When religious beliefs clash with journalism principles -The background

Prophecy is one of the cornerstones of our church but my journalism gut feeling, at times, made me question the prophecy. I was not supposed to. But, I could not help it. Mugabe had just won a six-year term that would see him in office up to 2008. Bush and Howard were facing elections the following year. Blair was going to the polls in 2005. 
 

Mugabe was facing a crucial party congress in 2004 at which everyone expected him to step down at least from the party but he had to remain Head of State until 2008.  He could not hand over power to his deputy, or someone else. The country’s constitution did not allow this. Anyone who took over from Mugabe, if not elected, could only act as president for 90 days after which he or she had to call an election.

The problem was that Mugabe had also become very unpopular. His worst enemy was the economy. It was in shambles. The country had no fuel, no cash, and no food. I remember leaving my car in a fuel queue for one month before withdrawing it to look for an alternative source. I had to rely on my cousins who worked for large retail grocery shops for basics like maize meal, sugar and bread which had become so difficult to get that most people had to bribe shop assistants to get them. Inflation was galloping.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change which had given Mugabe a scare in the 2000 parliamentary elections by winning 57 of the 120 elected seats, becoming the largest opposition party in the history of the country including the colonial period, was piling pressure on Mugabe to go. It had refused to accept the results of the 2002 presidential poll.

Five candidates contested the elections. Mugabe polled 1 681 212 votes which was 56 percent of the total vote of nearly three million. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai came a close second with 1 262 403 votes or 42 percent of the poll. The other candidates were miles away. Tarugarira Wilson Kumbula only won 31 368 votes. Shakespeare Maya had 11 906 and Paul Siwela, a paltry 11 871. Tsvangirai claimed Mugabe had stolen the election and did not accept the result.

A year later, an opinion poll by the Mass Public Opinion Institute, which received funding from the United States government through its international development agency, showed that 51.3 percent of those polled wanted Mugabe to go. The majority said Tsvangirai should be the next president. He received 35.8 percent of the vote. Simba Makoni, who had been fired by Mugabe as the country’s Finance Minister, was a distant second with 15.2 percent of the vote. Party chairman John Nkomo was in third place with only 5.6 percent just pipping Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa who had long been regarded as the heir apparent, or Son of God. He had 5.5 percent of the vote.

It was this background that made me question the prophecy. But it still nagged me because prophecy is not only the cornerstone of our church, it has never been wrong.  The Bible in 2 Peter 1 verses 18-21 told me: “We ourselves heard this voice coming from heaven, when we were with him on the holy mountain.  So we are even more confident of the message proclaimed by the prophets. You will do well to pay attention to it, because it is like a lamp shining in a dark place until the Day dawns and the light of the morning star shines in your hearts. Above all else, however, remember that no one can explain by himself or herself a prophecy in the Scriptures.  For no prophetic message ever came just from human will, but people were under the control of the Holy Spirit as they spoke the message that came from God.”

Mark 3 verses 28 and 29 got me thinking even more seriously. It said: “I assure you that people can be forgiven all their sins and all the evil things they may say.  But whoever says evil things against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven, because he has committed an eternal sin.”

As a journalist I was guided by the need to seek the truth. Prophecy was foretelling. But the Scriptures told me it was more than that. It was revelation. Revealing something before it happened. What kept bothering me and drawing me back to the prophecy in the bible and the church was that the prophecy that Mugabe would outlast his enemies had not been about the political situation in the country. It was about an impending visit to Britain and the United States by our church leader Bishop Nehemiah Mutendi.

Bishop Mutendi had trained as a teacher but he left the profession to take over leadership of the church after the death of his father, Samuel. He was not even the oldest son but the anointed one. He had embarked on a mission to spread the gospel to the West because, he said, he wanted to show how God had manifested himself in Africa.

The prophet had told church elders, at an ordinary Sunday service in Harare, that during the Bishop's visit, there would be a big omen to show the world that the "Man of God"-as the bishop is also referred to- was in the area.  It was only in passing that the prophet had warned church elders to tell their members not to dabble in politics.

Some church members were now active in politics because of the general disenchantment and this was causing friction within the church between those who supported President Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union- Patriotic Front and those who supported the Movement for Democratic Change.

"Taurirai vanhu kuti vasiyane nezvenyika. Ngavasimbe pakunamata nokuti murume uyu haabvi pachigaro kusvika vavengi vake vainda. Ndizvo zvinonditaurira Jehovha," the prophet said in Shona, the vernacular language spoken by more than 80 percent of Zimbabwe's people. (Tell your people to leave politics alone and concentrate on worshiping the Lord. This man (Mugabe) is not going to leave office until all his enemies are gone. That is what the Lord has said).

This is the second chapter of my kindle book: When religious beliefs clash with journalism principles,which is available only through Amazon. The book is not about the church or about Mugabe but about my experiences in the Zion Christian Church. If,  in the process, this helps to spread the word about the ZCC then I would have done my part because the church and its leader Bishop Mutendi are not only preaching the Word of God in Zimbabwe and across the World but they are also promoting the development of Zimbabwe, which former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere said was the Jewel of Africa. As it is said in Isaiah 2 vs 2 "that the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it" so will Zimbabwe. For my fellow Zimbabweans who have no means of buying this book online, I will be serialising it on this blog, bit by bit. So follow this blog.