Christianity and Public Culture in Africa

2: Debating the Secular in Zambia: The Response of the Catholic Church to Scientific Socialism and Christian Nation, 1976–2006

50 T w O Debating the Secular in Zambia The Response of the Catholic Church to Scientific Socialism and Christian Nation, 1976–2006 m A r J A H i n f e l A A r I N D E C E M b E R 1991 the newly elected president of Zambia,frederick Chiluba, made the following announcement: “on behalf of the nation i have entered into a covenant law with the living god. And therefore i want to make the following declaration. i declare today that i submit myself as president to the lordship of Jesus Christ. i likewise submit the government and the entire nation of Zambia to the lordship of Jesus Christ. i further declare that Zambia is a Christian nation that will seek to be governed by the righteous principles of the Word of god.” Some scholars have described Chiluba’s political victory and the subsequent Christian nation declaration as the inevitable outcome of the rise of charismatic Christianity in Zambia. While isabel Phiri appraises the declaration as a triumph for the holistic African worldview,1 david maxwell contends that born-again Christianity played a key role in the events leading to Kenneth Kaunda’s downfall, paving the way for this type of declaration.2 but to what extent should we stress the triumph of Christianity in the public domain and explain Chiluba’s victory purely in religious terms? in this regard, academics seem caught between two extreme positions—between the celebration and the outright rejection of the public role of religion, with proponents of the latter view maintaining that religious influence over political life can only indicate the general backwardness of society. 51 debating the Secular in Zambia the reifications of religion in Africa have been under attack before. in 1982, Karen fields observed that Africanist scholars regarded religious revival and protest as a phase in the evolutionary march toward perfected “modern” forms, namely secular workers’ organizations and political parties, thereby understating the impact of the religious movements themselves.3 Crucially, these evolutionary assumptions have influenced the way in which Zambian history has been represented. it is important in this context to remind ourselves that throughout the period from the 1920s to the early 1970s, it was indeed tempting to compare Zambia’s historical trajectory to that of europe, especially insofar as the processes of urbanization and industrialization were concerned. technology in the mining industry was considered to be cutting edge. moreover, Zambia was one of the highly urbanized countries in subSaharan Africa.4 not surprisingly, much research focused on the Copperbelt , with numerous studies produced on labor and migration, urbanization and social change.5 most of these studies were underpinned by the notion that “urbanization . . . seemed to be a teleological process, a movement towards a known end point that would be nothing less than a Western-style industrial modernity.”6 While successfully challenging this notion and the simplistic “metanarrative of modernization”in which it resulted,James ferguson’s ethnography of the Copperbelt in the 1980s overlooked an essential component of modernist accounts, namely the expected onset of a secularization process.7 His disregard for religion can perhaps be explained by the narrow focus of his fieldwork, during which he mostly interviewed young male mineworkers. interestingly, ferguson has more recently come to stress the shortcomings of the eurocentric evolutionary narrative about secularization: “Christian mission organizations are arguably more important today in Africa than ever . . . but are strangely relegated to the colonial past in the imagination of much contemporary scholarship.”8 in this respect, i concur with talal Asad, who has resisted identifying either virtues or vices of secularism or religiosity, proposing instead to describe “the forms that articulate them, the powers they release or disable.”9 this chapter will therefore explore the lively and very public discussions surrounding important constitutional changes, mainly from the Catholic point of view.less than a decade after the influential debate on scientific socialism, Zambia’s public discourse shifted from dissecting the potential establishment of a marxist state to arguing about the actual declaration of Zambia as a Christian nation. these debates on 52 MARJA hINfElAAR secularity (and religiosity) illuminate the diversity of views in Zambian society. Additionally, these deliberations give us precious insight into the forces and processes that shape these debates. As maia green has recently suggested, “Closer study of mainstream religious communities and of less totalizing involvements would reveal enormous differentiation in the...