WHAT BANK?

The government seems to prefer the idea of churches regulating themselves, which is probably a good idea, but is this because of the power the prosperity churches wield?

For those who can understand why people continue to believe in what seems like trickery and manipulation, Pretoria clinical psychologist Hayden Knibbs says they are simply being hypnotised. A “trance-state” occurs when a person’s critical judgment and common-sense faculty is bypassed.

“If I observe the way that the pastors are interacting with the congregation, they are pushing a selective thought that there is a miracle and that they are the ones facilitating the miracle and [which means] that they are unique,” says Knibbs. “There is implicit selective thought in that. That should you follow them you will have a life-changing miracle occurring.” He adds that because this reality or thought is experienced as a group in the entire congregation, people don’t question their religious leaders.

“There is also the authority of a religious figure, that in itself is a selective thought of ‘don’t question what I am saying, I would never lie so if I show you this, it is true.’ That is the part of the critical faculty that is bypassed as well because there is a whole group and it is continuous,” he says.

If the selective thought is deep and strong enough, people simply justify why reality is different, which is why when pastors do things such as making people drink petrol, congregants can think it harmless.

The “real danger comes once this trancestate has occurred and the pastor becomes manipulative. If you know for a fact that you are tricking a group of people by pretending something is occurring but you know it is not, yet you are trying to persuade them. What these pastors have done is accidentally stumble on hypnosis and their persuasion techniques are just stepped up. But they are still [taking] something that isn’t real and claiming it to be real,” says Knibbs.

The group is key to the hypnosis working, “Despite people’s misperception of hypnosis, you will not accept a suggestion you don’t want to accept. It is not the abandonment of control, that is why it is so crucial that the group so badly wants this

to be true.”

Retired Pastor Isak Burger, who was president of the Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) for 28 years, has first-hand experience of just how much money passes through the hands of congregants to the front of the church.

Burger tells the FM how he once went to preach at a congregation in the Eastern Cape while he was still the AFM’S president.

The community was poor, but when the time came for offerings to be made, a bed sheet was laid out on the ground on which the members placed their offerings.

“It was a heap of money. I could not take it,” Burger says. But the community was offended.

The absence of government oversight and poor communities’ “generosity towards the man of God” leaves them open to abuse by chancers.

It’s a tricky issue over free choice, but this could come to an end if the recommendations of the Commission for the Promotion & Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious & Linguistic Communities (CRL Rights Commission) are implemented.

The chapter 9 body investigated the commercialisation of religion after reports of shocking actions by certain pastors, such as instructing congregants to drink petrol and pay for blessings.

Outgoing chair Thoko Mkhwanazi-xaluva said in a report last year the commission is concerned about some religious organisations’ disregard of their fiduciary responsibilities.

The report recommends that religious leaders guilty of fraud should be prosecuted, and that all religious institutions must have a finance committee, treasurer and elected oversight structures to manage their financial

and internal affairs.

The commission favours a self-regulated religious sector overseen by an umbrella body with a peer review committee to ensure that people aren’t taken advantage of.

The commission’s investigation was impeded by a lack of trust and churches’ unwillingness to supply financial and other documents.

An Eastern Cape church said they were angels from heaven come to “return the world to Jehovah” and had not registered in this world for bank statements.

David Mosoma, outgoing deputy chair of the CRL Rights Commission, says: “We discovered that the majority of these religious institutions aren’t even registered, that the majority of them are standalone — it’s a pastor and his family and of course a large number of congregants.”

In some cases, the pastors collect money from congregants and deposit it into their own accounts, without accountability to the congregants. Many don’t pay taxes and run businesses selling holy oils and water that promise good health and prosperity.

“There are a number of things that they do to make sure that these unsuspecting, vulnerable individuals are caught in the web of contributing to the lifestyle of some of these fraudsters, in the name of religion,” says Mosoma.

All the churches that did produce their financials were making “good money” — but the commission promised church leaders that the figures would be confidential.

Mkhwanazi-xaluva’s and Mosoma’s terms have ended. President Cyril Ramaphosa is yet to appoint their successors.

The SA Revenue Service (Sars) says it is “not in a position to advise on the estimated worth of SA churches … as we do not have a register of all the churches nor do we collate an inventory of their financial statuses”.

Spokesperson Sandile Memela says: “[Sars’s] mandate is merely to approve and exempt the churches that apply for exemption.” The fact that churches are registered as nonprofit organisations (NPOS) does not exempt them from paying tax. “Where the church is registered only as an NPO and not approved as a PBO [public benefit organisation], the church will pay income tax on all its receipts and accruals. Where the NPO is approved as a PBO, certain receipts and accruals of the church will be exempt from income tax as per the [NPO Act].”

However, churches are obliged to file annual income tax returns regardless of their tax exemption. The CRL Rights Commission says most churches do not do so.

Last month acting Sars commissioner Mark