The rape saga involving politician, rapist “pastor” and RMG Independent End Time Message church leader Robert Martin Gumbura has come to an end. The man of the cloth will spend 40 years in prison.
NewsDay Editorial
There was no outpouring of sympathy for Gumbura who was convicted of four counts of rape and one of possessing pornographic material. While there has been general anger over the “lenient” sentence that Gumbura got, there are lessons to be learnt from the case.
What makes people angry with Gumbura was his taking advantage of vulnerable women who had come to him for spiritual uplifting, but instead he abused the Word of God to achieve his sexual and unholy pleasures with no regard to what the victims felt.
As news of his sentence filtered through, there was justified outrage from members of the public who felt the ruling was a “step backwards towards barbarism and medievalism”.
People felt the sentence was not stiff enough and called for a jail term of 200 years. However, that would only have been justified had Gumbura been convicted of all the nine rape counts he faced. The fact he is unlikely to come out of gaol alive should bring solace to all who wished him removed form society.
The Bible instructs believers to test every kind of spirit that would be in operation in their church and further stresses the importance of knowledge of the Word of God to ensure that they do not perish. The tragedy with modern-day Christendom is that believers no longer want to study the Bible for themselves, but seek to be spoon-fed, hence they are easy to dupe.
Besides teaching the word of God, Gumbura also had the responsibility of oversight on his followers. His life was supposed to be exemplary.
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His followers were almost defenceless as they took heed of every message that he had for them. Gumbura went to the extent of casting people to the devil who dared cross his path.
This probably explained why women had to suffer silently while Gumbura abused them at will.
His behaviour should be condemned in the strongest of terms. The Gumbura saga should open up government investigations into the operations of all so-called independent churches.
Several reports have been written on prophets or pastors abusing people in the guise of spiritual healing and several of the victims have been women who submit themselves to their authority.
Gumbura had assumed the stature of a demi-god in the church declaring all women his and would “donate” them to other men.
To say the least, happenings at the RMG End Time Ministries were scandalous and deplorable.
If properly investigated, a lot might be exposed.
