UPND national trustee Doreen Sefuke Mwamba believes Zambia is under a spiritual war that needs sincere prayers.
She laments that Church leaders in the country have become toxic because they cannot sit in one place to guide the nation.
“It is them (Church leaders) who should reconcile before they reconcile us,” Mwamba said in an interview.
She wondered how people could carry out charity work in a society that was so divided.
Mwamba linked societal polarisation to the partiality of today’s religious leaders.
“The Church has taken sides and therefore it cannot speak. I’m saying to the Church enough is enough; take up your role. You are Christians and guide us. Stop being politicians, stop taking sides,” Mwamba stressed. “You are dividing the nation; it is not us as politicians who are dividing the nation but you Church leaders. What is in the country is actually a spiritual war! We have departed from the teaching of God and God is therefore punishing us and if we don’t repent, there will be no repentance.”
She explained that before one became UPND or PF, they were born as Christians.
Mwamba said while UPND and PF supporters were quarrelling on this and that, “at some point we come together.”
“In the National Assembly, we have PF and UPND members of parliament sitting together and even having tea together. [But] this is something that we never see with our religious leaders in this country,” she noted. “When national prayers are called, how come we never see the Church mother bodies’ [leaders] sitting with christians for Lungu? How come we never see them together? They are so disjointed and they will never speak [with] one voice. What is the problem?”
Mwamba underscored that Church leaders needed to urgently and practically resolve their ‘differences.’
“Among the Catholic bishops, there is one or two who is/are very close to the President. So, that person who is close to President Edgar Lungu let him go and say to the President ‘sir, the reason why we are divided is because we have these issues.’ Maybe they have issues with the construction of the House of Prayer; they can harmonise whatever it is and move together as Christians,” advised Mwamba. “I’m speaking as a Christian in the Lenten season; how are we going to pray when we are being killed [by gassing], when we are killing?”