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Do we not choose who to love and marry?
This villager has read about Prophet Emmanuel Makandiwa and Prophetess Ruth Makandiwa, Prophet Ezekiel Guti and Prophetess Dr Eunar Guti, Prophet Eubert Angel and prophetess …. Angel, Apostle Admire Kasi and Prophetess Ivy Kombo Kasi.

The list is endless. Does it follow that the gift accruing to one partner automatically goes to the one he shares a bed with? No entendre!
In lingua franca, a prophet’s wife is not called a prophetess. Only a female prophet is the one called a prophetess? Does a female prophet’s husband automatically become a prophet?

Do matters between the sheets extend to the divine?
In the village, a spirit medium can be male or female but the spouse remains an ordinary member, who, of course is taught the requisite etiquette as a helper. This villager thinks the same should apply to our men and women of the cloth. In fact, in the spirit province or spiritual realm, the modus oparandi of spirit mediums and prophets is similar. Only the apparatus differ.

Does this phenomenon of ‘‘anointed couples’’ have anything to do with the proliferation of gospreneurship? Is it about ensuring continuity in these latter day, money-spinning family enterprises?

I say so because the prophets of old eked a frugal existence. They roamed the wilderness, fed on locusts and honey. They did not have any pennies to their names. Contrast them with today’s celebrity ‘‘prophets’’ who roll in the latest rides, don designer wear, travel with entourages and bodyguards like film stars.
Yet they say they follow the Son of Man who did not even have a place to lay his head.

A man on record saying it will be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God!
Do not get me wrong, this villager is not saying Christians should live in poverty, far from it. He is just posing questions that do the rounds in the village.
That brings us to the questions: Is prophecy taught? Is prophecy transferable? Is prophecy shared? Is prophecy an art? Is prophecy a gift from God? Does God anoint couples? Is prophecy a family affair? Or, more fecund, when is prophecy, genuine or fake?

Does it follow that because we share a bed, we share kisses, we share love and we share all our belongings, therefore, we are anointed as a couple?
This villager will continue getting deeper and deeper into the spiritual realm, questioning for the good of the people of Zimbabwe. It could as well be a calling, the villager’s calling.

For in the village do elders not say, for as long as there are lice in the seams of the garment there must be bloodstains on the fingernails?
Do they not say until lions have their own historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter? I have a calling to write, write and write. Questions? Write, question, question, question, and question!

When this villager opens the subject of gospreneuership, he opens the winch gates to controversy, the winch gates to the nerve centre of religion and religiosity, the art and the belief. This villager opens the floodgates to Christianity and churchianity! Prophecy and profit! The winch gates to the cynosure of life.
If this villager is allowed to delve any deeper into the water of religion and prophecy, we should look at what happens in real life situation.

What with teknonomy, the practice by which, parents are addressed as mother or father of their first child?
It would be interesting to just imagine what happens when prophet and prophetess divorce. Does the prophetess carry with her title or not? Does the prophet carry with him the tittle or not? Do they remain the anointed? Maybe there are cases in which they are both genuinely anointed but half the time, Zimbabwean fear that later day churches a fiefdoms or family enterprises in which gospreneuers, mainly the men bring along their wives as prophetesses. A friend of this villager says the partner is brought in to take care of succession in the event the hubby kicks the bucket. The tithes must remain in the family, so to speak.

Is this Christianity of churchianity?
In the village in particular and in Zimbabwe in general, at marriage, which is usually to the men of her choice, a woman adopts the clan name of her husband and this may be used as a term to address her.

But her ties with her own lineage and her lineage ancestors remain strong. If divorce should occur, she will return to the territory of her father and take up her clan name again.

In the event the woman dies in wedlock, her property is inherited by members of her lineage unless she specifies, otherwise.
But the issue is with husbands who are chief or spirit mediums. Succession to all positions, statutes held by men on behalf of social units are inherited by the next possessed.

But with our modern day celebrity tele-evangelist prophets and prophetesses, it remains to be seen what will happen upon death or divorce. Who takes what? Do the couples have the same supernatural powers as their husbands or it a family business?

This villager writes this, fully aware of the inevitable attacks by the gullible, by the zealots and by the uninformed yet, he seeks to understand on behalf of the nation, the spiritual realm.

In the absence of ideological clarity, we shudder to think what will happen to multitudes of followers upon the death of the current church founders or gospreneuers. This villager does not wish anyone dead, but as William Shakespeare would put it, “death, a must, will come when it must!”

We are yet to see if, upon the death of one of our most popular prophets, their wives will wield the same healing powers? Will followers continue thronging the venues? Will they continue tithing as they do today?

If the prophetesses do not wield those powers then it is pure gospreneuership? If they wield the same powers by virtue of marriage then their powers are earthly and not heavenly.

In the matrix of real religion there are dangers that most of us might be fooled by people who acquired their powers earthly, then  make us believe the powers were heavenly. God cannot so simple to favour a couple with anointment and prophecy. It makes prophecy look too simple and achievable by any small boy or girl.

As to the truth, time will tell. If you want to be eaten by pigs, mix yourself with the grain. If you don’t want stay away!