Non-believers, let believers believe

By The NewsDay | May. 2, 2014 | 4 Min read

Someone will spend all his pay on alcohol, depriving his family of a livelihood, but still have the guts to condemn those who pay tithes in church.

There wasn’t much brouhaha last Sunday when Pope Francis I canonised — or conferred sainthood on — two of his recent successors as Pontiffs at the Vatican.

Tutani-2 CONWAY TUTANI ECHOES

This was so because Catholicism has become mainstream after all those centuries of growth which has brought direction, dominance and — crucially — acceptability.

Vatican City is a land-locked sovereign city-state in a walled enclave on 44 hectares with a population of around 840, surrounded by the Italian capital Rome.

This makes the Vatican the smallest internationally recognised independent state in the world both by area and population, but whose influence and reach belies its size. The church has accumulated numbers and wealth along the way.

I believe the Catholic Church has successfully navigated both the secular and spiritual worlds over the past centuries. But it has been a bumpy road.

What of the church jailing Galileo in 1622 for stating the scientific fact that Earth was not the centre of the Universe? What of the Inquisitions (church courts) established by the Catholic Church in the 13th century to try cases of heresy and other offences against the church which were characterised by lack of regard for individual rights, prejudice on the part of the examiners, and recklessly cruel punishments? And recently, the cover-up of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests?

But there has been lots of good from the Church. In October 1958 in front of the United Nations General Assembly, Golda Meir, who was to become Prime Minister of Israel in 1969, said of Pope Pius XII at his death: “During the 10 years of Nazi terror (from the 1930s), when our people went through the horrors of martyrdom, the Pope raised his voice to condemn the persecutors and commiserate with their victims.”

During colonial Rhodesia, the Catholic Church — through its Justice and Peace Commission and individual acts of bravery among its priests and nuns, prominent among them whites — stood head and shoulders above other denominations in condemning white Rhodesia’s racism and assisting freedom fighters from Manicaland to Matabeleland. I am not a Catholic, having been born in the Wesleyan Methodist Church, but this should not stop me from pointing out equally these good deeds.

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Here in Zimbabwe, in the preceding week, the United Family International Church (UFIC), led by Emmanuel Makandiwa, held its Judgment Night 2 on Easter Saturday. The purpose of this article is not to affirm or not that Makandiwa is a prophet, but I would like to assume the role of the Devil’s Advocate.

At times, it’s necessary to play that role when an issue is clouded by rabidity. “Playing Devil’s Advocate” is arguing for a position that you don’t necessarily agree with for whatever reason, but to make sure that people haven’t missed something obvious by failing to consider all points of view.

Someone deliberately takes a contrary position to help an advocate identify flaws in an argument. It comes from a function in the Catholic Church when some spiritual issue, particularly the proposed sainthood of some person, is investigated.

People look at all the good things the person has done and all the positive merits of the claim. Someone else then takes the role of the Devil’s Advocate, looking for all the opposing information, to see if it can be disproved or disqualified. It’s like the point of view of an unbeliever.

One deliberately takes the opposing viewpoint to bring balance to the decision.

UFIC has grown so big in so short a time. This is self-evident. Judgment Night 2 overflowed with estimated attendance of over 160 000.

This shows great pulling power. Something they find meaningful must be pulling these crowds whether we like it or not.

But there is something about newness: Newness, coupled with popularity, breeds suspicion and hostility from the establishment.

Makandiwa has been attacked from some quarters for allegedly bringing God-like status to himself, with followers kneeling before him in supplication, humbly and earnestly asking him to provide something.

The resentment could be due to a colonial mentality at play. What’s the difference between the rosary beads in the Catholic Church and “holy cloths” dispensed at UFIC services? Isn’t the difference the same?

Things foreign and European are readily accepted and embraced whereas things African are disdained and rejected with utter contempt and outright anger as unholy and fake.

It apparently did not strike these critics that Heads of State — among them our own President Robert Mugabe — took time to fly to the Vatican last week to be at the canonisation and meet the Pope, with some of them kneeling before him and kissing his hand.

Another accusation is that Makandiwa is milking the poor and gullible.

However, it must be pointed out that people — both rich and poor — all over the world pay to watch football players, enriching the players in the process. That is how it is. It’s their money. They spend it as they wish.

You can’t stop them.

Music fans fill Oliver Mtukudzi and Sulumani Chimbetu’s shows week in week out. Should we then say they are collectively stupid?

This gives them joy and pleasure to no end. So, it is with spiritual fulfilment.

Someone will spend all his pay on alcohol, depriving his family of a livelihood, but still have the guts to condemn those who pay tithes in church. Who is the better of the two?

Before I am crucified, I will say: Non-believers, let believers believe. Likewise, believers, let non-believers disbelieve.

The world isn’t that black or white.