Livingstonia Synod of the Church of Central African Presbyterian (CCAP) has come under fire for being so quick to point at government\u2019s flaws and yet fails to make peace with its sister synod, Nkhoma, over border wrangles that have rocked the two for sometime.<\/p>\n
A week has elapsed after the Synod released its communiqu\u00e9 on the current socio-economic and political development processes in the country but it has failed to spark necessary debate on the issues raised as it used to be in the past, a development which forced The Daily Times to go out and seek people\u2019s views on the streets.<\/p>\n
\u201cLivingstonia Synod is slowly losing its authority and impact on matters of national interest. No-one can take them seriously because they themselves are rocked in uncalled for disputes with Nkhoma Synod.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo what do they have to tell this nation on peace, governance and unity let them put their house in order first,\u201d said Keston Nyirongo a Chibavi resident on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Fred Milanzi of Mchengautuwa had no kind words for the synod which he said has overtime turned itself into nothing but a religious club.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe synod is just taking advantage because of the fact that it is easy for anyone to criticise government at will and by releasing the statement, I think they are just trying to remain relevant.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood enough no one seems to care about their statements anymore. They are less of a religious club with nothing to teach about forgiveness and reconciliation,\u201d said Milanzi.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cIn case you don\u2019t notice Livingstonia has overtime propagated ethnic divisions. If you look closely, their arguments on issues border on tribal lines which shouldn\u2019t be encouraged.\u201d<\/p>\n
When called to comment on the views raised against the synod on the streets, legal expert Justin Dzonzi said on yesterday that in as much as the synod might have raised relevant issues in its statement it should also consider working on its moral uprightness in the first place.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tendency of the clergy has been that of telling us to do what they themselves fail to do. They prescribe standards that they do not follow. So, it is tricky and gives room to unnecessary reproach. May be the synod can seriously look into saving its reputation,\u201d said Dzonzi.<\/p>\n
He, however, said if the matters raised in the communiqu\u00e9 are pertinent government and Malawians need to pay attention.<\/p>\n
Political commentator Blessings Chinsinga corroborated with Dzonzi saying the synod needs to enhance its credibility.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s more about the message. If the message is correct then why not act on it especially when they are raising issues that are crucial and practical. However, they have a responsibility to enhance their credibility by bringing sanity in their own house,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But General Secretary for the Synod Reverend Levi Nyondo said the synod serves as a mouthpiece of the people and the communiqu\u00e9 was in partial fulfillment of that role.<\/p>\n
He added that the media has always misrepresented facts about the relationship between Livingstonia and Nkhoma synods thereby tarnishing the image of the church.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are at peace with our colleagues in the centre. We have no problem but the media has always misled people as though there is bad blood between us,\u201d said Nyondo.<\/p>\n
This comes after Nkhoma and Livingstonia Synods are involved in an ongoing dispute, accusing each other of planting churches in respective territories without following proper procedures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Livingstonia Synod of the Church of Central African Presbyterian (CCAP) has come under fire for being so quick to point at government\u2019s flaws and yet fails to make peace with its sister synod, Nkhoma, over border wrangles that have rocked the two for sometime. A week has elapsed after the Synod released its communiqu\u00e9 on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9565","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\/9565","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=9565"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9578,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9565\/revisions\/9578"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}