Cyril Zenda, Religion Unplugged

In November, Zimbabwe’s Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube announced that starting this month, churches in the country would be expected to pay taxes. The announcement caused apprehension among religious leaders, prompting the country’s tax agency, the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority, to clarify that the new tax would apply only to churches’ trading income, not tithes and offerings.

In a move that is widely seen as a major blow to religious freedom, the government of Rwanda has closed more than 4,000 houses of worship over the past month for various infractions that include operating in substandard structures, “unhygienic conditions,” not meeting noise pollution standards and not having formally trained preachers.

The 4,200 churches and mosques have been closed on orders from President Paul Kagame’s government in a resumption of the crackdown on religious groups that started in 2018.

HARARE, Zimbabwe — Looking back on the life journey he has travelled since 2002, when medical tests delivered a bombshell that he was HIV-positive, Rev. Maxwell Kapachawo is satisfied he has been faithful to the assignment that God commissioned him to do… to preach the gospel of hope to the hopeless.