Four years after Parliament enacted a law to move bars away from churches, the reverse is happening – churches are voluntarily moving closer and closer to bars.
To take a charitable view about the church and alcohol, three observations seem in order. Firstly, when he would chance upon wineless weddings in Galilee, Jesus would turn borehole water into Selected Red Overmeer – or so John suggests in Chapter 1, Verse 1 to 11.
Secondly, some churches have been given money from the Alcohol Levy Fund to run rehabilitation programmes that target drinkers.
Thirdly, some of Botswana’s Christians hold dual citizenship of both the bar and the church. The Bible is silent on this sort of citizenship proper but bringing the two territories within walking distance of each other should be convenient for those with such residency status.
That notwithstanding, the instruction from the Ninth Parliament, as expressed in the Liquor Act, is simple and devoid of any sort of ambiguity: “The licensing authority shall not issue a licence under the Act where the proposed business premises are not at least 500 metres away from a school, highway, major road or church.”
Why bars had to be that distant from churches was, in one respect, premised on the fact that the morally toxic barroom atmosphere would contaminate the sacredness of worship space. Years later, however, some mostly charismatic churches are moving into shopping malls and occupying rented space, in some cases less than 500 millimetres (not a misprint) from bars. Congregants of one such church have to pass through the bar/restaurant of Gaborone Hotel, which is on the ground floor, to get to the first-floor conference room they use for worshipping. A church in Molepolole moved into a building that was previously used as a bar and just an empty carton’s throw away from it – and within the same compound – is a Chibuku depot. In an even more extreme case, the chairperson of the Liquor Trade Association, John Kula, says that leaders of one South African-origin church asked to rent space right inside one of the bars that he runs in Gaborone.
“They asked to use the bar in the morning for Sunday services that would end at ten. I declined because their proposal didn’t make sense to me,” Kula says.
Bars open at three in the afternoon on Sundays. While he would not countenance a church operating from his bar, Kula says that he has no problem with churches moving closer to bars as long as there is no requirement that the latter should relocate.
But why are churches waiving the legal protection of worship space that the state sought to give them? What challenges have forced them to worship near bars? Are there any financial challenges that come with having to rent commercial space for worship?
These questions were put to some churches that have set up a little too close to bars but the answers never came. When it wasn’t a case of access to pastors being impossible, promises to respond to questions submitted in writing were never fulfilled.
Fortunately though, a civic leader who is also a man of God, was willing to give his insight into this issue. For starters, Reverend Biggie Butale says that in the interest of fairness, a bar should not be moved out when a church sets up next to it. As regards the law, his belief is that ‘the knife should cut both ways.’ By that he means that churches should also not be allowed to set up within 500 metres of already established bars. To be clear, Butale’s own church is not located near a bar. From personal experience, the reverend says that the closeness of a liquor outlet to a church can complicate the worship process. When his own church was still located next to a shebeen in Old Naledi, a low-income neighbourhood in Gaborone, there would be the odd visit of well-oiled customers from next door. In almost all instances, these visits were meant to disrupt the church service. Butale recalls that an intruder with that much oil in his blood would, for instance, show up in the middle of a service and strike a provocative pose to soak up the attention of congregants. He adds that live church music held particular allure for such intruders.
“There were never incidents of physical aggression but visits from shebeen customers who appeared drunk were very common,” Butale says.
The reverend concedes the point about the practice of churches physically attaching themselves to bars being common among charismatic churches but hastens to explain that, for the latter, getting land is not easy.
“Older churches have access to land across the country but it is extremely difficult for new ones to acquire it. Just look around, you’ll see,” he says.
The Liquor Act provision that prescribes the distance between churches and new bars has not been without its critics.
Although a secular state, Botswana unofficially favours Christianity over other religions. Sittings in Parliament, as live broadcasts of Btv and RB1, begin with a prayer. Official functions of the state also have no multi-faith element. While the explanation for this is that Botswana is predominantly Christian, this practice is clear breach of the secular principle to keep the state and religion separate and manifestation of commitment, on the part of the government, to a religious belief and observance.
In the past, Gaborone Central MP, Dumelang Saleshando, has slammed the government for this bias. The MP, who is himself Christian and a member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, said that it was unfair of the government to single out churches for protection while neglecting to provide similar legislative protection to worship spaces of other religions. He particularly mentioned mosques.
