By Peet H Botha
I must be somewhat careful about what I write, as there are two pending High Court cases against myself, Peet Botha and Koos Greeff by Lidia Dube, Eunice Ncamu and the Kwasizabantu (KSB) establishment. I do not mean in any way to compromise the said court cases, for that is not the intention at all for what I am writing here.
The focus of this writing is that which Dirk Combrinck, representative and spokesperson of Mission Kwasizabantu said, during the broadcast of the program, Judge for Yourself[1]. And there are a few things which absolutely boggles the mind when it comes to KSB’s conclusions, assumptions and postulations regarding the findings and statements of their own auditors, so-called Independent Panel, the Report by the Provincial Government and the CRL Rights Commission. Given the history of KSB and listening to Combrinck reiterated, once again, the common ground with other fallen Christian organisations like TB Joshua’s Synagogue Church, Mark Galli’s Christianity Today and Carl Lentz’s Hillsong Church, to name just three of many more.
Compare the following:
- TB Joshua – The Synagogue Church of All Nations.[2] Three years after his death a BBC investigation alleges that rape, torture, child abuse and spiritual abuse of congregants and followers over a period of 20 years was common practice at the church compound. Unpaid and underpaid workers carried the work. Fake miracles.
- Carl Lentz – Hillsong Church [3]– People, congregants and workers were subjected to manipulation, control, bullying, abuse of power, sexual and emotional abuse, marital infidelity, systematic cover-up, and accusations of bigotry among its leadership. Demands on unpaid workers responsible for putting together Hillsong’s services, conferences, and other events.
- Mark Galli – Christianity Today[4] – The American evangelical flagship magazine. Sexual harassment of staff. Went Unchecked at Christianity Today, failing to act on more than a decade’s worth of sexual harassment allegations against two leaders. Systemic rot underneath the cover up, the attitudes and thinking and behaviours that enabled the harassment to continue unchecked. The culture to protect the institution at all costs.[5]
- Mission Kwasizabantu – The allegations have included child abuse, spiritual, emotional, and psychological abuse, physical abuse, rape, virginity testing of young girls, money laundering, problematic employment policies, marriage infidelity and the assertion that KwaSizabantu operates as a religious cult. Fake miracles.
The commonality of all the above should raise red flags to anyone involved in investigating allegations of wrongdoing at a mega Christian organisation like KSB. Even more commonplace are the practices in handling the accusations against the Christian organisations, e.g. denial of the allegations, shunning the accusers, taking whistle-blowers to court, and falsely accusing people speaking out of all kinds of evils. It is therefore to be expected that Combrinck would elevate terms like “exonerated” and “vindicated” and attack the mainstream media, even presenting the moot Noseweek publication as authentic journalism. It came also as no surprise that he claimed the allegations by people speaking out against KSB, “are anything and everything, from outright lies and fabrications to distortions, exaggerations, misrepresentations or manipulations, for a common, intentional and premeditated purpose to smear, defame and attempt to criminalise KSB and especially its leadership with the desired outcome to collapse the mission”.
Combrinck, for KSB, based his overall defence to a large extend on the final reports and findings of The KSB’s Independent Panel and the CRL Rights Commission. The impartiality of the KSB Independent Panel may be duly questioned in all fairness. The two lawyers were selected and paid by KSB and the report is indeed, to the discerning reader, not unbiased in all it presented. The nature of the appointment of investigative panels demands total independence or security of independence by mutual agreement to the membership of the panel. The UN International Court of Justice is a prime example. In the court case initiated by South Africa against Israel representative judges from South Africa and Israel were invited to join the ICJ panel of judges to secure the independence of the court and to validate the final verdict. KSB simply did not invite a representative lawyer from the complainants’ group to join the panel. Investigating their own practices by their own counsel and reporting on their own abuse cases is not ever a case of transparency, but a case of “zero meaningful external accountability”, to use the words of Pastor Eric Atcheson in his critique of Christianity Today.[6] Recommendations to the Director General in the Office of the Premier by the Chief Director of Stakeholder Management within the same office, following KZN Provincial Government’s investigation into KSB and quoted in the CRL Rights Commission final report (par 5.7, pp 36-37) was devastating concerning the KSB Independent Panel appointment. He writes: There is an alleged Panel (independent) of Lawyers that has been appointed by KwaSizabantu Mission to investigate the alleged abuses and produce a report and this report will be used to counteract and to prove their innocence in the commercial space. Has Combrinck even considered this, and the rest of his alarming recommendations quoted in the Report.
