Local pastors and church leaders have been blamed for some deaths resulting from coronavirus infections among unvaccinated people.
The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, Nick Mangwana, said the clergy is to blame for some of the COVID-19 deaths.
Mangwana, however, did not explain how pastors are responsible for the deaths. The inference could be that pastors could be spreading the coronavirus through pastoral visits or by discouraging congregants from getting vaccinated. Said Mangwana:
I am going to be blunt (as usual). Men of cloth are responsible for a number of deaths among the unvaccinated.
So, it is quite helpful when some like Pastor Charamba come out in support of the vaccination programme. They are saving lives.
Mangwana was commenting on a social media post by Rooted in Christ Ministries founder and leader and award-winning musician Charles Charamba.
In the post, Charamba warned Zimbabweans against “experimenting” with death by refusing to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
He said while death will surely visit every person at God’s appointed time, it was better not to “choose” to die before the appointed time. Said Charamba:
Hama, ngatirege kuti ndiri kuda kuona kuti ndikasa vaccinetwa zvinoita sei. Beloved, vaccination is better experimenting with than death.
We shall all die in God’s fullness of time but let’s not choose to do so outside His time. Let’s get vaccinated.
The Good Samaritan in Jesus’ story left the patient under medical care.
Some religious influencers, especially some prominent self-styled prophets and Apostolic sect leaders have advised their followers against receiving the jab, saying the vaccine is “the Mark of the Beast.”
The Mark of the Beast is a cryptic mark in the New Testament’s Book of Revelation which indicates allegiance to Satan.
Some conspiracy theorists in Christendom have interpreted masks and vaccines as the mark of the beast throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.