War Against God

Volume 1 1988

One of the first acts of the Frelimo terrorist campaign was the murder of a Catholic priest in August 1964. The freedom fighters chopped off the priest’s head and mockingly placed his head on the altar, then desecrated the church.

The Soviet-backed Samora Machel was later involved in the ritual eating of human flesh during a witchcraft ceremony, where he pledged his soul to Satan, if he would be given control of Frelimo. During this cannibalistic episode, Machel vowed the destruction of the Church in Mozambique should he be given power over it.

When the Portuguese delivered Mozambique into his blood-soaked hands, the new president of the Popular Republic of Mozambique at mass rallies around the country, in the nationalised press and over the Frelimo-controlled radio, declared war on the Church. Calling the priests “parrots” and “monkeys”. Machel lashed out at the Church, accusing it of being “a remnant of colonialism”, “a tool of facism” and an “instrument of division”.

Thousands of churches in Mozambique were closed, confiscated, “nationalised”, barred up, bolted, chained and padlocked, burnt down or boarded up. Missionaries were expelled, some being imprisoned first. Evangelism was forbidden, Bibles were ceremonially burnt and tens of thousands of Christians, including many pastors and elders, were shipped off to concentration camps — most were never seen again.

After years of frenzied persecution and under pressure from the growing indigenous resistance movement, Machel sought to recruit the Church for a worldwide propaganda campaign to isolate the resistance, gain foreign aid for Frelimo and bolster the devastated economy. As it turned out, this was not a change of heart but rather a change of tactics.

“Did people close your church?”, asked Machel of a group of religious leaders in 1982. “They did it without my permission. Did people tell you not to pray? I ask you: pray for rain and pray also for me.”

Many religious leaders were sceptical, remembering only too well the venom in Machel’s public hatred against the Church. They knew full well on whose orders their church property had been confiscated and their brothers in Christ murdered or irnprisoned. Most, however, welcomed Machel’s apparent change in attitude with enthusiasm. Soon many were uncritically parroting Marxist slogans and clichés, and happily promoting Frelimo policy within their denominations overseas. Foreign aid, relief aid and church aid flooded into the Marxists’ hands, giving them a powerful weapon to regain control over their rebellious population.

Scorched earth tactics by Zimbabwe troops and Frelimo forces, often using Soviet helicopters, devastated much of the rural farming areas of Mozambique. Depriving the people of their source of food. Frelirno attempted to starve out the resistance and force the people to vacate the resistance-controlled areas and move into Frelimo-controlled areas where relief aid was used as a magnet. This forced-removal by man-made famine seems reminiscent of Marxist tactics in Ethiopia.

Meanwhile, despite relaxation of restrictions on state-registered churches in Maputo and Beira, the Frelimo campaign of burning Bibles, destroying churches and killing Christians continued in the rural areas of Zambezia. Tete and Monica provinces “Why are you worshipping God”. Frelimo troops would mock church-goers. ‘Have you not heard? We killed God in Maputo. There is no God any more.”

Shortly before his sudden death, Samora Machel challenged God to prove his existence by striking him dead in sixty seconds. To provide added incentive, Machel cursed God, blasphemed the name of Jesus and whipped out a gold stop-watch and dramatically counted off sixty seconds before the shocked crowd. Then shouting contemptuously, “Time’s up!”, Machel declared God dead and himself alive, amidst much applause. Of course, Machel was not original; Lenin and Mussolini both gave God the same sixty seconds stop-watch treatment.

When Machel’s Soviet aircraft smashed across the Eastern Transvaal landscape, the Marxist Frelimo and Zimbabwe plans for overthrowing the pro-Western, Christian-orientated government in Malawi were exposed. This doubtless preserved Malawi from communism and persecution of the Church.

“The Lord God tolerates no rivals;
He punishes those who oppose Him, The Lord never lets the guilty go unpunished.
The Lord is good; He protects His people in time of trouble.
He takes care of those who turn to Him.
Like a great rushing flood He completely destroys His enemies;
He sends to their death those who oppose Him.’
Nahum 1.2-8

“God will surety break the heads of His enemies, of those who persist in their sinful ways.’ Psalm 68:2 1