The CRL report is highly limited in its pertinence to the allegations levelled against KSB and therefore must be taken and quoted with great care. Both Combrinck and KSB seems oblivious to this fact. The CRL Rights Commission unjustly limited their findings regarding allegations to only those allegations out of the multitude of allegations brought against KSB, to that which KSB acknowledged or admitted (par (c) p 27)[7]. This is a discriminatorily and destructive limitation in the execution of a highly anticipated investigation which resulted in great disappointment for victims who came forward to share their experiences. When KSB denied an allegation the CRL simply took no further investigative interest in it. To claim that the CRL Rights Commission has found that the KSB religious practices in its “teachings, principles, and rules (doctrines) are within the scope of freedom of religion as contained in the Constitution” is a misnomer. It is the misuse of and abuse within these lawful practices which are in focus. And KSB has the audacity to open court cases against some who testified at the CRL hearings about such abuses. Nevertheless, it is highly opportunistic to claim being exonerated of all blame in the light of the findings of such reports.
KSB is known for lying. Their lying has been demonstrated time and time again and has become common knowledge among many within the larger Christian community. Many highly respected persons and highly qualified scholars have recognised and laid bare the lies in its most stark blatancy. Think of Rev Moss Nthla, Dr Michael Cassidy, Bishop Martin Frische, Prof Calvin Cook, Bishop Philip Le Feuvre, Rev Sipho Sokhela and Prof Koos van Rooy[8], as well as Rev dr Colin Peckham, to name a few.[9] Do they want us to believe that these highly respected “men of the cloth”[10] are conspirators and liars as Combrinck has stated that we are? Lies go hand in hand with evil covert actions of self-perseverance. For these reasons alone, KSB will implode on itself eventually. Lies are peddled as truth and shared over and over to the point that it is believed to be the only “truth,” even in the light of opposing and legitimate truths. That is why, waving around the Noseweek Magazine and Potgieter’s book as “truth” is so false because these publications really, only contain KSB’s regurgitated opinions, information and stories reproduced in the two pro-KSB publications.
In my opinion, Combrinck is just a pawn in the KSB chess pool doing the bidding of the king and queen, for he did not have any answers to the pertinent questions put to him by judge Davies. He came as an Apollyon[11], with prepared statement to brand bishop Martin Frische, dr Koos Greeff, Erika Bornman, Celimpilo Malinga, dr Daniel Schricker, Gert van der Walt, myself, and others as “operating as part of a larger conspiracy……for a common, intentional and premeditated purpose…to smear, defame an attempt to criminalize KwaSizabantu Mission and especially its leadership with the desired outcome to collapse the Mission”. As the saying goes, there will come a day when he will be made to eat his words, for there is nothing further from the truth than this spoken lie in the ears of the South African population. The actions of dr Koos Greeff predated any of us in our actions to the early 90’s and bishop Martin Frische and the Evangelical fraternity’s report demonstrably dates to around the year 2000. Erika Bornman intermittently spoke out from around 1999 but more focused and applied from around 2021 about KSB concerns. I started questioning the KSB practices from around 2016 but engaged more openly from around June 2018. There is clearly no conspiracy to “take over the Mission” as so blatantly stated by Combrinck, no conspiracy grouping with a common goal, no intentional and premediated group initiative to smear, defame or criminalise KSB and or its leadership in all of this. There is simply a just and honest attempt by several people to lay bare the established unrighteous acts at KSB and to bring to light the totality of the covert corruption that has destroyed so many lives within the KSB community.
