Stop witch hunt, govt told
THE Ministry of Religious Affairs must not only engage us in time of strife but must treat us as stakeholders in the governance of this country, the Evangelical Youth Alliance (EYA) has advised
EYA Executive Director, Moses Lungu said since its formation, the ministry had allegedly failed to live up to the expectation of the church.
Reverend Lungu advised the ministry to create a platform that would harmonise church activities instead of what he termed the ‘witch-hunt we are seeing today’.
He claimed that there was a lot that needed to be done to bring the church and government to work together.
Rev. Lungu said as a result of the lack of coordination between the ministry and church groupings, a lot of things had remained unattended to hence the failure by the committee spearheading the construction of the House of National Prayers to execute its work diligently.
He said all the enthusiasm which had gripped the church over the creation of a ministry to look into their affaires had faded out due to lacklustre work ethics by those who were supposed to spearhead such ideals.
“Christians are losing their confidence when they were so enthusiastic when the formation of the ministry was announced because it is falling short of meeting the aspirations of the Christian fraternity and we are not seeing the ministry making efforts in curbing extremism from religious zealots.
“Up to now, even the committee that was formed to build the House of National Prayer is as good as none-existent. We have not heard any progress report in a long period of time on how far the construction works have gone if at all there is something going on. There is no effort employed in harmonising our work relationships among Christians and right now, whatever we are doing is seemingly secondary political players’ aspirations,” Rev. Lungu said.
He said it was worrying that while the ministry should have been a link between politicians and the church where a platform to bring the two parties to dialogue over a number of issues affecting the nation, the church had remained isolated in the governance of the country.
“They (politicians) cannot heed any advice from the church yet the church is a very serious stakeholder and we cannot rule out the fact that the church has contributed to the building of our society but we have a situation where it is being neglected and treated as second class. We are sad because the ministry is being used like a whip against Christians at will and with impunity by the politicians.
“We should not maliciously prostitute the image of the church for political gain. We want a body of religious gurus who have convincing religious records and good religious education so that they preside over the affairs affecting this Christian nation. Its role is to ensure that the interest of the Christians do not conflict the law of God,” he said.