New Officers Voted for Southern Africa Region of the Adventist Denomination
Updated June 23: June 21, 2016: The governing body of the Southern Africa-Indian Ocean Division (SID) of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination met today and voted to nominate two new officers in the wake of a scandal about academic degrees led to the resignation of the division president. Pastor Solomon Maphosa, who has been the executive secretary serving as interim president, was nominated for president and Pastor Gideon Reyneke, a department director in the Southern African Union Conference, was nominated as the new executive secretary.
In an extraordinarily rapid progression of events, the available members of the denomination’s General Conference executive committee voted to approve both nominations the next day, according to the Adventist Review. The common practice is for elections at this level to be voted during the annual meeting of the executive committee in the fall or the spring meeting of the body.
Dr. Paul Ratsara resigned as SID after six weeks of accusations of academic fraud. Ratsara requested reassignment as a local pastor in his home region, the Indian Ocean Union Conference “to refocus the church that I love, back to its God-given mission and to prevent it continuing to be distracted.” The union conference includes the island nations of Madagascar, Mauritius, and Seychelles east of the African continent.
The tensions leading up to Ratsara’s resignation began on April 14 when The New Age, a secular newspaper in South Africa, published a story with accusations of fraud against both Ratsara and Pastor Paul Charles, the communication director for the division. Charles claimed a doctoral degree from an organization in India that was not accredited and for which no address or record could be found, as reported at the time by Adventist Today.
Although Ratsara’s doctoral degree has been confirmed by the University of South Africa, accusations that at least some parts of his dissertation were written for him continued and the University of South Africa has announced that it will investigate. Early in May an administrative committee of the SID ordered Charles to stop making any claim to the doctoral degree he had previously listed, according to a story published by Spectrum, the journal of the largest association of Adventist academics.
On May 23, Spectrum published an open letter signed by several Adventists from southern Africa, including some academics, urging Wilson to investigate the situation. Wilson was on his way to Rwanda at the time to be part of a major evangelism campaign in that country, and went to South Africa last week to meet with the SID executive committee.
The SID includes Adventist denominational units in 17 nations with a total population of 182 million. There are 23,000 Adventist congregations with a total membership of about 3.5 million, and the denomination operates seven universities, colleges and seminaries in this region as well as ten hospitals. This is one of the fastest growing areas on the globe for the Adventist faith with an annual membership growth rate that has ranged from five to nine percent since the beginning of the 21st century.
The photo published with this story includes the three officers of the Southern Africa-Indian Ocean Division of the Adventist denomination: From left to right, Pastor Solomon Maphosa, nominated for president; Pastor Gideon Reyneke, nominated for executive secretary; and Pastor Goodwell Nthani, chief financial officer.
Ps Gideon Reyneke had been serving as the Field Secretary of the SID as of the San Antinio GC session.
The tensions leading up to Ratsara’s resignation began on April 14…
This is the date when the PhD-gate was exposed publicly after several attempts from especially one person to address the issue to Ratsara directly via emails, and to the GC via emails as well. Since the only response he got was a threatening letter from the SID’s attorney, he finally had to leak it to the media – apparently the only language the administrators would understand.
The summary in the email creates the impression that the two officers chosen replaced the two PhD’s of Paul Ratsara and Paul Charles.
Ratsara resigned. Paul Charles still holds his position as Communication Director of the SID.
It’s unbelievable that even after all the turmoil and agitation that happened about P Charles and his PhD-gate he still kept his job.
What is happening down there? What kind of power that man has that even with such an immoral and fraudulent behavior he still holds his job? Are they afraid of him for some reason? Is there any mafia-like thing going on there?
Strange the Paul Charles who has no education at all that can be validated has a job still. Yet Pastor Ratsara has fallen on his sword !!
Weeks have pasted now and there has been no update regarding Paul Charles and his explanation to the SID Exco as to how and where he was educated. Paul Charles has a few questions to answer and one would hope the new admin would help to answer those. It would only be prudent for Paul Charles to be honest about this education. I am sure he will be honest at sometime or the other as he is well aware of what a child of God should do. If not we’ll then I guess one has to wait for the judgement day where each of us will be accountable.
Adventists!!!…we have been so keen to demonize Dr. Ratsara and Paul Charles. They may have made some mistakes in the past especially in reference to their degrees but all we have been doing is casting stones on them. Jesus said “Whoever is without sin let him cast the first stone.”
Whats the difference between those who have been condemning them and the Pharisees? Now since we have new leaders, let’s focus on souls and give them an opportunity to lead.
What’s the difference of Ananias and Sapphira lying and “officers” of today lying?
So this guy who apparently perpetrated fraud on the denomination for years wants to now become a pastor? I find this very strange. A liar and a cheat can’t be an administrative officer but can be a pastor? He should be disfellowshipped, considering the shame and embarrassment he has brought to the denomination. Maybe SKP has some leads on a job for him.
Hansen,
Just imagine being a member of the congregation where Ratsara will be pastoring…
Will he preach on honesty, character, truth, doing what is right, etc?
I wonder if Ted Wilson told him to sleep on it for another year… With this kind of leadership, what can we expect?
Shouldn’t such behavior bring “grave consequences” on those people?
Brian Sterley
I think that the Seventh-day Adventist church (especially in South Africa) think that the more educated a man is, and the more position he takes and holds, is a measure of his spiritual stature.
The pastors are mistaken.
Many pastors in South Africa think that when they hold a position in administration or post graduate degrees they have reached the have reached the peak of their careers. S wrong wrong wrong.