The freedom of religion is enshrined in the Constitution of Botswana. And by no way, this commentary is about people’s right to belong to a religion of their choice, which for us in Botswana is as guaranteed as day and night.
Much less is this commentary about the scripture.
Rather it is about locating the Church in the confusion that we currently are as a nation.
There is no doubt as a nation we have lost our collective moral compass and jackals calling themselves religious leaders are having a field day as they feed on us taking advantage of our hopelessness and helplessness.
For some time now, Botswana government has been concerned about what is happening in some of the churches.
During that same time, the Government was also concerned at the alarming mushrooming of churches.
We have no problem if churches or their leaders can come out into the open and make it known to all of us that churches are businesses.
If they do that, then it will be very easy for all of us, especially Government to deal with them as they will be subjected to all the rigours that all of us in business go through on a daily basis as we try to keep our outfits afloat.
Unfortunately our churches do not want to come out into the open to say just what they are.
They instead want to keep it both ways; remaining a fish and a fowl.
The government is not at all to blame for the deterioration in the moral rectitude in our churches.
This newspaper wholly supports what government has been doing to correct the situation in our churches, including deporting drug lords that masquerade as men of the cloth.
We can only encourage government to intensify efforts to clean the churches until such time that the genuine people of faith themselves find it costly to harbor international criminals who come into this country and infiltrate them as a way of carrying out their illegal activities.
After a careful consideration, we have been unable to differentiate the core business of what goes on at many of the churches in this country from the undisguised criminal underworld that controls the second hand motor vehicle-importing industry that has since taken over the whole of Mogoditshane village.
While in the beginning it was the foreigners ÔÇô mainly from East and West Africa that did most of the criminality under the guise of religion, Christianity especially, we now observe an appalling new development where increasingly Batswana are joining hands with these criminals, to rob other Batswana of their hard earned money.
The reason why Batswana are falling for these tricks in ever growing numbers is very easy to establish.
For a number of years now, as a people we have been living under a heavy load of disease, poverty, personal isolation, debt, unemployment and the like.
This has bred hopelessness among our people such that for many of them, as they now look up only to God as their savior, they also have become vulnerable as any wolf in a sheep skin can approach them and tell them that they are messenger of God.
Is it any wonder that our so-called celebrities, many of who are also involved in drugs, not just as sellers but consumers are in great numbers also going around themselves portraying themselves as born again Christians?
The reason for it is that Botswana still; has a large number of untapped “business” of the unconverted who are will to spend their last penny at Church when their family goes hungry.
Because the “markets” in East and West Africa are saturated, it is only natural that these foot-loose evangelists would move to new pristine territories like Botswana.
And they are making a killing.
By embracing, sleeping with criminals and siding with devils, Churches have surrendered their authority to be bacons of morality where people go to seek redemption, counseling and help.
Here we have to pause and remind our readers that not all church people in Botswana are engaged in this criminality.
But the genuine Christian leaders in this country are ever getting few in numbers such that it may be time we declare them an endangered species.
Because they are so few, and for most of the time they know each other, it is only appropriate that they join hands among themselves and with government in an effort to uproot the growing contamination that is eating and corroding our people and country in the name of God.
Just how more criminal can it get for a so-called celebrity to start a church in cahoots with international gangs of their ilk, make a deceptive public statement that they are donating all their vehicle fleet to the church, when in actual truth they are only so doing to entice their followers to do the same by way of giving away what little property they have to the Church where it ultimately falls into the hands of the same small town celebrity who then shares the proceeds with his international handlers?
We cannot think of more heartless types of criminals than those currently bestriding our so-called churches.
As it is, it is going to be difficult for Government to enforce sanity. The best way is through education, and where possible naming and shaming the culprits including exposing their double lives of drug and pretence.
