For materials before 2000, see Religion in Zimbabwe: A Selected Bibliography, based on items listed by Sara Rich Dorman, Inclusion and Exclusion: NGOs and Politics in Zimbabwe, Oxford (2001) (pdf) and Hilde Arntsen, The Battle of the Mind: International New Media Elements of the New Religious Political Right in Zimbabwe (1997).

 

ONLINE ARTICLES, REVIEWS and BOOKS

Arkovitz, Manley M. “Specialization and Referral Among the n’anga (traditional healers) of Zimbabwe.” Tropical Doctor 20.3 (1990): 109-110 (abstract)

Bishau, David. Reign With Him for Thousand Years (Rev 20:6): A Socio-Hermeneutical Exposition of Biblical and Contemporary Millenarian Movements in Zimbabwe as Radical Responses to Deprivation. Bible in Africa Studies 2 (2010) (abstract; pdf)

Byers, Bruce A., Robert N. Cunliffe, and Andrew T. Hudak. “Linking the Conservation of Culture and Nature: A Case Study of Sacred Forests in Zimbabwe.” Human Ecology 29.2 (2001): 187-218 (pdf)

Casey, Michael W. The Rhetoric of Sir Garfield Todd: Christian Imagination and the Dream of an African Democracy (2007) (review by Kenneth Vickery in Africa Studies Review) — Analysis of the life of Sir Garfield Todd (prime minister of Southern Rhodesia, 1953-58), the first missionary to head a government.

Catholic Relief Committee, Zimbabwe. “Relief Aid for Internally Displaced in the Archdiocese of Bulawayo June 2005 to February 2006″ A Catholic Response to the Operation Restore Order and its Aftermath, Catholic Relief Committee Report, Period Covered: June 2005 – February 2006 (article; pdf)

Chavunduka, Gordon L. “Dialogue Between Civilizations: The African Religion in Zimbabwe Today.” Occasional Paper No. 1 (2001) (pdf).

Chimhanda, Francisca. “Raising Consciousness Regarding the Dignity and Vocation of Women in the Catholic Church in Zimbabwe: A Historical Developmental Process.” Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae 24 (2008) (Supplement: “Women as Academics and Leaders”) (abstract with more references and abstracts).

Chimhanda, Francisca. “The Role of the Church in the Transition to Democratic Rule.” The Role of the Church in the Struggle for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe Institute Publications (01-12-2008): 40-48 (pdf)

Chinodya, Shimmer. Strife (2006) (review by Ezra Chitando; review by Oskar Wermter; preview) – This award-winning novel (NAMA Award, 2007 and NOMA Award, 2007) interweaves past and present in a story about one family’s response to destiny. “Science, Bones, or Bible?” Exploring the tensions between modernity and past, Strife “tells the story of the central conflict of [African] tradition, western civilisation and Christianity”.

Chitando, Ezra. “’Down With the devil, Forward with Christ!’: A Study of the Interface Between Religious and Political Discourses in Zimbabwe.” African Sociological Review 6.1 (2002): 1-16 (pdf)

Chitando, Ezra. “Equipped and Ready to Serve? Transforming Theology and Religious Studies in Africa.” (published online by World Council of Churches, publication details n.a.) (pdf)

Chitando, Ezra. “’In the Beginning was the Land’: The Appropriation of Religious Themes in Political Discourses in Zimbabwe.” Africa 75.2 (Spring 2005): 220-239 (abstract; article)

Dube, Lilian. “Mai Chaza: An African Christian Story of Gender, Healing and Power.” Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae 24 (April 2008) (Supplement: “Women as Academics and Leaders”) (abstract)

Engelke, Matthew. A Problem of Presence: Beyond Scripture in an African Church (2007) (available on Amazon; review by Andrew Barnes; review by Shively Smith; review by Paul Gifford). On the Friday Apostolics, a Masowe group who keep the sabbath on Friday and reject the Bible.

