LISTA DE PLAGAS CUARENTENARIAS FORESTALES NO PRESENTES EN EL PAIS

The rules and regulations that govern the general membership inherited from the Methodist Church’s missionary past continue to be applied on members in the post-autonomous Church. The rules and regulations are not only applied to the ordinary members of the Church but to those in leadership as well. They are not only applied to the laity but to the clergy as well. The Mbare Circuit quarterly meeting held on the 5th _{of May 2017 disciplined a young male local preacher for} anticipating marriage (kutangira muchato) and he lost his full membership of the Church and all privileges that come with it (Minutes of Mbare Circuit quarterly meeting, 2017) Student ministers in training who impregnated girls while in college have been expelled and reduced to on-trial status (Minutes of Conference, 2002, 2009 &Minutes of Connexional pastoral committee, 2009). The

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phrase ‘to anticipate marriage’ (kutangira muchato), is an assumption that there is a marriage that one has gone ahead of when he impregnates or get impregnated. The marriage that is said to have been anticipated is the Christian marriage which should end up with a white wedding. Disciplining individuals for anticipating marriage is a way of confirming the superiority of the Christian or western marriage over all the other types of marriages including all the customary marriages.

The Methodist Church has over the years disciplined both lay members and the clergy for traditional beer drinking. In 1994, a senior minister in the Church was withdrawn from the ministry after he had problems with drinking (Minutes of connexional pastoral committee, 1994). The Methodist Church in Zimbabwe conference in 2009 also withdrew from the ministry one of its ordained ministers after considering the allegations that were levelled against him and these included that, not performing his ministerial duties, he was taking alcohol and attending Church functions drunk, and he was having extra-marital affairs with Church women (Minutes of MCZ Conference, 2009. P. 18). The Chideme Circuit quarterly meeting also disciplined a fully accredited local preacher who had come out openly to say he was taking over from his brother as the clan’s spirit medium (svikiro). He was disciplined to on-trial status but did not care because he then left the Church to concentrate on his new role(Minutes of Chideme Circuit Quarterly meeting, July 2005). Disciplinary cases that have to do with participation in ancestor worship and participation in traditional rituals are not very common in circuits since these activities are carried out surreptitiously in individual homesteads covered by dark nights. The above shows that the Methodist Church advocates strongly for teetotalism and monogamy and does not condone any other types of marriage union among its members. The attitude toward beer drinking, traditional rituals and toward polygamy was inherited by the contemporary Church from the missionary Church and this attitude continues to draw parameters of conduct among the Methodist membership.

The Class Meeting Regulations

The class meetings were the instruments that John Wesley used for deepening the faith, hope and love of believers (Clapper 1989: 166). Wesley did not believe or recommend lonely mountaintop contemplation, for he knew too well the human heart’s propensity for deceit. Thus, new members were formed into classes, societies and bands where the Christians could examine each other and openly and honestly share with each other the course of their spiritual struggles (Clapper 1989).

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The class functioned as the membership unit, in which the members held themselves and one another to the demanding disciplines of the way of holiness (Richey 2013:52). The growing numbers in the Methodist societies can be said to have contributed to the genesis of class meeting. According to Norwood (1958),

Membership had grown so large that Wesley could not keep up with the need. The society in London had about 1 100 members by 1742- by chance, as he describes it, the solution appeared in Bristol. In discussing the means of paying debt on the property in 1742 one member suggested each member gave a penny a week and that in order to facilitate collection groups of twelve be organised, each with a leader. The leader was to visit the members for weekly contributions (1958:70).

During these financial visitations, it was discovered that some members were not following the rules closely, and so John Wesley asked each class leader to add to his duties an inquiry into the life and faith of members in his class. The institution of the class in the Methodist tradition developed into something universal and wherever the Methodist Church went, the classes were introduced, and as time went by, classes became an ingrained institution, fixed in the preservation of heritage (Norwood 1958:79). The classes became part of the administrative structure of the Methodist Church under the charge of a local preacher who told every member in the class what he thought was wrong with them and he did that plainly.

The universality of the class meeting, in the sense that they were introduced wherever the Methodist Church was introduced, saw them introduced in Zimbabwe when the Church arrived in the 1890s. The Constitutional practice and Discipline of the Methodist Church in Southern Rhodesia (1963), being the constitution of the Methodist Church then, states that

In the Methodist Church, the class meeting is one of the chief means of grace which all members should attend. Members and catechumens who are constantly absent without sufficient cause cut themselves off from fellowship, and their names should be removed from the list of members. In the class meetings, the spiritual character of the meeting should be kept constantly before members. The class meeting is for Christian fellowship and for instruction in Christian truth and should not be regarded as a preaching service (The Constitutional Practice and Discipline of the Methodist Church in the Southern Rhodesia District, p.8.).

