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Religion needs to self-regulate

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Martin Prozesky
Martin Prozesky

Media reports have highlighted certain ethically disturbing practices in a few of our churches, which gave rise to an official commission of inquiry.

It has also recently been reported that plans are afoot to hold a summit for all religious leaders soon “in a bid to find ways to fix the wrongs going on in churches”.

We have here a great opportunity for our faith communities and their leaders to show a seriously concerned public that any and all abuses will now be permanently ended. As an academic with many years of experience about religious and ethical matters, I strongly support this initiative and want to offer some input for the summit and afterwards, and how best to regulate religion.

But first I must give a brief background about my experience of regulation. While it concerns business ethics, it also applies to any activity affecting the public, like religion.

Early in our new democracy, during my time as director of the Ethics Centre at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, I made contact with the Australian branch of a major translational company whose ethical standards I greatly respected. I was interested in their experience of regulation and explained this to two senior company officials, one of them their chief legal officer. He showed me a massive lever-arch file and told me it contained the state and national legislation affecting their business in Australia and New Zealand.

I asked for advice about regulation for the new South Africa. This was the answer: “Self-regulate or your government will do it for you.”

Here is the key ethical principle for our faith communities: they absolutely must now self-regulate very effectively, or the state will do so for them. Not only is this the only responsible option for our religions, but what person of faith would want the imposition of a ministry or department of religious affairs governed by the principles of the state? While doing this, our religions must of course keep in touch with and inform the relevant state structures, but they must not surrender their right of self-regulation to them.

To self-regulate, the faith communities must identify and practice the highest ethical standards themselves. How they do this is the most important requirement. Two steps are required.

Firstly, they need to identify the core of moral principles that they share. My research into the values of a wide range of faiths has made it clear that there is such a shared core of ethical values.

The second step is to be very clear about the ethical expectations of the wider South African society, comprising the very people who are now looking with great concern at what they see as abuses in some religious institutions. Here it is certainly necessary to understand the moral principles of the Constitution and what the Bill of Rights says about religion. But law alone, at its best, is only a minimal ethic, as I was once told by a law professor. For the ethical values of the wider society, I urge the faith communities to seek guidance from the Moral Regeneration Movement and from bodies like The Ethics Institute, if they have not already done so.

Once the faith communities have created a code of moral practice from these essential sources, the next requirement is to put them into effective practice. I believe they need to create a suitable membership structure to which religious leaders must affiliate, committing themselves to practice the highest ethical standards in every aspect of their activities, specifically including transparency about their financial affairs.

Such a membership structure must also have disciplinary teeth to act promptly but fairly on evidence of unethical actions.

A further requirement will help protect the public against anybody using religion for ulterior purposes like self-enrichment and abuse of trusting followers. This is an educational arm to inform the public about what they have an ethical right to expect of religious leaders and organisations.

Next, since these measures will require resources, the faith communities will have to set aside dedicated, audited funds and administrative structures.

Self-regulating measures like these on the part of our faith communities will earn the deep respect and reassurance of the wider population and of their own members.

Prozesky is a researcher, writer and speaker on issues in religion and ethics, at the universities of both the Free State and KwaZulu-Natal

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