The Christian church in Zimbabwe radically indicated the courage and consciousness to identify
itself with the struggle for liberation of the marginalised, the oppressed and the impoverished,
more specifically in the context of chimurenga or the armed struggle. Thus, the Kairos model of
ecclesiology consistently and unequivocally supported masses who were the majority
Zimbabweans during the protracted struggle of the 1970s against racial system, thereby assuming
such designations as the church of struggle, the Church of chimurenga, the church in trenches and
combat with the people; hence, the liberationist language signalled a symbol of Kairos
consciousness for Zimbabwean ecclesiology. Kairos consciousness implies the liberationist
methodological framework of ecclesiology when the church becomes the interlocutor and
articulator identified and associated with non-persons. Furthermore, the non-persons, the
impoverished and the marginalised occupy the epicentre of epistemological space in ecclesiological
discourse. Precisely, the socio-economic and political landscape of Zimbabwe radically shifted
from 2000 onwards, marking the genesis of a crisis. This article based on ecclesiology investigates
prophetic role and the impact of the church in the context of Zimbabwean crisis.This research is part of the
research project, ‘Social
Cohesion’, directed by Prof
Dr. Vuyani Vellem of the
Department of Systematic
and Historical Theology,
Faculty of Theology and
Religion, University of
Pretoria.http://www.hts.org.zaam2020Dogmatics and Christian Ethic
