PCC Silent, Absent.
It is a whole new level of insensitive leadership we are living in the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon. For Moderator Miki’s entire six months at the helm of the Church, Truth House has been pointing out many aspects of the Church’s life that need prompt attention. It is impossible to imagine how addressing those emergencies and restructuring a seriously mangled Church finds itself at the bottom of his priorities. Worse still, the nation is teetering at the brink of implosion in the wake of a dangerously controversial presidential election. Virtually every Church worthy of its name in the country has issued a statement in defense of truth, justice and peace. Even what we usually dismiss as mushroom churches are organizing prayer vigils for the country. But the nation’s oldest and biggest indigenous Church is not only silent, it is absent. Its new moderator has chosen this very crucial moment in the life of his Church and country for the pursuit of foreign stamps in his passport. In less than six months he has made non-essential trips to the three continents from the United States to the United Kingdom and now to Thailand. By our judgment in Truth House, whatever was happening in Chiang Mai, a conscientious Church leader could have forgone it or sent a representation, given the very dire situation back home.
It is last Saturday that the PCC finally announced intercessory prayers for our country – very much like an afterthought. Remember that if the proclamation of the results had not been postponed, anything could have happened a whole week earlier without the PCC’s voice being heard, whereas we elected someone to provide leadership in moments like these, not a tourist in search of photo ops. What shocked us most from the gleeful photos coming back from Chiang Mai is what many now describe as the presence of two PCC Moderators – the new one smiling sheepishly in the shadow of his omnipresent, omnipotent predecessor.
Rebel or Guide?
It is now hard to tell who, of Miki or Fonki, accompanied the other on this trip to Thailand. As far as we know, the former Moderator should be under discipline for blatantly ignoring his successor’s order transferring him to Nsimeyong. By the way, it is now beginning to filter from sources close to the Synod office that Fonki was never posted to Nsimeyong. This being the case, the Miki administration we know would have issued a disclaimer months back, after the story was first floated. Is it now being timidly refuted as a face-saving gimmick for a moderator who bent over backwards when his authority was flouted?
Exporting Bad Governance
Then the Moderator’s Secretary cum Web Master gleefully announces that his grandmaster and brother-in-law has been elected one of the Vice Presidents of the World Communion of Reformed Churches. Under normal circumstances, his joy should have been that of the entire PCC – to have our former Moderator so recognized internationally. Who does not recall how proud we all were when the late Very Reverend Nyansako ni Nku was elected to head the AACC? But how can we celebrate the election of a man who has ruined our own Church? And who do we blame for it? Not the people who elected him without knowing him, but our own new Moderator, the valet who accompanied him. We don’t know what role Rt. Rev. Miki played in that decision. If he endorsed it, that would be an unforgivable betrayal of our Church. In fact he would thus bring on us the guilt and shame of exporting bad governance to the Communion of Reformed Churches. What on earth qualifies a man to represent a Church which is now in a shambles as a result of his worldliness? A man who, by every indication, has almost nothing about him that you can call Christian!
Either Moderator Miki is living in a bubble, unaware of what the bulk of PCC Christians know about this man, or he knows, but has a hidden personal reason to ignore everybody else as long as he can make his lord and grandmaster happy. Come to think of it, it may be us, Presbyterians, who are not reading the message Moderator Miki is sending to us that though we claim to have elected him, he knows who appointed him, and so he must put his loyalty in the right place. That being the case, he must begin to brace himself for systematic disavowal for all decisions he makes on our behalf without regard for our opinions. Belonging to the Communion of Reformed Churches means first and foremost, that we subscribe to the rejection of any leadership that does not listen.
All Church Bodies Gone Mute
By the way, Truth House would not have been the one talking about all these scandalous happenings in the Church, if only the accredited Church bodies were doing their duty. How does anyone explain the deafening silence of the Committee of the Ministry in the face of the scandalous discrimination in the posting and appointment of Pastors? Where was the Constitutional Committee when the Church constitution was reduced to a plaything? Does the silence of the new Board of Trustees mean they are unaware of all what is going wrong? Would it be that nobody even told them what their job was? That the grandmaster hastily handpicked them based not on their competence but on their interpersonal relationship with him, which reduces them to doing only his bidding, as a way of showing their gratitude?
Truth House wishes to appeal to the Christian consciences of all these brethren. If you know your job, do it now, for the good of the Church. But if you honestly know you are not equipped for it, have the integrity to resign. This also applies to our new Moderator. Every new day that dawns reveals how ill prepared he is for the job he accepted. He is Moderator of a very big and potentially influential Church in a country that is on the verge of disintegration because of electoral fraud. This is when the country needs the Church as its moral compass. But we see the Moderator of the PCC dodging the column under the pretext of foreign travel, electoral malpractices in his own Church having seriously dented his moral authority.
Leave the PCC? No Way!
Honestly, it has become very difficult to feel proud of being a Presbyterian in Cameroon in the Fonki-Miki era. They must have been hoping that if they ignored dissenting voices long enough, people would feel frustrated and shut up, or perhaps even leave the Church as some pastors did not too long ago. But Truth House is bursting their bubble. The pews are full of people who have been Presbyterians from as far back as when some of these leaders were not even born. So rather than expect such people to leave the Church for any reason, those who are transforming it into a cultic club may be the ones to end up being shown the door.
A Most Unflattering Survey
And if you think this is just a handful of us in Truth House talking, wait till you see the results of our survey in which Presbyterians are assessing your stewardship without fear or favor. We encourage every Presbyterian to respond truthfully to the questionnaire free of any influence. It is your Church and it will be what you make of it. This includes the huge number of pastors who have been suffering segregation in silence for fear of further victimisation. The survey is designed to enable you to speak your mind without any risk of victimisation, since it is anonymous.
Finally, Truth House has been contacted in relation to a certain number of retired Church workers who are unable to get their pension from National Social Insurance or reimbursement from PESH although their contributions were regularly deducted from their salaries while they were in active service to the Church. TH calls for due diligence on the part of the Church department concerned. Let these brethren have their dues in good time for peace and serenity to reign.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” Edmund Burke