There are three important points to be noted from the above extract. First attendance to the class was compulsory for all members. Secondly all those who failed to attend for no substantial reason, were disciplined by removal from the class register and from membership. Thirdly, the classes were meant to teach Christian truth apart from Christian fellowship. Apart from having their names

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written in class registers, each member was expected to have a membership card on which all monetary contributions were recorded (see fig. 5.2 below). Giving members cards and writing their names in class registers was not only for administrative and governance purposes but also as a means of maintaining surveillance on members. The truth taught in these classes was subjective, it was based on the beliefs and understanding of the missionaries based on their religious and cultural worldview. The discipline involved was meant in a way to coerce African members to accept the Christian teaching as taught in the class without dissent, because of fear of punishment. Since the classes were compulsory to all members, full members and catechumens, the Methodist missionaries made sure that their teaching were received and followed by all.

Having spelt out the importance of the Class in the Methodist Church, the constitution went on to outline some rules and regulation that were to be taught to the members and the expectations to those who wished to be members of the Methodist Church. The expectations and rules are as follows;

Adult membership shall be divided into three classes (a) Catechumens, (b) Members on trial, (c) Full members. The Catechumen and on- trial periods are for fellowship, instruction and probation. The length of the probation shall be decided by the minister in conjunction with the leaders’ meeting, account being taken of the fitness of each candidate. The normal period shall be two years, not less than one year in the Catechumenate followed by one year on trial. It is desired that illiterate candidates should be taught to read. A male polygamist, or any wife of a polygamist other than the first taken, may not be baptised or be received as a member as long as the polygamous marriage continues. These and others who cannot for various reasons (including discipline) be received into full membership of the Church but who desire fellowship shall be encouraged to attend some form of Class Meeting or Fellowship Class (The Constitutional Practice and Discipline of the Methodist Church in the Southern Rhodesia District, p.8.).

Among the expectation on the Members of the Church was that each man be married to one wife and this was taught to all members in the Class meeting. This means the Class meetings were used to teach against African religion and culture and were meant to be effective since the classes were compulsory. When the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe became autonomous in October 1977, the Class fellowship continued as an indispensable heritage of the Methodist tradition.

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Figure 4.2: Copy of a Methodist membership ticket or card with the inscription of the great commission.

Source: http://www.chezfred.org.uk\gp\FullAlbert\images\042.jpg

The current Methodist Church class book, 40 years after attaining an autonomous status, still has rules and regulations that still mitigate against African religion and culture. At the annual conference in 2004, the Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe emphasized on the importance of maintaining the classes as the basic unit for Christian fellowship when he argued that

Methodists all over the world seem to have either lost or abandoned what was known as ‘the mark of Methodism’ during the time of John Wesley and beyond. John Wesley was a man of the crowds. Any conference which has returned to these basics, is experiencing rebirth, revival, increase in numbers and financial boom. The caring Church would cause people to experience God’s love and his grace. Class meetings and group Bible studies are a way we can create a caring Church which would result in spiritual growth of our membership (Minutes of the MCZ Conference, 2004, p. 65).

The emphasis on the maintenance of classes by the Presiding Bishop confirms a continuation of the rules and regulations that mitigate against African traditional religion and culture that were part of the colonial Church system. The duties of the class leader are delineated in the class book. The class leader has the duty to make sure those under his care do not participate in ungodly practices such as, drinking, buying, or selling any intoxicating substances, playing games of chance such as lotto, engaging or encouraging others to participate in witchcraft, singing heathen songs or participation in heathen dances(The Methodist Church in Zimbabwe, Class Book, p. 4- 5).The

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teaching of the missionaries during the period before autonomy seems to have taken root in the Africans such that now after four decades of black leadership of the Church, they emphasize the suppression of any traits of African religion and culture. The attitude of the Methodist Church toward African religion and culture has not changed if one closely interrogates the restrictions that are imposed on the class leaders in the contemporary Methodist Church in Zimbabwe.

The missionary class fellowship prohibited beer drinking, heathen dances, and the Church in which black Methodist Christians have authority to review and change rules and regulations still maintains these. The issue of polygamy is not included in the prohibitions in the class book but it in the organizational policy documents. The reason why the Church removed the prohibitions for polygamists from the class book could be that since class lessons are taken by all including the youths, issues of marriage become relevant to the adult organizations.