scholarly journals Mocking the just God? A theological critique of President Mnangagwa’s use of the name of God to justify his rule in Zimbabwe

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Suspicion Mudzanire ◽  
Collium Banda

Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa justified his unconstitutional ascendency to power after a military coup that dethroned former President Robert Mugabe in 2017 by claiming that ‘the voice of the people is the voice of God’. He repeated the claim in 2018 when Nelson Chamisa refused to recognise him as the legitimately elected president of the country after accusing him of rigging the 2018 elections. Mnangagwa’s use of God’s name to authenticate his rule raises the question: as one of the foundational attributes of God is justice, what does it mean for political leaders openly claiming to be ordained into office by him? This leads to a further question: Has Mnangagwa’s rule satisfied the demands that come with claiming to be ordained by God to rule, and what should be the church’s response towards Mnangagwa’s rule in view of God’s justice? This article uses God’s attribute of justice to critically evaluate Mnangagwa’s claim that ‘the voice of the people is the voice of God’. The claim is described and placed within Mnangagwa’s claims and insinuations to be a Christian. His current rule, which is characterised by violent repression and corruption is examined and evaluated. God’s attribute of justice is presented and highlighted in how it challenges Mnangagwa to reform his rule to align it with God’s nature of justice.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The article combines insights from religion and politics, the mission of the church in a context of political oppression and systematic theology to highlight the need for the Zimbabwean churches to judge all political systems according to the adherence to God’s justice. It also provides some theological tools by which churches can protect themselves from being co-opted by unjust and oppressive regimes that violate God’s justice.

Kurios ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 136
Author(s):  
Tony Salurante ◽  
Dyulius Th. Bilo ◽  
David Kristanto

Transformation is the key to the growth of the church and mission. Transformation is a positive change toward Christ that marks believers’ life, as indicated by Paul’s exhortation in Romans 12:2. The church refers to the people who believe in Christ so they are renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit. That transformation or renewal empowers the church to function as the light of the world, as a missional community through the power of the Holy Spirit. This article seeks to present the strong correlation between the spiritual transformation of the church by the power of the Holy Spirit with her function as a missional community. This article elaborates the meaning of transformation in the New Testament, the meaning of transformation from the perspective of systematic theology, and the strong correlation between spiritual transformation and the function of the church as a missional community. Abstrak Transformasi adalah kunci dari pertumbuhan gereja dan misi. Hal tersebut merupakan perubahan positif yang menjadi ciri kehidupan orang percaya kearah Kristus, sebagaimana nasehat Paulus dalam Kitab Roma 12:2. Gereja adalah orang-orang yang percaya kepada Kristus sehingga dibaharui oleh kuasa Roh Kudus. Transformasi atau pembaharuan tersebut merupakan hal yang memampukan Gereja untuk berfungsi sebagai terang dunia, sebagai komunitas misional oleh kuasa Roh Kudus. Artikel ini melihat relasi yang erat antara transformasi Gereja oleh kuasa Roh Kudus dengan berfungsinya Gereja sebagai suatu komunitas misi. Artikel ini memaparkan makna transformasi spiritual di dalam Perjanjian Baru, makna transformasi spiritual dari perspektif teologi sistematika, dan relasi erat antara transformasi spiritual dengan fungsi Gereja sebagai suatu komunitas misi.


Horizons ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-141
Author(s):  
Michelle A. Gonzalez Maldonado

Modern-day Guatemalan history is marked by the thirty-six-year-long civil war that ravaged the nation. The 1954 CIA-backed military coup of President Jacobo Arbenz led to an extended period of violence and armed conflict, the longest in Central American history. The civil war began in 1960. Military strategies included kidnappings, torture, disappearances, and death lists. More than 245,000 civilians were disappeared or killed and over 400 villages destroyed. In addition, over 1 million people were displaced from their homes. The armed conflict thus damaged the people, the environment, and the very psyche of Guatemala, creating a culture of corruption, fear, and silence. The civil war ended in late 1996 with the signing of the Peace Accords. However some scholars and activists argue that while the Accords were signed, peace has yet to be established in present-day Guatemala.


DeKaVe ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Akbar Annasher

Broadly speaking, this paper discusses the phenomenon of murals that are now spread in Yogyakarta Special Region, especially the city of Yogyakarta. Mural painting is an art with a media wall that has the elements of communication, so the mural is also referred to as the art of visual communication. Media is a media wall closest to the community, because the distance between the media with the audience is not limited by anything, direct and open, so the mural is often used as media to convey ideas, the idea of ??community, also called the media the voice of the people. Location of mural art in situations of public spatial proved inviting the owners of capital to use such means, in this case is the mural. Manufacturers of various products began racing the race to put on this wall media, as time goes by without realizing the essence of the actual mural art was forced to turn to the commercial essence, the only benefit some parties only, the power of public spaces gradually occupied by the owners of capital, they hopes that the community can view the contents of messages and can obtain information for the products offered. it brings motivation and cognitive and affective simultaneously in the community.Keywords: Mural, Public Space, and Society.


