The civil society group STAND has sharply criticized the Liberia Council of Churches (LCC), accusing the body of abandoning its moral authority after it called for the cancellation of the planned December 17 protest.
In a statement released Sunday, STAND described the Council as “a once-sacred institution now reduced to a compromised fraternity,” alleging that church leaders have traded principle for privilege and aligned themselves with political power rather than the underprivileged.
“The Council has demoted itself to a loudspeaker for a corrupt regime,” the statement read. “While the hungry starve, the brutalized bleed, and the violated cry out, this Council rushes to sit at the tables of political gluttons. Nothing about this resembles moral leadership.”
STAND said it refused to attend a recent “security meeting” convened by the Ministry of Justice that included the Council, arguing that the LCC had lost credibility by applauding the controversial removal of the Speaker of the House and remaining silent on what the group described as “immorality and lawlessness flooding the nation.”
The group also rejected the Council’s reasoning that protests should be avoided because of the Christmas season, calling it “the theology of cowards.” According to STAND, “A church afraid of truth is no church at all. A clergy that bends the gospel to please a president is not serving Christ; it is serving its own appetite.”
Declaring that the Council “has no moral standing to advise, rebuke, or restrain the Liberian people,” STAND urged the public and media not to be distracted by what it termed “the noise of a compromised clergy.”
“The December 17 protest is constitutional, legitimate, and unstoppable,” the statement concluded. “No corrupted pulpit no politically purchased statement, no fearful sermon crafted to please power will deter the will of the people. On December 17, the masses will rise.”
