Over the years, the practice of Christianity, particularly with the emergence of evangelical denominations, Pentecostal churches, and apostolic groups, has continued to raise major concerns regarding the health security of these varied ministries’ adherents in Zimbabwe. Health security entails a collaborative effort to provide a world free of infectious illnesses and other factors that endanger human health and life. At the heart of health security are two elements. First is the preemptive protection against diseases or any related ailments. The second is the ability to recover from illnesses.
Both internal and external conditions have an impact on these two elements. Specifically, people who surround the individual, as well as an individual’s ability to cooperate, have an impact on health security. The 2006 World Health Constitution acknowledges this by emphasising that the health of all people depends on the full collaboration of individuals and states. This also extends to institutions and structures that are affiliated to an individual in a society. However, in the Zimbabwean context, certain distinctive Christian traditions have impeded such protection and recovery from health concerns.
Christianity and health in Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is an overpoweringly Christian state with varied denominational churches. An estimated 70% of the population are Christians. With the proliferation of churches in Zimbabwe in the last two decades, church leaders who work as intermediaries between the Christian God and their believers have roles that influence the conduct of these followers. With the socio-economic challenges that have continued to afflict Zimbabwean society, the prominence of religious leaders has grown. Devotees have blindly followed the instructions of these intermediaries, often ignoring biblical principles, and resulting in a negative impact on their health.
For the vast majority of Zimbabweans, Christianity is a way of life. Indeed, Christian beliefs, practices, and doctrines have largely been considered beneficial to human growth and peaceful coexistence in the country. However, some trends of the last two decades have been particularly alarming. Some adherents have treated church-established doctrines and practices as the panacea to the socio-economic and even political difficulties that plague the country, as well as an important source to consult for physical health and wellbeing. This has culminated into five major interrelated consequences for health security in the country: lack of cooperation in health issues, rejection of conventional treatments, self-denial of certain illnesses, refusal of medical guidance, and the rhetoric of Christian exceptionalism.
Understanding the impacts of Church-established doctrines on people’s health
The lack of cooperation due to church-related principles
First, Christians’ cooperation with nationally or internationally established programmes on health security has been impeded by various church-established customs and different religious beliefs. There are reported instances in the country where members of the Christianity sect have refused to cooperate with national or even international calls on health-related matters. In particular, the conduct of the Johanne Marange Apostolic Sect, which has a strong following in Manicaland Province in eastern Zimbabwe has jeopardized the health of its followers. For example, Zimbabwe mandates children to be immunised against a variety of diseases, including polio and tuberculosis. However, members of the Johane the Fifth of Africa Apostolic Church and the Johane Masowe Chishanu Apostolic Church, among others, reject conventional treatment and put their trust in religion for healing. Such an approach has indirectly led to the death of hundreds of apostolic sect members including children as the church has barred them from seeking medical treatment. Their deaths go unrecorded because of a lack of documentation.
The shunning of modern health services in Zimbabwe
Furthermore, certain Christianity sects have established practices that have led to the refusal of medical guidance. In 2012, the Health and Utilisation of Maternal and Child Health Services in Zimbabwe bemoaned the low uptake of modern healthcare and poor immunisation coverage among sects including the Madhidha and conservative segments of the Johanne Masowe sects. Even during COVID-19, church-established beliefs on followers’ health was especially evident when the Apostolic sect in the Midlands province denounced vaccination, claiming that it was against their beliefs until the Zimbabwean government intervened by engaging the leaders to allow the congregants to get vaccinated. In July 2021, the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) announced the arrest of two Johane Masowe church leaders for holding a church service in breach of COVID-19 lockdown rules in Zengeza 5, Chitungwiza. In addition, a recent study on Christian text messages that were circulated in WhatsApp groups during lockdown concluded how certain Christian followers used the discourse of Christian exceptionalism to convince people that they are immune to COVID-19.
