BiAS 7 – The Bible and Politics in Africa
from our commitments to the world. With such interests African Christians
come to the bible to hear what it has to say concerning these things (West
2009: 38).The verse under analysis served both to explain the crisis and to offer
hope for the future. Why did Zimbabwe find itself in such a terrible
situation? The dominant response from all the strands of Zimbabwean
Christianity (mainline, African Independent/ Indigenous/ Initiated/
Instituted Churches and Pentecostal; see Verstraelen 1998) was: “be-
cause Zimbabweans have not humbled themselves, prayed and sought
the face of God.” They have remained trapped in “their wicked ways.”
Consequently, the country continued to experienced massive socio-eco-
nomic and political challenges. Street preachers in Harare’s First Street,
young Pentecostal pastors with booming voices and serene “reverends”
from mainline churches expounded these “wicked ways”: rampant cor-
ruption by those in public office, laxity in sexual morality, the thriving
black market for foreign exchange as well as for basic commodities, as
well as other vices as they saw them.
Gospel musician Charles Charamba helped to popularise the verse when
he recorded a song that was made up predominantly of words in the
verse. Accompanying the song was a well choreographed video. As
Charamba has remained one of Zimbabwe’s leading gospel musicians,
his appropriation of the verse ensured that it gained a lot of influence in
the country. It was played regularly on radio and television, thereby
enabling many Zimbabweans to become more familiar with it. Fur-
thermore, the performance of the song in Shona, the language spoken
by the majority of the people in Zimbabwe, enhanced the popularity of
the verse.
It is fair to say that prior to the Zimbabwean crisis; 2 Chron did not
feature in public discourses in the country. This is consistent with the
observation made by Nupanga Weanzana when writing in the Africa
Bible Commentary that, “this book is among the most neglected in the
Bible”(Weanzana 2006: 467). The specific text was not prominent prior
to the crisis. This suggests that the lived realities of individuals and
communities largely influence which biblical texts become popular dur-
ing particular historical periods. In the face of a crisis of massive propor-
tions, a text that was seen as explaining the crisis and as generating hope
gained a lot of popularity.
That 2 Chron 7:14 became one of the key biblical texts during the days of
hyperinflation and uncertainty can also be seen from “sacred advertise-