The saga about Rev Vukile Mehana’s secretly recorded utterances about women ministers in the Methodist church surely gave us that “big bang” start to public debate for 2019. A lot has already been said about the crude and sexist language that the Reverend used.
Statements of condemnation have flowed fast from his affiliate organisation.
Not being a Methodist, I did not feel much of the pain that I saw being expressed by members of the Reverend’s church community.
It seemed, and understandably so, that Methodists online took the whole thing as a stab in the heart.
But I was wondering, and I asked my church friends, is this not what most Reverends are like when they are “offline”, so to speak?
My observation is that abefundisi bakrwada (church ministers are crude), and many pride themselves on having reputations for being coarse- tongued.
When I was chairperson of the Radio Grahamstown board, most of the verbal abuse I received was from abefundisi.
I had a baptism of fire, so to speak, when, the day after I was elected as chair of the community station, I received a phone call from a certain mfundisi and had a torrent of abuse come at me by someone who had never met me but had just heard that I was the new chair who had to be put in her place.
Mind you, I once had to entertain the same person’s loud prayers of solace during prayer sessions when a family member had died.
When I was a child, there was a certain MRev in my family village church who slept with underage women in the church. I vowed never to go back to the church when one day, around the time I was 18, MRev unexpectedly, planted a huge fat kiss on my mouth.
After more years, I decided to never go back to any church.
Now, this is a tricky thing because black people expect you to be part of some denomination that will bury you and provide prayer if you get sick.
But to be part of a denomination I would have to act blind and be mute to the everyday nonsense that members of the cloth get up to today.
I would not be surprised if many of Rev Mehana’s defenders will come from the women’s guilds in the church.
The women’s guilds are another key reason I just cannot bring myself to take church membership.
On one hand, these omamabebandla (mothers of the congregation) provide such care and support for one another.
But on the other hand, some of the worst abusive behaviour in churches is promoted by these matriarchs.
Who among us has not heard senior women in the church castigating the younger women for how they dress or having sexual designs towards the minister?
If I became umama webandla, I just know that part of my role would be to keep “the young women in line”, so to speak.
Meantime, has anyone noticed how some women’s guilds tend to treat male ministers as sacrosanct, holy, unblemished leaders of God?
The MRev of my own village church was eventually forgiven even though he really should have been arrested for statutory rape.
By the way, his own wife eventually left him, and for a younger man, apparently.
Good for her, I say!
Rev Mehana’s exposure actually reflects a deeper crisis of values within the black church structures and communities today.
In any case, an honest conversation about gender within the church has to happen.
We can’t pretend churches are not gendered spaces. They are, for good or bad.
Meanwhile, the rest of us will stay heathens. When we die, just hire one for the day.
We will be sure to include the fee in the funeral policy...