The news, the Pastor says a few minutes later after the youth are gathered again, is all about a youth camp the Church has organised. It will be held in Bagamoyo, and so, individuals have to make some cash contributions.
In the meeting are Nevil, a 23-year-old choir member, and Abraham, 24, also an active church member. Sitting next to each other, the two seem excited at the news. They sign in for the camp meeting.
Since that day, the two have been calling each other and meeting secretly after several Church services. At first, it is as innocent friends. But before long, Abraham makes his intentions known to Nevil. She also confesses that she has had feelings for him since a long time ago. So, the affair starts.
It blossoms a month later, when the two join the youth on a bus to Bagamoyo for the two-day-camp. They are sitting next to each other, singing and chatting with everyone else. Many of their peers are also sitting in pairs on the bus – sister next to brother.
Abraham makes a move on Nevil. She can’t resist, and before they know it, they have become intimate. From here, sex becomes a part of their affair. This is despite the ‘no sex before marriage’ teachings in their church. They have made sure their sexual relationship is a closely guarded secret.
While the Church continues to preach against sex before marriage in accordance with the Bible, the influence of the media and a host of other external factors are increasingly making it difficult for this message to be taken seriously, especially by the young generation.
In Tanzania, cases of Church member pregnancies out of wedlock are no longer news to many. For instance, by all indications, an increasing number of young people are tying the knot when the girl is already pregnant.
Moral decadence
It is the new generation and the Church has not been spared by a wave of moral decadence fanned especially by the media, and a tendency by today’s young people to worship Western celebrity culture.
So, despite all the strict rules that the Bible and religious leaders have set, youth in churches still practise sex and it is no longer a secret. And forget about those kinds of youth who go to Church every Sunday for a service and come back. Think of choir members, praise and worship members and many more who are very active in Church.
How safe are the sex exploits by this group of Tanzanian youth? Should sex education be a part of the sermon on Sunday?
“I think the time has come where by sex is supposed to be taught to our youth in churches because the more we make it a taboo the more we see them being destroyed by it,” says Emmanuel Mosha, a Lutheran Church elder with a Dar es Salaam parish. “It is time we came out in the open to say something about it.”
Mosha recalls three years ago when he was a youth elder at his parish. “We had a case of a choir chairman who impregnated two girls in the choir at the same time,” he says.
“He was a dedicated young man, but he fell for the temptation. No one believed it when the news broke out. Nobody ever imagined that this young man could mess up that way,” the Church leader says.
He adds: “Sex is all over in today’s world. It is talked about everywhere. Unfortunately, the Church is lagging behind in taking the bull by its horns.”
However, there are many other Church leaders who would not agree with the idea of talking condoms at the altar, and for obvious reasons. “If we start telling them how to use condoms and how they can have safer sex it will be like justifying that sex before marriage is good,” argues Pastor Andrew Mgonja of the New Holy Spirit Church in Mbezi Beach. “As Christians we are not supposed to justify sins. A sin is a sin no matter how small and sweet it is,” the cleric observes, adding:
“By allowing the youth to have sex before marriage, the Church would be going wrong. On the contrary the Church is supposed to keep on telling the youth that sex before marriage is dangerous not only because of the religious rules but also for their lives and health.”
Alice Kimambo, a praise and worship member with a Pentecostal church in Dar es Salaam corroborates. She notes that today the Church is less strict than it used to be when it comes to dealing with issues of sexual immorality.
“I can not really differentiate the experience I had in college and the one I am observing at church today,” says Alice, who is in her late 20s.
“I can tell you that in some places it is not such a big deal to see a guy dating two or three girls from the same Church. It happens and everyone knows it.”
This trend might not be too difficult to understand, after all. There are stories all over, of some people going to Church, not so much to worship but to seek marriage partners.
“I know of one beautiful girl, who used to be known for her loose behaviour in our neighbourhood, and nobody wanted to marry her. But when she realised time was running out she ‘repented’, joined a local church and became an active member of the choir,” says John, a 35-year-old Makongo Juu resident in Dar es Salaam, who attends a Pentecostal church. “It was not long before she got herself a serious brother, who wanted to settle down because she is stunningly beautiful. But she quit the Church soon after getting married, and she is back to her old ways.”
This is not an unusual case. For Christians, one is reminded of Bible teachings on ‘wolves in sheep clothes’, or warnings about ‘dogs in the Church’. Apparently, the place of worship today has become a strategic hideout for some people with bad intentions.
Too many people no longer go to Church with the same purpose of serving and worshiping God. Some women and men, take the Church as the place where they can easily prey on love partners. No wonder cases of HIV/Aids have become common in then Church.
“Our Pastors seem to hesitate when it comes to telling youth about sex. Their assumption is that since they are in the Church, these youth are saved. But this is not the reality on the ground,” says Alice, who joined her Church’s praise and worship team last year. “You see this especially during the youth seminars and camps. We are not told about sex and the safe way of doing it. What we hear is that sex is bad and no one is allowed to do it before marriage,” she adds.
Pastor Abel Kinana of Jesus Celebration Ministry believes talking about sex and condoms in Church is not such a bad idea, only that it has taught carefully.
Says the youth Pastor: “We hear about sex all the time. When the topic comes up among my youth in the Church, I do not push it to the corner.”
He notes that if the Church fails to openly talk about such issues from a Biblical perspective, the youth are going to get information from their friends, movies, TV shows or by experimenting for themselves.
“God wrote about physical intimacy in the Song of Solomon. He wrote about proper relationships, how to court each other (without sex involved) and how once we are married that we can consummate a wonderful and sometimes wild sexual relationship with each other,” concludes Pastor Abel.
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