A recruitment drive at a funeral

A few years ago my wife and I went to a funeral of one of her friends in Lusaka, Zambia. The service was held in a very impressive modern church. Mary, the deceased, had been an active member of the church and the building was packed full of mourners from the church and her family and friends.

The service took the normal sort of pattern. A few hymns, readings from the Bible and some preaching. The preaching was the usual sort of fair I got used to in Pentecostal style churches. The Pastors were charismatic and good orators but thoroughly lacking in any theology to underpin their preaching.

Half way thrrough the service I was sickened by what took place. The leading Pastor (perhaps a self ordained Bishop?) took to the Pulpit and began to preach fire and brimstone type material. He praised the late Mary for choosing Jesus to be her 'personal saviour' and then went on to warn those of us who hadn't done the same thing that we were to be damned unless we repented and proclaimed 'Jesus Christ to be our personal saviour.' To my surprise about a dozen members of the congregation were inspired to rise from their pews and to go to the front of the church to be blessed by the Pastor/Bishop. These people were then taken by one of the other Pastors to 'sign up' for the church. All this took place as the deceased lay before the altar in an open casket. To my mind the whole thing lacked decency and showed little respect for the deceased. However, I'm sure that the dozen new converts would have brought in some extra revenue for what was clearly a fast growing and vibrant business (or do I mean church?)

Exploitation of the poor by Christian Pastors

One of the worst types of exploitation that I have witnessed in Southern Africa is the ruthless exploitation of vulnerable people by so called Pastors. What I would call the business of being a Pastor is rife across much of Sub Saharan Africa. Self professed ministers of God - often claiming to be literally guided by the voice of God - target the poor, the sick, the recently bereaved and make them promises of great blessings from God. They often convince the vulnerable, and usually uneducated, that they are suffering because they have displeased God and that by placing their faith in Him they will be blessed with countless riches. The Pastor often claims that God has told him, or occasionally her, that if the person repents and puts their faith in Jesus Christ as their 'Personal Saviour' then such blessings will follow.

To be fair some of these Pastors do bring short term comfort to the needy. They are there to comfort the bereaved when the mainline churches often fail to do so. This is largely due to the logistics that the mainline churches face of a handful of priests/vicars/ministers serving vastly populated pastoral areas. The Pastors however are usually quick of the mark when someone in their neighbourhood has been bereaved. The cynic in me can't help believing that this is because they want to comfort the bereaved before their rival Pastors do the same! You see these Pastors are everywhere and their is a sickening competetion between them. Afterall being a Pastor in Sub Saharan Africa can be a profitable little number!