If you follow South African news, you will have seen that the CRL Rights Commission is again calling for religious leaders to be vetted. The commission is the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities. It is a debate that matters to every local church in the country, including mine, so I want to think it through carefully.

What happened

On 23 October eNCA reported the commission’s renewed call after a tragic case in which a child died. The CRL’s Prof. Thoko Mkhwanazi-Xaluva put it this way: “For you to be a religious leader, there must be a process you go through. You must be vetted because there’ll be children where you’ll be working. We’ve seen in this instance that a child lost their life.”

Freedom of Religion South Africa (FOR SA) has since collected where the political parties stand ahead of the 4 November elections. The ACDP, ATM, FF Plus and UDM all described a statutory council as state regulation. The DA said that a body “established or empowered by the state to exercise regulatory authority over religious institutions constitutes state regulation, even where religious leaders administer it.” BOSA warned that “when government introduces laws that regulate what may be said or preached from the pulpit, or that begin to place limitations on how people may express and practise their faith, we should be cautious about where that leads”. Meanwhile DFA has reported that the draft framework is being described as voluntary self-regulation. It also reported concerns that the plans could hurt small rural congregations.

What stood out to me

First, we should not be defensive about the problem. The abuses are real. South Africans have seen congregants made to eat grass and sprayed in the face with insecticide by men calling themselves prophets (BBC News, 2016). Now a child has died. Any Christian who shrugs at that has not understood the God who defends the fatherless. The CRL is responding to genuine harm, and its concern for children is right.

Second, the proposed solution puts the problem in the wrong place. The real issue is not that churches lack a government certificate. Many so-called churches have no biblical accountability at all: a self-appointed “prophet”, no elders, no membership, no discipline and no doctrine anyone can test. A state register will not fix that. It will add paperwork for faithful congregations while the charlatans simply register.

What Scripture already requires

God has not left the church without a vetting process. He has written one. “An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach” (1 Timothy 3:2, NASB 1995). He must be a man “holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict” (Titus 1:9, NASB 1995).

That is a higher bar than any commission will set. It examines character, home life and doctrine. It is applied by the local church through its elders and members, over time, by people who actually know the man. And it does not end at ordination. Elders are told, “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood” (Acts 20:28, NASB 1995).

The answer to abusive “pastors”, then, is not less church but more biblical church: plural elders, meaningful membership, church discipline, and doctrine that can be tested against Scripture.

Where the state fits

Christians honour the governing authorities. Crimes in churches, such as abuse, assault, fraud and negligence, should be reported, investigated and prosecuted like crimes anywhere else. Criminal law, child-protection law and police-clearance checks for those working with children all exist already, and wise churches use them.

But licensing who may preach the gospel is a different matter. When Peter and the apostles were told to stop teaching in Jesus’ name, they answered, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29, NASB 1995). A state that decides who is qualified to preach will sooner or later decide what is qualified to be preached. That is why so many parties, across political lines, are uneasy.

Learn – Grow – Change

• Learn: Read 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. Compare those qualifications with how leaders are chosen in the churches around you.
• Grow: If you are not a committed member of a local church with accountable elders, make that a priority. Membership is part of God’s protection for you.
• Change: Before you vote on 4 November, read FOR SA’s summary for yourself. Pray for the victims of abusive churches and for wisdom for our lawmakers.

For a short, clear book on why belonging to a church matters, see Jonathan Leeman’s Church Membership (9Marks) at Good Neighbours (R140 at the time of writing).