ELCRN's bishop election in perspective

#ANTAGE RUBEN TSUSEB, ELCRN TSUMEB CIRCUIT SYNOD CHAIRPERSON WRITES:Recently one-sided views had been circulated in some print and electronic media promoting hatred, slander and libel to the innocent leader in the person of deputy bishop PH Kisting, including by the church leadership, whereby bishop Ernst //Gamxamub was not spared of insults. It was alledged that the church leadership violated the constitution that they were supposed to upheld. This prompted me as church leader to put the issue of bishop elections in perspective, once and for all.The ELCRN ConstitutionThe church council, by powers vested in them in terms of Article 24.3 of ELCRN Constitution: “The church council is responsible to the church aynod and functions on its behalf when the latter is not in session. The church council shall have the right and authority to do or cause to be done whatever may be necessary to carry out the objectives of the church and the decisions of the church synod” and further provided in Article 24 Bylaw 24.5.5 appoint commissions to prepare any important questions of the church as required.Henceforth, Article 26 Bylaw 26.2.2 provided that church council appoints electoral commission one year before the elections from the list of twelve members, particularly one laity and one pastor, nominated by the circuit’s, church council appoints eight persons to serve on this commission.The electoral commission rightfully appointed on the beginning of August 2018 in their second meeting in line with the ELCRN electoral and nomination order; Chapter 4 S14.2 (a) compiled a list of qualifying candidates. The qualifying categories are stipulated in ELCRN Constitution Article 26 Bylaw 26.1.1; “Candidates to the office of the Bishop shall be between the ages of 45 to 60 years. He or she should have at least ten years of experience as a pastor”, read together with electoral and nomination order S14.1 “(d) The candidates for bishop must be pastors of the ELCRN who are in active service and good standing; (e) The candidate for the cishop must be 45 years and older with at least 10 years of uninterrupted active service after ordination; (f) The candidates must possess talents of spiritual management and leadership of the church; (g) A person may not be nominated if he/she cannot prove that he/she has changed his/her way of life after suspension; (h) candidate must be at least conversant in the official language of the country”. Although the electoral and nomination order is not limiting the age the supreme law of ELCRN limit the age to 60 years but did not provide that the candidate must be 60 years of age by the time of elections. The commissions cut-off date was 30 August 2018, to verify whether the candidate is 45 to 60 years of age. The candidate, deputy bishop PH Kisting was during this period of verification 60 years of age and therefore lawfully qualified in terms of ELCRN constitution. The law is retrospective and thus the candidate that qualified by the time of verification cannot be disqualified turning 61 years thereafter. He was inform in writing by the electoral commission, which letter was served by two commissioners in terms of electoral and nomination nrder Chapter 4 S14.2 (c) and after consulting broad family he accepted his candidacy. He was interviewed and put on the final list, which was approved by two third majorities of the commissioners. By the way this is not the first time in the history of ELCRN that candidate with 61 years of age by the time of election is elected to become a bishop. That happened in the past with previous Bishops before the current one.The first part is the nomination of a candidate by the parishes amongst the list of qualifying candidates in terms of ELCRN Constitution, Article 26 Bylaw 26.3.3. This process took place with challenges experience in some parishes. We don’t dispute the fact that there were some shortcomings since this was the first elections in the history of ELCRN. Three candidates were selected irrespective of the votes they assemble but the total number of parishes who nominated them was the deciding factor.Second part is the election process, whereby parishes are required to vote for the candidate of their choices by way of secret ballot. The bond of contention is the counting of the ballots but Article 26 Bylaw 26.3.3 third paragraph stipulates: “The votes from the parish/congregations are sends in sealed envelopes to both the Electoral Commission and Circuit Council and shall be opened as part of election of Bishop at the Church Synod”. That implies only verification sheet which indicates how many ballots were cast must be duplicated and one sheet send to Circuit Council and the other one to Electoral Commission, but the counting shall only take place at the Church Synod, which shall take place after three months. We are not disputing the fact that this is not in line with world acceptable norms. Church Council never took this decision it is provided in the ELCRN Constitution adopted with two third majorities by the Church Synod, whereby parishes were represented by more than 78 members. The same provision of Bylaw 26.3.3 in the last paragraph provided that the elections of the Bishop is held three months before the Church Synod take place. Therefore the blame should be collective, since this document was circulated and discussed in all parishes.As you can read from previous paragraphs, the Church Leadership abided themselves by the letter and spirit of the ELCRN Constitution. The same disgruntle group is calling the Church Leadership to violate the Constitution by releasing the ballots for counting contrary to the laws of the Church, and continuing to spread baseless falsehood amongst the membership of the church. The ELCRN Leadership is accountable to uphold the constitutional provision at all time.Powers vested in Church CouncilUnabated slander is rampantly made that Deputy Bishop PH Kisting hire and fire pastors and sell property, appoint people in positions, manipulating Bishop, to deputise Bishop for unlimited time after forcing him to resigned etc. This is clear that those who made such allegations are not members in good standing, hence, lack knowledge of ELCRN history and Constitutions. Surprisingly it comes from the prominent councillors of certain political party, traditional leaders and officials instigating the membership. Even the Bishop doesn’t have these powers, in terms of Article 27.10 of ELCRN Constitution; Bishop must obtain a written church council resolution before deciding to continue to settle or to withdraw actions of whatever nature. As stated in afore paragraph, all powers are vested in the Church Council. Bishop is presiding in the Church Council meetings whereby Deputy Bishop is just a member and only presides in absence of Bishop.Electoral Commission accountable to Church CouncilThe counting of ballots at the polling stations was a mere misunderstanding between the Commission and Church Council, since Article 24, Bylaw 24.5.5 in the last paragraph required the Commissions to be accountable to the Church Council, hence, they are required to consult the Church Council on the issues of constitutional interest. The refusal of police to safe guard the ballots are the result of untimely nonfiction to police and no other reasons.NBC KaisamesThe exclusion of certain language groups in information sharing is just a mere point scoring of the disgruntle members as they all are not ELCRN members in good standing, with some just card carrying but eroded by other denominations. The Admin Board of Church Council ensure that all information from the Head Office reach all parishes and congregations, although also shared with NBC Kaisames as a long standing partner of ELCRN and not for any other reasons. However, we are aware that majority creating these stories to destabilise ELCRN leadership is from the certain tribal group, which is drive by certain traditional authority in all ELCRN election to put their agenda forward, which is known to us. Evidence is very clearly notable that those holding higher office in traditional council, traditional leadership are the front runners creating chaos and panic in our innocent membership. ELCRN MembershipYes, our membership was more than 420 000 years back, but we experience an exodus of members to other denomination as stated in the previous paragraph. Majority of these members have not abolished their membership and retain membership for reasons to destabilise church leadership and thus on our registers. However, the leadership is busy to streamline the membership and will only be in position to express them on total membership after the completion of this exercise, currently 420000 remains an estimate. The amended provision, Article 9.4 provided that a member absent for more than one year without reasonable grounds automatically terminate his/her membership.Traditional leaders in church leadershipThe presence of Captain DC Gertze in the leadership of ELCRN is a blessing from above; his selfless contribution towards the Church is of higher magnitude. As a traditional leader he always rally his subject to unite and obey the authority of the Church, not alike some traditional leaders, who are front runners of destructive and divisive morality of membership along the tribal lines. Henceforth, no traditional leader’s is excluded to join the leadership of the church if they are in good standing and elected in line with ELCRN Constitution.Ballots’ We want to ensure our membership that the ballots are safely stored in the strong room by Chairperson of the Electoral Commissioner, regardless of it nobody will get access to ballot papers as it is in the sealed envelopes stored in the bags sealed with padlocks.In conclusion we are aware of the slander and libel that is going around against the Church leadership, particularly Deputy Bishop PH Kisting, from disgruntle members but regret the fact that the Bishop candidate whom they called the chosen one never show his leadership as a unifier, to call his supporters to order, to respect the authority now as well as in future. We call on our membership not to have selective morality but to distinguish between the truth and lies. They must be cautious of the fact that some lies have been told over and over again and will sound like truth.May God bless ELCRN!

ELCRN's bishop election in perspective

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ELCRN's bishop election in perspective

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