BiAS 7 – The Bible and Politics in Africa
exists today.” This sets the tone to the approach on the Lord’s Supper, it
is political and social and it is a real meal. “The egalitarian structure of
early Christian communities is an indispensable expression of God’s
new world order, and therefore early Christians celebrate the Lord’s
Supper in a different way from the banquets of the old world.” Kügler
gives many insightful principles to be learned from biblical texts, among
them; “Do not trust royal breadwinners, trust the one and selfless king,
social justice and gender equality belong together.”
The Zimbabwean “crises decade” (1998-2008) has captured the imagina-
tion of many scholars and ordinary citizens, not only because of the
spectacular collapse of a community that had promised so much before
but because of the manner some of the clearest consequences of mis-
management of national resources became couched up in religious and
spiritual language. Ezra Chitando focuses on the use of 2Chro. 7: 14
during the years of political, economic and social crises in Zimbabwe
between 2000 and 2008, showing that “as Zimbabweans sought to come
to terms with the crisis, the Bible served as a powerful resource. The
Bible was resorted to in the quest to find meaning.” This text became a
rallying point in an interesting period where everything else went down
with the exception of inflation and religiosity. The text, Chitando ob-
serves also became a ruse to protect the clear human hand behind the
calamitous suffering inflicted on the people of Zimbabwe. Canisius
Mwandayi takes a rather unusual perspective on the Jesus Movement by
invoking the fears, rumours and facts surrounding the operations of
state secret services across the universe and suggesting that using “spy
exegesis”, one could understand the Jesus movement as having survived
by deploying the techniques and strategies used by secret or spy services.
He argues that “one common thing the world over is that world leaders
and influential people since time immemorial are faced with the task of
making important decisions every day, and information (known as intel-
ligence) is the key to making the right decision.” This so-called spy-
exegesis depends heavily on some clues of information gathering in the
Jesus narratives. “Apart from the ‘Jesus knew’ passages we also find
incidences where unnamed informers brought word to him” contends
Mwandayi. To close this section is Pieter Verster whose contribution
focuses on the dominant African theme, poverty! “Stories from Africa
are often stories of despair. Social, economic and political problems are
challenging the search for a better life for many in Africa.” Verster looks
at what churches are doing to alleviate the poverty of those living in