The AME Church Compromised
By Rev. James Mwenya, 17th Episcopal District
The AME Church, established 1787 in the USA, is one of the oldest churches in Zambia, where it was first established at Broken Hill (now Kabwe) in 1930, and later spread to other parts of the country. Over the years, there have been fundamental deviations from the norms and codes of church constitutional practice in the church governance system. The deviations have been injurious to the prosperity of the church and have gradually led to the development of a toxic spiritual environment and stagnation.
Several attempts by different leaders have been made to try and correct the operating environment using internal administrative and judicial structures so that the church can become a reflection of its beliefs and values. Regrettably, all attempts by members of the church to try and correct the operating environment have continued to fall on deaf ears. While it is regrettable and unfashionable for men and women of the cloth to address concerns from outside the fold, such an undertaking becomes inevitable if the internal dispute resolution mechanisms are skewed against the aggrieved or concerned parties.
We believe it is normal to have differences and that it is even healthier to resolve these differences internally. When we write to the Americans about the grievances we face, it is because that is what our law provides. We trust that the issues we raise are being entrusted into capable hands which will uphold the constitution and act accordingly. Unfortunately, instead of upholding the constitutional requirements, our grievances are sent back through dark channels to the perpetrators working together with the Americans who then use our grievances to plot against us.
American AMEs: to see the ugly pattern of what has caused conflict and division in other parts of Africa slowly creep into the 17th District is unacceptable. You have been building on this culture for too long. What remains to be seen is how much longer it will take before there is an eruption. Is it not enough that we are discriminated against in many areas of church practice? Should we now be made to fight each other for your satisfaction? Are the conflicts around the continent not enough for you to draw lessons? I will not question the wisdom of the perpetrators nor those fuelling the confusion but would rather seek to understand the morality of American theology in reaching out to Africa.
It is understandable that you cannot care. You do not owe us anything. We are not asking you to care either; but rather, we are asking you to do what is right and uphold the constitution which you handed down to us.
In the middle of all this, we have now been called to meet for annual conferences, unconstitutional as it may be, and told that it is being done with American blessings. In a memo from the Episcopal Office, the foolish Zambians have been directed to converge in person in one place while the call will be administered from Cape Town, South Africa. While annual conferences have been held almost 100 percent virtually throughout the connectional church, because our lives don’t matter, we must expose our lives. Maybe we can ask the question, “How many African lives are equal to one American life?” If somebody could tell us the debt we owe, we might try to work like Richard Allen to free ourselves.
What is more hurting is that the AME Church does not contribute anything to the national health budget of Zambia in the Episcopal District. Therefore, to make such a selfish and insensitive decision, which puts money over health, is appallingly disgraceful. It is a decision that has the potential to be a super-spreader of the disease, in a country with no capacity to deal with the pandemic. The Church is supposed to be helping avert anything that endangers the lives of members and not undermine the efforts of the government. If a Zambian clergyman or woman called for a meeting that endangers the lives of South Africans or Americans will they allow it? They will tear down every Zambian house and burn every Zambian truck just to express their dissatisfaction.
The conferences being called have fallen short of meeting the parameters required by law and morality. These conferences have an ill two-pronged agenda, (a) To raise the full Episcopal budget which should be handed to the connectional treasury and (b) To punish those pastors regarded as enemies of the Episcopacy by removing them from healthy churches and throwing them into isolation wards.
A bishop, whose mandate has expired and yet allowed to serve under grace because of the pandemic with the same good conditions of service, has failed to extend the same courtesy offered to him. The church in Zambia has had its share of shame in the court of public opinion. The image has been shattered. We have disgraced the name of God. We cannot keep moving forward without questioning the intent of our hearts for our actions.
For the AME Church to be adding to this dented image is highly unfortunate. Now that the internal dispute resolution mechanisms in the church have been compromised, we have let our government, the United States Embassy, and all relevant parties know that not all AMEs are for lawlessness. We plead that our leadership, based in America and registered in Philadelphia, will clearly state that they have not been fuelling confusion and supporting lawlessness in Zambia through these illegal in-person meetings.
