Mugabe calls for ‘Africanisation’ of churches in Zimbabwe: CEN 3.27.08 March 27, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Politics, Zimbabwe.trackback
Published in The Church of England Newspaper’s Religious Intelligence section.
Robert Mugabe has called for the “Africanisation” of Christianity in Zimbabwe, calling upon the nation’s churches to break free from foreign overlords.
In a reference to Dr. Nolbert Kunonga’s battle with the Anglican Communion and to his long running battle with the Roman Catholic Church, President Mugabe said ecclesiastical authority in Zimbabwe’s churches should be held by Zimbabweans. Speaking in the Bulawayo suburb of Lobengula on the final Sunday before the March 29 General Elections, Zimbabwe’s president said “independence means power has come to the indigenous people of the country. In every area we should show that we could exercise that power.”
After crushing Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in what was widely viewed as a corrupted election in 2000, the Roman Catholic Church’s Archbishop of Bulawayo, Msg. Pius Ncube emerged as the country’s leading democracy advocate. While Archbishop Ncube resigned last year in the wake of what his supporters say was a plot concocted by the country’s secret police the Catholic Church has remained an outspoken supporter of human rights and democratic freedoms.
The Anglican Church, however, had been divided with two of the country’s five bishops backing President Mugabe. The former Bishop of Harare, Dr. Nolbert Kunonga is an outspoken supporter of the ZANU-PF party and President Mugabe, and for his loyalty had been given a farm confiscated from a white farmer. Dr. Kunonga has called President Mugabe God’s anointed ruler of Zimbabwe and backed his reelection, while leaders of a number of African Indigenous Churches have also lent the president their support.
However, Dr. Kunonga’s removal from office by the Church of the Province of Central Africa and the appointment of Dr. Sebastian Bakare as Bishop of Harare has changed the political dynamic among President Mugabe’s church supporters. In a pastoral letter released two weeks ago, Bishop Bakare backed the call for change, and condemned the government policies that have impoverished the nation.
In his address to the members of the Apostolic Faith Church of Africa in Lobengula on Sunday, President Mugabe said “our people must be able to head, even the old churches and perhaps the new ones also. We want to see the Africanisation of the Church, which does not mean bringing in an African God because there is only one universal God. But the running of the Church. “
African Indigenous Churches, he said, were a more authentic avenue for the expression of Christian belief for black Africans than the historic missionary churches. “We want to see African people not as workers, kneeling for help before whites. We want to see us being owners of companies ourselves and senior managers so that we can say Zimbabwe is truly an African country,” President Mugabe said according to a partial transcript of his sermon printed in the government-backed Harare Herald.
Independent sources cited by Radio SW Africa reported the Lobengula Church was half empty, and that the pastor apologized for the poor turnout. Many of his parishioners were traveling to their home villages for the Easter holiday, he explained.
Thanking the congregation in advance for their votes, President Mugabe promised to give the church a confiscated commercial farm and to pave the road to the church.
President Mugabe, a Roman Catholic, told the congregation he was “happy that this is an African church by birth and leadership.” The Apostolic Faith Church of Africa linked its fortunes with the Mugabe regime when in 2000 ZANU-PF’s chief campaign strategist Border Gezi joined the church. Drawing its members from the country’s poor, the sect’s members practice polygamy. The church’s female members dress in white while men wear a long beard accompanied by a clean-shaven head.
Political scientist Terry Ranger noted in 2002 that the sect’s founder Godfrey Nzira prophesized that Mugabe was the “divinely appointed King of Zimbabwe and no man should dare challenge his office.”
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Ok, I am so sick and tired of Mugabe wanting to run every aspect of Zimbabwean life. Religion is a fundamental right which the government has no right to poke its ugly head in.
No Robert Mugabe, I fo not know what you mean by Africannism, all I know is the oain and suffering you have single handley brought upon the nation
l dont know if God can here our prayers all of us in the world if so why cannt the situation in Zim change
respected president Mugabe
please understand the pain of the ppeople of Zimbabwe and allow a bit of growth in the country. you do ur part as the government official and allow the other officials to function with ttheir conscience. enjoyment is not only for yourself but the ordinary people also have the right. please think of it.
mugabe is the best african leader and knows everthing under water thus brown and his propaganda castigate him on cnn and bbc keep it up president of the people
@ times mugabe is right white people dont want with money or give a black man a tip .look @ what happened to S.A transport minister he was given a gift and the white ppl reacted.even were i work we spend most of our time driving & they dont want us to be given a tip why.this why ppl like robert mugabe end up changing .we want ppl like mugabe to rull this place .
mugabe is the kind of president peaple need in africa.you are doing well,keep it up for the benefit of zim.
that is what i call a true man. the real man behind the destination of our country and i hope there shall be moments at sometime to cherish his cause of concern and recognise the foundations he has already laid for total emancipation of Africans. Long live comrade
Robert Mugabe – a black African, actually ‘dared’ to have the audacity to get up off his knees and stand proud against the English, who had oppressed his people for so long.
