We must not oversimplify why Zimbabweans are turning to prophets

By Bishop Dave Chikosi

Shaun Matsheza’s article (Only we can save ourselves, not Makandiwa or Angel) is probably one of the most balanced I have read of late on this ever popular subject. It is a very well thought out piece indeed, and I will try not to rain on his parade.

My biggest complaint against this article is the lack of citation of the views of African theologians. If we are going to do a review of African spirituality, it is unforgivable to cite Hegel, Marx etc without soliciting the views of prominent African theologians such as Mbiti, Mulago, Tutu, Idowu, Bediako, Banana etc.

It’s not enough to review the issue of African religiosity from the perspective of European scholarship. We must also hear it from the mouths of our very own African thinkers. What do they have to say about African religiosity? After all, Africa is their context.

Every African theologian worth his salt will tell you that the African people’s fascination with the world of the spirit or supernatural is not something borrowed from outside the Motherland. It’s not something new. Africa and spirit go together like water and wet. They are inseparable. The awareness of the world of the spirit is almost endemic in Africa. It predates Angel and Makandiwa.

We grow up in Africa keenly aware of the world of the spirit. Most of us grew up knowing about Mwari, vatumwa, midzimu, minana, mashave, n’ganga, masvikiro, etc. From cradle to the grave, the African exists in two worlds – the world of the physical and the world of the spirit. The world of spirit is in fact just as real as the material world for most Africans. And this knowledge of the duality of existence is prior to Christian conversion.

This is the important piece of the puzzle that was missed by foreign missionaries when they came to evangelize Africa. Their problem was that they were too bound, almost inescapably, to a Western rationalistic, materialistic, scientific world view.

That worldview did not allow for the free interaction by converts with the world of the spirit that Africans were used to. And because the missionary was too eager to dismiss this other world, his version of Christianity therefore never resonated or took root.

The Word never became flesh in the lives of recipients, who would often pray and read their Bible in church on Sunday, but go right back to their ancestral worship/veneration on Monday.

Prominent African theologians like John Mbiti (one of Africa’s most widely read theologians), says that “until Christianity (in Africa) can penetrate the spirit world, it will for a long time remain on the surface.” (Bear in mind that John Mbiti is an ordained Anglican priest, not a wide-eyed Pentecostal zealot). But why does Mbiti say that? Because a Gospel that fails to address the African’s self-understanding simply fails. It becomes a non-Gospel.

The spirit world that Angel and Makandiwa are tapping into is very real to the African. This is why their message is resonating with tens of thousands of Zimbos. It was resonating with them long before the appearance of “miracle money.” Let’s not get this twisted. Tens of thousands of people were thronging stadiums to listen to these two men long before miracle money.

To assume, as a recent Scotsman newspaper (UK) article does, that Zimbos are turning to prophets primarily because of economic hardship is to fail to understand the fact that Africans are incurably religious. Its an oversimplification that people like Marx were also guilty of. Forget Karl Marx.

His views on religion should not be embraced uncritically as if they are some kind of fossilized distillation of divine revelation. His opinions are as good as those of the next guy.

Let’s not try to oversimplify why Zimbos are turning out in tens of thousands. The truth of the matter is that Africans respond to and are fascinated by the supernatural. They have been ever since Chaminuka is reported to have dodged colonial police arrests with his disappearing acts.

A Christianity that is devoid of the supernatural therefore fails to connect with the African’s worldview. It fails to address his existential concerns and is therefore not going to resonate. And if the truth be told, the Gospel, shorn of the supernatural, is not Gospel. The Apostle Paul is very clear that the Gospel has not yet been preached until it has been demonstrated in signs and wonders (Rom 15:19).

Most prominent African theologians agree that the main tenets of African traditional thinking about the spirit world do not conflict with the Biblical view of the spirit world at all.  If anything they see a parallel with the scriptural view of a world of the spirit inhabited by angels and departed saints (Hebrews 12).

This is one of the reasons why renowned theologian/missiologist Professor Andrew Walls believes that “what happens within the African churches in the next generation will determine the whole shape of Church history for centuries to come.” The African view of spirituality is in tandem with that of the Bible, especially in the field of the supernatural.

Professor Walls also goes on to say: “A high proportion of the world’s serious theological thinking and writing will have to be done in Africa if it is to be done at all” (“Towards Understanding Africa’s Place in Christian History,” in Religion in a Pluralistic Society)