RELIGIOUS leaders and the laity have dismissed the culture of chain letters as ungodly and a practice that smacks of sacrilege. Of late, the social media has been awash with chain letters or messages that ask \u201cbelievers\u201d to respond with an \u201cAmen\u201d or \u201cI receive\u201d as a show of their love for Jesus Christ or as a condition to receive blessings, be it marital, financial or even the gift of children.<\/p>\n
The letters, as per dictate, are to be resent to a number of recipients failing which the blessing will not come by or the would-be forwarder would face some cosmic punishment.<\/p>\n
Archbishop Mark Kambalazaza, head and founder of the Charismatic Redeemed Ministries International, advised Christians not to believe in such chain letters, saying coercive chain mails are not of God.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one can become a millionaire because of an SMS or Whatsapp message; otherwise all people having phones would have been rich by now. I don\u2019t believe in these chain messages, it is never true but simply unbiblical, unchristian and threatens weak minds. It is magical and witchcraft fleeces in nature. That is against the word of faith.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t waste time with them,\u201d he said. Kambalazaza further said other than getting addicted and wasting time on circulating chain letters, Christians should instead take up the habit of sharing the word of God through the social media. \u201cMy advice is that you can send to your neighbour or friend [ a chain letter or post] if it contains the biblical truth.<\/p>\n
But don\u2019t believe in the lie, if it does not have biblical truth, delete it and forget about it. Fear only God and not messages; even when the Gospel was given, it was with freedom not threats,\u201d he added. A member of the Christian community, John Chawinga, said it was imperative that Christians ignore chain letters and instead concentrate on praying for divine intervention on their financial and health well-being.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose who circulate them [chain letter and messages] capitalise on the economic challenges and ill-health of the people and assume godly powers. I deem chain letters as blasphemous to God,\u201d he said. Secretary General of the Episcopal Conference of Malawi [ECM] of the Catholic Church, the Reverend Father Henry\u00a0 Saindi said chain letters are \u201csuperstitious and have no bearing to Christianity.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Catholic Church neither believes nor encourages any of its faithful to be involved in receiving or sending chain letters, SMSs, emails etc.<\/p>\n
They [chain letters, SMSs and emails] are deemed superstitious and they give a very wrong picture of God. Such prayers are occult and therefore dangerous; they are not from God,\u201d he said. Father Saindi added that according to the doctrine of the Catholic Church, there is nothing that people could do in order to receive God\u2019s grace.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy virtue of our Baptism, we are already sons and daughters of God. Therefore, God\u2019s grace is already ours. All we need to do is to ask for them. In fact, in Matthew 7 verse 7-8 Jesus assures us, \u2018Ask and it will be given; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives\u2019.<\/p>\n
So, to access God\u2019s grace, there are no strings attached, no conditions,\u201d he said, adding that the Christian God never gambles but simply gives because he loves mankind. Bishop Charles Tsukuluza of Revival Life Ministries warned that people should not believe in those chain messages.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t subscribe to this kind of thinking that by simply typing \u201cAmen\u201d or by sending it to others, a miracle will come. It is a well known fact that many have done so and nothing came their way. Christians should not believe in these things but they must believe the Word of God. When God created man he placed him in the Garden of Eden to work, eat and live [ Genesis 2:15].<\/p>\n
In the New Testament, Apostle advised believers of the Church at Ephesus to work with their hands by saying in, Ephesians 4:28,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
RELIGIOUS leaders and the laity have dismissed the culture of chain letters as ungodly and a practice that smacks of sacrilege. Of late, the social media has been awash with chain letters or messages that ask \u201cbelievers\u201d to respond with an \u201cAmen\u201d or \u201cI receive\u201d as a show of their love for Jesus Christ or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":44926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44924"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44930,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44924\/revisions\/44930"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}