The Sunday Mail
A lot of theories have been coined with regards to how members of the Johane Marange St Clemence faith engage their lives. The Sunday Mail Religion Senior Reporter Fatima Bulla caught up with Collen Momberume, grandson to the founder of Johane Marange and he spoke on the myths and truths about their faith. Read on:
Apostolic Faith and Christianity
The difference between a Christian and an Apostolic member is that while the former is a believer in Jesus Christ, the latter has to go further under enrolment giving himself as a slave of God for their entire life. They are a saint who doesn’t wear shoes but goes around preaching the word and converting people.
Marriage
As members of Johane Marange of St Clemence, we don’t have a law that instructs a man to marry many wives as much as we don’t have a law that prohibits a man to marry many wives. In addition, we don’t have a law that instructs a man to marry at all.
People as created by God are different in their own way. The Bible is clear about a man being the head of the family. As the head of the house it’s my prerogative to have one wife, four, ten or a 1 000 wives. Or even not to marry at all.
As Africans and Europeans, we have different cultures, but we meet on the culture of God. What does the culture of God say about marriage?
From the beginning people were marrying a lot of wives, some had none and others only one. The father of Samuel had two wives, Abraham had one wife his entire life but because of a problem of failing to conceive, he ended up getting another one.
If the issue of polygamy had been despised, the 12 tribes of Judah would have been born to one woman. Jesus gave an example of one man and ten virgins. It wasn’t an example that Jesus would give if it was wrong.
Marange people like me marry when very young. The reason is we believe that the virgin you sleep with will always be your wife forever. Why it’s possible for some men to wait until they grow older is they do all the rubbish until at age 30 then they find someone to marry. But in the eyes of God that man has many wives because he defiled many girls before. I can’t divorce my first and second wife. If I marry at the age of 18 obviously my girlfriend will be either 15 or 16 years old. That’s why they say people of the apostolic faith marry under-age girls.
After that when the wife gets to age 35, it’s unlikely that they will grow old together with the husband alone because the man will still be very sexually active. So that’s why it’s a bit impossible to have one wife. So the moment you are sexually active and your first wife is no longer that active, you have to marry another one. But you cannot leave the first wife. We don’t allow men to go after ladies of the night, that can be exposed by the Holy Spirit. Our African culture states that the moment a girl sleeps outside the home, your father doesn’t want her back because it’s the law of God. Sex before marriage isn’t allowed. We are also not allowed to divorce, whether your wife is a witch or mentally ill. We only divorce when she has been caught in an act of adultery. But still if the man chooses to keep her it’s up to him.
Also men are not given wives in the true Apostolic faith. Just like any other man, you approach a girl and make your intentions known. If the girl agrees it’s fair and if she doesn’t it’s accepted as well. People who claim to dream being given wives have demons of adultery. They say we are prophets because they wear our garments but they are fake.
Worshipping
As much as we worship under trees we don’t just go anywhere. We have particular areas where the priest comes to officially open. So people don’t just go under a tree and erect a flag. The priest has to have every member’s name in the book. So these other people claiming to be of apostolic sects are the ones who give us problems because they aren’t of our true faith.
The Bible
There is no church which reads the Bible more than those of Johane Marange.
Shoes
We believe that when you are at a holy place of worship you don’t wear shoes.
Clean shaven heads
Johane Marange was told by the Holy Ghost that his followers will have to shave their heads. The women were not allowed to plait but put a head scarf. So in the end women decided to have clean shaven heads.
Beard
Manhood was defined by beard. That is God’s way of looking at man.
Holding a Rod
The rod is the key of the Holy Ghost, it unlocks the Holy Spirit. When a person is sick I put on my white garment and take my long rod when I am praying because the network of the Holy Ghost will connect through the rod even though without it I can still help the person. But to be able to identify the actual problem I need the rod.
Education
Johane Marange was the only one not educated but had all knowledge through the Holy Ghost. But the rest we get educated.
Health
We live by the word in the Bible that is what heals us. If I pray for plain water believing in the name of Jesus I will be healed. As long as you are in the right path with God there is nothing impossible as a true member of the Apostolic faith.
We don’t take pills or injections because they are made from herbs used by sangomas.
However, we use salt and sugar solution and Colgate as well. We speak the name of Jesus only that is the greatest name. Jesus is the High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek. He is our superior priest who gave his priesthood to John the Baptist.
We don’t have medical aid and funeral policy covers because we are more interested in inheriting the kingdom of God. On this earth we are only visitors. That is why we don’t bother with too many earthly issues.
Family planning
A normal average woman would have five, six children without using pills. Would we say six kids are many? No!
So what is the reason of having contraceptives when as a man I want kids? Because women are having a maximum of two children when men grow older they realise wealth is more in having many children yet the wife has stopped. That’s when small houses emerge. So Johane Marange knew this through the Holy Ghost.
Easter
Our new year is celebrated on July 1, the month which was known as Abib. Johane Marange was told all this by the Holy Ghost. So from July 1 to 17, we don’t eat anything with yeast because it’s a Passover.
It’s passing over from earth to heaven when Jesus had the last super. During this Easter we do our meetings to run away from pagan celebrations originally began by Constantine. We do our prayers during which no one is allowed to sleep with their spouse. To us such titles as Good Friday do not exist. What we recognise is truly Christ died and rose. We don’t use Easter eggs because that has nothing to do with Jesus, that’s pagan. We hold our service around 4am with two people preaching. We have an anthem of Jesus Christ titled Kwese Kwese. People then go to their tents and have a chance to confide in the Prophet. Saturday we conduct a huge Sabbath.
Drinking tea
It isn’t true that we drink tea a lot. People drink beer a lot when they meet but if they were to go to a certain church then we would say they love beer a lot. But for people of our faith we do not drink beer. The only thing we drink is tea and soft beverages. We have tea in the morning at 8am. So when we all gather together around that time it will seem like we drink tea a lot.