Author(s):  
Hiermonk Ioann ( Bulyko) ◽  

The Second Vatican Council was a unique event in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. Initiated by Pope John XXIII, it was intended to make the Roman Catholic Church more open to the contemporary society and bring it closer to the people. The principal aim of the council was the so called aggiornamento (updating). The phenomenon of updating the ecclesiastical life consisted in the following: on the one hand, modernization of the life of the Church and closer relations with the secular world; on the other hand, preserving all the traditions upon which the ecclesiastical life was founded. Hence in the Council’s documents we find another, French word ressourcement meaning ‘return to the origins’ based on the Holy Scripture and the works of the Church Fathers. The aggiornamento phenomenon emerged during the Second Vatican Council due to the movement within the Catholic Church called nouvelle theologie (French for “new theology”). Its representatives advanced the ideas that became fundamental in the Council’s decisions. The nouvelle theologie was often associated with modernism as some of the ideas of its representatives seemed to be very similar to those of modernism. However, what made the greatest difference between the two movements was their attitude towards the tradition. For the nouvelle theologie it was very important to revive Christianity in its initial version, hence their striving for returning to the sources, for the oecumenical movement, for better relations with non-Catholics and for liturgical renewal. All these ideas can be traced in the documents of the Second Vatican Council, and all this is characterized by the word aggiornamento.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 545
Author(s):  
Gary Carville

The Second Vatican Council and, in particular, its Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, changed much in the daily life of the Church. In Ireland, a country steeped in the Catholic tradition but largely peripheral to the theological debates that shaped Vatican II, the changes to liturgy and devotional practice were implemented dutifully over a relatively short time span and without significant upset. But did the hierarchical manner of their reception, like that of the Council itself, mean that Irish Catholics did not receive the changes in a way that deepened their spirituality? And was the popular religious memory of the people lost through a neglect of liturgical piety and its place in the interior life, alongside what the Council sought to achieve? In this essay, Dr Gary Carville will examine the background to the liturgical changes at Vatican II, the contribution to their formulation and implementation by leaders of the Church in Ireland, the experiences of Irish Catholic communities in the reception process, and the ongoing need for a liturgical formation that brings theology, memory, and practice into greater dialogue.


Genealogy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 16
Author(s):  
Samuel M. Otterstrom ◽  
Brian E. Bunker ◽  
Michael A. Farnsworth

Genealogical research is full of opportunities for connecting generations. Millions of people pursue that purpose as they put together family trees that span hundreds of years. These data are valuable in linking people to the people of their past and in developing personal identities, and they can also be used in other ways. The purposes of this paper are to first give a short history of the development and practice of family history and genealogical research in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has developed the FamilySearch website, and second, to show how genealogical data can illustrate forward generation migration flows across the United States by analyzing resulting patterns and statistics. For example, descendants of people born in several large cities exhibited distinct geographies of migration away from the cities of their forebears.


2019 ◽  
Vol 244 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Coast

Abstract The voice of the people is assumed to have carried little authority in early modern England. Elites often caricatured the common people as an ignorant multitude and demanded their obedience, deference and silence. Hostility to the popular voice was an important element of contemporary political thought. However, evidence for a very different set of views can be found in numerous polemical tracts written between the Reformation and the English Civil War. These tracts claimed to speak for the people, and sought to represent their alleged grievances to the monarch or parliament. They subverted the rules of petitioning by speaking for ‘the people’ as a whole and appealing to a wide audience, making demands for the redress of grievances that left little room for the royal prerogative. In doing so, they contradicted stereotypes about the multitude, arguing that the people were rational, patriotic and potentially better informed about the threats to the kingdom than the monarch themselves. ‘Public opinion’ was used to confer legitimacy on political and religious demands long before the mass subscription petitioning campaigns of the 1640s.


1989 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-381
Author(s):  
Arthur R. Liebscher

To the dismay of today's social progressives, the Argentine Catholic church addresses the moral situation of its people but also shies away from specific political positions or other hint of secular involvement. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the church set out to secure its place in national leadership by strengthening religious institutions and withdrawing clergy from politics. The church struggled to overcome a heritage of organizational weakness in order to promote evangelization, that is, to extend its spiritual influence within Argentina. The bishop of the central city of Córdoba, Franciscan Friar Zenón Bustos y Ferreyra (1905-1925), reinforced pastoral care, catechesis, and education. After 1912, as politics became more heated, Bustos insisted that priests abstain from partisan activities and dedicate themselves to ministry. The church casts itself in the role of national guardian, not of the government, but of the faith and morals of the people.


1958 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-86
Author(s):  
Geoffrey G. Willis

The preface to the Book of Common Prayer, entitled Concerning the Service of the Church since 1662, but before that simply The Preface, was derived substantially from the preface to the revised Breviary of Quiñones, which was one of the sources for the revised daily offices of the Church of England. It appeals from what it considers the corruptions of the medieval office to the ‘godly and decent order of the ancient Fathers’. This order, it says, was devised for the systematic reading of holy scripture in the offices of the Church, and it was the intention of the compilers of the English Prayer Book to restore such a regular order of reading for the instruction of the people. It represented a revolt against three features of the lessons in the medieval breviary: first, against the frequent interruptions of the reading of scripture in course by the occurrence of feasts with proper lessons; secondly, the lack of completeness and continuity in the lessons themselves; and thirdly, the use of non-biblical material in the lessons. Even if the daily office of the breviary, which is based on the ecclesiastical year, were not interrupted by any immoveable feasts having proper lessons, it would still not provide for the reading of the whole of scripture, as its lessons are too short, and also the variable lessons are confined to the night office.


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