Chronicle Editor
The Church and the State play two separate but complementary roles towards national development.
The former takes care of the spiritual and sometimes social and economic well-being of the people, while the latter takes care of the political, social and economic facets of our lives. The Church cannot function alone without the State and the State cannot function on its own without the Church.
The Church preaches the gospel of Christ so that people are sound spiritually. In many cases, various Christian denominations are running schools, hospitals, orphanages, old people’s homes and other facilities to cater, in addition to the spiritual well-being of the people, for their educational, health and social needs.
On the other hand, the State has a responsibility to create conditions suitable for the Church to do its work. It secures the people, it is responsible for running the economy on a sound basis, ensure that the political situation is conducive for the people, and religious institutions to thrive.
Therefore, every viable nation needs the Church and the State working in harmony. They both exist to serve the people.
In our country, both have been close for many years, to great effect.
We had further evidence of that yesterday when President Mnangagwa attended the fourth edition of his interface with local church groups with the objective of thanking God for the achievements of the past 12 months and thanking Him for the blessings He will shower upon the nation next year.
Faith of the Nation Campaign, an inter-denominational institution, hosted the President at the Zimbabwe International Exhibition Centre in Bulawayo for the National Thanksgiving and Dedication Service.
He led the proceedings praying for the nation at an event which was launched in December 2017 and is held every last Sunday of December in the city.
Speaking at the event, the President reiterated his call for the Church to pray for the nation while supporting the Government in its efforts to grow the economy.
He urged churches to continue praying for the country against Covid-19.
“On our part as Government, we have chosen the spiritually correct path of working with the church in pursuit of our vision,” he said.
“Thus, as for Zimbabwe, we shall serve the Lord sincerely and faithfully. Going forward, I urge churches to emerge in 2021 and beyond as proponents, guarantors and implementers of our national development agenda.
To this end, let me reiterate that the synergies between the church and the State must flourish and become more evident to our people. This can only be achieved if the church understands, appreciates, embraces and blesses and makes energetic efforts to etch Vision 2030 in the hearts and minds of our people.”
Christianity is the dominant religion in our country. According to the 2017 Inter Censal Demography Survey that was conducted by the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency 84,1 percent of our people follow one of the countless denominations of Christianity. About 69,2 percent of them belong to Protestant Christianity while eight percent are Roman Catholic. It is therefore encouraging when a constituency so large meets the President in a cordial environment as we saw yesterday.
We urge the conveners of the prayer convention not to tire in strengthening the relationship between their various Christian denominations and the Government.
When we have a prayerful nation, in which the Church and the politicians are of one accord, greater national development always follows. This engenders peace and tolerance which are among the key ingredients for holistic national development.
Our country is one of the most peaceful in the world. We have no doubt that this is because of the Christian grounding that more than 84 percent of our people have.
The Bible teaches us to be behave, to be gentle, to bear with one another, to pursue peace, to work hard and other positives. It tells us not to kill, not to war, not to be lazy and so on.
Given the positive effect of the interaction between church groups and the Government, we don’t think it is a bad idea if the chairperson of the Faith of the Nation Campaign, Reverend Andrew Wutawunashe finds a slot around June of every year for a mid-year gathering along the same lines as the one that happens every December.
Online Reporter