The Sunday News
Nkosilesisa Ncube, Sunday Life Reporter
“Judge not that thou may not be judged” is a favourite for majority of church goers. Indeed for most people, the church is a place of solace, where all judgments are unwelcome — for at least one day a week, people fellowship, putting all prejudices and criticism aside.
However, this was the not the case when Ara Kani head designer Nkululeko Ncube was expelled from his church (which he chose not to name and shame) for “being a celebrity”.
Offended by the church’s double standards, the young designer who goes by UNcube Othungayo on Twitter took to the social networking site to narrate his ordeal to his 3 400 followers.
“These churches are not much nowadays. I remember how I was kicked out of church,” read the first of many tweets by Ncube chronicling his fall from grace.
He went on to state how and why he was given an unholy excommunication. He tweeted, “I was part of the youth group at my church so we had some choir session going on the same day I had a fashion show. So I went to the fashion show instead of the choir session; church was going to be there the next day and the show was not.”
However his decision invoked divine wrath with his church elders and not very long after, Ncube was summoned by his pastor and another church delegate where he was supposed to be disciplined. According to Ncube, one of his pastors was prepared to be violent with him for his “transgression”.
“The next weekend the pastor and one of the brothers really wanted to give me a hiding. Me! A fully bearded man getting a hiding from the pastor!
The Pastor said “You have to thank God His grace is upon me or else I would be spanking you right now,” read Ncube’s Twitter thread.
After the hearing, during which Ncube tried to explain his situation, he was told that celebrities were not welcome at that particular church and in Ncube’s words, “I explained but he told me they didn’t want ‘celebrities’ at church so I should leave. I have not set foot in any church since.”
It seems the church elders skipped the “Let he without sin cast the first stone” lesson and judging from the tone in Ncube’s posts, there is still no love lost between Ncube and his former congregation.
The designer’s followers were sympathetic, sharing his sentiments that the church had gone too far and had no business giving him the boot.
Just last week Sunday Life carried an article of a Ghanaian pastor who whipped congregants for fornication. Such drastic measures from men of the cloth have been the cause for debate over how involved or how much control the church should have on an individual’s personal life.
@nkocykay
