Dispatches from a Darkening Corner of the Dark Continent

SOUTH AFRICA UPDATE

SNIPPETS FROM SOUTH AFRICA

October 2006
by Shaun Willcock
The purpose of these articles is to provide insightful comment on the contemporary South African and southern African scene from a Christian, politically-incorrect perspective, for two reasons: to counter the propaganda of the Reds, almost-Reds, liberation theologians (religious Reds), and all their fellowtravellers; and to encourage Christians to pray for the people of this beautiful but desperately needy part of the world, and especially for their Christian brethren living here. Things happen so fast in South Africa these days that reporting on it all can be exhausting. No sooner is an article completed than another has to be begun. Here, then, are the details on some of the latest happenings:

South Africa and Russia Sign Trade Deals: Russia Gets What It Wanted for So Many Decades
In Holy War Against South Africa, we wrote: South Africas great wealth made it a particularly important prize for the Communist forces to win. In the words of Soviet President Brezhnev: Our aim is to gain control of the two great treasure houses on which the West depends the energy treasure of the Persian Gulf and the mineral treasure house of central and southern Africa. Indeed, South Africa is a treasure house of mineral wealth, the greatest anywhere on earth. The Soviet Union was the other great source of the worlds mineral needs and that was already closed to the West. If Moscow controlled South Africa, it would control up to 99% of the worlds known platinum, 97% of its vanadium, 93% of its manganese, 84% of its chrome, and 68% of its gold. With that kind of power in its hands, it could cripple the Wests high-tech electronic society. (pgs.108-9) Russian Communism is not dead, the old leaders are still in power although they do not call themselves Communists anymore, and they still desire to control the world and cripple the West. And since 1994, when South Africa became part of the Communist family of nations, thanks to massive Russian assistance through the years, Russia has indeed been exerting its influence in SA. And in early September, it took a giant leap towards the fulfilment of Brezhnevs longing: The Russian president, the ruthless Vladimir Putin, made an official visit to South Africa the first ever by a Russian head of state to sub-Saharan Africa to precipitate multi-billion dollar investments in SA industry by Russian business. His visit was to boost co-operation between the two mineral-producing superpowers, SA and Russia. He was accompanied by 100 business leaders. He stressed the economic importance of his delegations visit after bilateral talks with President Thabo Mbeki in Cape Town. Longterm projects under consideration are in the fields of mining, energy, aluminium smelting, the supply of nuclear fuels, agriculture, chemicals, oil and gas, and military technology, among others. Putin presided over more than a billion dollars of new deals in Cape Town on September 6, and predicted a wave of others in a powerful economic foray into SA. In Russia, we have great respect for the economic achievements of South Africa, he told Mbeki at a business forum. Deals signed at the forum 1

included a billion-dollar investment in a manganese plant by Russian tycoon Victor Vekselberg, and cooperation agreements between State-owned Vnesheconombank and SAs Industrial Development Corporation and Nedbank. Also, SAs De Beers, which is the worlds largest diamond producer, signed an agreement with Russias Alrosa to examine joint prospecting and exploration in Russia and other regions. Together the two groups account for 75% of the world diamond market. De Beers chairman Nicky Oppenheimer said that the diamond deal is a commitment to look to see whether there are things we can do together in the prospecting field. We are keen to prospect in Russia. Furthermore, the Russian Natural Resources Minister said the aluminium firm Rusal was considering building a smelter in SA. Putin also listed tourism and investment in a plant to assemble Russian minivans as possible future projects. And he added: We are also interested in your experience of turning gas into synthesised fuel. If we follow this trajectory we will be talking about billions of dollars. Our aim is to gain control of... the mineral treasure house of central and southern Africa. Brezhnev

