By Kit Shangpliang
The Context
The recent event involving a local religious establishment, the Mawkhar Presbyterian Church, whose caretaker had gradually conned the local Church admin, finance & audit system, was rather unfortunate.
The amount was Rupees 3.26 crores plus and it took him around 6 years to misappropriate such sum of money. After the FIR and the expected arrest, the caretaker admitted to the police, that he had committed the infamous act, but claimed that he had no intention to steal the money but rather to use it for his personal needs with the intention to repay every penny. The cash deposit of such tune, include every Sunday’s offerings by the church attendees and the faithful’s sincere monthly contribution called Tithe.
The fiscal need for religious organisations to have a PAN card of their own was what opened the can of worms and the unanticipated surfaced. This had shocked the particular church organisation and had left an impact on the community of faith in general.
The Purpose of this Write-up
This write-up is not purposed to malign the particular Church organisation or even to condemn the caretaker. The purpose of this write-up is to responsibly decipher the events and look into why such a scam could happen when financial protection systems were in place. The attempt here is also to look out for integrated solutions that are safe and practical, perhaps, spark a solution-oriented dialogue among other leaders and concerned specialists to prevent similar incidents happening again. From now on, the article submits its opinion to the larger Church apparatus and not the particular local Church.
The Practice all this while
All this while, the Church financial-administration system is based on misplaced trust and a weak accountability system, with some exceptions. And because it is religious work, the assumption is that officer bearers, elders and members would perform their duties honestly. This notion could be linked to the general understanding of the secular and the sacred divide, that is to say, ‘That anything sacred doesn’t need secular governance and anything secular can be administered by and on its own’ and ‘That only Sunday is the Lord’s Day while other days are not’.
In the absence of awareness of a need to have a robust accountability system that warrants periodic scrutiny, the chances for errors were plenty. The generation gap between the new and the old in leadership services (not leadership positions and ranks) made swift and accurate communication almost impossible. In a world where speed and accuracy is one form of strength, such mechanisms are bound to crash.
Besides, there have been public opinions voicing out against the culture of keeping local Church money in relatively huge amounts as fixed deposits. The argument is simple, for Church to grow it needs to remain true to its functions as a non-profit service & spiritual entity, hence, fiscal investments indicate misplaced priorities like extravagant infrastructure, size and so on.
The Culture of respecting the elderly needs more Clarity
Respecting the elderly is a non-negotiable principle that both Christian and Traditional Culture of the place uphold. However, there is need to define the term because in the name of respect, culture tends to over burden the senior members with responsibilities beyond their capacity and age. In clarity seeking, such understanding does not go well with the virtue of respecting our elders.
While the writer totally subscribes to the Asian culture of valuing the aged, greater wisdom should prevail for the sake of protecting the elderly and to encourage the growth of a culture where people who can to deliver are given responsibility, age no bar.
Across the board, even in non-faith institutions, the juniors in the fray do not enjoy space to provide leadership in their known field – because of the belief that mistakenly gives a misplaced value to age and seniority at the expense of gifts, talents, competence (the aged get priority on the assumption of experience) and specialised ability.
Popular idea of Church v/s Church of the Bible
The deciphering above brings us to the basic question of what is Church? Please note the definitive lines between the local Church organisation, the para-church organisation and the universal church. While each of these has a specific role to play, this article examines issues only concerning the first one.
Scripturally, the Church is a gathering of the followers of Jesus Christ meant to fellowship with one another for its own edification and that of its members. The Church is His representative here on earth existing for its own development. By Biblical principles, the Church, therefore, is not a building, not a temple, not a club, not a trust, not a foundation, not a monument, not a platform and so on.
The Integrated Solution:
With embezzlement issues at hand, the local church system needs introspection and courage to act and act timely. On one hand, there is an option of Corporate Solution (Using the word Corporate not in a capitalistic sense) through strengthening of its financial, administrative and audit systems. On the other hand, there is an option of Spiritual Solution through supplication.
Corporate Solutions, assume the meaning of convergence of the three services, namely, Admin., Finance and Audit and these three are essential and co-dependent on each other. One might have already thought of periodic engagement with the Chartered Accountant, given the fiscal culture of India. The Church members might have also already spelled out spiritual solutions based on prayers and intercessions. That said, it sounds correct, yet the problem in the local Churches today, is that we have a range of opinions, not based on scripture – but largely based on human understanding because that is how we were brought up.
We have the corporate solution minds that strategise the many tiers of protection systems and we have the pseudo-spiritualists whose opinions are in fact emotionally driven. While those two co-exist, what the local church needs, is a working combination – an Integrated Solution that brings the corporate and the spiritual into one. It needs an over-arching Master Plan based on scripture. The local Church needs both prayers and systems in place. Prayers cannot be considered ‘sacred’ only and systems cannot be considered ‘secular’ only. The bigger ‘S’ word here is the integrated adjective ‘Scriptural’.
The question now arises whether we have enough leaders who have organisational and spiritual precision to provide direction based on scripture. Such transformation cannot happen overnight, as the mind and spirit prepare for a long grappling over ideas, pseudo-spiritualism and egos.
Closure
Lastly, we need a working environment that is pro-scripture and legally sustainable. We need a working system that protects good leaders and discourages self-serving leaders driven by ritualistic values. With that, there is need to ensure growth among the members and history has provided evidence that growth thrives in small environment, quite contrary to the false pride of belonging to the mega local churches that make it impossible for quick and sustainable growth to happen. There is huge need to cut the umbilical cord of traditionalism, so life can thrive. It is the duty of the local Church to scripturally educate its faithful including its leaders, for its own growth, not to dwell on emotions of attachment – because those are indicators of babes in the faith.
For the anti-establishment temperaments within the Church system, they must also know that their duty to protect is far greater than their rights to know, because edification of the church body is more encompassing than accountability. Protection may also mean to eject that which is not in accordance with scripture.
The Integrated Solution mentioned above has to be graceful and abiding in Love. It should make the Church think on what the God of the Bible would do to direct and breathe life into such integrated solutions planning. In the midst of condemnation, there is a dire need for Grace and His perspective on things. In his interest, it is less about the ‘x’ amount but more about the corruptibility of the heart and soul. It should awaken us to the realisation that He allows such rot to surface so that true Cleansing can take place.
(The author is Social Communicator)