If it is love, compassion, tolerance and goodwill you are looking for, then stay away from the church.
God is love.
It is unfortunate, however, that in Botswana you are most likely to find love in bars than at local churches.
Recent news from local churches has been a non-stop production line of doom and gloom. Priest against priest, denomination against denomination, blood on the pulpit, that is a sign of our times.
Factional wars that are tearing the Roman Catholic Church of Botswana, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Botswana and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa have kept the country’s Christians on edge for some time.
The body of Christ has never been as divided as it currently is in Botswana and the church is among the worst culprits. The church has become so divisive it stinks in the nostrils of GOD.
Church members identify more with what divides than unites. Most cannot see beyond worldly labels like Seventh Day Adventist, Lutheran, Catholic or Seventh Apostle to the common humanity that unites us all.
God created all human beings in his image. The church, on the other hand, created one image for its followers and another for those who follow different faiths and religion. It is part of the “us and them schism” that militates against the notion of common humanity.
It is safe to assume that a good number of church members worship their churches more than they worship God. The very people who are supposed to be demonstrating an extension of God’s love are instead projecting hate.
The local church has to decide which of the two masters it wants to serve, LOVE or hate.
At the rate things are going, it does not take a genius to tell which master they are likely to follow. This is an unfortunate pass for Botswana, which looks up to the church to help the country achieve its 2016 vision of a just, loving, caring, compassionate and morally upright society. If the institution that is supposed to provide the country with moral fortitude has become as cesspool of all the things Botswana is trying to move away from, then GOD help us.
Botswana is banking on the church to help drive its vision, which has among its seven pillars, a moral and tolerant nation and a compassionate, just and caring nation.
All this is going to require that Batswana should give love a chance. Naturally, the only institution to turn to has been the church. The basic assumption has always been that the church is a repository of love and should be charged with driving the two pillars of Botswana’s vision 2016. As it turns out, the basic assumption that informed the decision by architects of the vision to pass that responsibility to the church may be wrong. If that is the case, then the outcome is most likely not to be what Botswana desired.
We have to face the painful truth: the church is going to the dogs. Or maybe the dogs have come into the church.
Perhaps it is time that Batswana review their decision to invest so much of the Vision 2016 hope in the church and start looking elsewhere for institution and leaders who have the power of moral suasion to move Botswana towards love, compassion and tolerance.
