Religions in Africa. He Describes

¶ … religions in Africa. He describes the infamous movement known as the Zimbabwean Assemblies of God Africa (ZAOGA) which brought a revolution in the way of thinking and the culture of the Africans. More importantly the author David Maxwell tells about the increasing support for the religion known as Pentacostalism. ZAOGA was one of the major movements which worked for the support of Pentacostalism. The author talks about the African people or masses that altered their version of stories to gain superiority or authority specifically about one person known as Ezekiel Guti. ZAOGA puts itself as one of the sacred movements in the African history but the reality is a bit different then what the ZAOGA claims. ZAOGA was a movement lead by a man named Ezekial Guti. ZAOGA's leader Guti gave information about his movement in a book named 'The Sacred History'. This book is a total account of Guti and ZAOGA's achievements in flourishing and achieving its task in spreading Pentacostalism successfully. The book gives a spiritual account of Guti and shows him as an Apostle. The book gives a detailed account of Guti's life and his sacrifice and influence on the ZAOGA. Thus giving mostly the positive points about the movement and presenting the movement without any greed, malice treachery and portraying it as a pure movement.

But on the contrary the author David Maxwell tells another part of the story which is not told by either Guti or the books and tales told by him. The Sacred History purified the movement's actions and did not give any chance to the people to question or revolt against the authority of Guti. But the author gives points which describe the ZAOGA movement. He tells that the movement itself was formed after two main struggles or wars, in which one was the Pentecostal turf war, which took place for the control of states. It was fought between the faction of Guti and another movement's faction known as Apostolic Faith Mission. This war was fought by Guti to gain power, disciple's support and control of property. And when finally Guti came out to be successful in his struggle to gain control of all these things inter-conflicts in the faction took place and thus Guti had to wage a struggle once again to replace the movement's members with his own kith and kin, associates of his cultural group and businessmen for his own personal interests. But the author emphasizes that the book Sacred History does not discuss any such struggle launched by the movement. All the books related to the ZAOGA put forward Guti as the main revolutionist in the field of religion and does not give great importance to Guti's partners or people who helped to raise ZAOGA to such a standard. The author makes it evident by telling that ZAOGA's own records contain a file named "history" in which a whole narrative of the history of ZAOGA is revealed. This history of the ZAOGA reveals other stories which were not told or published. It incorporated many more names other then Guti and the file showed him as an equal member of the movement who struggled in the same way as the other co-founders did. The official files of ZAOGA included more comments by Guti on Erwin's African Apostle (a book) in which he has asked Erwin to amend specific parts in the book. This book was written in the honour of Guti and he is referred as the African Apostle in the book. The amendments further confirmed that Guti was trying to restrain other names from being published or given importance. Importantly another whole part of the book is not there, which is describing the Guti's fiery affairs with Bhengu and the Assemblies of God. The book's name was changed to African Prophet by Guti. Guti held great editorial influence and with that he was able to amend many versions of reality concerning to the ZAOGA and published them. The author tells that even after Guti had the power over the press he still had to use the whites for they are strong members of the community to be allied with. And thus here the author describes one of his personal experiences with Guti, in which Guti was giving a speech to his faction of people and he emphasized on Dr. Maxwell's presence and he told the faction of people that Maxwell was writing about ZAOGA. Thus he was trying to show that he had a strong support of whites. The author tells that the people take the Sacred History more then a book as they recite the book every year in a special event. He tells that Guti has been given a position of an apostle by the people. The author emphasizes on the fact that wherever a new building is made it is given a foundation stone which tells the people that Guti is the founder of the movement. The author tries to tell that Guti shadows over all the other important people who helped in founding the movement.

The author then tells that ZAOGA's official version of past could be interpreted or could be judged by individual witnesses. The author tells that many church members when asked about the ordeal of Guti or the early days of ZAOGA tell about Guti being a great leader and his qualities. But often when they are asked in detail they also relate other people like church members and co founders who played an important role in the formation of the movement. The author tells that Guti sidelined other important people who were involved in the movement because of his personal needs of power and importance. David tells us that when the funeral speech is offered for co-founders it gives an opportunity to know that other people were also involved in the movement. While the author again indicates that Guti's tale is missing some parts by telling that some South African cities support their own leaders who played quite significant roles in reviving and popularizing the movement. He tells that still some of the leaders of the South African origin complain about not being included in the church's official testament. And at some places people praise and celebrate their own native man's birthday. The author tells that this takes place in the province of Cabo Delgado. The author tells us that the movement of Guti removed all the pieces that show the original incidents which occurred in the life of Guti. But even then the educated sects of the ZAOGA's members have come to realize the original story of ZAOGA's evolvement. The people have come to know about Guti's real chase of power and authority. The author tells us that people have come to terms with the reality as they have already seen such examples in previous spiritual leaders like Jimmy Swaggard and Jim Baker who became hungry for power and got so self-obsessed that they forgot their own made rules and teachings. The author tells that Guti's popularity is declining due to the increase in education and the realization of people about his inner self and greed. The author describes the situation by giving details of a column that has made an aim of exposing the real Guti and the real history of ZAOGA. The author concludes that the movement gained popularity in the local people because of the edited form of story, in which Guti presented himself as a spiritual leader with pure intentions but in reality he is something else. The author more specifically describes the history of ZAOGA and tells that in founding this movement other members or co-founders were also involved.