The Latest Threat to Freedom of Expression and Religion: Governments Intention to Impose Censorship on the Media
We have warned for years now that SAs Red leaders are opposed to press and religious freedom, and various pieces of legislation have proved that. Legislation is in place that effectively means we do not have true religious freedom in SA. Here now is the latest example of what they plan to do: The ANC governments intention is to impose direct censorship on SAs print and broadcast media. It announced its intention to amend the Film and Publications Act, which regulates films and publications other than the news media by censorship and classification measures. A clause in the act has exempted the media from its provisions, thus enabling the print and broadcast media to operate without interference or pre-publication censorship. But without warning or explanation, the Ministry of Home Affairs proposed recently that the exemption will be removed in the amending legislation. We fully support censorship of pornography and other sinful entertainment. In fact, the censorship that is applied to such filth is nowhere nearly strict enough. But if the present proposal is accepted by Parliament, it will mean that the print and broadcast media will be subjected to the dictates of the Film and Publications Board; and this means, in practice, that the media will be subjected to pre-publication censorship, and probably forced to expunge sections of their news coverage. This will effectively prevent newspapers from being distributed on a daily or weekly basis, and will mean that broadcasters will have to delay news broadcasts. Bottom line: imposing this duty on the media amounts to seeking licence to publish. This has far-reaching implications. It is a significant step towards a total dictatorship, for the government will be able to prevent the publication of anything critical of itself. And also, it could even affect Christian publications, which could be ordered to also submit all articles, etc., for approval before publication! They may start with censoring only news coverage; but once the door has been opened, it is only a matter of time before the powers granted to the Film and Publications Board are widened to include the power to approve all print or electronic or broadcast media. And this would directly affect Christian publications in SA. It would be another assault on freedom of religion. Dont for a moment think it could never happen. The ANC government hates freedom of religion, despite what the Constitution says. It wants total power and will not rest till it gets it. Please see our article entitled Religious Freedom No Longer Exists in South Africa! for a detailed list of the legislation the ANC has already passed, to eliminate true freedom of religion and the free proclamation of the Gospel in SA. And ominously, the ANC is supported in this by the SA Council of Churches, which could be called the ANC at prayer. According to the proposed bill, creators and publishers must submit materials for classification if they contain presentations, or even descriptions of (or amounting to), sexual conduct, propaganda for war, incitement to imminent violence, or the advocacy of hatred based on any identifiable group 2

characteristic. For Christians in SA, it is the last one, in particular, that is the cause of greatest concern. In the ultra-liberal SA Constitution, there is a hate speech clause. It states that hate speech is advocacy of hatred based on race, gender, ethnicity, or religion, and that constitutes incitement to cause harm. This is bad enough, for Christians. For this means that if a Christian, for example, calls Roman Catholicism an evil religion, or says that Muslims are dangerous, or some such thing it could be argued that this is advocating hatred based on ones religion, and incitement to cause harm. This is nonsense, of course but given what the Constitution already says, it is very conceivable. The proposed bill, however, goes even further than the Constitution: it means that any material that is considered to be hateful, even if it is not harmful, can be censored! This is extremely dangerous for Christians in South Africa. SAs three main media freedom organisations the SA National Editors Forum, the SA chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa, and the Freedom of Expression Institute expressed shock at the governments intention, and condemned it. They pointed out that the amendment conflicts with the freedom of expression clause in the Constitution. Of course, the ANC only pays lip service to those parts of the Constitution with which it disagrees, and at any time it could either amend the Constitution or simply ignore it altogether. Thats what dictatorial governments do. Constitutions are simply for public consumption, to give the public the appearance of living in a democracy. The ANC loves to condemn the previous white National Party (NP) government. Yet under NP rule, South Africans were not subjected to this kind of blatant pre-censorship, except under states of emergency! And yet the ANC speaks of having created a democracy! We ask our brethren in Christ around the world to pray for believers in SA. It is becoming ever more dangerous to serve Christ here. Yet serve Him we will.

