Introduction: Religion-Regime Relations in Zimbabwe:Co-operation and Resistance

Abstract

This chapter provides the background to the volume. It outlines the longstanding debate on the relationship between politics and religion in scholarship in general. The chapter illustrates how the debate has been handled in diverse contexts and draws out the implications for the discourse in Zimbabwe. It highlights how the concepts of politics and religion are inventions and states the volume’s preferred approach, namely regarding politics and religion as mutually interacting systems of power. It draws attention to how the post-Mugabe and post-Tsvangirai context in Zimbabwe calls for new investment in seeking to understand the politics-religion dynamic. Focusing on the dynamics of the “Second Republic,” the chapter describes how Emmerson Mnangagwa, the President, and Nelson Chamisa, his closest challenger, have appropriated and deployed religious ideas in their politics. It also summarises the chapters in the volume