Through inheritance from sinful Adam, mankind became subject to the harsh mastery of “King Sin”.
Viewpoint with Wisdom Mdzungairi
In the Bible, sin is anything contrary to Jehovah God’s personality, ways, standards and will. For this reason, we all miss the mark, like an archer who can shoot an arrow, but misses his target.
It is for this reason, that some so-called prophets or pastors have over the years fallen from glory to gloom, as their glitter was blinded by criminal charges and incarceration.
A few names come to mind — Godfrey Nzira, Pius Ncube, Robert Martin Gumbura and Lawrence Katsiru among others.
While I have always dedicated this column to climate and environment issues, after a two-week hiatus I thought I could deal with this equally important matter – of prophets or pastors given a lot of intriguing events on this front have been happening in Zimbabwe lately.
This comes at a time polygamous RMG Independent End Time Message Church leader Robert Martin Gumbura, who bragged during trial that his target was to sire 100 children with different wives, is waiting a sentence today.
With 11 wives, Gumbura compares himself to the biblical David, who had many wives.
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And, regional magistrate Hosea Mujaya is being urged to consider imposing life imprisonment or at least a 100-year jail term on Gumbura. He was on Friday convicted on four counts of raping female church members, some of whom are married, over a long period of time and one count of possessing pornographic material.
Gumbura’s behaviour as a church leader towards his congregants is unfortunate, detestable and deplorable.
What is even worse is that Gumbura had the audacity to tell the court that all women in his church are his wives and even talked of loaning wives to other male congregants in his church, according to the magistrate.
He perhaps used his position in church to impose himself on the gullible victims who looked up to him for protection. Very sad indeed! This guy preyed on flocks he was supposed to protect in much the same way other local prophets have taken advantage of their credulous church members especially of the fairer sex.
I am not sure whether to call Gumbura and his fellow churchmen hypocrites, who hide behind the Word of God to pounce on unsuspecting victims or not, but the behaviour of many of the so called prophets leaves a lot to be desired.
Across the Limpopo, Rabboni Centre Ministries pastor Lesego Daniel warned that shocking things will happen this year.
Giving a sermon at his first service since news broke about members of his congregation eating grass, he claimed that: “God started something here. I only accepted it. The next thing to happen is that we will see people floating in the air.”
His congregants clapped and ululated. Is this gullibility or faith, I wonder. Closer to home, United Family International Church leader Emmanuel Makandiwa was also “enlarging” a congregant’s manhood. Another supposedly, man of cloth, Blessing Chiza was left with egg on his face after he predicted that Zimbabwe’s Warriors would win 3-0 over Libya at the just-ended Chan tournament.
Not that I do not respect these men of cloth as individuals (of course I do not believe in them), but that these weird happenings should tell us who we are and whether we understand that we are living in the last days of this system of things.
What is surprising is that this country has many prophets who purport to see the future than the 40 men who wrote all the 66 Bible books.
A colleague asked me, Do I have respect for prophets? Do we even need these latter-day prophecies? I am aware that many people are hoping from one so-called prophet to the other simply because they are looking for solace during these difficult times.
So these so-called prophets will boast that their sermons are always full to capacity. Because desperation will be written all over their congregants’ faces, they tend to prey on them, yet the despairing congregants will be singing, “I believe” when being sexually abused. Have these churches become cults and the so-called church leaders cult leaders for their behaviour is — in all instances not based on the Bible they purport to use?
Cults are by nature a system of religious veneration and devotion directed towards a particular figure or object in many cases the church founder or leader.
I remember that on November 4, 2012, President Robert Mugabe lashed out at these false prophets and dubious spirit mediums accusing them of extorting money from people.
Whether Mugabe, a Catholic, was spot on or not, the truth is he labelled them “false prophets”. “There could be some who we can say God gave them powers of prophesy, but these are very few,” Mugabe said. “Also in some churches you hear that a husband and his wife are prophet and prophetess . . . Really?”
His observation was that there are too many people who claimed to be prophets in Zimbabwe yet in the Bible there were not that many. If the number of emergent prophets around the country is anything to go by, it is even harder to call their organisations churches.
I am not sure whether people have misunderstood what these so-called prophets are up to or not. What cannot be taken away from these prophets is that they have mastered the art of making quick bucks.
That they have become accomplished businesspeople is also not in question, but under what circumstances? Talking to a workmate last week, I was left with a broken heart. The colleague has been hoping from one church to another in search of a “gospreneurial” prophet. Who can blame them, they are in business, they must survive, but please spare the flock for once.
Such foresight and ingenuity can only come from a higher power? Do you look forward to your days of grace?
Today, grass, tomorrow, rape . . . The possibilities are endless!
