Chapter 1

My Journey leading to this book

I was born into a family that had followed the Christian faith for two generations before me. Both my paternal and maternal grandparents were ardent Christians, having been ‘reached’ by missionaries in the late 1800s to early 1900s. This zeal for the faith spread through the family line and became a foundational cornerstone for us. Such is probably a similar story amongst many African families.

In 2010, a journey began for me that was triggered by four needling questions that settled in my heart and would not leave until I found answers for them.

1. “Why do I live in a country where people who supposedly profess Christianity are the majority, and yet there is very little evidence of the culture that the Bible speaks of prevailing in the society?”

In fact, the reverse appeared to be true. Many African nations claiming the highest percentages of Christian populations often proved to be among the most corrupt, the most materialistic, marked by a fixation on wealth, and displaying behaviour contrary to the teachings of the Bible.

2. “How is it possible that Africa is now considered to be the most Christian evangelized continent (with ‘crusades’ where millions of people seemingly pledge allegiance to Christianity daily) and yet there is no manifestation of ‘the blessing’ that the Bible speaks of that should flow upon a people who are walking in agreement with God?”

Again, the opposite seemed to be the case with the equation almost always reading as follows, ‘more Christianity in Africa equals more poverty’ and likewise ‘more churches in Africa equals more poverty’.

3. “Why has God blessed us with such abundance in the riches and wealth of natural resources, far more than any other people on earth, and yet we continue to be the begging bowl of the world?” “Why does everyone else in the world prosper from what we as Africans have been given, and yet we are the poorest people on earth, failing to convert our God given wealth from the land into prosperity for all on the continent?”

Again, the contradiction of seeing the nations of Africa with churches on every street corner, having all-night prayer vigils, declaring words of faith, national prayer breakfasts, and yet the reality was and remains that the fountain of poverty continues to flow steadily upon the people despite their supposed commitment to Christianity.

4. The first three questions lead to the fourth, which will form a big part of what follows in this book.

“Are we, as dark-skinned people, cursed by God, and does He really love us in the same way as He loves Caucasians (white skinned people)? Because when I look at systemic poverty, depravity, the scourge of sickness and disease, it always seems to be the dark-skinned people in the world who are affected the most.”

Once again, the contradiction is evident. How can this be when we have churches on every street corner, when we are celebrating that we are now the most Christian evangelised continent, when we are so spiritual, praying, fasting, and engaging in spiritual warfare like no other continent, and yet the reality is that things are getting worse?

It simply stopped making sense, and I could no longer keep up the pretence that all was well.

In my mind, the difficult, nagging questions I had to face became: “Is Christianity real?” “Is the Bible true?” “Who exactly is God, and how do I get to know Him?”

The dots were not connecting – there was too much contradiction between what the Bible says and the reality I was experiencing all around me. I was not seeing the evidence of what the Bible says should be happening, and so either the Bible was false, or perhaps what Christianity had taught me about the Bible was false, or maybe my concept of God and who He is was false.

It is these four questions that launched my journey of seeking truth and answers. This is what this book is all about – sharing my journey so far of seeking truth in a world that is largely built on lies.

History is filled with many stories of wars and conquests where one people group, tribe, or nation defeats another and then controls them. Most, if not all, these conquests are linked to the insatiable desire for the acquisition of resources (in the form of both labour and natural wealth) for economic gain and power.

In this book, the terms ‘the conqueror’ and ‘the conquered’ will be used quite a lot.

The term ‘the conqueror’ refers to those who have left their own lands of abode in quest of the acquisition of what belongs to another. Likewise, the term ‘the conquered’ refers mainly to indigenous/native peoples whose lands have been invaded so that what belongs to them is brought under subjugation to ‘the conqueror’.

I spent most of 2024 studying history from the perspective and narrative of ‘the conquered'. Mainstream narratives of history are primarily driven by the victorious (“the conquerors”) to justify their ‘victories’ over the defeated (“the conquered”) and the reasons and means they used to conquer them. This is done to create a foundation of generational self-righteousness to secure their position in the future. The main narratives of history in the world today are based on Greco-Roman, Ottoman, Germanic, and Anglo-Saxon 'victories'.

