SA faith leaders march against new church oversight committee

SOUTH AFRICAN faith leaders and church organisations marched to the Union Buildings in Pretoria on Wednesday to voice their opposition to the oversight committee recently established by the CRL Rights Commission.

The commission had raised concerns about the absence of effective oversight mechanisms for religious leaders in churches.

To tackle these concerns, the commission established an independent section 22 committee, led by religious and cultural expert Prof Musa Xulu.

The committee’s objectives include developing strategies to curb spiritual transgressions and abuses of people’s beliefs.

However, this has been strongly opposed by many religious leaders.

At the march, Prof Theophilus Mukhuba from the Unity Fellowship Church said the outcome of the committee was a framework designed to undermine the independence of Christian churches and impose unconstitutional state control.

Further, he said, any legislation flowing from this process would necessarily apply to all other faiths as well, meaning that not only Christians but all South Africans would be included no matter the religion.

“We are specifically alarmed by the renewed efforts of the CRL to introduce a state regulation of religions. Parliament has already considered and rejected these proposals after extensive hearings before the Cogta portfolio committee between 2017 and 2020.

“The CRL’S attempts to revive them undermines constitutional democracy and disregards parliamentary authority,” he said.

Mukhuba said attempts were made by many Christian association groups to engage the CRL on the matter, with no success.

“The CRL has simply chosen a path of engaging only with groups that agree with them. Section 15 of the constitution guarantees freedom of religion. Section 18 protects freedom of association, including the right not to join state-controlled religious structures. Section 31 affirms the right of religious communities to self-govern, it is there in the constitution. We have the right to self-govern ourselves,” he said.

He argued that the commission’s mandate has never been to police religious communities.

“That is the job of the police.”-TimesLIVE