Former White Cabinet Minister Washes the Feet of Black ANC Liberation Theologian
When we read about it, we felt disgusted. Adriaan Vlok, a former law and order minister in the previous National Party government, went to Frank Chikane, a liberation theologian and political activist and now serving in the office of the president, and washed his feet as a symbol of his sorrow over having attempted to eliminate Chikane when he (Vlok) was law and order minister! Why were we disgusted? For a number of reasons. Firstly, because of who Chikane is. A one-time general secretary of the liberal, Christ-denying, terrorist-supporting South African Council of Churches, a diehard ANC supporter, Chikane was an enemy of the State at the time. SA was at war against the terrorists of the ANC. Secondly, because of the public nature of this apology. If Vlok really felt that he had personally sinned against Chikane, he should have repented privately. But the feet-washing was made public, for all the world to know about it. We cannot help but believe that this was deliberate which brings us to our third reason for being disgusted: and that is because both men would have known that the very public revelation of this feet-washing apology would be of immense symbolic significance. The picture of a white man who once wielded significant power in SA, grovelling in front of a black man who now does, and washing his feet even though this particular black man is in no sense morally superior to this particular white man, would symbolise to the world that the whites in general were and are wicked and the blacks in general were and are righteous, and that all whites in SA should be doing what Vlok did, in one way or another. They should all be bowing at the feet of their new lords and masters, and apologising for apartheid. Let it be clearly stated here that we are not condoning the crimes of any individual whites who committed atrocities against blacks. But we are not seeing individual blacks being called upon to apologise and repent of their many crimes against whites only whites are being made to feel guilty. And also, this whole notion of collective white guilt for apartheid is nonsense. A man can only be guilty of evil which he has personally committed. The policy of apartheid was nothing like the great evil it is being portrayed to be, but even if it was, collective guilt is ridiculous. Millions of whites did not personally 3

harm blacks in any sense. The previous white government had a duty to protect the citizens of SA against the Communist terrorists who were seeking to come to power through a violent revolution. Now that those same ex-terrorists are in power, no apology needs to be made to them by whites for having tried their best to keep them from ever coming to power. To wash the feet of an unrepentant terrorist-supporting ecclesiastic like Frank Chikane was shameful. It bears no resemblance to what the Lord Jesus Christ did when He washed the disciples feet, and told them to go and do likewise (Jn. 13:1-17). Black Marxists want white Africans to apologise, even while they enjoy all the benefits which Western civilization brought to this Dark Continent. Should whites apologise for bringing the medical care that transformed the health of millions of Africans, who previously had had no recourse but to the ignorant and superstitious witchdoctor when they were ill? Should they apologise for bringing the blessings of education, building schools, providing dedicated teachers? Should they apologise for bringing infrastructure, technology, factories and businesses to this continent? Oh no the black Marxists who now rule so many countries in Africa are only too willing to enjoy these benefits of Western civilization! Should they apologise for sending brave Christian missionaries to this Dark Continent, so many of whom died seeking to proclaim the Gospel to black Africans? Black Marxists want whites to apologise for Colonialism yet they live in the lap of luxury precisely because of the benefits which Colonialism brought to Africa. These are the facts. Facts are very stubborn things. By all means, those whites who are guilty of crimes must be punished, no less than blacks who are guilty. But enough of all this supposed collective white guilt nonsense. Its a myth. And there will be no symbolic feet-washing ceremonies carried out by anyone except those who are foolish enough to have bought into this white guilt myth, and who have completely misread what the Lord Jesus Christ did, or commanded.

