Zimbabweans shouldn’t despair: the ruling elite may buy church leaders but they can’t buy God

Zimbabweans shouldn’t despair: the ruling elite may buy church leaders but they can’t buy God

BY Tendai Ruben Mbofana

The sight of Zimbabwe’s ruling elite pouring millions of dollars into the coffers of religious organizations has become as predictable as it is repulsive. 

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In recent months, this disturbing strategy has reached a fever pitch. 

Church leaders are routinely gifted luxury vehicles, briefcase cash, prime land, and funded under the guise of “empowerment projects.” 

In return, these institutional captured bodies feel a transactional obligation to unashamedly back a repressive, power-hungry cabal. 

Despite the undeniable, unrepentant looting of national resources that has plunged millions of ordinary citizens into abject poverty and left public hospitals without basic medication or equipment, these religious bodies see absolutely nothing wrong with accepting bribes to sanctify a wicked regime.

The compromise is widespread and cuts across denominations. 

In fact, if a recently leaked audio recording is anything to go by, the speaker alleged that controversial businessman Kudakwashe Tagwirei boasted of his total control over certain churches and church leaders. 

These included the Seventh-day Adventists and Walter Magaya’s Prophetic Healing and Deliverance Ministries. 

The speaker further alleged that Tagwirei bragged of supposedly “taking” the Johane Marange Apostolic Church, and Emmanuel Makandiwa’s United Family International Church.

Similarly, another notorious state-allied tenderpreneur, Wicknell Chivayo, has been tireless in his public gifting sprees, targeting Zion Christian Church’s Nehemiah Mutendi, several leaders and members of the Johane Masowe Chishanu Apostolic sect, and Bishop Mangango of the Bethsaida Apostolic Church, amongst many others.

This financial courtship has birthed bizarre, sycophantic pro-regime affiliate groups like “Vapositori for ED” and “Pastors for ED”—mercenary spiritual outfits openly endorsing a ruling class that has authored unprecedented misery.

Yet, this spiritual prostitution is nothing new. 

History and scripture prove that the weaponization of religion by corrupt rulers is an ancient tactic. 

In the Old Testament, the wicked King Ahab and Queen Jezebel maintained a payroll of four hundred false prophets of Baal who deliberately engineered spiritual propaganda to validate the regime’s tyranny and land grabbing, while hunting down the few authentic voices who spoke truth to power. 

This pattern has echoed across human history. 

During the transatlantic slave trade and the dark era of American plantation slavery, mainstream church organizations twisted scripture to justify human bondage, explicitly teaching enslaved people that obedience to their earthly masters was a divine command. 

Decades later, during the dark days of Apartheid in neighboring South Africa, the Dutch Reformed Church provided the theological scaffolding for racial segregation and state-sponsored brutality, declaring a system of human degradation to be the official will of God.

However, as scripture teaches, structural evil is never the final word. 

While earthly wealth can buy corruptible human institutions, Jehovah God and Jesus Christ can never be bought. 

Our God is entirely incorruptible. 

He does not sit neutrally in the grandstand of history; He is fundamentally a God of justice who identifies with the oppressed, the poor, and the broken-hearted. 

Psalm 9:9 reminds us that “The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble,” while Psalm 146:7 explicitly states that He “upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry.” 

When a political class starves its population to fund luxury lifestyles for its prophets, it sets itself in direct opposition to the Almighty.

His Word promises that “He will crush the oppressor” (Psalm 72:4) and rise up against corrupt rulers who exploit the poor. 

When God decides to move against a tyrannical regime, He does so decisively, stripping them of their ungodly power in an instant.

Earthly rulers may successfully bribe false prophets to sing their praises, but God routinely raises authentic voices to expose them, ultimately executing judgment on oppressive structures. 

When Pharaoh enslaved the Israelites and weaponized his state magicians to mimic divine authority, God did not need a conventional army to dismantle the superpower of the ancient world. 

He brought Egypt to its knees and liberated an enslaved population through a single, stuttering prophet and the raw manifestation of His sovereignty. 

Later, the walls of Jericho fell not by human military might, but simply through obedience and singing.

This reality should deeply encourage every suffering Zimbabwean currently feeling despondent, hopeless, and betrayed. 

It is deeply traumatizing to watch the very institutions expected to stand for righteousness, morality, and social justice openly dining and wining with the architects of our national ruin. 

Many are understandably asking a painful question: if the church has abandoned us, who then will stand for us?

Let it be unequivocally clear: Jesus Christ will stand for the people of Zimbabwe. 

He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, operating far above the petty patronage networks of Harare. 

Even if every prominent “man of God” in the country deserts the gospel for thirty pieces of silver and a luxury SUV, Christ Himself will never abandon His children. 

God does not require massive armies or political consensus to execute justice. 

He can effortlessly dismantle wicked leadership teams whenever He decides that the cup of their iniquity is full.

The people of Zimbabwe must not despair. 

We are not alone, and we have not been abandoned to the whims of a kleptocracy. 

God’s promise remains absolute: He will never leave us nor forsake us, and He is completely true to His word. 

The Zimbabwean regime may abuse us as though we are orphans without a father. 

But we do have a Father in heaven, whose name is above all names and who is more powerful than any government.

We may currently face heavily compromised religious institutions and a regime armed with state apparatuses of coercion, but our God holds all the power in the universe. 

​This is the same sovereign God who ultimately brought down King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, executing final judgment in spectacular fashion on them and the false prophets who propped up their rule.

Now is not the time for Zimbabweans to lose heart or abandon their faith. 

On the contrary, moments of absolute systemic darkness demand a fierce, unyielding spiritual resilience. 

We now need to ceaselessly pray for God’s immediate intervention in Zimbabwe and to free His children from the shackles of this repressive regime.

We possess a spiritual authority far greater than any military or political network on this planet. 

If our incorruptible God is with us, who can ultimately stand against us?

• Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. To directly receive his articles please join his WhatsApp Channel on: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaqprWCIyPtRnKpkHe08