At a press conference last week Professor Musa Xulu called the CRL Rights Commission chairperson Thoko Mkhwanazi-Xaluva a dictator and the CRL’s Section 22 committee on Christian-sector abuses a front for pushing state regulation of religion.
At a media briefing yesterday the CRL chair and Section 22 member Dr John Maloma turned the tables on Xulu, presenting a detailed, chronological account of meetings and correspondence, together with supporting documents, which they said proved he had lied at his press conference where he announced his resignation from the committee. They also accused Xulu of displaying a dictatorial leadership style and irregular behaviour during his tenure since April last year.
Mkhwanazi-Xaluva and Maloma did enough to raise serious questions about the veracity of Xulu’s version of events and provided a little more insight into the division and mistrust that has developed around the issue of how to safeguard against abuse of congregants. But, despite their assurances that they were not advocating for state control of religion and that a draft document that the committee released in October was merely a discussion starter for a countrywide process of consulting Christian leaders, there pledges are unlikely to allay widespread concerns in much of the Christian community.
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At yesterday’s press conference the CRL chair emphasised her deep, personal commitment to fight for the protection of the most vulnerable congregants. “As early as in my first term [as CRL chair] – 2014 to 2019 – the struggle has always been [that] going to church should not be a dodgy situation,” she said.
In her first term Mkhwanazi-Xaluva openly campaigned for state control of religion to curb abuses. In 2018, Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs released a report rejecting the CRL’s proposals to regulate religion, instead recommending a charter for self-regulation and a code of conduct for the religious sector. The faith sector subsequently developed a code of conduct that is widely available and can be subscribed to on a voluntary basis.
For the five years that Mkhwanazi-Xaluva was out of the CRL the matter of Christian sector regulation was not an issue. But after her reappointment as CRL chair in 2025 she began giving media interviews in which she again advocated for state regulation. In April she told Newzroom Africa that a peer-review network, supported by a legal framework, was needed to solve the problem of abuse. She said church leaders would need to be vetted and registered. Her statements revived concerns about a renewed threat to religious freedoms should the state be given control through legislated “self regulation”.
Breakdown in relations between groups advocating against state regulation of religion and the CRL also escalated this year. In June the CRL chair held a press conference at which she announced she was going to lay crimen injuria charges against Michael Swain executive director of Freedom of Religion South Africa (FOR SA) for allegedly accusing her of financial misconduct. Swain denied the allegations, saying he had merely pointed out that her serving simultaneously as CRL chair and deputy chair of the Cheryl Zondi Foundation was a potential conflict of interest. At yesterday’s press conference Mkhwanazi-Xaluva said she still wanted Swain to be arrested.
The relational divide was evident again at yesterday’s press conference when Maloma passionately dismissed For SA’s religious freedom concerns as “Eurocentric and abstract” and devoid of care or understanding of the plight of poor township dwellers.
Dismissing court challenges to its constitutionality and calls for the dissolution of the Section 22 committee, Maloma said: “ Section 22 is not going to be collapsed. It is a legitimate, constitutional, legally-established entity. It has got a document that it has drafted, In February, early, we’ll be meeting to draft out an action plan and we are going to visit the churches across the country and nobody will stop us. So, people must just give up because the Church belongs to the Church and this process is about the Church, with the Church and for the Church.”
Speaking to pastors in Durban today, FOR SA’s Swain said: “Despite the ‘smoke and mirrors’ denials and obfuscation of yesterday’s CRL press conference, the ‘Final Draft Christian Sector Self-Regulatory Framework in RSA’ released by the CRL on December 19 2025 clearly states the following: ‘The Section 22 Ad hoc Committee has the responsibility to conduct consultations with all Christian sectors and organisations throughout the country about the development of the legislative framework.’
“It is clear that the end result is predetermined. This is not an open process aimed at seeking solutions that allow the religious sector to remain ‘self regulating’ . These consultations are aimed at giving legitimacy to the proposal for legislation.
“Whenever you read ‘legislation’ – or ‘legislative framework’ it is crystal clear that this involves Parliament (and therefore the State) — and the only outcome is State control of religion.”
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