The Government Releases Its Crime Statistics: Shocking Figures

The ANC government has recently released its crime statistics for the year ending March 2006. There is widespread suspicion that these official figures do not tell anything like the true story; but even so, the story they do tell is horrifying enough: According to the stats, murders nationwide are down (as compared with the previous year) by 2%. But this is nothing to get excited about, considering that the same stats reveal that there were 18 528 murders in the 2005/2006 year! Thus, SA still remains the murder capital of the world. It is also the rape capital: although the numbers of rapes dropped by 1%, there were still 54 926 rapes in SA during the 2005/2006 year! And these were not the only shocking figures: cash-in-transit heists were up by a massive 74.1%, with 383 such heists occurring in that twelve-month period! Car hijackings were up 3.1% (from 12 434 to 12 825), and bank robberies were up 1.7% (from 58 to 59). Drug-related crimes were up by 13.2%. Although the government claims that car hijackings were only up by 3.1%, this was contradicted by Mutual and Federal, a leading South African insurer, which stated that there has been a huge spike in vehicle hijackings over the past six months about 30%. In addition, Mutual and Federal said that there had been a 28% increase in armed robberies at peoples homes in the past six months. And the police themselves are far from being the upholders of the law that they should be. Instead, huge numbers of them are criminals themselves. In 2005/06, the police suspended 529 police officers for alleged involvement in crime. 17 officials were suspended for aiding an escapee, 13 for armed robbery, three for attempted robbery, two for attempted theft of a motor vehicle, three for bribery, 233 for corruption, 62 for defeating the ends of justice, and 17 for extortion. Another 55 suspensions were made for fraud, four for intimidation, eight for robbery, and 112 for theft. And these were just the ones who were caught! It is the tip of a huge iceberg. The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) said that the government is failing drastically. The DAs Dianne Kohler-Barnard said, the increases in cash-in-transit heists and car hijackings suggest that the 4

police are losing the battle against heavily armed and well organised crime syndicates. She added: That murder fell by a nominal two percent, rape by one percent and indecent assault by 3.8% in 2005/06 hardly provides much comfort for the South African public. These crime statistics are out of date by at least six months, which means that they in no way take into account the massive spike in crime since March this year. The Inkatha Freedom Partys Koos van der Merwe said, Crime is one of the key problems affecting all South Africans and it has also been blamed in a recent report for almost a fifth of white South Africans emigrating in the past 10 years. Shocking crimes, such as aggravated robbery, hijackings, rape and murder are crippling South Africans from all walks of life and are still at an unacceptably high level. And as Freedom Front Plus spokesman, Pieter Groenewald, pointed out: The statistics show a decrease in crime but it is not what the public is experiencing. And he added that on average only 10% of cases are successfully processed in the courts. This means that 90% of crime cases are not solved. Criminals therefore have a 90% chance of getting away with it. And yet, despite these horrifying statistics, what was the response of SAs Minister of Safety and Security, the Communist Charles Nqakula? Where I stand I feel that South Africa is indeed enjoying better safety than the case has been in the past. But more than this, the future looks even much rosier. Yes, you read right! Where the minister stands, of course, is behind his well-armed bodyguards a luxury the average South African has to do without. The future may indeed look rosier for him, ensconced behind his bodyguards, rolling in his enormous salary, and completely out of touch with the reality on the ground for the majority of South Africans, who are being murdered and raped in their tens of thousands every year, and who, thanks to the policies of Nqakula and his comrades in the ANC, are not even allowed to properly defend themselves. But the public should have no fear: the government has a plan! Oh yes it has declared that it plans to lure back retired police officers, judges, magistrates and others to help fight crime. The interesting thing is that the great majority of these will be experienced and dedicated white officers, judges, etc., who were either forced out because of the governments insane affirmative action policies, or who left voluntarily because they could no longer stomach the working conditions imposed on them by racist black officials. When they left, a huge pool of experience left with them, as SA once had one of the best criminal justice systems in the world. And now when the crime epidemic is out of control and an understaffed, mostly incompetent, inexperienced police force cannot cope any longer now the government wakes up and plans to lure back those it did not want because of the colour of their skin! We wish them well, we really do. But it remains to be seen whether or not the plan will work, and if it does, how long it will be before those who are lured back are again forced to retire.

