Pastors have showed us we don’t need religion to be nice

In any given month in Uganda, you will likely see a story or stories, especially on social media, about a pastor who has done or is doing something immoral, something despicable, something downright appalling.
Here is a brief snapshot that is depressingly familiar. I have deliberately omitted names for legal reasons, but the pastors who are linked to the alleged crimes I have listed are well known.
Remember the pastor accused of raping a Latvian woman and is facing trial? Well, there is another pastor accused by three fellow pastors of sodomising boys in Kampala, but he denies the allegations and insists he is innocent because the courts cleared him.

There is a pastor who abandoned his wife of many years for another woman — a member of his church whom he now calls his official wife. The pastor has been criticised right, left and centre (as they say in Uganda), but he insists he will never go back to his first wife.
There is a female pastor, married to a pastor, who has used social media to launch a blistering attack on a woman who stole someone’s pastor husband.

There is a pastor who was knowingly infecting female members of his church with HIV before he passed away in 2020. And there is a female pastor who was telling members of her church suffering from HIV to claim that she had prayed for them and that they no longer had the virus.
Ugandan pastors’ behaviour is becoming increasingly problematic and would test the patience of a saint. 
Because religious leaders in many places are viewed as a fountain of morality, their immoral behaviour raises questions about whether religion really helps shape our morals.
Why is it that pastors, generally and widely viewed as custodians of public morals, are the ones accusing one another of doing very despicable and appalling things that some atheists would never be caught doing? What example are they setting for members of their churches?

Some people say that Ugandan pastors have read Ecclesiastes 10:19 and taken it dangerously seriously. If pastoral duties did not involve making money, those Ugandans argue, maybe pastors would live and behave like Jesus — and would be real saints.
The pastors’ despicable behaviour should make us reflect deeply and soberly on what drives morality. Is it really religion? If it is, how come Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden — where 80–90 percent of the populations are irreligious — have almost zero corruption, are some of the happiest countries, hold elections where votes are not stolen and give asylum to homosexuals fleeing persecution in religious countries such as Afghanistan, Kenya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Uganda? 

It is worth noting that without religion, most of us grow up knowing what is moral and what is not. For example, we all know that killing and stealing are bad, and even if the Biblical 10 Commandments did not make any mention of the two, many people would not kill or steal — either because it is the right thing to do or because of fear of imprisonment.
More importantly, even if religion really fostered morality, it would be fake morality. If you do not steal because you want to go to heaven or fear hell, you are not moral. You are pretending to be moral. 
Over to you, pastors.

Mr Namiti is a journalist and former Al Jazeera digital editor in charge of the Africa desk
[email protected]    @kazbuk