CRL Rights Commission may violate freedom of religion

I APPLAUD the proposal by the Commission for the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities, or the CRL Rights Commission’s chairperson Thoko Mkhwanazi-Xaluva to regulate the practices of religious leaders with regard to the potential abuse of their followers.

I am concerned, however, that part of this proposal is to require religious leaders to undergo training, mentoring and obtaining a licence. The principle of freedom of religion surely includes peoples’ right to appoint and follow any religious leader they please – how can an independent state body decide on the qualification of such leaders? By what measure can the state stipulate this?

A “peer-review” system would fail because those pastors who cynically exploit and sadistically abuse those in their charge are bullies – they do not consider themselves to have peers, and – as Bishop Vusi Dube points out – much of this exploitation takes place in unregistered churches and sects. And for state regulation to be based on the relevant scriptures is absurd, because at best, scriptures are unclear and entirely open to interpretation, and at worst, they are outdated and irrelevant.

It is not the place of the state to regulate who people follow or try to apply scriptural guidelines. But if there are religious leaders who abuse their position in order to extort money for religious services or endanger the health of their parishioners by making them drink petrol or spray Doom in their faces, then they can and must be prosecuted.

State intervention in religion, and religious intervention in the state, has always had sinister ramifications. The commission will be going down a blind alley if it becomes embroiled in the appointment of religious leaders.

Nonetheless, it is certainly high time that the many crooked charlatans, who pose as men of God in order to prey upon their vulnerable flock, be shown that they are not above man-made laws.