Indonesia’s Catholic community learned last yr that the 1000’s of dollars it had received as a donation from public official Johnny Gerard Plate were proceeds from a multimillion-dollar telecom bribery case.
Plate, a cupboard minister before he was sentenced to a 15-year prison term, had a history of donating to his religious community in Indonesia’s Christian-majority East Nusa Tenggara province.
The court’s decision stated that a portion of those graft funds had been allocated to church institutions, including the Kupang archdiocese, Widya Mandira Catholic University, and the Timor Evangelical Christian Church, a Protestant group in Kupang. Following Plate’s conviction, Catholic authorities have pledged to return these donations, emphasizing their commitment to moral financial practices.
This isn’t the primary time Christian officials involved in corruption cases have donated illegal funds to non secular organizations. In 2017, former transportation minister Antonius Tonny Budiono was found guilty of accepting bribes. During the trial, he stated to the judges that he used the funds for orphan care and for renovating a damaged church and college. In response to this case, the Indonesian government (KPK) challenged religious institutions, including churches, to conduct financial audits to advertise transparency.
In a rustic where the corruption situation has seemingly only deteriorated in recent times, CT asked Indonesian church and ministry leaders, “Should a Christian organization ever accept a donation gained from an unethical source?” Answers are arranged from firm to more nuanced.
Jimmy Kawilarang, director of Torchbearers Indonesia, West Java
Churches and ministries should reject all activities that don’t reflect the glory of God, including unethical ways of looking for and accepting donations that don’t align with the teachings of the Bible. God’s Word condemns money obtained through deception, cheating, corruption, theft, or usury.
When a person or organization intends to make a major donation to the church, it’s respectful and, for the sake of transparency and accountability, vital to ask for a proof of the origin of the donated money. The church can set guidelines to discover donation sources and request more details when donations exceed a specific amount.
To balance financial needs and moral integrity, churches and ministries should make financial reports public, involve the church council or board of trustees when making financial decisions, and construct a robust internal supervision system to make sure accountability and openness to external oversight or independent audits.
Fostering a culture of transparency, accountability, and good governance within the financial context of the church or ministry can be the first responsibility of Christian leaders. The apostle Paul speaks in regards to the criteria for choosing someone to be a frontrunner or servant of God (1 Tim. 3:1–10). A culture of transparency and accountability can only occur when church and ministry leaders have personal integrity and where their words and actions are consistent, motivating others to follow suit.
T. Christian Sulistio, lecturer at Southeast Asia Bible Seminary (SAAT), Malang, East Java
The church has limitations when tracing the origin of funds or knowing all of the motivations of Christians who give offerings. To prevent Christians from giving offerings or donations from work that doesn’t align with God’s will, the church can communicate that offerings at first are presenting oneself first to the Lord (2 Cor. 8:5), meaning our entire lives reside offerings, holy and pleasing to God (Rom. 12:1).
Offerings originating from money obtained unethically contradict the character and can of God and are abominations to God. Deuteronomy 23:18 says, “You must not bring the earnings of a female prostitute or of a male prostitute into the home of the Lord your God to pay any vow, since the Lord your God detests them each.” In The Book of Deuteronomy, Peter C. Craigie writes that “money that had been acquired by sinful means couldn’t be an element of God’s gift, and due to this fact couldn’t be utilized in paying a vow to him.”
In one other passage, Matthew 23:23 says, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you’ve gotten neglected the more essential matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You must have practiced the latter, without neglecting the previous.” We see that offerings to our Lord must even be based on the lives of Christians with these attributes.
Wahyu Pramudya, pastor at Indonesian Christian Church (GKI) Ngagel, Surabaya, East Java
I had an interesting experience regarding these “problematic” offerings. Once, after I was guest preaching, someone handed me a check after a sermon. It was not a typical occurrence, so I checked the name on the check via Google. I used to be surprised to seek out that the name was on the list of the favored Panama Papers at the moment.
I contacted the local church minister to inquire about his involvement within the Panama Papers. But I didn’t receive a response regarding this matter from the minister of the church where I preached. I made a decision to money the check and provides it to one among my acquaintances (who was a church minister) who needed funds for his child’s school tuition fee.
I explained the origin of the cash, and he was willing to simply accept it. He felt that this money may not necessarily come from unethical business. Personally, I felt uncomfortable accepting it because I couldn’t communicate with the giver of the check to make clear the source of the funds they were offering for my ministry.
