Chitando, “If My People...” A Critical Analysis of the Deployment of 2 Chron 7:14 ...ments” from this era. Invitations to “Days of National Prayer” had this
verse displayed in a very prominent position. Many posters promoting
ecumenical gatherings and gospel music concerts also used the verse. In
addition, as I have noted above, the text was popular with street preach-
ers. A form-critical analysis of sermons that the author listened to in
Harare’s First Street, especially in 2007 and 2008, shows that the verse
features prominently.
2 Chronicles 7:14 as “Diagnosis and Therapy”
As I have alluded to in the foregoing section, many people read the bible
in an effort to find answers to vexing existential questions. Why had the
“Zimbabwean project” that had promised so much delivered so little?
When would the suffering end? Who was responsible for the suffering?
What would the future look like? Readers grappled with 2 Chron 7:14 in
an endeavour to understand their national and personal fortunes. The
book of Chronicles, with the original author’s “confidence in divine
power and favor”(Ackroyd 1962: 158), proved to be particularly attractive.
There are a number of dimensions that emerge from the deployment of
2 Chron 7:14 during the Zimbabwean crisis. First, one witnesses a con-
flation between the Israel of the bible and Zimbabwe. Yahweh’s declara-
tion relating to people called by his^1 name and the attendant promise to
“heal their land” is appropriated by contemporary Zimbabweans. The
message does not refer to the past: it refers to Zimbabwe(ans) today!
There is therefore a sense of immediacy and direct relevance that one
deduces from the interpretation of the text. In this sense therefore, the
biblical text becomes a Zimbabwean text: it speaks to Zimbabwean reali-
ties and addresses Zimbabwean concerns. The bible therefore ceases to
be “their text” (Israelites, Europeans, missionaries, etc), but becomes
“our text.”
Second, and emerging from the foregoing, the biblical text is used to
create and enhance identity. “My people” is read as referring to Zim-
babwean Christians. Zimbabwean Christians have therefore “read them-
selves into the text.” This gives them an acute sense of identity. They
cease to be ordinary citizens who are grappling with hyperinflation,
(^1) The author is aware of the politics of using the masculine or feminine for God. In this
narrative, he has chosen to retain the conventional use, since the community in which
the concept emerges was patriarchal.