Written by: Brigitte Groenewald
Article source: Supplied
The ink is drying on a new decree, yet the parchment smells of salt and old iron. Do you not hear it? The whisper of the chain—it is not yet cinched, but the sound of its approach freezes the blood in the throat. This proposal, dressed in the velvet of “integrity” and “accountability,” is clearly intended to soothe the nation’s justified ache over abusers in our midst. But peel back the fabric, and the skeletal truth is laid bare: control.
The question before us is not whether accountability is needed—it is needed like breath itself. The question is this: Who holds the branding iron?
They speak of a regulatory framework, a peer review, a license to speak the name of God. They argue the Shepherd cannot police himself, that the law must be the fence. But the law, dear reader, is already written, already enforced. If a man steals, the statute books thunder. If a man abuses, the Constitution weeps and the courts act. A crime is a crime, whether committed in a sanctuary or on a street corner. What regulatory body can possess the scalpel sharp enough to excise the corruption of the spirit?
We must turn the Socratic lens back onto the proposers: Is the intent truly to prosecute predators, or is the deeper goal to tame the prophetic voice? History offers a visceral answer: the State rarely seeks to protect the Church; it seeks to silence its unmanageable truth. To license belief is to define it; to define it is to clip the wings of the transcendent.
We acknowledge the wound. The great betrayal by false shepherds has left the sheep scattered and bleeding. We stand in the dust of their wreckage and say, Yes, the rot must be scorched. This is our necessary diplomacy—to validate the genuine pain that fuels the concern for external control. But the cure cannot be the systemic poisoning of freedom itself.
The Word of God is our ultimate charter, and it speaks not of applying to Caesar for permission, but of self-immolation and rebirth.
I. The Divine Mandate Over the Human
We are commanded to honour authority (Romans 13:1), but where the mandate of man collides with the mandate of Heaven, our duty shifts.
…We must obey God rather than human beings!… (Acts 5:29)
The Apostolic rule is clear: The Church is not a franchise. Its Head is not appointed in Parliament. To yield the right to define, vet, or sanction its spiritual leaders is to surrender the very bloodline of our faith. It is a transaction of soul for safety, and the price is too high.
II. The Internal Fire: Self-Correction
The regulation the Church needs is not external, but internal—a ferocious, self-inflicted judgment. The scalpel must be turned upon our own houses.
…for it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God… (1 Peter 4:17)
It is we who must build the robust, ethical scaffold, driven by Christ’s radical accountability, not by a commission’s decree. Let the outrage that fuels the State’s action be mirrored by the achingly sincere repentance of the Church. We must police our ethics, expose the darkness, and heal our victims, making the proposed external regulation utterly redundant. We do this not to appease the State, but to honour the King.
Look into the eyes of the free. The freedom you hold is paid for in the silent sweat of those who resisted the easy yoke of compliance. Do not trade the inherent authority of the Spirit for the brittle comfort of a government-issued license.
Pray, yes, as the article implores. But pray with the visceral heat of defiance—the defiance that serves Christ alone. Stand as a granite wall defined not by what the State forbids, but by the immovable, terrifying glory of what God commands. Let the iron whisper fade into the roar of a Church that has finally learned to govern itself in righteousness. The only control we accept is the sweet, fierce surrender to the Master of the Cross.
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Date published: 26/10/2025
Feature image: Image for illustrative purposes only.
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