Fri, 23 Jun 2017 10:37:58 +0000
By BENNIE MUNDANDO
ONE thing I like about some of the Zambian clergy is that they believe they are driven by God when in fact most of them live just like us as confirmed sinners, former Katuba Member of Parliament Jonas Shakafuswa has charged.
In an apparent reference to the deepening row after three church mother bodies purportedly held the state of the nation address last week in which they charged that Zambia had qualified to be a dictatorship, Mr. Shakafuswa took to social media to express his disgust over some of the members of the clergy whom he accused of being hypocritical.
He charged that while some members of the clergy were projecting God’s calling in their work, most of them were suffering from the “sins of the flesh” just like any other person and that it was wrong for them to be reminding people that they were men of God each time they were exposed just to hide their shortcomings.
He said while everyone was created in the image of God, they were still bound to make mistakes, adding that some of the members of the clergy had cases which were in public domain.
“One thing I like about the Zambian clergy is that they so believe they are willed by God when in fact most of them live just like us as confirmed sinners. What these bishops are sick of are diseases of the flesh. The other one has children in Ndola and Minga and you want to tell us they are men of God? No! We are all men of God made in his image (but) can (still) error,” Mr. Shakafuswa said.
Last week, the Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops (ZCCB), Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia (EFZ) and Council of Churches in Zambia (CCZ) held a purported state of the nation address at Kapingila House at which they charged that Zambia had become a dictatorship.
However, the convenors have come under fire from among members of the clergy, political parties, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and other sectors of society.
The EFZ board distanced itself from the purported joint statement, describing it as being emotional, confrontational and antagonistic and that it undermined its board by alleging that EFZ was part of it when it was not consulted.
The EFZ demanded that the convenors withdraw their misleading statements that the joint press conference was held with the support and blessing of EFZ as it could not be cited as the third umbrella body present at the conference because it was not represented.
“Without endeavouring to go into detail and specificity of the joint press statement, we are not in support of it because the emotional tone did not reflect the spiritual nature of our work although it described the challenges the country was facing. It failed to inspire hope for the people of this country and instead left them in total despair.
“We strongly feel that it is our duty to guide our nation by not only pointing at wrongs, but also providing well-articulated alternative solutions to the challenges without being confrontational or antagonistic in our engagements,” read its statement in part.
EFZ said while it has had joint statements and common view points with the other two umbrella church bodies, last week’s purported joint conference had no contribution from its board and that the person from EFZ who attended the conference did so in his own capacity.
