ANC-affiliated LGBTI group slams pastor Nala for gay ‘cure’ claims

The ruling party’s recently established forum for LGBTI people saw red following e.tv’s latest Checkpoint episode, which aired on Tuesday night and featured controversial pastor Hamilton Nala.

Nala is the founder of the Nala Mandala International Church. The church seems to only have ostensible links to Christianity, carefully selecting some aspects of the Bible.

“I want nothing to do with Christianity because those people are very confused and have abortions,” the pastor has been quoted as saying.

On the show, the KwaZulu-Natal pastor claims he can “cure” LGBTI people, but his claims of miraculous cures do not end there. He also claimed he was able to cure HIV, which currently has no known scientifically verified cure.

Among some of his beliefs are that car accidents are caused by “demonic spirits”, as he “has come to realise”.

Nala believes homosexuality is a spirit he says often speaks to him when he meets LGBTI people.

The episode shows two women – who the voiceover describes as sounding “rehearsed” and unverifiable – testifying that they have been “cured” of homosexuality.

The ANC LGBTI forum spokesperson, Mpho Buntse, in a statement, slammed the pastor as well as e.tv’s decision to air his harmful views.

Buntse said that, as a collective, the ANC group was disgusted by “the endless efforts by a national broadcaster to continuously provide the barbaric Pastor Nala a platform to mislead our people”.

“We note that this is the same individual whom, despite the knowledge that the cure for HIV and Aids has not been discovered, lured our people into believing that he can use water to cure the pandemic.

“In our view, these sentiments and stunts seek to undermine our people, who are desperate for real solutions to their daily problems.”

ALSO READ: Dr Nala claims to have raised the dead 

Buntse conceded to Pastor Nala’s right to an opinion and religious affiliation, but was concerned by the potential harm his views may cause to the lives of sexual minorities.

“We believe that effects resulting from the airing of this show have the greatest ability to destroy innocent lives and perpetuate hate-motivated crimes.

“The theological basis on which all churches function is founded on the principles of love and unity, and it is under this premise that we view the continuous condemning of same-sex relationships in the country by religious and traditional leaders as doing more harm than good.”

Buntse recognises that, historically, it is homophobia that arrived with Christianity as part of the colonial project, rather than same-sex desire itself, which he notes had already been present in precolonial Africa.

“Over time, the same imported principles of Christianity imposed that our people should stop doing what they had been doing over centuries, including appeasing their ancestral and spiritual beliefs, thus deviating from the principles of ubuntu and working in unison to destroying their way of living,” the statement read.

“As a collective, we believe that, in contemporary South Africa, churches have an incredible role to play in rebuilding the social fabric of our society and uniting our people as a way of correcting the many wrongs as a result of the church globally (the known religious genocides, questioning the identities of people and excluding them from their communities, et cetera).”

Pastor Nala is only one of the many controversial pastors who have amassed large followings and media coverage for their unconventional approaches to Christianity.

Nala, however, is notable for being the most outspoken of these pastors in his declarations against LGBTI people.

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https://www.citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/plentiologist-fails-to-honour-crl-summons/