wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] 2 Malawi synods fight over turf

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ECUNET.ORG>]

Note #8770 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

05320
June 16, 2005

2 Malawi synods fight over turf

Recent incursions fan flames of decades-old 'border war'

by Toya Richards Hill

MZUZU, MALAWI -- A decades-old territorial dispute between two Presbyterian
synods in Malawi has reached a critical point.

	One side recently dissolved part of its relationship with the other
and called a news conference to announce its decision.

	The Synod of Livingstonia of the Church of Central Africa
Presbyterian (CCAP) voted in mid-April to stop recognizing the geographical
borders between it and adjacent Nkhoma Synod, rejecting boundary lines drawn
in the early 1900s. 

	Livingstonia officials took the dispute public for the first time
because the Malawian people and the CCAP "need to know the issues we are
grappling with," said the Livingstonia moderator, the Rev. Maxwell Mezuwa
Banda, adding: "The church belongs to the people."

	Banda said his synod was forced to act because Nkhoma Synod for years
had been establishing churches on land clearly designated to the Synod of
Livingstonia. 

	"They keep on moving northward," he said. "We find it difficult to
understand why."

	The Rev. Winston R. Kawale, general secretary of the Nkhoma Synod,
said officials of his synod have tried to work with their Livingstonia
counterparts to settle the dispute, but recently the latter have been
unwilling to talk, preferring to make their case in the media.

	Kawale noted that the lines between the synods are no longer as
clear-cut as when they were created by missionaries decades ago.

	Kawale said on June 15 that his synod still had not been notified
officially of Livingstonia's action. 

	"We just heard that ... in the media," he said. "Officially the
relationship is still there, to us. We are all in one church. ... It is the
will of Jesus Christ that we should be united. Any proposal cutting off a
relationship ... is un-Biblical."

Boundary issue has long history

	Although the synods have been grappling with the boundary issue for
about 50 years, Banda said, negotiators have not been able to resolve it. He
said tensions escalated recently after Nkhoma opened churches within a few
kilometers of existing Livingstonia congregations.

	The CCAP consists of the Synod of Livingstonia in the north, which
has 134 congregations; Nkhoma Synod in the central region, which has 118
congregations; and Blantyre Synod in the south, which has 422 congregations.
CCAP also has one synod each in nearby Zimbabwe and Zambia.

	"We've got to show our colleagues (in Nkhoma) that we will not take
it," Banda said. "All we are trying to do is protect our interests."

	He said Livingstonia will now take a gloves-off approach, extending
its own church-founding efforts south, into Nkhoma territory -- even to the
capital city of Lilongwe.

	According to Kawale, negotiators were making progress toward a
settlement when Livingstonia stopped talking. 

	Kawale also said the new churches that have sprung up across synod
lines have been the natural results of farmers' movements into new areas, not
a Nkhoma land-grab.

	"What happens is that people from our areas establish farms in the
Livingstonia area, and then they start worshiping," he said.

	Sometimes they can't easily travel to Livingstonia houses of worship,
Kawale added, and when they do worship there, they sometimes "cannot
understand what is being preached."

	The Timbuka language is more prevalent in the northern region of
Malawi than Chichewa, the country's official language.

	"It's not we (synod officials) who go there deliberately" to
establish new churches, Kawale said.  "We have never ever made any plan to
establish prayer houses there."

Dispute sends confusing message 

	Officials of both synods agree that the boundary dispute isn't
helping the church as a whole.

	"People are confused," Banda said. "Our values are being questioned.
I think people will stop trusting us."

	Kawale agreed, saying: "It's really, at the moment, confusing the
members."

	The CCAP "should be exemplary in unifying the nation," Kawale said.
"... We need all the five synods to be together."

	The Rev. Felix Chingota, moderator of the CCAP General Assembly, said
his governing body is working " to reconcile the two synods."

	"We have asked the Blantyre Synod to mediate on behalf of the General
Assembly," he said. Blantyre Synod has already talked with Nkhoma officials
and is arranging a meeting with Livingstonia representatives, he said.

	If mediation doesn't resolved the issue, Chingota said, "then the
next step would be for me to ask for a meeting of the general administration
committee of Livingstonia Synod."

	And if that fails, he said, the CCAP will ask its partner churches,
including the PC(USA), to step in and help. 

	The PC(USA) has about 10 mission workers in Malawi assigned by its
Worldwide Ministries Division. They serve in all three CCAP synods.

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