And that is the only reason why they (the English) and their American allies have destroyed the economy of Zimbabwe from without, by cutting off export markets and crippling the Zimbabwean domestic economy.
Why was the same venom never used against corrupt leaders like Pres Moi of Kenya for example? Because he was compliant and easily manipulated by the former colonialists and ex-pat business community of Kenya for their own corrupt ends.
So while he destroyed his own country, and introduced a legacy of corruption and graft that persists to this day, Pres Moi allowed the English to continue stripping his country of everything of value, as they have done throughout Africa and elsewhere for hundreds of years.
all of you who SUPPORT THIS MAN MUGABE, are seriously misformed, He is a Freemason, he was put in power by Henry Kissinger and carrington, thats why the last election when we waited for election results a group of white people(freemasons & illuminati’s) offered him security protection and rigged the elections, the big picture people we dont see wake up and smell the coffee, everyone knows the looting of diamonds in marange, chipinge, chimanimani, taking of farms and awarding special ones to certain group FREEMASONRY owns vast majority of land in Zimbabwe, mugabe knows he’s time is ending but our nation should be controlled by the secret organisation that he is part of thats why he is saying 51% should be given to local people of all foreign owened firms, i WANT EVERYONE TO WATCH VERY CAREFULL WHO WILL BE THERE SHARE HOLDERS OF THESE FIRMS, NOT THE Zimabaweans but the Brotherhood.
who says he is the hero of africa, this man never fought the war, they say he was jailed ? were why not make a museum of that cell? He is Hero right? so what is the Honour of the Bath he recived from the Queen of England and ? why hasnt he even said one word dissing the Queen?????????????????? but he has dissed Bush, Blair, Brown etc so much, isnt it strange. they say they have Him on Sanctions what sanctions, that guy keeps everything secretly he travels everywere without media, because its controlled by the Brotherhood. Tsvangirai had to go through the initiation stage HE IS THE PRIME MINISTER RIGHT, THE TRUTH HE IS THE PRESIDENT ITS A HAND OVER TAKEOVER JUST WATCH THE FOLLOWING MONTHS TO COME.
We africans blame the white man for abusing us in every sense but lets look at the history our chiefs sold our brothers as slaves for personal gain, Hey if the same people came selling White people or Chinese as slaves to our chiefs would we have done the same thing? its questions we need to ask THE TRUTH SHOULD PREVAIL , secret societies exist the more you rise up society levels the more get exposed to these socities, in Zimbabwe the secret socities are very much there, and i believe in every country in the world they are there the people who matter and formulate policy are the ones required.
My african Brothers i urge you not to be IGNORANT BUT LET SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH WITH ALL CAUTION.
I LIKED THAT MAN Mugabe so much until i started to seek for answers he was never in jail in Zimbabwe, he was being trained in the ways of the global agenda NEW WORLD ORDER, and he did he’s row perfectly and in 1979 he wasput in as the Prime minister and in 1986 he was ushered as the president now he has over 7 degrees etc which vary from economics, law etc but the country went to the dogs, if education is this madness the Society of brotherhood have made every african leader a mad person. i rest my case.
Soldier is right on the money when he mentions that the Illuminati control African politicians.
However, it is unlikely that the ordinary African will wake up and realise this until it is far too late. The crippling problem is that most Africans are (a) only concerned with short term problems, (b) are superstitious, (c) have the tendency of letting their genitals dictate their thoughts, (d) and only care about their own hides. This is why, instead of having one united black race in Africa, we have 700+ little ethnic groups, each with a bitter rivalry against the other. This is sweet music to an Illuminati’s ears. This chaotic jumble of competing African tribes is exactly why the Muslims and the European Jews had a field day enslaving the Africans for 14 centuries. It is also why the modern African will likely never wake up and challenge the status quo, preferring instead to waste away with cheap alcohol, prostitution, violence, and repetitive music.
Given the above, it is a waste of time to have hope for Zimbabwe, because the Illuminati have that country by the throat. The Zimbabwean people will continue to be bled dry by ZANU-PF, MDC, UN, Chinese corporations, SADC, and other parasitic tentacles of the illuminati. And nothing short of divine intervention will alter this onslaught. And the pathetic thing is that the Zimbabwean people will happily hasten their own demise by killing each other over stupid things like waving at a person or singing a “Liberation War” song off tune.
Hope is nothing more than a drug, which the Illuminati have abused for a very long time. So much death, destruction, and misery is the result of the abuse of hope.