Father and Son Hijacked by a Mob of 30-40

This occurred not far from where we live, on a road we often use. A white man and his eight-year-old son were returning home after a weekend fishing trip when they were hijacked, robbed and assaulted. As they were travelling along the road, they rounded a bend and came across a mob of people, with a stationary truck in the road. They were flagged to stop as they approached. This is a common tactic being used by criminals blocking the road with a vehicle. 30 to 40 black men suddenly ran towards them. As he tried to reverse his vehicle, some in the mob fired shots. He was unable to turn his vehicle around before they were mobbed. They yanked his door open, grabbed his key and screamed for his cellphone and money. He told them to take anything they liked, but not to hurt his son. They were ordered out of the vehicle, and his son was thrown out by about four men who then kicked him. The man was hit on the head from behind. They were helped by the occupants of a taxi which was parked some distance away. This man and his little boy were providentially not murdered. Thousands have not been so fortunate.

Tutu Laments the Moral State of the New South Africa He Did So Much to
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Help Create
Poor Desmond Tutu, SAs Red Bishop (actually hes an archbishop now, but many of us will always think of him as the Red Bishop for his tireless work in support of the Red forces terrorising SA in the years prior to 1994). He worked so hard, back in the day, to bring the ANC to power. He championed international sanctions against SA, that threw millions of black people onto the streets without work. He preached and fulminated against the white, conservative, anti-Communist government, calling it evil, oppressive, etc. He said, I am a Socialist. I hate Capitalism (Sunday Times, 29 December 1985). He even once famously said, If the Russians were to come to South Africa, most blacks would welcome them as saviours (November 1984, in St Pauls Cathedral, London). And when the ANC won the fraudulent elections in 1994, he said, We are free! Well, Tutu these days is a somewhat disillusioned man. In late September, in a lecture at the University of Cape Town, he launched a searing indictment of the rainbow nation (to quote a daily newspaper). It was hardly searing, but even so, for him it was quite something. This is what he said: What has come over us? Perhaps we did not realise just how apartheid has damaged us so that we seem to have lost our sense of right and wrong. He always manages to continually blame apartheid for something, this time for damaging everyone so much that they commit the criminal deeds they do. Typical propagandist, he cannot face the prospect of admitting fully that the utter collapse of society must be laid squarely at the door of the liberal churches and of the Communist ANC, so he has to (yawn) blame apartheid yet again. He went on: Is it not horrendous... for an adult man to rape a nine-month-old baby? We are not appalled that some of us can chuck people out of moving trains because they did not join a strike. What has happened to us? It seems as if we have perverted our freedom, our rights into licence, into being irresponsible. Rights go hand in hand with responsibility, with dignity, with respect for oneself and for the other. But then he hit on the root cause of the problem, without himself being aware that he had done so, for he cannot for the life of him see that South African society is just reaping what was sown during the revolution. He said that the need to break laws ended with the demise of apartheid in 1994, saying it was justified then as we wanted to make South Africa ungovernable. He added: We have achieved our goal. We are free.... We have an obligation to obey the laws made by our own legislators. We should be dignified, law abiding citizens... proud of our freedom won at such great cost. We should not devalue it. We should not abuse our children, our womenfolk. Read all that again! Desmond Tutu, Anglican archbishop, said that it was justifiable prior to the ANC victory in 1994 for the laws of the land to be broken! He said there was a need to do so then! He said that in fact, we wanted to make South Africa ungovernable! Way back in the early 1980s he had said, You build up a process of disobeying on a massive scale, that will mean nearly all the laws in the statute book, so that this country becomes ungovernable (as reported in the Eloff Commission of Inquiry Report, 1984). Back in 1984, too, he said, One young man with a stone in his hands can achieve far more than I can with a dozen sermons (Daily Telegraph, London, November 1984). And in 1986 he said, Unless America puts pressure on South Africa... the only way forward is to overthrow the government by force (Sunday Times, 26 January 1986); and in the same year: There comes a time when it is justifiable to overthrow an unjust system by violence (Argus, 3rd April 1986). He, along with so many others, did everything possible to make the country ungovernable. Then 1994, the ANC victory. And those millions of young black hooligans, the cannon fodder of the ANCs revolution, who for years had been living lawless lives, killing, maiming, burning, raping, were now suddenly expected to become (in his words) dignified, law abiding citizens! Sometimes we wonder if dear Desmond and others of his ilk even live on the same planet as we do. An entire generation of young blacks was sacrificed to serve the revolution. No, we do not mean their lives were sacrificed, although thousands were. We mean they were told by their revolutionary leaders, Liberation Now, Education Later! And so they burned their schools down, picked up AK-47s, learned to hate and to kill and to steal. And then suddenly, they were expected (once the ANC became the government) to start living ordinary, law abiding lives! Men with no education, no discipline, no self-control, no morality, no conscience! And what about the leaders? When Communist terrorists suddenly became cabinet ministers, did Tutu 6

