Lure of other Churches

THE recent reports of congregants at an independent church in South Africa being made to eat snakes, clothing and hair coincided with reports from Brazil of a Pentecostal pastor counselling women to perform sex acts on him as a method of healing.

These kinds of abuses, and many others like them, make our faith in Jesus Christ look ridiculous by association.

While most independent churches—Evangelical and Pentecostal—faithfully strive to serve God, others clearly do not. Archbishop William Slattery is therefore correct in suggesting, as he does in our front-page report this week, that some regulatory measures might be appropriate in giving recognition to churches which fail to meet certain theological and ethical standards.

The archbishop suggests that the South African Council of Churches might have a role to play as a statutory body. This is a good starting point in investigating the feasibility of regulating churches and holding them to account when they cease to be recognisably Christian.

It would require very broad and inclusive definitions. There should, however, be a general agreement that the Holy Spirit will not be attracted by the performance of sexual acts in the course of spiritual guidance, and that God does not require of us the consumption of serpents or hair.

But would there be a consensus on the exploitative prosperity cult churches which preach that to become rich, one must first give all one has to its affluent pastor? Would they meet the tests of a theological consensus?

The prosperity churches’ acceptance by Christians, even among Catholics, is attested to by their full services and by the popularity of their preachers.

Independent churches are mushrooming throughout South Africa, and for most Christians it is difficult to tell apart the genuine preacher from the charlatan.

In the absence of a central authority, anything goes in independent churches. Theology, doctrines and practices can be shaped to suit public demand.

And that demand exists. People tend to like to be told what they want to hear. Many desperate people in poverty will be open to the promises of riches; many of those who feel shackled by dogma will be attracted by the promise of doctrinal freedom; those who yearn for noise will follow the sound of clamour.

In all this, independent churches are accountable to no authority. On the other hand, the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, and their various offshoots (such as the Lutheran, Anglican and Methodist Churches), can point to a lineage that goes back to Christ himself and his Gospel (Mt 16:13-20; 1 Tim 1:6; 4:14; 5:22), and correspondingly have hierarchical structures and a theological body of work in which to root their teachings.

The independent churches have no such direct mandate from Christ and no established hierarchy, and are therefore not answerable to any authority, other than to their particular interpretation of Christ’s will.

For the Catholic Church, the exodus of their members to the independent churches—the sincere ones as well as those that exploit Christ and his people—is an area of great concern.

Some supplement their Catholic practice with attendance in charismatic churches; others are leaving for good. The Church must learn why this is so, and how it can accommodate the needs which it presently fails to meet.

Archbishop Slattery this week offered some reasons: “People want to participate and ask questions. They don’t want to sit and be preached at in church,” he said.

He also suggested that the Catholic Church is not succeeding in facilitating a personal encounter with Christ.

“The idea of evangelisation is, how do we help our people know Christ personally,” Archbishop Slattery said.

Evidently, this is an area in which many independent churches are succeeding much better than the Catholic Church is.

We must discover why people, especially the young, are so willing to surrender the great treasures of our faith, what marketers would term our “unique selling propositions”. These are the Real Presence in the Eucharist, our devotion to the Blessed Virgin, the unbroken line of apostolic succession which goes right back to Christ, and so on.

The reasons we arrive at, and our ability to respond to them, must then shape our evangelisation to the uncertain Catholics in our pews.