FRED M’membe says retired archbishop of Lusaka Telesphore Mpundu is incorruptible and intelligent.
In a statement yesterday, Dr M’membe, the Socialist Party president, explained why he thought Archbishop Mpundu is a victim of political attacks by those in the ruling party.
He titled his long-winded statement as: “in defence of my friend and all those who preach the good news.”
Dr M’membe acknowledged that of late, Archbishop Mpundu has come under a lot of attacks from leaders, cadres and supporters of those in power.
“I must point out from the outset that I don’t like Archbishop Mpundu – I love him. He is an exceptionally very intelligent, humble, honest and religious man,” Dr M’membe stated. “Material possessions, luxuries don’t move him. He’s incorruptible.”
He added: “but why is this nice friend of mine so hated by these people?”
“My own and only explanation is that genuine goodness is threatening to those at the opposite end of the moral spectrum,” he said. “Preaching is increasingly getting a lot tougher. Today even words like kindness seem to have political implications.”
He asked if preachers and their congregations ought to seek to transcend politics or if that was an impossible or even illegitimate goal.
Dr M’membe also asked if there was a difference between being political and being partisan.
He said preaching was being complicated by the fact that politics had now come to mean any contemporary issue on which people might disagree.
Dr M’membe explained that in times “like these”, the preacher’s task was to remind the congregation that the basic tenets of faith – grace and mercy, radical hospitality, love of neighbour – went beyond politics but had political implications.
“Can we call our preachers and their congregations call themselves followers of the Prince of Peace and not condemn injustice, intolerance, violence and corruption born of bigotry, hate and greed?” he asked. “Likewise, I don’t see how they can read the story of Jesus welcoming the children and not have something to say about the children suffering on our streets, not going school, not accessing healthcare and food.”
Dr M’membe said in “these polarising times, it’s easy to vilify our preachers and their congregations.”
He added that good preaching in divisive times reminded people of the importance of nuance.
“It also reminds news-weary preachers that their faith claims mean something about how they live in a country in which being a good person is directly connected to our political systems and structures,” Dr M’membe said. “My prayer is that even as we disagree, we’ll stay true to the gospel call to welcome and to love.”
He further said one might expect the obligatory nod to the challenge of preachers preaching in polarised climate – except for the fact that their congregations were comfortably partisan and had been engines of polarisation, not some lingering holdout against it.
“We don’t want to avoid being predictably partisan by falling prey to the illusion that the gospel is politically “neutral.” If some partisan stands align with biblical concerns for justice, we shouldn’t soft-pedal biblical themes just to avoid appearing partisan,” he said.
He outlined how the lectionary was a gift.
Dr M’membe said biblical themes confronted people.
He said preaching was not dictated by the pet priorities of a party but by the worldwide curriculum of the body of Christ at worship.
“And some days, by grace, that Word will come as a challenge to our own preferences,” Dr M’membe said. “Nor does the unique ‘politics of Jesus’ give us licence to sequester ourselves in alternative communities. Policy is how we love our neighbours, and purity doesn’t release us from the Great Commandment. The illusion of being non-political is a luxury of privilege that only leaves the vulnerable exposed.”
Dr M’membe said the problem with the Christian political imagination today was not simply that it was predictably partisan but that it had ceded its elasticity and expectation to: “the here-and-now.”
He said everybody was a functional utopian who over-expect from the present and under-expect God’s sovereign grace.
“But the kingdom of God is something we await, not create. And while we hope for policy that bends the systems of society toward justice, we won’t legislate our way to the Parousia,” Dr M’membe noted. “We need to recover a wide-eyed Augustinian realism to counter cultural Pelagianism. Our utopianism is nourished by an over-confidence in our own powers and a blinding self-righteousness, coupled with a generic belief in the goodness of human nature (at least our human nature).”
He noted that the result was a political outlook that did not expect – or know what to do with – disagreement and disappointment, charging ahead with the frightening scowl of someone with good intentions.
Dr M’membe said whenever words were deployed, especially in the service of God, “we are acting politically.”
He argued that there was no such thing as non-political language, especially when that language was bold to assert itself: “theologically, homiletically, or ecclesiologically.”
“The Church is a praying, singing, preaching, witnessing body. We witness to the in-breaking of God’s reign of love, justice, beauty, and abundance in time and space,” he said. “We lament brokenness, evil, and violence. We proclaim that these dastardly realities are ending even as we groan and press toward God’s redemption of humanity and all of creation. Our prayers, songs, sermons, and testimonies are acts of political speech.”
Dr M’membe said servants of the Church who claimed that they were not political were indeed political.
“However, they are often servants of a politics contrary to a Christian understanding of God’s reign. Our speech is political because it is the speech of God’s new creation,” Dr M’membe said.
“The Church’s language is not spectator language. It does work, and it has work to do. The Church’s language has the ambitious agenda of making all things new. And that is political.”
Dr M’membe said the goal of a preacher should never to be non-political.
He said preachers bore witness through language and action that the God they serve is the author of the politics of abundance.
“There is more than enough of the physical, economic, and spiritual requirements for human flourishing in this nation and the world,” he said.
“We cannot transcend politics. The gospel is a word that was used to declare the birth of a new emperor. Our speech heralds a new ruler, one hated by the Caesars and Herods who continue to kill innocents and crucify dissidents in an attempt to hold onto their power and thwart God’s reign.”
Dr M’membe said preachers must be bold to advocate the politics of God’s realm in the Church and outside of the Church.
He noted that people could afford good, free and socialised education because God requires it.
“We can afford good, free and socialised healthcare because God requires it. We can pay a living wage because God requires it,” Dr M’membe said. “The Church has often abandoned these politics for access and power. Like Jesus they shouldn’t fear to live and to die for the politics of God’s reign. If these politics do not animate their prayers, songs, sermons, and testimonies, their speech is reduced to sounding brass and tinkling cymbals.”
He said their faith stood in judgment of the nation’s political leaders – “of whatever ideological stripe – when they fail to uphold the values implicit in the gospel demands for justice.”
Dr M’membe added that preachers should always view criticism of their preaching as an invitation for deeper dialogue and relationship rooted in the divine gift of unity that binds people together as followers of Jesus.
He said if preachers do not talk about politics in the church setting, they were giving their congregants permission to compartmentalise their lives.
“Jesus Christ is Lord of all of life, including our political life, and that includes the decisions we make in the voting booth,” said Dr M’membe.