member of the EAC demanded judicial adjudication. The authorities exercised judicial power they did not have, consequently trampling on his residential rights without a moral conscience.
The authorities did not waste even a second to weigh in on splitting apart his family, which is bonafide Tanzanian by birth. What wrong did he do? It all stews in the interpretation of the scripture.
As far as this mercurial preacher was concerned, his miracles were not for free, and his congregation loved him for that. I am aware of the word of God, which says that you have received it freely, which means healing miracles are free.
However, my interpretation should not be universal; other believers may read and understand it differently.
Just like he is doing, he may be pompous about fleecing dumb Tanzanians who have enabled him to build a monumental church in Lubumbashi. Still, to his faithful, they have aided in spreading the word of God in all four corners of the world, as the scripture commanded them.
This is where the altercation lies. Other preachers saw an opening and sent people from their congregation to be bedridden, while others visited him to catch him from his own words and deeds.
Remember how Pharisees in the days of the Lord Christ Jesus ensnared Him to lay down a charge sheet founded on self-incriminating evidence?
Regrettably, our own “holier than thou” preachers refused to depart from the error of prophet Balaam: hypocrisy and greed. The Lubumbashi preachers may be controversial, but they had acted within the ambits of the law and did not deserve harsh treatment from the uninformed authorities.
If his doctrine threatened the followers’ lives, the associations’ registrar could have issued him notice or compelled him to have a one-on-one talk.
The rights of worship of those who rightly or otherwise believed he was a messenger of God should have been respected.
Authorities acted without spite or malice but were under pressure from established religious denominations. They did not take time to evaluate the legal ramifications of their actions, which affected many of his followers.
One woman on the Instagram account lamented that she did not understand why their preacher was forcefully returned to the DRC.
She accounted for sick people who were healed by just turning up to their church, even without meeting the man of God and went to their homes in total contentment and indescribable joy.
I could not independently verify the validity of those claims. But I assess that the authorities have encroached upon the worshipping rights of those who believe he was doing God’s work.
Another angle worth consideration is double standards. Citizen preachers have been doing things that are not different from what the Lubumbashi preacher was doing.
We have cases of preachers who, in Moshi, urged their followers to stamp their feet on the anointing oil! What followed was a stampede that left many either dead or maimed. Authorities did not take any steps. Their attitude was condescending: “…..shauri yao na ajali haina kinga.”
Another preacher packed a lorry full of soil, and he sold it for one thousand shillings per spoonful. Nobody in the authorities read or saw evil in that.
What was the difference between selling healing miracles and hawking soil or anointing oil in the name of God?
Why was the Lubumbashi preacher seen as a sinner not deserving a second in Tanzania, but the same authorities tolerated and condoned our preachers who were delivering the same type of excessive doctrine?
Even in conventional churches, there is an emphasis on offertory. Recitations of scriptural lines that urge giving generously to the church are repeated repeatedly, but nobody complains.
Who said the preachers are better than their followers? The scripture benchmark for followers to go to heaven made it abundantly clear they must be holier than their preachers.
So, the standard of righteousness is much higher for the disciples than their clergy. This is a seminal reason why we should avoid judging a book by its cover.
When interpreting the doctrine, the onus is not on the pastor but on the follower. What the follower believes is not what the pastor believes. This is why, in all miracles performed by the Lord Christ Jesus, the Amen, the credit goes to the healed, not the Healer.
He said your faith has healed you, but not His faith has healed the sick. Even the chief Apostle, Peter, when he healed a lame person sitting outside the church. The scripture says that when Peter’s eyes were transfixed on the man with a disability, he saw that the lame person had enough faith to be healed.
Then, with a loud voice, he commanded him to stand up, and the lame person stood up, and he was made whole according to his faith.
The authorities should cease immediately to be pushed to a corner by our local preachers, who are fighting to control the purses of their congregation.
If the followers are unhappy with the gospel, they can easily vote with their tiny feet and scamper elsewhere.
Nice evaluation. Dumb Tanzanians? There’re better words to use.