Isdore Guvamombe Reflections
Back in the village in the land of milk, honey and dust or Guruve, when consultations for the truth are made from one spirit province to another and from the most junior to the most senior ancestor, the

whole history of the land becomes alive.
God is the ultimate authority, too feared, too respected and too distant to be pocketed by one person or placed in a religious lodge. He is universal and there for all and sundry. In the ritual of bringing out the truth a powerful sense of history, of the relationship between the present and the past, suddenly appears.
It links the most recent to the most distant past and all inhabited parts of the spirit realm to each other. And, guess what, there is rarely no single vision of the past.

The climax of the ritual, is a battlefield on which rival historical claims fight for acceptance. But in the heated discourse, there is order, respect and etymology. No one genuine makes money from the process.
Here debate is like a weir in a river. At one stage, the flow of life stops. The current eddies round and round, streaming backwards and forwards. Round and round.

Round. Eddying. Backwards and forwards! Round, round, making rings round and round, yet respectful. But, the centre holds.     
The foul-mouthed and those gifted with big bodies yet have a brain the size of a dot, are deployed to skin goats for the stewing pot, for their contribution could be a big embarrassment. It might tarnish the image of the entire ancestral lineage.

The most democratic thing about the village is that there is respect in every word uttered in the argument and the sitting arrangement is circular, everyone seeing the other’s face. But the village is cognisant of the fact that the most progressive of all men is he who analyses the sticking problem of reality versus perceptions of reality, the Heavenly and the earthly.

The problem with modern day society is that it is apparently difficult to accept that an individual can achieve more than what a thousand others cannot, without being an oracle.

This villager is no oracle, but has no fear for the unknown and gifted with the shock absorbers of a grader, he sparked a debate on religion and religiosity, the art and the belief, sparked a debate of gospreneurship as the latest art of making money or financial engineering. The villager has no regrets, but as per the dictates of the noble profession of journalism, has to move on to new subjects. So whatever happens, we will have to move on.
For those who would have wished the debate to rage on, the villager is sorry that we have to move on, for those who were touched by the debate and got hyper emotional, there is no place for them in Christianity. Christianity is for the open-minded for the tolerant and for those who forgive and pray for people with divergent

views. Jesus was never a gospreneur, he never made a cent out of his teachings.

Jesus Christ was great (Matthew 4v12). He was humble, conscious, respectful and merciful. He was not born in a palace and neither did he stay in a palace. He came to preach the gospel about his Father not other men yet these days we see people worshipping other living men. In this case, the created assumes the role of the creator.

Is that Christianity or Churchianity? Christianity or Churchianity, the choice is yours, but on judgment day, one by one we will shall meet our fate. It is better never to be a Christian than to pretend to be one. It is equally better never to be a fake traditionalist than to pretend to be one. Both routes should take us to God, but there is no guarantee.

Most importantly, everyone meddling in the intricacies human life must be put under scrutiny, regardless of being a traditional healer, spiritual healer or medical doctor. The difference is the same, because human life can easily be played with. 
So, Prophet Makandiwa, Angel and others cannot escape scrutiny on the pretext that they are God sent. In fact, the more we scrutinise them the better for we will understand where they are coming from and where they are leading their flock to. There is no need to get hyper emotional about their being questioned for authenticity and gospreneurship and there is no need to protect them from scrutiny ourselves, since the same God who sent them, if ever he did, will protect them.

Of course before this villager closes the debate, at least in The Herald, it will be unfair not only to himself, but to the readers, to The Herald and to all and sundry not to respond to Jealousy Mawarire. In a typical journalistic etiolate, Mawarire, a self-confessed member of the United Family International Church (its unfortunate I have to drag the name of the church) chose to abuse this villager instead of arguing his case. In a story entitled “Guvamombe must read the Traditional N’angas

Act”, (The Saturday Herald, July 21, 2012), Mawarire typical of the proverbial clever bird that gets caught by the trap faster than any other, scored an own goal.
If he was the researcher he claimed to be, Mawarire should have picked at least, that the story that Pastors Makandiwa and Angel, among others should register, was broken by Peter Matambanadzo and not Isdore Guvamombe (The Herald, Tuesday July 10, 2012). The story was on the front page entitled “Makandiwa, Angel face arrest” and how Mawarire missed it, as a young and energetic journalist still relevant is astounding. Isn’t it?

Matambanadzo one of the fine young journalists of his generation spoke to the Zimbabwe Traditional, Medical Practitioners Council president, Mr Friday Chisanyu and UFIC pastor Chikuni, among others, to make his story complete. What this villager simply did was make reference to the irony of the registration, in later installment to the claims by Mr Chisanyu. I hope this schools Mawarire.

One wonders what sort of researches he does and how accurate his findings are and he needs to school me on the choice of his research paradigm and its justification. Was his research from a positivist perspective or phenomenological perspective?

Going into a library and flipping through pages of newspapers is certainly not research. A research would have brought out the truth. I wonder if he really understands what research is? Why did Mawarire not decide to school ZTMPC president Mr Chisanyu, who demanded registration of the prophets? Why did Mawarire not decide to school Matambanadzo who broke the story? Why did he ignore the two and go for Isdore Guvamombe?

The mystery will unfold in the next anecdote.
Mawarire visited this villager’s office at The Herald one morning, about two moons ago, seeking permission to takeover the writing of a Tuesday column apparently written by his church elder, Pastor Takura Rukwati, claiming the good pastor was not articulate enough. Was Jealousy, jealous of Pastor Rukwati? The smaller a lizard, the more it aspires to be a crocodile, do they not say that in the village? Fortunately churches do not fire people.

Was Jealousy ambitious and trying to elbow out his elder in church and get close to Prophet Makandiwa? Was Jealousy trying to gain the limelight by writing his diatribe on Guvamombe? 
This villager wonders if religious zealotry or retribution for refusing to give Mawarire the column inspired his article on Saturday? The story should tell itself.

Again Mawarire, through his “research” seemed to have found out that all n’angas are spirit mediums. Sad! Very, very sad! This villager will school him that not all n’angas are spirit mediums in as much as not all healers are prophets and in as much as not all spirit mediums are n’angas.  
I could go on and on, but in the village we do not use a sledgehammer to kill a fly. Good luck Mawarire, in your future researches and in journalism for, when this villager’s sell by date, eventually arrives as you wish, he will be more than unhappy to leave his legacy in your hands. It destroys the super brand and the legacy.

Finally, when all is said and done, Zimbabweans need to mature and debate freely on matters of religion and religiosity, the art and the belief and all prophets and spirit mediums should be put under scrutiny and held accountable for their word, deeds and beliefs, including their financial engineering skills.
Case closed for now. Thanks everybody.
Glory be to God.