cults in Zambia

[joe sz]

good questions re tolerance for new sects--same issues in Zambia as in US and elsewhere...

Zambia: New Religious Sects: Cults or 'Churches'?

AllAfrica.com

2 August 2012

THE emergence of numerous religious sects in our country is one phenomenon that has generated debate amongst the public and within the religious community due to serious concerns about the conduct of some of the self-styled "prophets" and "pastors", for want of a better term.

Concerns stem from inherent fears in some members of the community that some of the new religious sects have embraced what the community perceives as unconventional methods of worship that border on heresy.

Government authorities also seem to share the view that some religious sects have spawned veritable confusion and are preying on the minds of their gullible converts who have become captives of their newly discovered "Messiahs".

This mistrust has often led to all sorts of allegations being levelled against members of the new sects by those who belong to the mainstream churches.

The latter often dismiss the new 'churches' as cults that should not be condoned.

But what is a cult? According to one definition in current popular usage, a cult usually refers to "a new religious movement or other group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre."

The word 'cult' originally denoted a system of ritual practices.

History is replete with examples of cults and their nefarious and destructive influence on the community, and this is all the more reason why Government authorities take a keen interest in the affairs of religious sects as a whole.

Three examples will suffice. One of the chapters about Zambia's history is a chronicle of the sordid and bloody accounts about the 'Lumpa Uprising' in Northern Zambia between July and September, 1964 when the coalition Government of UNIP and ANC, led by prime minister Kenneth Kaunda, used excessive force to crush the followers of the Lumpa Church founded by Alice Mulenga Lenshina. Hundreds of Lenshina's followers were massacred by the army and their leader was subsequently detained.

As soon as Lenshina denounced political authority and encouraged dissent among her members whom she implored to "seek ye first the Kingdom of God", the Lumpa church was viewed as a religious separatist movement whose beliefs and philosophy were at variance with the mainstream churches, and also a threat to the new Government that was to be formed on 24th October, 1964 - the date of Zambia's independence.

In yet another grotesque and bizarre incident, 918 Americans died in Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18, 1978 in a mass suicide along with the cult leader of the so-called Peoples Temple, Jim Jones. The dead included 303 children.

In a taped message, the cult leader, Jones, said: "We didn't commit suicide, we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting conditions of an inhumane world."

Except for Jones who is believed to have shot himself, the rest of the victims died of cyanide poisoning.

Closer home, 778 members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God died in Uganda on March 17, 2000 in what was initially recorded as a mass suicide, but it was changed to mass murder when some victims' bodies were found with stab wounds while others had been strangled.

It is also undeniable that economic factors have contributed to the proliferation of religious sects and churches, with a majority of 'pastors' extorting a lot of money from their gullible followers and leading lives of obscene opulence.

However, in spite of the prevalence of suspicion about the new sects, Government will have to measure its actions against the freedom of worship which is a fundamental liberty enshrined in Article 19 of the republic Constitution.

It states thus: "...a person shall not be hindered in the enjoyment of his freedom of conscience, and for the purposes of this Article the said freedom includes freedom of thought and religion, freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others, and both in public and in private, to manifest and propagate his religion or belief, teaching, practice and observance."

This liberty notwithstanding, Government will have to ensure that public safety is firmly secured and guaranteed, and that includes protecting gullible converts of dubious sects.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201208021162.html

[David McCarthy]

In yet another grotesque and bizarre incident, 918 Americans died in Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18, 1978 in a mass suicide along with the cult leader of the so-called Peoples Temple, Jim Jones. The dead included 303 children.

303 children did not commit suicide at Jonestown...they were murdered, as were many of the Jonestown community who refused to drink the Cult Kool-Aid
David.
Related:
Jonestown "Murder or Suicide: What I Saw" by Tim Carter
https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=31976