Religious leaders accuse Ramaphosa of trying to ruin Easter

SOME of South Africa’s most influential religious leaders have accused President Cyril Ramaphosa of trying to ruin Easter celebrations for the Christian community and have vowed to disobey Covid-19 regulations.

Pastors including Mosa Sona of Grace Bible Church, and AT Boshoff of the Christian Revival Crusade this week briefed the media in Joburg, proclaiming their displeasure with the Ramaphosa administration.

The pastors said they would rather go to prison than turn people away from church for being unvaccinated. They said they had engaged with Deputy Minister of Health Sibongiseni Dhlomo and MP Joemat-Pettersson about the seriousness of the announced restrictions on the Christian community. But those meetings were unfruitful.

The pastors were also unhappy about the proposed amendment to the existing health regulations of 2017.

This week the Christian community is expected to gather in churches throughout the week until Easter Sunday or Resurrection Sunday.

Reading a statement by the International Federation of Christian Churches, Sono described the restrictions as unjust and discriminatory. Sono said the Church had no choice but to follow God’s law on this matter.

According to the president’s latest announcement both indoor and outdoor venues can accept 50% of capacity subject to vaccination or a negative Covid-19 test. Gatherings of 1 000 people indoors and 2 000 outdoors are permitted for the unvaccinated.

The pastors said they would not be separating Peter from Paul even if it means getting arrested. “The faith community is up in arms over the vaccine mandate. The president may not have called it a vaccine mandate but in reality it is a vaccine mandate because we have to force people to vaccinate before they can enter our buildings,” Sono said.