Inventing the New Dispensation in Zimbabwe

The Religious Dimension

Ezra Chitando, Lovemore Togarasei, Joram Tarusarira

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2024
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350363908
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: African Politics

How does a regime, whose members have been actively involved in the previous one, appropriate and deploy religious ideas and rhetoric to cast itself as 'born-again' and attractive?

Exploring intersections between politics, religion and economics, this book examines invention of Zimbabwe's 'New Dispensation,' the regime of Emmerson D. Mnangagwa, and how it has aimed to separate itself from the previous regime of Robert G. Mugabe.

Utilizing the concept of 'invention', contributors reflect on how Mnangagwa and his publicists deploy religious ideas, concepts and rhetoric in the quest for legitimacy in a heavily contested political field. The book also reflects on the ways opposing political actors have utilized the same template in their quests to secure power.

The contributors interrogate the use of time, theological ideas and religious practices to separate Mnangagwa's regime from Mugabe's. This book provides insight into how religious rhetoric is used not only to gain, but also to contest legitimacy in Zimbabwe's political sphere.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Contributors
• Introduction: Inventing the New Dispensation in Zimbabwe: The religious dimension
• Chapter 1: Built by God and the ancestors?: Interrogating the spiritual and philosophical foundations of the New Dispensation in Zimbabwe
• Chapter 2: The ‘God is in it’ rhetorical dimension of Nelson Chamisa’s political discourse
• Chapter 3: ‘The voice of the people is the voice of God’1: Reviewing the theological foundations of the New Dispensation in Zimbabwe
• Chapter 4: ‘I am a listening president’: The New Dispensation, rhetoric and contestation within the ecumenical movement
• Chapter 5: Despising the memory of the wounded?: A public theological evaluation of President Mnangagwa’s ‘let bygones be bygo es’ in a Zimbabwe founded and maintained by violence
• Chapter 6: Justifying a coup and the myth of a post-military assisted transition ‘new beginning’ in the Jehu revolt and the 207 Zimbabwe military intervention
• Chapter 7: The Bible on the Street: Apocalyptic readings of 2 Kgs 7.2 in light of the ‘New Dispensation’ in Zimbabwe
• Chapter 8: A ‘regime-created’ or a ‘God-driven’ situation?: The Zimbabwean experience under the New Dispensation, 2017–23
• Chapter 9: Gendering politics and religion in Zimbabwe’s New Dispensation: A response to the politics of exclusion
• Chapter 10: Expressing missio Dei1?: A theological critique of religious rhetoric in Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa’s presidential speeches
• Chapter 11: Social media and the revolution gospel in Zimbabwe
• Chapter 12: A paradigm shift for the postmodern Church: Moving from the pulpit to the public enterprise for the salvation of all
• Index