Sadly, the African narrative and likewise that of most 'dark skinned people' and indigenous/native people in most lands across the earth is largely 'lost' in mainstream history because they constitute the majority of ‘the conquered'.

This same trend permeates deeply into narratives of religion, and especially Christianity, through the images used in depictions of biblical characters and assumptions made about biblical identities, definitions of words, locations where events took place, and many more issues that will be raised in this book.

Greco-Roman power captured the original ancient Hebrew text of the Bible and influenced the decisions on which scriptural texts made it into the recognised canon of the 66 books of the Bible and which ones did not. Scripts of the biblical books such as Enoch, Jasher, Jubilees, Esdras, etc., to name a few, which are referred to as the apocrypha today, have been retained in the Ethiopian Bible and provide fascinating insights that have been ‘hidden’ because they did not fit the narrative that “the conqueror” wanted in the scriptures. Such evidence of this capture and manipulation is seen in how certain Holy scriptures were translated or left out to suit 'the conquerors' narrative, as was seen in the example of the 'Negro Slave Bible' which was first published in 1807 and used as a mechanism through which to conquer and oppress the Negroes. The same applies to other versions of the Bible that have been released, even up to today, and used as weapons of suppression of either people or truth. It seems that identities and certain sections of 'the Truth of the Word/the Holy Scriptures' have been captured by ‘the conquerors' at the expense of ‘the conquered', but even more critically at the expense of life-giving truth that The Most High GOD of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob made available for all mankind.

One of the big questions that I was seeking answers to in my search was "What is the historical narrative of the native tribes in the USA and Canada, the native Aborigines in Australia, the Māori in New Zealand, and of course, us here in Africa?" “What about the descendants of those who ended up being taken from the continent in slave ships to the various lands in the Americas?”

I remember, as a child, watching 'Cowboy and Indian’ movies on a black and white television or going to the bioscope (as cinemas were called then), in which the narrative would always be that of the 'savage, uncivilized, ungodly, hostile native Indians' attacking without provocation the 'heroic and virtuous Bible carrying settler Cowboys' who had discovered the Americas and were bringing civilization. The same 'uncivilised native villain' script was used in almost all African, slavery, and Aboriginal documentaries that I watched as a child. Little did I know at the time that the basis of this 'conquering spirit' is found in the Doctrine of Discovery that came from the Catholic Church. Deep in my heart I carried the painful emotions and confusion of why we as Africans were created to be inferior on the basis of the colour of our skin.

The Doctrine of Discovery

The Doctrine of Discovery is a policy enacted initially by the 15th-century Catholic Church proclaiming the right of Christian nations to take possession of the lands of non-Christians in the interest of saving their souls. Non-Christians were not recognised as legitimate landowners, and any lands 'discovered' by Christian explorers were claimed as the property of the so-called discoverers' nation. The Doctrine of Discovery (also known as the Discovery Doctrine) is articulated, first, by a papal bull issued in 1452, another in 1455, and the best-known in 1493, shortly after the 1492 expedition of Christopher Columbus and his 'discovery' of the so-called New World. The 1493 papal bull made clear the duty of Christian explorers to seize the lands of non-Christians to Christianise the inhabitants and bring them within the folds of European Christian civilisation.

Shortly after the European colonizers first encountered the indigenous population of the Americas in 1492, they returned armed with the policy issued by Pope Alexander VI in 1493, which claimed that any land, anywhere, not under the flag of a sovereign Christian nation, could be taken by whoever 'discovered' it, and whatever indigenous people found there converted to Christianity.

Native Americans and, in fact, most indigenous tribes across the earth did not believe one could own land because, unbeknown to them, they followed the biblical principle as is written in Leviticus 25:23 where the GOD of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had given an instruction that, 'the land must not be sold permanently because the land is Mine, for you are strangers and sojourners with Me.' And so in obedience to this principle, most indigenous tribes believed that they were to be stewards of the land and not title deed owners, while, to the European colonisers, owning land was their God-given right.

The Doctrine of Discovery had major implications for Africa as it formed the foundation of the strategy to conquer the continent as a precursor to the 1884-1885 Berlin Congo West Africa Conference, where the formal partitioning of Africa took place, and the land of Africa and its people became the fiefdom of European nations.

