inside out with Respect Chofamba
The church has always been known to be a place of refuge and safety.
A space that is set apart for spiritual communication between the created and the creator and as such should be kept pure, holy and undefiled. It would be easy to keep the church building holy, if people who are naturally defiled in every way and are subject to human desires, were not a part of it. There has always been rules and regulations that govern how people interact with one another where they are in these places, but it seems more and more of the stain of human defilement is evident than that of deity.
There has been much talk about abuse that is going on in the church. To many this just remains, fables and tales of men and women who are desperate to seek attention and get cheap sympathy. Yet to few or maybe a lot more than we have been exposed to are suffering all forms of abuse from men and women of the cloth.
There are religious practices mixed with societal norms and values that leave a lot of believers susceptible to abuse of all forms in the church. Sadly, the majority of these are women and young girls.
“As women we have been groomed to keep the family together,” said Lumbetani Makondo, a trustee of the Second Home Trust, which seeks to encourage women to report any abuse and misuse of office by men and women of the cloth in apostolic churches.
“As such many of us women, become religious and desperate because we want to keep our families intact, so we visit the man of God because of a problem that burdens us. Instead of getting the help we have been promised, in the one on one meeting, we get a fresh burden of the man of God assaulting us.”
Having grown up in an apostolic church, Makondo has been exposed to a lot of the practices that open up women to abuse in apostolic churches.
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“I can never speak of other churches because I have never been there,” Makondo said.
”However, in the apostolic churches, there are practices that have made a lot of women suffer abuse in silence, because of the notion that the spirit has spoken.
“The Holy Spirit can never instruct you to do things that go against your conscience like sleeping with the bishop while you are married to your husband.”
However, out of desperation a lot of women have gone through some things too horrific and painful to tell in the belief that it would bring the relief and answer they seek.
“It’s never easy to even just have the thought that maybe the man of God deliberately touched me in my intimate spot,” says Clara Bhunu, a victim of sexual assault in the church.
“When I was assaulted in the church, at first, I thought it was just my imagination, and that I was taking things too far, but I just could not shake off that awkward feeling that something did not feel right.
“I felt violated and it killed me inside. I felt trapped as I could not tell anyone or find anyone brave enough to question his purity not only before men, but before God as well.”
Although brave enough to speak of her situation in anonymity to us, Bhunu is like many in the church who are still too ashamed to speak up about the abuse they have suffered. While they suffer in silence, more are being subjected to this abuse because of some random words we use often in relation to the man or woman of cloth that make it difficult, if not impossible for the abused to speak up.
As much as it is a biblical term, but phrases like, “touch ye not the anointed one” has been used way too often to shut up anyone who dares even speak up of the evil that befell them. There are some words that we as a people love to use that have nothing to do with the church, terms like, ‘hazvitaurwi’ loosely translated you cannot speak about it. Some even take it a notch further by intimidating others saying if you speak ill of the prophet his angel will notify him.
At a gathering for women from over 12 apostolic churches, Makondo explained: “There is nothing that should ever be termed unheard of or not to be spoken about.”
“If the bishop was brave enough to do it to you, you should be brave enough to speak up about it and make him answer for his actions. If something can be done then it can be spoken about without shame or reprove.”
Although sexual abuse is the most talked about, in church it often goes beyond the physical abuse.
“The worst thing that happened to me was the reproach the prophet had for me after I told him I am not comfortable with having one on one sessions,” said Bhunu.
“I was the sermon at every meeting and all my prophecies became about rebellion, God’s anger towards me and repentance.”
Seemingly innocent remarks that we make to each other like, “if you really want the help of the person of God then you have to do whatever they tell you to do” have left many feeling trapped in the hands of predators that use the word of God and at times the phrase, the spirit has spoken, mweya wati. To question what the spirit has said feels like you questioning God himself leaving us with the question can the church truly be a place of safety?
