Rabbie Serumula|Published
What happens when the people who promise to save your soul become the very people who violate your humanity?
In Nkangala, Mpumalanga, authorities reportedly found about 200 people, some as young as 14 years old, at an unregistered rehabilitation facility, some chained, without proper access to water and toilets. The facility was allegedly run by a pastor and his wife. People had apparently come seeking help, healing and perhaps a second chance at life. Instead, they found themselves in conditions that demand serious investigation.
But Nkangala forces us to confront a bigger question: why do we sometimes surrender our right to question people simply because they claim to speak for God?
Africa knows something about this.
When European missionaries arrived on our shores, they did not all come with the same intentions. Some offered education, medical care and genuine compassion. Others, however, became part of a colonial project that treated African spirituality, customs and knowledge as inferior. Our ancestors were told their beliefs were heathen, their traditions backward and their salvation dependent on abandoning the ways of their forefathers.
The Bible arrived alongside the colonial flag, and sometimes the two worked hand in hand.
While colonial powers seized land, extracted wealth and subjugated African people, religious teachings could be used to encourage obedience, pacify resistance and present European domination as a civilising mission. The conqueror was no longer merely taking your land; he could claim he was saving your soul.
This is how power works. It does not always arrive carrying a gun. Sometimes it arrives carrying a Bible, promising paradise while demanding submission on earth.
And before anyone accuses me of attacking Christianity, let us be clear: the problem is not faith. The problem is what people do with the authority faith gives them. Churches have been places of refuge, resistance and solidarity. Religious leaders have stood against apartheid, defended the oppressed and helped communities survive their darkest hours.
But no pulpit should be a throne above accountability.
Today, desperate families hand their loved ones to religious leaders because they believe prayer, discipline and spiritual intervention can rescue them from addiction and other struggles. That desperation deserves compassion, not exploitation. A pastor's title is not a licence to imprison people. Calling a facility a place of healing does not make cruelty therapeutic. And invoking God cannot turn the denial of basic human dignity into divine intervention.
We must also confront the damage colonialism did to our confidence in ourselves. Generations were taught to distrust African knowledge and to look elsewhere for answers. That legacy should make us more determined to think critically, not less.
Our liberation cannot mean replacing the colonial master's authority with unquestionable religious authority. We cannot celebrate political freedom while surrendering our minds to anyone who claims a direct line to heaven.
If a person chains another human being, deprives them of dignity and calls it healing, we must have the courage to ask questions, regardless of the person's title.
In Nkangala, the authorities must establish exactly what happened and hold those responsible accountable.
Faith should liberate the human spirit, not imprison the human body.
We cannot claim to have broken the chains of colonialism if we remain willing to kneel before anyone who promises heaven while taking away our humanity.