In our church, congregation members and attendees can access financial reports, where the reports are examined by public accountants to be certain that the income and expenditures are reasonable and accountable. This is feasible because our church adheres to a collective leadership system and isn’t held by just one pastor.
At times, akin to when someone pays in money, it may possibly be difficult for us to know the identity of the donor and what their occupation is. Even knowing this details about our members comes at their very own discretion.
If proven in court, [I feel] the church is obliged to return unlawfully obtained offerings. However, the variety of cases that go to court could be very minimal. And what about offerings clearly originating from businesses that pose health problems, akin to smoking? This business is legal and one among the most important taxpayers in Indonesia. In general, the church will reject sponsorships (from any such donor), which take the shape of printed advertisements in bulletins, but still accept offerings that don’t require the donor to be listed in print.
In my opinion, what pastors or churches mustn’t do is to use the congregation’s guilt by demanding offerings as “redemption” from lifestyles which might be displeasing to God, as if through these donations, the forgiveness and redemption of God could be “bought.” This behavior has occurred within the history of the church and has been one among the triggers for the church’s reformation. Pastors and churches must teach that offerings are expressions of gratitude, with a broken heart thanking God’s mercy amidst one’s own sinfulness, and never as an alternative to ongoing, unending sin.
Ryadi Pramana, founding father of the EFOD, a ministry that serves and equips pastors in rural areas, Jakarta
Our organization’s principle in accepting donations is knowing the background of the donor and whether the donor is a Christian with the guts of a servant or simply a nominal Christian. A Christian with the guts of a servant will give wholeheartedly with none hidden motives.
When it involves a company’s financial needs, the more ambitious the specified consequence, the greater the necessity for funds, and this often causes us to grow to be short-sighted. An organization that has over faith [an excessive belief that its ambitious wants will be met] doesn’t first ask God whether it’s what he desires or what one desires. If we follow our own will, the result will likely be accepting donations indiscriminately.
There are several things we do if we doubt the origin of a donation. Firstly, we advise the donor to directly give their money to those in need in order that we’re relieved from worrying in regards to the origin of the funds. Secondly, we avoid using donations to buy assets. This is because people are likely to remember the cash they’ve donated, in order that they feel very entitled within the journey of the church/foundation. This is contradictory to the principle of giving, where we consciously release what we have now to others and the cash now not belongs to us.
Many churches and Christian foundations are destroyed because they wouldn’t have good financial management. In our ministry, our organization uses financial software that facilitates God’s servants in preparing good and proper financial reports in response to accounting standards. If the system and the steward are good, then the result is superb.
Daniel Andy Hoffmann Sinaga, pastor at Batak Christian Protestant Church (HKBP) Medan Sudirman, North Sumatera
Because that is an election yr in Indonesia, many churches are receiving funds from legislative candidates on this yr’s elections. It could also be difficult for the church to know whether these funds are personal donations or campaign funds from their supporting party. However, church leaders should inquire further in regards to the source of enormous donations, communicating with the person in a friendly manner and personal setting.
To validate the source of donations, Christian leaders should communicate their offering ethics in written form or verbal communication during worship. They don’t should necessarily write these from scratch. Instead, they’ll use existing banking system procedures, like asking people to write down a press release on the deposit form about where their money comes from, including from one’s salary, savings, investments, inheritance, and so forth. These guidelines should come from biblical convictions but in addition be combined with legal principles regulating the source of funds, akin to anticorruption and anti-money-laundering laws.
That said, the church cannot mechanically prohibit itself from accepting money from a source of funds no matter whether it was obtained ethically or not. The story of the sinful woman who anointed Jesus’ feet with expensive oil (Luke 7:36–50) is an apt illustration. Much to the disdain of the Pharisees, a girl who’s a prostitute pours expensive oil on Jesus and washes his feet together with her tears and hair. Jesus’ response is remarkable; he forgives her sins—not due to expensive oil she uses but because her heart was moved toward God and he accepts the lady’s service and offering.
Similarly, the church that accepts funds that come from unethical means doesn’t necessarily should be rejected. I actually have visited churches positioned within the midst of red-light districts, and on Sundays, many prostitutes come to worship and provides their offerings. So are we becoming just like the Pharisees who’re reluctant with the offering of the sinful woman? Again, the Lord sees the guts and love way over the giving and offerings.
