PASTOR'S DOWNFALL

About this story

New Zion Baptist Church knows Pastor Tshepo Zungu as a good man. He remembers birthdays, visits the sick and keeps his voice gentle when the world is not. His wife knows the version of him that comes home after the applause: loving, tired and perhaps too willing to believe attention is harmless. Attention, after all, is what a congregation is for. When Masego Mokoena joins the congregation, the air changes. The aunties notice first — they always do. What begins as a glance across the pews moves toward a locked office, a private choice and a truth no couple can put back once it has been spoken. By the time the ushers whisper it, the whole congregation will have chosen a side. PASTOR'S DOWNFALL is a hot Durban quickie about desire, suspicion and the difference between being tempted and choosing to stay. When the office door closes on a man of God, who is really being tested?