really expect them to be transformed into respectable, dignified men of integrity? Wearing a suit and tie, and sitting in a plush office earning a massive salary does not make a man a gentleman, an honest and good man. And if they the leaders are still at heart the thugs and ruffians they were when they were terrorist guerillas, then how can the masses of illiterate, uneducated thugs and ruffians, who know nothing but a life of violence, settle down to law abiding lives? South African society, particularly black society, is reaping what was sown. Tutu and other religious wolves in sheeps clothing, Bible-deniers, told them they did not have to obey the laws, contrary to Rom. 13:1-7 and elsewhere, which does not teach that the only laws one has to obey are those made by leaders one likes or agrees with or has put into power! And now these masses continue to live lawlessly and Tutu is shocked and surprised by this! He is so blind to the obvious, because he is ignorant of the true state of the unregenerate heart, of the depravity of mankind, and of the truth of the Holy Scriptures. Well may Tutu be disillusioned indeed. This is the society he did so much to help create and now he is seeing for himself just what a disaster it is. But his disappointment is too little, too late. Too little, because he still tries to kid himself that its all the fault of apartheid, and that these monsters are really morally superior to the white government of the past. And too late, because he can lament and bemoan the situation till the cows come home, but theyre entrenched in power, theyre not going anywhere, and theyre not even close to being about to change their ways. Thanks, Desmond. This immoral, crime-ridden, savage country is, to such a huge extent, your legacy.

The Mind Boggles: the UK and Belgium Give R70 Million for Land Reform
First the United Kingdom delivers once-prosperous Rhodesia into the hands of Marxist terrorist Robert Mugabe, who turns it into Zimbabwe. Then the UK plays a major role in bringing about an ANC/Communist victory in South Africa. Next the UK watches as Mugabe destroys his countrys agriculture by violently expelling white farmers from their farms, plunging the country into economic chaos and famine. The UK then is faced with desperate white farmers, and other white and black Zimbabweans, clamouring to emigrate to the UK asking like beggars to be taken in to the country that did so much to destroy their own. And now just as one would think the UK had surely woken up and realised that South Africas ANC is following the same insane path as Zimbabwes Zanu-PF, destroying its agricultural base by instituting legislation that drives the white farmers off their land one is shocked to open the newspaper and read that the UK government, along with the Belgian government, has just donated R70 million to the ANCs so-called Land Reform Programme! The British High Commissioner to SA, Paul Boateng, said: This programme will specifically address land restitution claims and focus on helping the South African government support new [i.e. black] land owners and beneficiaries. He also added: The Belgian and UK governments have been long-term supporters of land reform. Do they never learn? Can they not see what is happening in this part of the world? Have the tragic lessons of Mugabes disaster been lost on them, so that they are willing to see the same disaster repeated in SA? Well, no. Actually, the truth is that these governments know exactly what is happening and in truth, all their pious protestations notwithstanding, they fully support the land grab in SA. The cold fact is that Britain was not the friend or ally of conservative, white-governed, anti-Communist Rhodesia or South Africa. Socialist Britain has time and again supported the Marxists who have brought such misery and suffering to these two countries. The evidence is there for anyone who cares to look, to find. We have provided much in our book, Holy War Against South Africa. An astounding situation. In the nineteenth century, large numbers of people left Britain for South Africa, looking for a better life. In the twentieth century, Britain played a major part in pressuring, bullying, and threatening their descendants to hand over South Africa to their terrorist enemies. And now in the twentyfirst century, Britain is dolling out financial support to the government made up of those former terrorists to assist them to dispossess the descendants of British settlers of their land. And things have swung full 7

circle: the descendants of those early British settlers are now trying most of them in vain to leave SA and settle in Britain, the homeland of their ancestors, because successive British governments supported the destruction of the wonderful country which generations of British descendants had worked so hard to make what it once was.

