I BEGIN by clarifying the difference between missionary-based Churches and independent churches, those of the Apostolic and Zion tradition, who have a long-standing tradition of serving the spiritual needs of the people of Zimbabwe.
Missionary-based churches were part of the colonial process.
They used the Bible as soft power so the colonial process could progress more successfully with the support of their covert operations.
The missionaries, therefore, were institutionalised operatives of the colonial machine.
The independent churches on the other hand, arose as a response to and a rejection of the whiteness embedded in the missionary-based churches.
The Bible resonated with them, but the white colonial culture of the missionary-based churches revulsed them and they struck out on their own, defining Christianity on their own terms, interpreting the Bible in their own socio-cultural context.
The subject of this article is the missionary-based Churches and their consistent history of fighting the sovereignty of the people of Zimbabwe as part of the colonial process and even after uhuru.
On June 7 2016, a local daily reported that the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe (EFZ) and the Catholic Bishops conference (ZCBC) called on President Robert Mugabe to resign because ‘Zimbabwe deserved leaders who had the interests of the people at heart’.
Are we supposed to believe from this statement that the Catholic Institution in Zimbabwe and the other missionary-based churches have the interests of the people of Zimbabwe at heart?
If we were to believe this, history would not absolve us.
History condemns the Catholics.
Father Hartman, a Catholic Priest of the Jesuit Order accompanied the armed bandits calling themselves the Pioneer Column on their evil mission to invade Zimbabwe, take control of the country and loot its wealth.
He accompanied them as chaplain, the anointed one of God, to take care of their spiritual needs.
This means he would say mass for these bandits before a murderous mission.
He would pronounce blessings on them in the name of the ‘Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’
Hartman and the Catholic Church knew this was a murderous mission.
They knew innocent Zimbabweans would be massacred in the process of this armed robbery, but for them, that was not an issue because they were part-and-parcel of this same mission of invasion and appropriation of the power and wealth of the people of Zimbabwe.
The Catholics were part of the colonial process for the same reason that King Leopold of Belgium outlined in his letter to the missionaries of his country:
Your essential role is to facilitate the task of administrators, industrialists, which means you will go to interpret the gospel in the way it will be the best to protect your interests in that part of the world. For these things, you have to keep watch on disinteresting our savages from the richness that is plenty in their underground.
This is precisely why the Catholics had no compunction in sending a man of the cloth to be chaplain of these thieves and murderers, to ratify this evil mission and make it so normal.
After our people fought the armed robbers from Britain, in the heroic First Chimurenga, the spiritual leaders who had commanded the Chimurenga war were captured; Nehanda, Mkwati and Kaguvi, chiefs and leaders as well as many others.
Before the armed robbers hanged these heroic sons and daughters of Zimbabwe, the missionaries had the temerity to claim they should ask for forgiveness for having fought the armed robbery of their land, so that after they had been murdered, they could be admitted into heaven.
Mbuya Nehanda had the correct spiritual response: “It is not me who needs forgiveness, but you who came and took my country.”
One does not need to be a theologian to understand this simple, but fundamental truth.
When God gives people a country, he is very serious about it and expects everyone to respect that.
She refused to be baptised.
She died a true daughter of Musikavanhu.
For the sake of their selfish greed that they and the British should plunder and loot the land of Zimbabwe, the missionaries totally disregarded divine law which does not permit or sanction the colonisation, enslavement and all forms of control of one people by another.
The missionaries were not ashamed to be part-and-parcel of colonisation in contradiction to Christ’s teaching to love your neighbor as yourself, in contradiction to Yahweh’s liberation of the Hebrews from Egyptian bondage.
For as long as it served their selfish purposes, the missionaries were prepared to dishonour and desecrate a Christ who came to die for others, the Christ of whom they claim to be ambassadors of.
You invade a people, you murder them and then you tell them: “This is God’s way, you must accept and honour this.”
What can be more anti-Christ?
We fought the liberation struggle without the blessings of the missionary churches.
We fought the British armed robbers without any Catholic priest saying mass and blessing us every morning, yet we still triumphed.
We had no reverends among us, representing the missionary institutions.
They did not starve with us, they did not suffer with us and they did not die with us.
Although individuals such as Fr Michael Traber and Bishop Lamont of the Catholic Church did stand against British banditry, the Church institutions did not.
The churches chose their side of history, to be on the side of armed robbers.
They made their choice when they were still in their home country, to be part of the covert operations of the colonial machinery.
We fought and we defeated colonialism.
This means we fought and we defeated the covert operatives as well, the missionary churches.
With this victory, the task of ruling the people of Zimbabwe reverted back to themselves, the victors who fought to say: “We shall rule ourselves, we are second to none.
“Musikavanhu gave us this land and we will shed our own blood to reclaim it.”
For the reason of this victory, for the very reason that so much blood was shed to attain this victory, it is not up to the missionary-based churches to say ‘Mugabe must go’.
These churches refuse to learn from history.