Gold for God or God for Gold?

Growing up l have always known that a church is God’s house and that churches were built by the early Christians. I was raised and first baptised in the Roman Catholic Church. So l guess l am able to make a comparative analysis between the traditional church and the mushrooming Pentecostal churches.

Pentecostal churches are mushrooming across the country. Following these churches are rumours that these churches are run as institutions for making money. I have even heard people say “If you want to make money, open a church”. This they say referring to how these churches are making money from the congregants. I understand that these pastors actually set a bar as to how much a person should give as offering and the least amount of money is usually US$50.

Congregants are expected to give a specified offering as opposed to what l have known to happen, what the bible says “give your best offering”. My best offering could be US $1 so where do l get $49 from? And as far as l know there should never be a stipulation for any offering.

Pastors of these churches drive the latest cars and have their children going to universities abroad at the expense of these poor congregants who cannot even afford to pay tuition for their children let alone pay rentals where they stay. They are exploited and give to “God” so that all their problems will go away but little do they know that the money is not really going to God but it is used to satisfy the Pastor’s insatiable greed for money.

These churches are also characterised by scandals. Not money looting scandals but RAPE scandals!! These pastors stand in front of congregations preaching the word of God but behind closed doors they turn into hyenas who rape other men’s women. They condone rape in public but go on to implement the act itself. I have never seen such hypocrisy!!

There are instances like the Gumbura case whereby he is accussed of raping women in his church. I don’t want to be one sided in these issues and attach all the blame to pastors. In the case of Gumbura, there was a whatsapp thread that leaked . This thread revealed the other side of the story which was that these women were promised material things in return for sex. If that happened l think the problem here is with both parties, sexual addiction on the side of the pastors and desperation on the side of these women. These women are so desperate to get married or to get material things such that they are willing to engage in sexual activities just to get those things.

I do hope that someday we will find an answer to all this craze, maybe God himself can intervene.