KSB should follow a humbler approach to all of this. History is not on their side in the way they handle the complaints against the organisation and its leaders. There are some people at KSB who are absolutely the face of all the problems that KSB is experiencing. The five trustees of KSB, inter alia[12], are the overall origin and foundation of all unrighteousness at KSB. Two of them, Erlo Stegen and Friedel Stegen are no longer alive. Two trustees, Lidia Dube, Eunice Ncamu and a departed trustee, Arno Stegen are still around. Looking at TB Joshua’s Synagogue Church, Billy Graham’s Christianity Today, Carl Lentz’s Hillsong Church NYC and other mega Christian institutions, where truth prevailed eventually, then also at Erlo Stegens’ Mission Kwasizabantu the truth will eventually also prevail. Erlo Stegen has taken many a truth with him to the grave, and so did Friedel Stegen. Lidia Dube and Eunice Ncamu are not divulging any information but cementing themselves behind the KSB gates with silence and court cases in defence of their actions whilst Arno Stegen has sheltered himself with legal counsel to remain silent, keeping the truth locked up in legal nonsense. But, as I have stated above, the historical evidence simply suggest that the truth will prevail eventually.
I believe that Dirk Combrinck, and thus KSB, have crossed the proverbial Rubicon or red line when he spoke during the Judge for Yourself program. They ventured out to proclaim their pure innocence and messed it up by assassinating the characters of people fighting for justice for the multitude of voiceless victims still waiting on justice to be done to them. Should Combrinck and KSB have retreated into the abyss of silence, as they are used to do, and kept to themselves as they used to do, they would perhaps have been able to deliver themselves from the inevitable disclosure of their pestiferous ways. This latest misfortune on their part may very well pave the way now for the opening of their pandora’s box[13].
[1] https://rumble.com/v4gxdv0-judge-for-yourself-28-february-2024-enca.html.
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-67944614 & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCQBqCD7AcY.
[3] https://time.com/6281339/secrets-of-hillsong-true-story/.
[4] https://therevealer.org/christianity-todays-sexual-misconduct-problem-and-the-complications-with-forgiving-institutions/.
[5] https://medium.com/backyard-theology/the-systemic-rot-under-the-christianity-today-scandal-40f9496a9ff0.
[6] https://therevealer.org/christianity-todays-sexual-misconduct-problem-and-the-complications-with-forgiving-institutions/.
[7] Report of the investigation into the alleged violation of religious rights of members/congregants of Kwasizabantu Mission/Church
[8] Urgent plea to the leadership of Kwasizabantu Mission (Ksb), Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa. 19 Feb 2000.
[9] Report concerning Kwa Sizabantu Mission by a panel of Christian leaders to the Christian Community. 23 June 2000.
[10] A man of the cloth is a clergyman, minister, priest, or other religious leader. The expression man of the cloth came into use in the early 1700s. Man of the cloth – a member of the clergy and a spiritual leader of a Christian church. synonyms: clergyman, reverend.
[11] The Destroyer – According to the Brown–Driver–Briggs lexicon, the Hebrew אבדון ’ăḇadōn is an intensive form of the Semitic root and verb stem אָבַד ’ăḇāḏ “perish”, transitive “destroy”, which occurs 184 times in the Hebrew Bible. The Septuagint, an early Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, renders “Abaddon” as “ἀπώλεια” (apṓleia), while the Greek Apollýon is the active participle of ἀπόλλυμι apóllymi, “to destroy”.
[12] You use inter alia, meaning “among other things’” when you want to say that there are other things involved apart from the one you are mentioning. In this usage here– “among other people”.
[13] A “Pandora’s box” is a metaphor in our modern languages, and the proverbial phrase refers to a source of endless complications or trouble arising from a single, simple miscalculation.