Zimbabwe's despot
Zimbabwe's state paper runs an op-ed today saying that the country's independent media aren't sufficiently criticizing Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube. (The archbishop, who has been the chief critic of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe's extensive human rights abuses, was accused last week of adultery.) In The Herald, Caesar Zvayi writes that Zimbabwe's independent media, are "punishing the innocent while letting Barabas go scot-free."
Hmm. So if Mugabe's newspaper wants to call Ncube Barabbas, then that would make Mugabe...
It wouldn't be the first, or most egregious example, or Mugabe's cronies comparing him to Jesus. As Chenjerai Hove wrote in Pambazuka News earlier this year,
In the quest for glory and grandeur, the presidential palace is full of charlatans, praise-singers and flatterers. First they used to call him 'the son of God', and then one minister publicly said 'Mugabe is our Jesus Christ'. Next the minister of education and culture has recently designed and installed a 'throne' in parliament, for 'king Mugabe.' Then the minister of local government would not be outdone. He has decided to build 'a shrine' in Mugabe's home village. A shrine is a place of worship. So the president has become a god who deserves a 'shrine.' Thus, from VaMugabe ndibaba' (Mugabe is our father) to 'the son of God' to 'Jesus Christ' to a 'shrine' a place of worship, God.
Perhaps the most famous example is deputy minister of local housing Tony Gara calling Mugabe "the other son of God." In a 2002 African Sociological Review article, Ezra Chitando describes how the words of Christian songs were changed for political ends. "I will never cry when Jesus is there," for example, became, "I will never cry when Mr. Mugabe is there."
All of this might be confusing. If you're trying to remember the difference between Jesus and Robert Mugabe, here's a helpful tip: Jesus is the one who fed the 5,000. Mugabe is the one starving millions.
Posted by Ted Olsen on July 24, 2007 1:30PM
Comments
Sounds like they've taken a page from American politics, where sound discussion of policy ideas comes to a standstill while Clinton's political enemies whip up a frenzy over an affair and forget that the real enemy is not Clinton but Osama bin Laden.
Or where an influential evangelical (Rick Scarborough) compares Tom DeLay to Jesus Christ in Gethsemane.
Posted by: Patrick at July 24, 2007
This is yet another sign that many christians do not understand the distinction between the emergent church (brian mclaren and emergent village) and the emerging church (mark driscoll and acts 29). The two are different and should be treated as such. The established church has much it can learn from the emerging church about how to rebuke the emergent church. If the established church figured this out they would be way more effective at reaching postmoderns and destructing emergent heresies.
Posted by: Colin Mattoon at July 25, 2007
Colin, are you saying that Mugabe is part of the nefarious Emergent plan for spreading heresy to all and sundry? I do think there is a distinction between Emergent and emerging but I've never seen the lines drawn as you have, which is like gerrymandering this movement into people you like and people you don't like. Gibbs and Bolgers book is a much better way of seeing the emerging movement for what it is, and it doesn't feature Driscoll.
In regards to this present post, I can't help but think of Herod in Acts 12:20ff
Mugabe is the source of food in a starving country so people pay him homage so that they might live. God, however, won't do the same.
Very sad all around.
Posted by: PaddyO at July 25, 2007
There was also a nice quote from "His Disgrace" Bishop Nolbert Kunonga, the Anglican cleric who has been awarded two farms for his loyalty to Mugabe. He described Mugabe as "more merciful than God himself."
Posted by: Bartholomew at July 26, 2007
Perhaps it is time for churches in the U.S. to take organized action against the Mugabe regime. Like divestiture.
Posted by: Patrick at July 26, 2007
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