These incidents have resulted not just in a lack of cooperation on health issues or an unwillingness to embrace medical treatments, but also a prevalent self-denial of certain ailments among congregants. Due to church-established customs and the influence of church leaders, followers have frequently equated illnesses to the devil’s work and witchcraft. While beliefs differ, the adamant refusal from certain congregants to utilise proven medical treatments is a cause for worry. It has put their health in jeopardy.
Church leaders’ roles in emerging health hazards
Moreover, powerful and influential leaders have found themselves at odds with government measures to restrict the spread of COVID-19. The response by the Jesus Revolution Ministries leader, Apostle Talent Chiwenga deserves mentioning. The outspoken leader slammed the government, claiming that if it wants the masses to be vaccinated, it should establish its own church. Although the lamentations were in response to good governance challenges in Zimbabwe, given the leader’s massive following, it remains a source of concern over the possible repercussions of such a sentiment on COVID-19 immunisation among his followers. In these conditions, we can once again conclude that religious leaders’ practices have jeopardised health security.
The Zimbabwe National Statistics Board stipulates that 38% of the country’s female population is Apostolic sect members, which equates to approximately 2.5 million Zimbabweans. According to data issued by the Ministry of Health and Child Care, the maternal mortality ratio in 2017 was 135 deaths per 100,000 women of reproductive age. With these figures in mind, it is problematic not to contend with how the influence of church established doctrines on maternal issues, illness and childhood diseases has contributed to such statistics. The case of Memory Machaya, a 14-year-old girl who was reported to have died in July 2021 at a church shrine in the eastern region of Marange is the tip of the iceberg. In addition, in the first few months of 2019, at least 65 people died of cholera in Zimbabwe’s rural areas, with the Mashonaland East province recording the highest number of 40 deaths. A report released by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on cholera outbreaks in the Eastern and Southern Africa region linked the deaths directly to Apostolic Sect members who shun treatment and are also reluctant to accept health and hygiene messages from authorities.
In the same light, despite efforts to eradicate HIV/AIDS by 2030, religion has also become a hindrance on this front in some areas of Zimbabwean society. Christian organisations with indigenous beliefs, particularly the Apostolic community, have been chastised for raising HIV/AIDS rates by opposing condom usage, limiting HIV/AIDS education, and advocating child marriage with girls as young as 14 years old. Followers in some evangelical churches have stopped taking drugs for serious ailments as a result of religious indoctrination. The case of ‘new miracle workers’ that have emerged since the 2000s aggravates the problem. In 2018, Walter Magaya, the leader of Prophetic Healing and Deliverance (PHD) Ministries and one of Zimbabwe’s most powerful and largest churches, announced that he had discovered a herb that can cure HIV and AIDS called Aguma medicine. He claimed Aguma medicine had been tested on human beings and in 14 days patients were fully cured. Contrariwise, the leader was charged with contravening section 40 (1) of the Medicines and Allied Substances Control Act, which criminalises the distribution and misleading advertising of medicine.
In this and other undocumented cases, certain practices in churches have triggered threats to health security as individuals are led to believe that their ‘Gods’ will heal them, mostly through miracles and testimonials from congregants which cannot always be proven accurate. Zimbabwe has witnessed the mushrooming of churches in the new millennium in which church members have been given substitutes for medications in the forms of oils, stickers, labelled water and other symbolic possessions that were blessed by leaders or self-proclaimed ‘spiritual fathers’. The amount to which these instances have increased is an endless subject of concern.
The way forward
Health security can be realised through a variety of measures in the future, and one of the methods proposed here is to regulate certain established activities. There is a need to ‘discipline’ religion. It is hence the duty of the government to act and assist in preventing avoidable loss of life in Zimbabwe by declaring various medical programmes compulsory in the country. In addition, it is the duty of this government to engage with and inform various religious group leaders on the need to shift their stances on curable or preventable diseases. Efforts made in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic to engage leaders in the Midlands Province are commendable. However, the government must continue to engage church leaders to revisit some of their practices even in non-pandemic times. This can go a long way towards securing Zimbabweans’ health.