Capturing ‘the Way’

The pressing question that weighed heavily on my mind and demanded an answer was, “Is it possible that the religion of Christianity was used as a great weapon in ‘the conqueror’s' arsenal to conquer 'the conquered'? It seemed to be a sacred cow that should not be challenged, but I soon found myself asking, “What is the religion of Christianity anyway? Is it not what was created when the Greco-Romans (mainly through the emperor Constantine) captured 'The Way' (as the ancient followers of the Messiah called their faith) and added their own culture (doctrines of demons and traditions of man adopted from the pagan worship of the Romans and the philosophy of Greek men) which promoted the worship of Greek gods, and yet who claimed to be the ‘church fathers’ of Christianity holding the right to determine biblical doctrine? Did they not capture the pure word of the Bible to defile it and make it conform to their agenda of domination?

As a clarifying note, "The Way" is the true doctrine of the Good News, as the true and original followers of the Holy Scriptures were named as a group. More on this will be addressed further in the book, but for scriptural references’ sake, the term ‘people of The Way’ can be found in these verses: Acts 9:2, Acts 19:23, Acts 24:14 and Acts 24:22, amongst others.

One of the paths I have and continue to relentlessly pursue is "What was 'The Way' before the rulers, principalities and powers of Greece and Rome captured it and tampered with it? Is this not what we all need to get back to?

Is the key that we are looking for linked directly to returning to the original of what was given in the full scriptures of the Bible, and not what “the conqueror” has established as doctrine?

This journey is, has been and will continue to be very controversial and provocative. I suppose this is the sort of questioning of the 'status quo' that would have resulted in being declared a Christian heretic, excommunicated, and burnt at the stake in past times.

Getting in touch with my position as ‘the conquered’

A big part of my journey was getting in touch with my position as “the conquered”.

On the 23rd of September 2023, I climbed up Mt Nyangani, which is the highest mountain in my birth country of Zimbabwe. My great-grandfather and the Kuwana clan used to call the foothills of that mountain home until they were removed when Cecil John Rhodes decided he needed a 97,000-acre estate around the mountain, and hundreds of families in that area were dispossessed of their land in the 1890s, becoming nomads as a consequence. (It was quite sobering for me to think that this happened as recently as 80 years before I was born). The entire countries of Zimbabwe and Zambia then became known as Rhodesia (Southern and Northern). We became “conquered” as an entire people group and given the name/identity of one man, Rhodes, as we would be born in Rhodesia and carry a national identity as Rhodesians.

I undertook two trips to Germany/Europe in November 2023 and February 2024 to coincide with the anniversaries of the 15^th of November start and 26th of February end (1884 to 1885) of the Berlin Congo West Africa conference where Africa was truly 'conquered' as 14 Western nations decided how they would colonise and divide Africa as spoil among themselves (with no representation from Africa allowed at the meeting). The fate of the land and resources of Africa (and the inheritance of its people) was, therefore, decided without an African even being present. The final Berlin Act of 1885 to plunder Africa was signed 'in the name of the Lord' as the signed agreement shows. Interestingly, Christianity was a part of the strategy, since the Catholic church's 1452, 1455 and 1493 Doctrine of Discovery Papal Bulls had given license for indigenous lands to be freely taken if the natives were not deemed to be Christian.

Explorers and Christian missionaries played a vital role in setting the stage for the Berlin conference. They mapped territories, negotiated treaties with local populations, and promoted narratives justifying European expansion onto the continent. Figures such as Henry Morton Stanley conducted expeditions into the Congo Basin on behalf of King Leopold II of Belgium. He established treaties with local leaders that later led to Belgium's sovereignty over the region. Missionaries carried out similar tasks, seeking to spread Christianity and Western values across the continent. These missionaries often aligned their goals with those of colonial expansion. Missions established in these regions were used as early posts of European values, blending their religious objectives with political ones. Reports by explorers and missionaries painted Africa as a land of opportunity and a perfect target for the ‘civilising mission’, and so Christianity became the primary tool used to conquer us.