Churches must ‘stay in touch with reality’

THE state-of-the-art Rivers Church in Sandton, Johannesburg, has the blessing of its parishioners, but some religious experts have cautioned that such wealthy churches risk encouraging their congregants to run away from reality.

Professor Simangaliso Kumalo of the religion and politics department at the University of KwaZulu-Natal warns that wealthy churches might inadvertently promote “affluence and prosperity” as part of the gospel.

‘‘But they have a market for the people they are addressing, which is the middle class.”

Kumalo said such churches could sketch a picture in which life in the world was shown as being all beautiful.

“It runs away from the reality that it’s only a tiny part of society that experiences that kind of life. The majority are struggling to get by.”

Kumalo said that the wealthy churches could be viewed as giving confirmation of their members’ status in life.

‘‘Human beings in many ways hunger for spirituality even when they are climbing the social ladder,” he said.

Dr Willem Semmelink, a Johannesburg theologian, said more people were flocking to religion as a source of balance in their lives.

“Especially at a time when there is low morale, a lot of crime and instability in the economy and politics, people tend to look for something more eternal that will not change between yesterday and tomorrow.”— Monica Laganparsad