Gallagher, Leo O. Carm. The Catholic Church in Manicaland, 1896-1996 (1996) (abridged version: pdf)

Ganiel, Gladys. “Beyond Pietism and Prosperity: Religious Resources for Reconstruction and Reconciliation in Zimbabwe.” Africa Peace and Conflict Network, Occasional Paper No. 1 (28-05-2008) (pdf)

Ganiel, Gladys. “Spiritual Capital and Democratization in Zimbabwe: A Case Study of a Progressive Charismatic Congregation.” Democratization 16.6 (2009), 1172–1193 (abstract, pdf). Utilizes an ethnographic case study of a ‘progressive’ charismatic congregation in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 2007, to provide evidence that ‘pietism’ and ‘prosperity’ are not the only options for charismatic Christianity. Drawing on the concept of ‘spiritual capital’, it argues that some varieties of charismatic Christianity have the resources to contribute to democratization.

Gregson, Simon, Tom Zhuwau, Roy M. Anderson, and Stephen K. Chandiwana. “Apostles and Zionists: The Influence of Religion on Demographic Change in Rural Zimbabwe.” Population Studies: A Journal of Demography, 53.2 (1999): 179-193 (abstract)

Gunda, Masiiwa Ragies. From Text to Practice: The Role of the Bible in Daily Living of African People Today. Bible in Africa Studies 4 (2011) (abstract; pdf).

Gunda, Masiiwa Ragies. “Reconsidering the Relevance of the Prophet Amos in the Quest for a Just Society in Contemporary Zimbabwe.” BOTSA Electronic Forum (2010-04-23) (article)

Gunda, Masiiwa Ragies. The Bible and Homosexuality in Zimbabwe: A Socio-Historical Analysis of the Political, Cultural and Christian Arguments in the Homosexual Public Debate With Special Reference to the Use of the Bible. Bible in Africa Studies 3 (2010) (abstract; pdf)

Habakkuk Trust. “The Food Situation in Bulawayo: a case study of Bulawayo urban high density areas. Report Compiled By Habakkuk Trust For the Christians Together For Peace And Justice.” (June 2003) (pdf)

Hale, Frederick. “Jesuit Missionary Types and Nsenga Responses in Dominic Mulaisho’s The Tongue of the Dumb.” Zambezia 26.2 (1999): 211-226 (pdf)

Hinfelaar, Marja. Respectable and responsible women: Methodist and Roman Catholic women’s organisations in Harare, Zimbabwe (1919-1985) (2001) (source; search this book)

Kadenge, Levee. “The Relationship Between the Church and the Funding Partners in Zimbabwe’s Struggle for Socio-Political Justice.” The Role of the Church in the Struggle for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe Institute Publications (01-12-2008): 49-53 (pdf)

Kazembe, Takawira. “The Relationship between God and People in Shona Traditional Religion.” The Rose+Croix Journal 6 (2009): 51-79 (pdf)

Maching, Mazvita. “Religion, Health, and Healing in the Traditional Shona Culture of Zimbabwe.” Practical Matters 4 (spring 2011): 1-8 (pdf)

Maithufi, Sope. “Black Christianity as Intellectual Resource in Njabulo Ndebele’s Fools and Other Stories.” English in Africa 31.1 (2004): 139-147 (link); revised version as chapter 3 in: Sope Maithufi. The South African short story and its mediation of the hegemonic tendencies of nationalism (~2010), 85-112 (ETD source link; pdf)

Manunga-Lukakisa, Godefroid. Catholic Evangelization among the Ndebele of Zimbabwe (2004) (review by Paul Gundani, H-SAfrica, H-Net Reviews, May 2007)

Manyawu, A.T. “An Interdiscursive Study of the Founding Texts of the Vaapostora veAfrica (African Apostolic) Church of Paul Mwazha WeAfrica.” African Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology and Sport Facilitation 10 (2008): 126-135 (abstract)

Mapuranga, Tapiwa Praise. “Gangsters for Christ: Youth Identity in Gospel, Rap and Hip-Hop Music in Harare.” (2007) (pdf)

Marashe, Joel, Gamuchirai T. Ndamba and Excellent Chireshe. “The Teaching of African Traditional Religion in Primary Schools in Zimbabwe: Challenges and Opportunities.” Religious Education 104.1 (2009): 38-50 (abstract)

