The strange collaboration between religious fundamentalism and Zimbabwe's media

Chido Makunike

Alongside Zimbabwe's great economic and political challenges, another big social phenomenon of the last decade or so has been the astonishing rise of an aggressive form of religious fundamentalism. Still to be well-studied and explained, it is perhaps not surprising that when a society is under deep stress, fundamentalist thinking and answers including the religious have huge appeal. There are now signs that the gradual 'normalization' of Zimbabwean society from its 'crisis decade' has also began to create the conditions for more people to question many of the more outlandish claims and practices of the religious fundamentalist wave. But if that fundamentalist wave has finally peaked and is now waning, it is in spite of rather than because of the role of the media in this strange period in Zimbabwe's development.

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Ministers Shamu and Makandiwa; when religion and politics both encourage citizen subservience

Chido Makunike 

Webster Shamu, government minister of information and Emmanuel Makandiwa, a minister of religion, have independently made statements that reveal some of the attitudes that are an impediment in Zimbabwe to the idea of leadership that is subservient and answerable to the people. To attain a position of leadership in any situation is so often taken and accepted as a right to lord it over ordinary people. It is going to be a hard and long process to change the attitudes that account for this state of affairs, but there are hopeful signs that this change is taking place at an accelerated pace.

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Church man Makandiwa’s fascinating Mercedes Benz wedding gift: a critique

Religious entrepreneur Emmanuel Makandiwa made a lot of waves in Zimbabwe in 2011. In status-obsessed Zimbabwe, at year end the ‘prosperity gospel’ preacher and purported miracle worker added considerably to his mystique by giving a young couple the wedding gift of a Mercedes Benz car. What are some of the messages of this gesture that had so much of the country talking?

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If a picture is worth a thousand words, what do those of Rowan Williams and Robert Mugabe together say?

Church of England boss Rowan Williams was recently in Zimbabwe to encourage the faithful at a time of a difficult split within the local church. A highlight was also his meeting with President Mugabe, to ask him to use his ‘good offices’ to prevent what is seen as state support or sympathy for one of the feuding church factions. How did it go?

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Anglican Church in Zimbabwe: the challenges of transforming a colonial church to post-colonial relevance

The deep discord in Zimbabwe's Anglican Church continues in full public view. Whichever way the saga develops, it has touched on and affected many issues beyond the stated reasons for the split within the church.

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Preacherman Makandiwa's troubles raise troubling questions about a Zimbabwean herd mentality

A prominent, popular Zimbabwean evangelist has been caught up in a controversy in which he is accused of offering a telecommunications-related service that an entrepreneur says was really his idea, and that the regulatory authority says the pastor has no legal authority to offer. However, the most uncomfortable questions about the saga may have nothing to do with these technical aspects, but with how the 'man of god' achieved his prominence, and what it might say about the state of Zimbabwean society.

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Zimbabwe's Anglican Church gives a bad name to religion

The civil war that has taken place in the Zimbabwean Anglican church for some years now can only be described as bizarre. Regardless of which side is 'right,' it is astonishing to see the two sides go at each other with a ferocity that is usually only seen in politics.

From the outside looking in, there is very little to suggest that the warring factions are of composed of people who are members of the organization because of any sense of humbly seeking the divine.

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Churchianity, Zimbabwe's biggest growth industry

There is a boom in new churches in Zimbabwe. 

Like many parts of Africa, Zimbabwe may have chaffed under the treatment they experienced under their colonizers, but they developed a strong bond with the religion brought by the missionaries who followed closely behind the colonists.

Christianity has taken deep root in Zimbabwe, although it has evolved over the decades to be in many ways quite different from the forms the European and American missionaries brought. The old Western churches (Methodist, Catholic and so on) are fast losing ground to an aggressive form of pentecostal exuberance that many worshipers seem to find more socio-culturally fitting than the more staid worship types spoon-fed by the missionaries.

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