A Sign of the Times: Johannesburgs Inner-City Decay Turns a Church Building Into a Den of Thieves
They call it the City of Gold: Johannesburg, Africas industrial powerhouse, a city built on the greatest gold mines in the world. Once one of the leading cities in the world, under ANC misrule it has degenerated into a filthy, crime-ridden disgrace, a mere shadow of what it once was. And perhaps nothing epitomises this more than the state of the Central Methodist Church premises. We have no sympathy for the present-day Methodist denomination. It is a liberal, Christ-dishonouring institution, that has massively supported terrorist movements with finances, caved in to doctrinal liberalism, and in a word turned its back on the very essence of biblical Christianity. What is being described here is not a lament for a Christian place of worship, for Methodism has ceased to be that, but it is symptomatic of the total spiritual and moral collapse of Methodism: The Central Methodist Church building is an imposing edifice in the heart of Johannesburg. Still in use as a place of worship for Methodists, it has been turned into literally a den of thieves. And worse than thieves. It is now home to some 700 black refugees and illegals, who have been given shelter there by the Methodist bishop, Paul Verryn. And as a result it has become so unsafe and so filthy that members of the congregation (mostly black themselves) no longer want to go there. An immigrant has been murdered, drunkenness is rampant, fights are frequent, sex occurs, rape is not uncommon, used condoms are left lying on the floor, theft is ongoing, babies are delivered there. The toilets are blocked, there is the stench of sewage, and informal traders sell all kinds of wares there. People sleep everywhere, with several people sleeping under the pulpit itself. As one member of the congregation said: This is a disgrace. This church is a slum. The place is a mess. Its a pigsty. We are very angry. People have sex in church. A lot of women have fallen pregnant in church. Their babies are delivered in the church. Now they live with them in church. What kind of a church is that? Certainly not a Christian church, thats for sure. One female resident at the church premises said, Its scary. Sometimes I forget we live on church premises. Its always noisy here. Its not safe. You could die for your clothes. If you leave your things on the floor you may never find them again. The Zimbabwean refugees, in particular, from two different tribes the Shona and the Ndebele are often at each others throats. The man who was stabbed to death was a Zimbabwean, and he was killed by another Zimbabwean. The fight was over clothes. The man who was killed had asked for his clothes back, after they had been taken by another man. Knife-wielding Shonas and Ndebeles chased one another inside the church premises. There was blood everywhere. Fights actually occur while the congregation is holding its services. When a journalist started taking photographs and was threatened by a mob, a black preacher tried to intervene and they hurled insults at him, shouting, We dont care whether you are a preacher or not. The Lord Jesus cleansed the temple, casting out them that sold and bought there, overthrowing the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them who sold doves, and said to them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves (Matt. 21:12,13). The physical filth, immorality and crime occurring in the Central Methodist Church building is merely symbolical of the far greater spiritual degradation of the Methodist institution itself. It has become a mere social institution, concerned with social problems and ingratiating itself with the masses, and not with the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. It has been involved in proclaiming a political and social gospel for so long that it has no understanding of what the true Gospel is all about, nor of the true purpose of a church of Christ. It is not a church of Christ. It is nothing but a disgrace.

October 2006 __________________________ Shaun Willcock is a minister of the Gospel, and lives in South Africa. He runs Bible Based Ministries. For other articles (which may be downloaded and printed), as well as details about his books, tapes, pamphlets, etc., please visit the Bible Based Ministries website, or write to the address below. If you would like to be on Bible Based Ministries electronic mailing list, to receive all future articles, please send your details.

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