WE have always been a religious people since time immemorial.
King Leopold II of Belgium duly informed the missionaries who came to facilitate colonisation of Africa that they were not to teach Africans about God as they (Africans) already knew him.
We worshipped Musikavanhu.
Our people have always been conscious of a Higher Power.
We have known, since our communities began to take shape, that our affairs are also governed by spiritual forces as much as they are run by leaders chosen and installed into power by the people.
Places like Njelele were our cathedrals.
Our prophets and teachers in the mould of characters like Mkwati preached the message of peace.
They taught us about unity.
They taught us about love.
Virtues such as honesty, respect and humility we have always cherished and upheld.
We prayed for our children.
We helped people in need.
We helped the sick.
We did not abandon orphans and widows.
Our problems began with the teachings brought by the so-called men-of-the cloth who came with the invading settlers.
The missionaries brought a religion and established churches that taught us to hate ourselves.
The churches encouraged us to see no good in our practices and traditions.
They taught us to disrespect our institutions.
But soon we established indigenous churches that sought to restore our identity.
They taught us the importance of harmony.
They taught us to be good to our country, to love our land and to respect our leaders.
The great Book, the Bible, does not teach insurrection.
Thus we find it quite disturbing when churches begin to meddle in political matters.
Their meddling is disturbing as it seeks to destabilise the nation.
Churches must pray for the development of the country, period.
They must not delve into politics, but concentrate on saving souls.
Today we have churches that are no different from those that came with the Pioneer Column.
We have churches that do not care for the people and that do not care for the country.
There are churches out there whose mission is to facilitate the making of money and personal wealth of religious leaders.
Like the churches that came with the Pioneer Column, they are interested in amassing of wealth through exploitation of the people.
We have no bone to chew with men and women of the cloth.
We do not want to spend time quarreling with churches, but they should not go looking for specks in the eyes of others when they have logs in theirs.
We implore churches to pray for the fiends in the West that are bent on seeing the gains of our independence reversed.
Pray for the country and its leadership so that they can find the strength to soldier on.
Clergymen and women we are in this fight together.
We are all suffering from the effects of sanctions imposed on us by the West.
We need the voice of wisdom from the churches, but we will not brook interference in matters political.
If churches want to meddle in politics, then they should form political parties rather than scurry behind the cloth and holy book when the kitchen hots up.
Indeed we need heavenly wisdom to steer us to prosperity.