Conventional churches also extorting Christians in ‘God’s name’!.

While religious organisations like the Catholic Church, Presbyterian Church in Cameroon and the Cameron Baptist Convention, have over the years earned kudos for accompanying the government build schools and medical facilities, they too have delved into all sorts of worldly businesses.

They are into building stores in markets and streets, hospitality sector with lodging facilities in many towns and micro finance institutions.

Many have also gone into small cottage ventures like bakery, poultry and pig farming, often not paying taxes and competing, with their Christians from whom they expect offerings, tithes, thanksgiving and other levies every Sunday.

What has brought such questionable practices to the fore, showed its ugly head, last week, and is ongoing, is the decision of the Bishop of the Mamfe Diocese, Aloysius Fondong Abangalo, who has, as reported by various news organs, imposed a levy of 12.6 million FCFA on parishioners in his Diocese, to cover the funeral cost of his predecessor, Bishop Lysinge Francis, who was called to the Lord at the age of 87, on July 29, 2026.

According to a Diocesan circular, issued on Friday, July 31, 2026, his mortal remains will be removed from the New Life Mortuary in Mamfe, at 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday, August 12, 2026.

An “Office of the Dead and Mass,” will follow at 6:00p.m., before a series of overnight masses, led by Deaneries, Diocesan priests, religious men and women, seminarians, family members, friends, SOBANs and prayer groups…”.

The final funeral mass and burial, will later take place at 9:00 a.m. on Thursday, August 13, 2026. 

The announcement is signed by the Bishop of Mamfe, Aloysius Abangalo Fondong, who has called on priests and the Catholic faithful to offer prayers and masses for the peaceful repose of Bishop Lysinge’s soul.

The late Bishop Lysinge, ordained priest in 1966, became the first Bishop of the Diocese of Mamfe, when it was created in 1999. He retired in 2014, after nearly 15 years of episcopal leadership.

The 12.6 million levy slammed on the Christians for the burial in Mamfe, has triggered viral criticisms, with Dr George Nchumbonga-Chrysostom Lekelefac, a cannon law lawyer, publicly rebuking Bishop Aloysius Fondong Abangalo.

“Mamfe is a poor Diocese, and the funeral of Bishop Lysinge must reflect that truth. To pretend otherwise is extortion. This is not a fashion competition. Let there be a simple mass and a modest reception for those who would travel from afar, then let the day be closes.”

“The Bishop of Mamfe should not be expected to pay the transport of other Bishops. If they cannot make the sacrifice of covering their own way, they should not come. A burial is not an occasion for display of wealth,” he wrote in an open letter disseminated in the media.

While The Guardian Post prays for the Lord to give the departed Bishop perfect rest in peace, it joins other articulate commentators to caution that the burial should, however, not be used to squeeze parishioners, who have been rendered retched by the ongoing armed conflict in the North West and South West Regions, for a decade.

Don’t get us wrong; At The Guardian Post, we agree that every religious organisation needs financial donations from its flocks to pay priests and carry out evangelisation and discipleship activities.

The Bible teaches that in his traveling evangelisation work, Jesus Christ depended on voluntary financial donations, such as from a group of women who provided for him out of their own means (Luke 8:1–3)- and managed a common moneybag, kept by Judas Iscariot (John 12:6, 13:29).

The donations were not tithe, sewing of seeds, or imposed levies to build hotels, open micro-finance, bakeries, and stores to let or levy for burials. There were voluntary gifts for God's work.

But what is happening today in Cameroon and other African countries has been rightly epitomised in one of a book, titled: “When churches become businesses.” It is penned by serial author and priest, Jake Kail.

He writes: “Pastors function more like Chief Executive Officers, CEOs, members are turned into customers, evangelism is reduced to marketing, other churches are seen as competition, a leader’s empire is built instead of the kingdom of God being advanced.”

The author summaries, drawing from the Bible, when Jesus was at the temple in Jerusalem: “Stop making my Father’s house a place of business.”

That Divine injunction by Jesus Christ, should put the fear of the Lord into the teachings of every Priest, Bishop or even self-anointed Prophets, to sincerely evaluate their approach and the sufferings of those they are imposing all sorts of levies on, “in the name of God.” 

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3874 of Monday August 10, 2026