Council of Churches and Zambia Chairperson Rev Suzanne Matale has called on politicians to respect the church’s initiatives of gathering them together to try and iron out the challenges that they are facing in their campaigns.
In a statement Rev Matale said the Church has always and continues to pray for peace of the nation but that it was disappointing that politicians have failed to implement the communiqué which they all consented to last March.
“The church has always and continues to pray for the peace of this nation. The church has many times called upon our political leaders to implement the communiqué to which they all consented to on the 29th of March, 2016 at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.
“The politicians made serious commitments on how they would conduct themselves going forward vis a vis campaigns towards the 11th August, 2016 general-elections.
“They committed to end political violence, to apply the POA fairly during the campaigns. They committed to strengthening a culture of political dialogue and tolerance within and amongst themselves. They agreed to depoliticize public places such as markets, bus stations etc,” she said.
She added “They committed to refrain from hate speech. They agreed that there would be fair coverage on public media for all contesting parties in the elections. These commitments were made in the presence of church leaders, and God was a silent listener to those commitments. However, none of these commitments have been fulfilled.”
She explained that the Church would have been happy if the country was calling for prayers to thank God for using political leaders to calm the nation and not to talk about the same thing when they have not put their houses in order.
“The church would have been happy to heed the call for prayer had it been prayers to thank God for using our political leaders to calm our nation by heeding the call of the Church in the first place by putting their own houses in order and not to call upon God to stop the violence when we, ourselves are the perpetrators of this violence and we know that ourselves. It is also true that we are rational people and the power is within our hands as Zambians to stop this violence.
We are not against the call for prayers, Zambians are encouraged to respond positively after all prayer is our core business as church. However, a fair deal would have been that when the church calls our political leaders to listen to the church’s moral and ethical voice politicians should honour and respect such a call. It is not fair that the church heeds their call for prayer but politicians completely ignore the wise counsel of Church,” she said.
She further said church’s role is not to pray for empty pursuits but to pray according to the will of God and also to pray for wisdom through our faith.
She has said it that faith is an illusion … and questioned the existence of God
You are a plank
@ Spellcheck
You are wrong. Nsimbi is a leading member of PF “intelligentsia”!!!
The church should show authority and not heeding to days of prayers called upon by politicians, instead they should be the ones leading the calls. When a young lady loses her precious life, they should be standing up and strongly condemn such acts and call for a symbolic day of prayer, instead they were quiet.
You cant have authority without being the initiator, anything else is just political noise…..sorry,no interest.
It is sad and shameful that the PF is using the church like a condom which once used for personal gratification is immediately thrown away. When they perceive that support for PF is dwindling, they quickly organize prayers only to gain political mileage. The moment they get what they want, they will instead abandon the church for bars and brothels until 2021. Am happy that Council of Churches has realized and challenged politicians for their abuse of the Church. But I hope next time it will be a name and shame report – naming and shaming perpetrators of violence, abusers of POA, media freedom etc. Also Congrats ZEC and shame on the Bishop J Banda group who seem to be benefiting from these mockery of prayers.
“They committed to end political violence, to apply the POA fairly during the campaigns. They committed to strengthening a culture of political dialogue and tolerance within and amongst themselves. They agreed to depoliticize public places such as markets, bus stations etc,” she said.
POA is being applied fairly in favour of vodka chakolwa wrungu because police officers are pf cadres…VIVA UPND,VIVA HH 2016
WINA AZALILA COME AUGUST 11…VIVA HH 2016
With due respect,unfortunately, Reverend Edith Matale your objectivity is highly impaired because you’re a UPND sympathiser…
She may or may not be UPND sympathizer, but you are definitely leading 1mbecile supporting party of fellow 1mbeciles
I remember how you helped PF ascend to power.You must be very disappointed
Wina azalila for the 6th time!