c. 1996 Religion News Service

MAPUTO, Mozambique (RNS)-A young preacher paces the stage of the dilapidated Xenon cinema in downtown Maputo as a stereo gently plays a version of”Onward Christian Soldiers.” Over the next hour the preacher urges the packed audience to give all to God.”Give your love to your enemies and give generously to the church,”he declares. A score of”pastors,”dressed in nearly identical dark slacks, crisp white shirts and ties, crisscross the audience, taking up tithes.

Welcome to the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God.

Looking innocuous enough on the outside, it seems little different from many other evangelical Christian churches operating in Mozambique and throughout southern Africa. But the Brazilian-based Kingdom of God has recently caused a stir in this impoverished former Portuguese colony, drawing criticism from nearly all sectors of Mozambican society.

At the center of the controversy are allegations by the government and media that the church is forcing its members to give over all their money. Forfeiting sorely needed funds to a foreign church, many argue, is the last thing people here need to do. Mozambicans are the poorest people on earth, with per capita income of about $90 a year, according to the World Bank.

And, the critics say, draining the pockets of individual Mozambicans amounts to draining the precarious Mozambican economy, which is struggling to emerge from years of state control and civil war. The situation has grown so intense that the Mozambican government has threatened to restrict the church’s activities.

The Mozambican media are flush with stories about new church members giving up their life earnings and others siphoning off family fortunes to give to the church.

But church followers and their pastors tell a different story. They say the Mozambican government is persecuting the church. The government, they claim further, is being egged on by mainstream churches because the Universal Kingdom of God is draining their membership.”The devil is among the people in the government,”said Francisca Couta, a Universal member.”They are trying to keep people from attending because the Catholic Church and other big churches see people are leaving them and joining this church. The big churches have a lot of pull with the government. They can do things like that,”she said.

Universal officials in Maputo and in South Africa, where the church is also seeing growth, declined to comment about the their activities in Mozambique.

That the church has a huge following can hardly be disputed. In Maputo alone it uses seven cinema houses and occupies a 3,000-seat indoor stadium in the heart of the city.

Services at the indoor stadium are held five times a day and often have capacity crowds, even on weekdays, according to church workers at the stadium. The church also has a presence in every provincial city in the country and most towns. Reliable figures on nationwide membership, however, are hard to determine.

Church income also is difficult to figure. But many, including the influential Maputo daily,”Mediafax,”argues that the church has in the past influenced the foreign currency markets in Mozambique by dumping local currency to buy dollars.

In early February the Mozambican currency, the metical, jumped overnight from 11,000 to the dollar to 12,500. Similar erosion of the metical has taken place before, but rarely so quickly. The rate eventually went back down, suggesting to some that the devaluation was artificial.

Mozambique’s minister of culture, Mateus Kathupa, has threatened to eject the church from all the country’s cinema houses. And if the church chooses to move its services to the sports arenas, the minister argues, it will be thrown out of them as well.

So far, however, the minister has not carried through on his threat. Services continue at the Xenon cinema and at cinemas throughout Mozambique.

Many here doubt the minister’s resolve to remove the church from the cinemas. One diplomat pointed out that the church was practically the only tenant in many cinemas around the country and that the ruling party in Mozambique, the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique-or Frelimo-owned all the cinemas. The church also occupies the top floor of the Frelimo Party headquarters in Maputo and is a major buyer of advertising from RTK-TV, Mozambique’s only private TV station, which is owned by a top Frelimo member.”The relationship between the church and Frelimo is all business when it comes down to it,”said Job Chambal, the director of religious affairs for the Mozambican Ministry of Justice.”If someone else comes along and wants to pay more to rent the cinemas or Frelimo’s top floor, then it will go to them, but right now they are paying the rent and no one is really complaining about that.” Chambal said he was not prepared to ban any of the church’s activities.”I have people coming to me every day wanting me to do something about this church,”said Chambal.”Their daughter, mother, son or something is giving the family money to the church. But not one church member has come to see me. These people collect money, a lot of money, but they never rob anyone.”If you are stupid enough to give all your money away, you deserve to lose it. If you have a problem with it, you can always quit.”

MJP END FLEMING