Chinyoka on Tuesday: It is time to regulate religion?

By Tinomudaishe Chinyoka

Seneca, the advisor to Nero and a Stoic who was probably more sinned against than he was sinning, once said: “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.” How right he was.

But only half right. Because nowadays, to the ranks of the rulers must be added the prophets, pastors, men of God, apostles, bishops and other similarly flowery-titled charlatans who employ religion’s usefulness to gain power and amass wealth.

Many a time we bang heads when some pseudo-prophet is seen pouring olive oil on chairs so that congregants might sit on the same (to get anointed bums, perhaps?) or when we read about how this or that couple was duped into parting with hundreds of thousands of dollars when they were convinced to ‘seed’ it to some flamboyant pastor or another.

We aren’t shocked, of course. We are after all the country that saw nothing wrong with a ‘prophet’ asking people to send him their sins so that he could carry them to Israel in a satchel and dump them there. To date, I wonder why Israeli immigration let him in: though it might be that like most countries  they don’t have a statute banning the importation of sin.

In fact, so ‘useful’ is religion that it has made some people millionaires, leading indigent congregants who are routinely asked to ‘seed’ or contribute to this or that and convinced that their windfall isn’t coming because they just haven’t been faithful enough.

The irony of it being this: the same religion that is perverted for the benefit of these fly-by-night snake oil salesmen explains exactly why people are conned: ignorance. Hosea 4:6 says “my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you…”

There is no excuse for allowing liars and charlatans to pervert freely available knowledge. But routinely, people do.

There is a church in Paris, France. It is called Notre Dame Cathedral. One of the most famous aspects of this church has been its gargoyles, mythical animal shapes that originated from ancient Egypt. They are believed to help ward off evil, hence their popularity on churches in medieval times. Read the Bible from end to end, and you will never hear of gargoyles being prescribed for buildings.

Last week, the gargoyles failed in their primary duty, and evil befell the church. Fire gutted the ancient cathedral as Parisians watched, many in tears. Within 48 hours, French and other people had pledged €500 million to rebuild the old church, complete with its gargoyles.

Weeks before this, hundreds of our people were buried alive when a cyclone hit the country. We got some paltry donations from those parts, complete  with sanctimonious instructions about how not to let it be stolen by ZanuPF. And some among us even ran with fake videos about how we were in fact stealing some of the donations.

In the midst of all these contradictions, you get the leaders of the largest opposition political party and one of the largest ‘apostolic’ sects chiming in with their religious spiel.

According to Chamisa, part of our problem as a nation is because we use the Zimbabwe Bird symbol, which to him is idolatry. According to this congregationless pastor, things will be so much better once we ban this perfidious bird from our society.

In a world where the President of the United States hosts an annual Easter function graced by the so-called ‘Easter Bunny’ (inowanikwa pavhesi ani zviya?), you have to wonder at the ignorance that informs the view that our national symbol is why we are poor. In a world where a gothic structure crumbles with its gargoyles and gets millions pledged to rebuild it in hours, you have to marvel at the spectacular lack of exposure that leads one to think that our one sculpture image is the source of our problems.

It is the same ignorance that led the same guy to say that a potential victory by Marie Le Pen in the French Presidential runoff was a ‘win-win’ for France.

When a religious leader says ‘this or that political leader was chosen by God’, they are deploying religion for personal reasons. They are trying to leverage their congregants to whichever leader they are flattering at the time.

When Mutendi says ‘Mnangagwa was chosen by God’, he is not being factual. In fact, President Mnangagwa was chosen by 2,460,010 Zimbabwean voters, which number was more than the 50% plus one that he needed to be President. It is decidedly insulting to all those voters that their vote didn’t matter, and that instead the choice was made elsewhere. It was not.

But this manipulation of religion is rampant, and serves a purpose. The politically astute ‘men of God’ deploy religion in order to get an alibi for their actions. And to rob us without censure. They also do it in order to win favour in the eyes of the supporters of the one they ‘exalt’.

Given how religion is no longer just about saving souls from a putative hell, how it is now a vehicle for the enrichment of a few at the expense of the many, given how many gullible and unlucky girls are raped by ‘prophets’ in the name of healing, given how many girl-children are married off to old people within some sects, perhaps it is time the law stepped in to protect the people.

Some regulation will bring protection to the vulnerable and the weak. Fraud laws should apply to ‘seeding’. Child protection laws should apply to refusals to immunize children or allowing girls less than 18 to be married. Tax laws should apply to all church revenues, including the so-called ‘tithes and offerings’. After all, why not?

And, above all, we need a conversation around reckless religious speech. When Magaya claimed that he had a cure for AIDS, it caused alarm. But there are many other ‘prophets’ who claim to have cures for anything from diabetes to cancer. They prey on the weak and enrich themselves.

Small wonder then why politicians would seek to appeal to people’s sense of religion. They reason correctly that most of their listener suffer from lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, and will buy anything that is sold under the guise of religion.

Every regulated field quickly develops standards of practice which then ensure that only properly qualified people can operate with authority in that field. This protects members of the public from exposure to unqualified practitioners and ensures that their money is not given to people who are nothing more than mere chancers. It also prevents regulated practitioners from acting dishonorably when they move to a different discipline; a lawyer in politics can still face disciplinary action from the Law Society for dishonorable conduct in the political arena.

Regulating religion would ensure that practitioners in the field are more circumspect in what they do. It would mean an end to irresponsible speech (such as violating people’s human rights to a cultural identity by calling their cultural institutional idolatry), and responsible actions (no more miracle fuel, anointed water, anointed carrots or anointed cabbages). It could equally mean none of the above but, one thing is clear, we need a national conversation about whether or not we should regulate religion.

And before l am accused of heresy by the ignorant, l am not talking about regulating how they pray or worship. Merely who gets to be allowed to take money from people for religious purposes, how that money must be spent and taxed, who gets to use certain titles and which methods of ‘healing’ are not allowed. There are way too many  examples of ‘prophets’ diagnosing ‘jeko’ and prescribing sex with the ‘prophet’ as a cure. That has to be wrong.

And, in that conversation, let’s find a way to penalize politicians who see nothing wrong with gargoyles on churches in France but rail against our national symbols, calling them institutional idolatry. They simply aren’t.