Mate, Rekopantswe. “Wombs as God’s Laboratories: Pentecostal Discourses of Femininity in Zimbabwe.” Africa 72.4 (2002): 549-568 (abstract; preview)

Matikiti, Robert. “The Church and the Struggle for Multi-Party Democracy in Zimbabwe” The Role of the Church in the Struggle for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe Institute Publications (01-12-2008): 25-39 (pdf)

Matsika, Matthew. “Ngano and the Demise of Zimbabwe’s Shona Traditional Religion.” ZimEye (2009-10-17) (article)

Maxwell, David. African Gifts of the Spirit: Pentecostalism and the Rise of a Zimbabwean Transnational Religious Movement (2006) (review by Emma Wild-Wood in Church History; review by Oscar Wermter in Mukai-Vukani)

Maxwell, David. “’Catch The Cockerel Before Dawn’: Pentecostalism And Politics In Postcolonial Zimbabwe.” Africa 70.2 (2000): 249-277 (abstract; article).

Maxwell, David. Christians and Chiefs in Zimbabwe: A Social History of the Hwesa People c. 1870s-1990s (1999) (content preview; review by David Martin in Church History)

Mpofu, Sifiso. “Church Activism: A Mission and a Calling to be Attained.” The Role of the Church in the Struggle for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe Institute Publications (01-12-2008): 5-24 (pdf)

Mujere, Joseph. “The Marumbi Rain Cult: Gender and the Interface Between Rainmaking and the Politics of Water in Gutu.” Conference: The Power of Water: Landscape, Water and the State in Southern and Eastern Africa, CAS, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, 28-29 March 2007 (pdf)

Mukonyora, Isabel. “The Dramatization of Life and Death by Johane Masowe.” Zambezia 25.2 (1998): 191-201 (pdf)

Mukonyora, Isabel. Wandering a Gendered Wilderness: Suffering and Healing in an African Initiated Church (2007) (available on Amazon; review by Gladys Ganiel on her blog, Building a Church Without Walls, with comments by Masowe adherents).

Mukonyora, Isabel. “Women and Ecology in Shona Religion.” Word & World 19.3 (1999): 276-284 (pdf)

Mwandayi, Canisius. Death and After-life Rituals in the Eyes of the Shona: Dialogue with Shona Customs with the Quest for Authentic Inculturation. Bible in Africa Studies 6 (2011) (abstract; pdf)

Mutangi, Tarisai. “Religion, Law and Human Rights in Zimbabwe.” African Human Rights Law Journal 8.2 (2008): 526-545 (pdf)

Ndlovu, Lovemore. Religious education in Zimbabwe secondary schools: the quest for a multi-faith approach. UNISA thesis (2009) (abstract and series of pdfs). “This study explores the problem of a bibliocentric Religious Education curriculum in Zimbabwe amid the quest for a multi-faith curriculum. It traces the history of Religious Education… Two main aspects of the Christianization of the Religious Education curriculum are highlighted, namely cultural alienation and indoctrination. Two post-independence teaching approaches, the life experience approach and the multi-faith approach, are discussed.”

Parfitt, Tudor. The Lost Ark of the Covenant: Solving the 2,500-Year-Old Mystery of the Fabled Biblical Ark (2008) (pdf) (available via Amazon). This is a book about the Lemba tribe, Zimbabwe’s ‘Black Jews.’  

Ranger, Terence. Missionaries, Migrants and the Manyika: The Invention of Ethnicity in Zimbabwe.” Leroy Vail, ed. The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa (1989) (article).

