Support regulation of religious groups

What you need to know:

The issue: Religious groups.
Our view: Besides the clergy backing the policy, to clean up the mess in their back yard, they should also establish their own regulatory body.

A policy by the Directorate of Ethics and Integrity in the President’s Office to regulate activities of different faiths as well as bring harmony between them and the State, has received a nod from clerics.
At a meeting in Fort Portal Town on Tuesday, religious leaders in the Rwenzori sub-region voiced their support for the formulation of a national policy that, among others, seeks to regulate and coordinate activities of faith-based organisations countrywide.
The clerics, who included South Rwenzori Bishop Jackson Nzerebende, Uganda Muslim Council general secretary Sheikh Nasid Musenene, Orthodox Church of Uganda Bishop Tom Kiiza, expressed worry over the issue of mushrooming churches.

They trust that the policy will help to curtail fraudsters, acts of criminality, and corruption that are often championed by so-called ‘men of God.’
The operations of faith-based organisations, especially those of the mushrooming churches, leave a lot to imagination. Some of these churches abuse the scriptures to spread the gospel to suit their insatiable appetites.
Today, many preachers in the said mushrooming churches emphasise the physical rather than the spiritual wellbeing of their flock.
Prayer requests for visas, expensive cars, state-of-the-art buildings, expensive clothes, etc, are the dominant choruses in these churches.

Some churches dupe their flock into buying items such as ‘holy’ rice or water – all in the name of getting blessings and riches. None is mindful of the Bible gospel of the rich man (in Matthew19:24).
It is not uncommon to see flock being coerced into sowing seeds, which usually involves putting money in an envelope and giving it to the church.
Strangely, some pastors only pray for flock who present their requests accompanied by a money-loaded envelope. Others forbid their flock from giving coins or small denominations of money as offertory or tithe.

In extreme cases, some ‘preachers’ mislead their flock into following false doctrine which usually have disastrous consequences. An example is the Kanungu inferno on March 17, 2000. In the blaze, an estimated 1,000 believers of a group called The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God gathered in a church building in Kanungu District got burnt to ashes after they were allegedly locked in and the building set on fire.
Some churches are accused of practicing cultism while others prophesy the end of world on specific dates.
Besides the clergy backing the policy, to clean up the mess in their back yard, they should also establish their own regulatory body.