HomeOld_PostsReclaiming our spiritual independence: Part Eleven

Reclaiming our spiritual independence: Part Eleven

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THE positive aspect in the development of what we shall term ‘Independent Churches’ is their spiritual independence.
By this we mean that their calling is to God not to Western hegemonic institutions seeking wealth and influence in Africa.
The tragedy of some of them is their copy-catting of Western churches especially the impoverishment of young and old through insistence on payment of tithes.
We challenge the patently false assertion that God will increase his blessings to those who give more to the ‘man of god’.
While the principle of supporting the pastor is acceptable, the greater part of the donations from church members must go to charity.
The adage that ‘charity begins at home’ does not mean enriching the pastor at the expense of the laity.
One ‘man of god’ argued that people should not question pastors who grow rich because they are entitled to the country’s wealth just like other citizens.
But my response is: does the preaching of the pastor equate to ‘uchadya cheziya, you must sweat to eat’?
By passing khaki envelopes to the parishioners even before the main sermon, the ‘men of god’ are inducing their congregation to part with hard-earned scarce resources that should go to sustain their families or charity.
By threatening that God will somehow punish or withhold blessings to those who do not give generously, pastors are using the gospel to defraud the people by intimidation.
The prosperity churches go straight for the jugular vein: the more you give the pastor, the more God will bless you.
Come on!
What kind of God goes into a special arrangement with ‘his’ preachers, to say I will love only those who love my ‘man of god?
Daylight robbery of the parishioners financial resources is what we are witnessing.
As we have said earlier, African people have always been deeply religious.
The army of white missionaries, the vanguard of European colonisers, forcibly disconnected Africans from their traditional religion, thereby creating spiritual orphans.
With no spiritual mother or father to protect and defend them the hapless African were ready for the spiritual slaughter.
No wonder European missionaries have had a field day in Africa, even earning accolades back at their mother churches for ‘catching’ so many (based on the numbers of converts and new parishes established).
And they live in luxury, changing cars every year!
So-called independent church groups have also jumped into the fray, also harvesting from the now over-crowded spiritual orphanage.
The orphanage was created by white missionaries who, with connivance of the colonial government, ‘banished’ African religious practices from among the indigenous populations.
The ranks of ‘religious orphans’ continue to be swelled by the young and urbanised populations born to spiritually orphaned parents and now even grandparents.
Still running strong in their veins are the divine memories of their African spirituality.
Most rural populations still practice many important African religious ceremonies.
The ancestral spirits of the Africans continue to seek out their descendants.
The spiritual experiences are dismissed as the work of the devil.
White missionaries and their black converts are notorious for rejecting anything that they do not understand, especially if it concerns Africans.
So each time Africans get reconnected to their spiritual world, the concerned individuals find little or no support from the family, let alone the church.
In many cases the spiritually inspired person will be taken to a priest or ‘prophet’ to exorcise the ancestral spirit which is automatically classified as a demon.
Africans should ask themselves why they should be made to reject their spiritual reality!
How does my late father, mother or grandparent visiting and establishing spiritual contact with me, become demonised?
As Africans we have always recognised the existence of the devil and other demons that disturb people’s lives.
Do we then reject our ancestral spirits because some of them are bad? We check with masvikiro and other diviners (consulting at least three different ones), to find out if the spirit that seeks to possess a relative is a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ one.
This can be established unequivocally.
Then a decision can be taken by a council of family members to accommodate or reject the spirit.
Those who reject African spirituality outright often have bought deep into Christian religion and become thoroughly brain-washed by the clergy.
Spirit mediums are a normal connection between ordinary people and the spirit world and ultimately God, Musikavanhu/Mlimo.
We remember that even some of God’s angels were bad and fell from grace, but the rest still remained divine.
The overwhelming majority of our ancestral spirits have divine powers derived from our Mwari/Mlimo and they play a critical role in guiding and protecting us from life’s many dangers.
These spirits also convey our prayers to our Musikavanhu, God.
We must be reminded that as Africans, we also have robust methods of evaluating and checking the authenticity of spirit possessions.
It is foolish to reject spirit possession out of hand just because the church says no to things African.
But we are African and the Christian religion is foreign.
That is the naked fact.
Why should we deny our own spirituality just because a brain-washing foreign religion is imposed on us?
We must be spiritually independent.
That means we assert our own relationship with the Creator.
We follow the traditional established ways of relating to our Creator. Any approaches to God that require us to be preached to every other day are not genuine.
The rise of indigenous African churches that have no connection with Western churches is a sure sign of people seeking spiritual independence.
The people have discovered that the traditional Christian church gospel is hollow, and has no roots or connection with African reality. Its practice is a mimic of Western cultural practices.
Christian Africans are thus in many ways a ‘caricature’ of white people.
The gospel says, ‘blessed are the poor’ and yet the pastor lives in opulent luxury.
The sophisticated sermons are often ‘academic and philosophical’ hard to translate into ordinary daily life.
Audiences are mesmerised by the preachers, but gain little spiritual benefit.
When the prosperity preacher promises instant wealth and relief from poverty, the Africans flock to the meetings desperate to get some relief, any relief!
They have been systematically impoverished through centuries of slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism and now globalisation.
But unknown to the poor congregants, the preacher is looking to grow his own prosperity.
He is exploiting both the people’s spiritual and material poverty.
Embracing African religion and culture, with its clearly defined line of spiritual authority from Mwari/Mlimo, the Creator, down through the Great Ancestral Spirits such as Murenga, Nehanda, Chaminuka and Kaguvi, to the masvikiro and mhondoros creates an independent religious platform from which to build a strong independent Africa.
We shall attempt to further explore how the different independent religious groupings in Africa could be consolidated into one mammoth movement for restoration of Africa’s spiritual, social and economic independence in all their various dimensions.

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