Reese, Robert. “Lessons in Mission from an African Initiated Church: A Case Study of the Zimbabwean VaPostori of Johane Masowe.” (source unknown) (pdf)

Ruzivo, Munetsi et alii. The Role of the Church in the Struggle for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe Institute Publications (01-12-2008) (pdf)

Ruzivo, Munetsi. “A Mapping of the Church Groups in Zimbabwe.” The Role of the Church in the Struggle for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe Institute Publications (01-12-2008): 4-14 (pdf)

Ruzivo, Munetsi. “Elizabeth Musodzi: the Catholic Woman Agent of the Gospel in Harare.” Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae 31.2 (2005): 63-75 (pdf)

Ruzivo, Munetsi. “Evangelical Christian–Muslim Relations in Zimbabwe.” Interreligious Insight 6.1 (2008): 27-36 (pdf)

Scarnecchia, Timothy. “Mai Chaza’s Guta re Jehova (City of God): Gender, Healing, and Urban Identity in an African Independent Church.” Journal of Southern African Studies 23.1 (1997): 87 – 105 (abstract)

Shoko, Tabona. Karanga Indigenous Religion in Zimbabwe: Health and Well-being (2007) (available via Amazon)

Togarasei, Lovemore. “Images of Jesus among Christian Women in Harare”. Studies in World Christianity 13.2 (2007): 160–169 (abstract; pdf)

Togarasei, Lovemore. “The Implications of the Dominance of Women in the Zimbabwean Music Industry for the Ordination of Women.” Scriptura 86 (2004): 234–240 (abstract)

Togarasei, Lovemore. “The Shona Bible and the Politics of Bible Translation”. Studies in World Christianity 15.1 (2009): 51-64 (abstract; pdf).

Togarasei, Lovemore. The Bible in Context: Essay Collection. Bible in Africa Studies 1 (2009) (abstract; pdf). – From the contents: “Jesus’ Healing of the Leper as a Model for Healing in African Christianity: Reflections in the Context of HIV/AIDS” – “Images of Jesus Among Christian Women in Harare” – “‘Let Everyone be Subject to Governing Authorities’: The Interpretation of New Testament Political Ethics Towards and After Zimbabwe’s 2002 Presidential Elections” – “Reading and Interpreting the Bible During Zimbabwe’s 2000 Fast Track Land Reform Programme: The Experience of the Church of Christ Zimbabwe.”

Togarasei,  Lovemore. “Modern Pentecostalism as an Urban Phenomenon: the case of the Family of God Church in Zimbabwe.” (pdf)

Urban-Mead, Wendy. “Sitshokupi Sibanda: ‘Bible Woman’ or evangelist? Ways of Naming and Remembering Female Leadership in a Mission Church of Colonial Zimbabwe.” Women’s History Review 17.4 (2008) (Special Issue: Transnational Biblewomen: Asian and African women in Christian mission): 653-670 (abstract)

Welch, Pamela. Church and Settler in Colonial Zimbabwe: A Study in the History of the Anglican Diocese of Mashonaland/Southern Rhodesia, 1890-1925 (2008) (review by Titus Presler in IBMR) — Welch focuses on the first four Anglican bishops with topics including occupying the ground, unhappiness and paradox, finance and the overseas expansion of the English church, recruiting clergy, and English models of religious practice and South African influences in it.

Williams, Richmond P. B. “Leadership Models of Three Southern African Christian Leaders [Samuel Mutendi, Michael Cassidy, Desmond Tutu].” Towards a Strategic Transcultural Model of Leadership that Enhances Koinonia in Urban Southern Africa, Diss. U of Pretoria (2006) (pdf)

Yoshikuni, Tsuneo. Elizabeth Musodzi and the Birth of African Feminism in Early Colonial Africa (2008) (review in Mukai-Vukani) – “A biography of one of the most influential women to have lived in the high density areas of Harare in the 1939s and 40s. Not only did she work hard to improve her own life and that of her family, she was the founder of the Harare African Women’s Club and active in many welfare agencies.”  “St Peter’s Parish, the women of Mbare and women of Zimbabwe in general must be grateful to the publishers for bringing Mai Musodzi, an inspiration to women even today, back to life. Her work of liberating women, giving them dignity and a better standard of living, is not yet finished.”

Zvobgo, C. J. “Medical Missions: A Neglected Theme in Zimbabwe’s History, 1893-1957.” Zambezia 23.2 (1986): 109-118 (pdf)