An upset Zambian man in the Twapia compound in Ndola dragged his prophet to court this week after witnessing him touching his wife all over her body and especially her womanhood in church last Sunday.
Mr Lweendo Mudenda said he was not amused with how the prophet was handling church proceedings and prayer sessions.
The story goes that on Sunday, Mr Mudenda almost beat up a local prophet from his parish after noticing him getting too handsy with his wife who has turned to the church in a bid to get the fruit of the womb.
It took the intervention of the congregants to hold him up and break the melee.
Appearing before the court, the aggrieved Mudenda stated that it is by all standards unacceptable for the prophet to touch his wife’s private parts just for prayers.
“Where is it written in the bible that when praying for the fruits of the womb you have to touch someone’s breasts, waist and the v*g*na? It’s nonsense,” he spewed before the court.
In his defence, the prophet whose name has been withheld accused Mudenda of being under the possession of demons, an illusion he says makes him oblivious about what Christian prayer means.
Reports are that the man of the cloth’s argument flared up Mudenda’s temper that he rose up to beat the prophet, in court.
The two were separated by the court security and Mudendo was left in police custody for disciplinary reasons as he was found in contempt of the court rules.
Meanwhile, Mudenda’s wife has no issues with the prophet’s ecclesiastical conduct. She defended the prophet, saying as a man of God he was in order to touch her wherever he wished as he was being led by the Holy Spirit to do what he was doing to her in order for her to conceive.
“He is free to touch me wherever he wants as he is led by the Holy Spirit,” she contended.
Due to the drama that Mudenda instigated in court, the civil case will be reviewed again this Friday.
Cases of clerics found to have “inappropriate interactions with women in the church” in public and behind closed doors have dominated the media in recent years.
What is meant to be conveyed by this phrase seems to be that the pastor is not having an adulterous affair with women in the church but is interacting inappropriately with them in other ways. When this happens, the phrase is an ecclesiastical euphemism for breaking the seventh commandment.
Touching another person sexually without their consent is sexual assault. However, cases involving the church are problematic to deal with as they are done consensually.
Because there are power differentials between pastors and their congregation, sometimes pastors are tempted to abuse the people they lead. Most pastoral abuse is male pastors taking advantage of female congregants.
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