Op-Ed: When a Religious Community Becomes a Security Category
On page 18 of the National Security Strategy 2024-2028 (the NSS), released by the South African government in July 2025, a paragraph warrants careful reading. It notes that the CRL Rights Commission, in 2017, confirmed allegations of the “mushrooming of charismatic churches commercialising religion and exploiting people’s belief systems.” It then states that these churches “violated the constitutional rights of congregants and broke the laws of the country.” Later in the same document, “mushrooming of charismatic churches” appears in a national threat taxonomy alongside violent extremism, cybersecurity threats, extortion, and gender-based violence.
That is the documented fact at the heart of this issue. Not an allegation. Not a rumour. This is a public government document that categorises a broad stream of Christianity as a domestic security concern.
Let us be precise about what troubles Freedom of Religion South Africa (FOR SA). The state is entitled to investigate unlawful conduct. It may, and indeed must, act against the exploitation of vulnerable people wherever it occurs, including where religious rhetoric or institutional authority is abused. No one disputes this. The question here is different. It is whether a public national security document has drawn an adequate constitutional distinction between lawful religious activity and specific unlawful conduct by particular actors. A general reference to the “mushrooming of charismatic churches” names a community, not a category of conduct. It identifies millions of South Africans by their religious tradition, not by any action they have taken.
The Constitution is precise on this point. Sections 15, 18 and 31 protect freedom of religion, freedom of association, and the rights of religious communities to observe their practices and maintain their institutions. Where these rights are to be limited, the Constitution requires that any limitation be in terms of a law of general application, and be reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society. Public language in a national security strategy that burdens the constitutional standing of a religious community must be clear, careful, and proportionate. The NSS passage does not clearly distinguish between unlawful exploitation by particular actors and the broader phenomenon of religious growth it appears to describe. That ambiguity carries constitutional weight.
A more recent development has significantly sharpened those concerns. On 15 May 2026, a sworn affidavit was deposed by Rev. Prof. Musa Khulekani Xulu, former Chairperson of the CRL Rights Commission’s Section 22 Committee on the Christian Sector. Prof. Xulu resigned from that position in January 2026, citing procedural irregularities, exclusionary conduct, and sustained interference by the CRL Chairperson in the Committee’s work. In his affidavit, he records that he received a telephone call on 14 May 2026 from a person who identified himself as a representative of the National Intelligence Agency and/or the State Security Agency. This individual stated that the CRL Chairperson had allegedly referred Prof. Xulu for investigation. He was further informed that various Christian organisations — including FOR SA, the South African Church Defenders (SACD), and others opposing the CRL process — had allegedly been referred to state security structures for investigation, profiling, and possible surveillance.
Prof. Xulu acknowledges that he cannot independently verify the caller’s identity. We note that too. These are allegations, not established facts, and must be treated as such. But the broader context cannot simply be set aside. The NSS specifically identifies charismatic churches within a security framework. The CRL’s ongoing Section 22 regulatory process has attracted sustained allegations that it disproportionately targets Pentecostal and Charismatic communities. A senior former Committee member, who resigned in documented protest, has placed on oath his account of a conversation in which state security attention was allegedly directed at lawful religious organisations, apparently in connection with their opposition to a contested regulatory agenda. Taken together, that pattern raises questions that require answers.
There is also a structural concern that extends beyond any single allegation. The CRL Rights Commission is a Chapter 9 institution, established by the Constitution to promote and protect the rights of cultural, religious and linguistic communities. Its mandate requires it to be independent and impartial, and to act without fear, favour or prejudice. If the allegations in the affidavit are accurate, the concern is not merely that state security resources may have been misapplied. It is that an institution constitutionally created to protect religious communities may have directed security attention towards those same communities because they dissented from its regulatory agenda. Should a Chapter 9 institution turn security machinery against those it was established to protect, it is no longer performing its constitutional mandate. It is inverting it.
The appropriate constitutional response is neither alarm nor dismissal. It is oversight, clarity, and institutional accountability. Parliament has the necessary tools. The Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA PC) may request written briefings from the CRL and COGTA on whether either were consulted before the NSS wording was included, and whether the CRL’s 2017 report has been cited accurately. Members of Parliament may put questions to the Minister responsible for State Security, requesting an unclassified explanation of the relevant phrase in their report, and asking what safeguards exist against the stigmatisation of lawful religious communities. Where classified intelligence is engaged, the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence is the appropriate forum.
What is not appropriate is silence. A public document carries public obligations. If the NSS language refers to specific unlawful conduct and not to the broader phenomenon of charismatic religious growth, that should be straightforward to clarify. Leaving a broad community of faith categorised as a security concern, without explanation, is not a neutral position. It carries a constitutional cost.
Security and surveillance are not the same thing. Investigating unlawful conduct and monitoring lawful dissent are not the same thing. The Constitution draws each of these lines. The question before Parliament, the CRL, and the responsible Minister is, at its core, a simple one: on which side of those lines does this situation fall? South Africans are entitled to a clear answer.
FOR SA is a legal advocacy organisation committed to the Constitution and the rule of law. We raise these concerns not in alarm, but because constitutional clarity is not optional, and because the question of where the state may legitimately direct its security attention matters for every South African, regardless of their faith.
