Conger

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.”