HARARE, Zimbabwe — No money, no phones, no school, no medicine — and no questions.

This is what life was like in Canaan, the shrine of an African Apostolic faith church on the outskirts of Zimbabwe’s capital Harare, where police last month rescued hundreds of people — including more than 250 children — forced to believe that they were being prepared to depart for heaven.

As Zimbabwe remains in the throes of its harshest drought in more than three decades — what scientists say are effects of the El Niño phenomenon linked to climate change — for members of this African Apostolic cult, the natural disaster is a well-deserved sign from God.

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To them, the drought and other calamities afflicting the people of Zimbabwe are a result of their acts of disobedience to God. Among those sins, according to them, has been immunizing children, taking the sick to hospital, sending children to school and allowing non-virgins to marry.

Led by Ismael Chokurongerwa, a self-styled prophet, the sect is notorious for its strict doctrine that members had to follow as they waited for the end of the world. At the shrine, at a plot in the Nyabira farming area, some 25 miles (40 kilometers) northwest of the capital Harare, Chokurongerwa — commonly known by the Apostolic honorific title ‘Madzibaba’ Ishmael — ran his doomsday cult on what he claimed to be strict instructions from God.

That was until March 12 when police raided the shrine and arrested Chokurongerwa and seven others who ran the sect. In the raid, authorities found hundreds of people living at the shrine in inhuman conditions, among them 251 children, who were being made to believe that they were being kept in safe isolation from a contaminated world in readiness for the after life.

Chokurongerwa and the others face charges of violating the country’s Children’s Act as well the Burial and Cremation Act after it was discovered that 246 of them had no birth certificates and did not go to school — instead spending their time toiling at the farm for the benefit of the cult leaders.

Police also discovered 16 graves of people that had died at the shrine, some of them under questionable circumstances, but whose death had never been registered with the government. More than 400 people died and hundreds of others were rescued at a similar doomsday cult in Kenya last year.

African Apostolic Church well-established in Zimbabwe

The Johanne Marange Apostolic Church — named after its founder — started in Zimbabwe in the 1930s and has since spread throughout East and Southern Africa, commanding a following that, according to some estimates, runs into tens of millions.

The sect’s doctrines are not based on the Bible, but on what the leadership claims to be instructions from the Holy Spirit. Its strict doctrine on faith healing does not allow its members to use modern medicine, including vaccines and immunization. It also bars children from attending schools, among other things.

The sect is also synonymous with polygamous marriages, and it is into these marriages that older men — who claim to be following instructions from God — take little girls as wives.

While child marriages are prevalent in most parts of Africa, in Zimbabwe this trend is especially rife in this church, a group that mixes evangelical Christian beliefs with traditional African cultures. One of its leaders Noah Taguta Momberume, who died last year, had 23 wives, 120 children and more than 300 grandchildren. There are now more than 600 offshoot sects from the original Johanne Marange church.

Sects like Chokurongerwa’s, whose doctrines still actively promote child marriages, justify the practice as a preemptive measure to “protect” the girls from falling into permanent impurity that comes with indulging in pre-marital sex. At Chokurongerwa’s compound, men who married non-virgins were reportedly being ordered to divorce their wives in exchange for young girls raised at the shrine, authorities said.

It is these beliefs that have put the sect, and others like it, into direct collision with the government and human rights groups over the years. While members of some of these sects are increasingly embracing modern medicine and education among other things that were not acceptable in the parent church, there are however some that continue to enforce adherence to the original doctrine.

Extremists like Chokurongerwa even go to the extent of banning money, phones and many such earthly things while supposedly preparing their followers for the end of the world.

Cult disowned

At the same time, other members of the African Apostolic family are unhappy at being painted with a broad brush, but it also isn’t the first time Chokurongerwa’s cult has attracted the attention of the authorities. In 2015, he was imprisoned for five years for attacking police officers, journalists and Apostolic Christian Council of Zimbabwe (ACCZ) officials that had visited his shrine to investigate allegations of abuse of women and children.

Then ACCZ president, Bishop Johannes Ndanga, testified in court against Chokurongerwa and his sect, saying their practices ran contrary to Apostolic faith doctrines. Shortly after Chokurongerwa’s latest arrest, Obey Mapuranga, the head of a local grouping of Apostolic and Zion church organizations, hastily called a news conference at which he condemned the practices at the cultic shrine.

“We do not encourage our followers to engage minors in child marriages,” Mapuranga said. “People must treat Madzibaba Ishmael and his sect as an isolated case that it is.”

Bishop Andby Makururu, the leader of Johanne the Fifth of Africa International Church, one of the mainstream Apostolic church sects told Religion Unplugged that while it is true that there is still a remnant from their sects that is holding on to the old church doctrines, a majority of them are embracing modernity and change.

“Yes, there is still resistance in some quarters, especially among the Johanne Masowe eChishanu and Johanne Marange sects, but with time they will also embrace use of modern medicines,” Makururu said. “As I am speaking, work is actually going on at a modern hospital that we are building for our members and the community … because we believe that people who need medical care should get it. It is also not true that all members of African Apostolic sects are opposed to education. … I myself, am actually a holder of a PhD that I have earned.”

State inaction and political connections

With about a third of Zimbabwe’s 16 million citizens linked to these sects, it is the second largest Christian denomination in the country after the Catholic church. Because of their numerical strength, these sects are a key electoral constituency that the country’s political leaders always seek to endear themselves to.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his predecessor, the late Robert Mugabe, have traditionally maintained close ties with the various Apostolic church sects, regularly visiting their shrines where they would be given favorable “prophesies” about their political fortunes ahead of elections.

Most of these sects openly campaign for these political leaders, giving human rights groups reason to believe that this relationship usually leads to government inaction in cases of human rights violations in these sects. In the past, church leaders under the banner Zimbabwe Heads of Christian Denominations, expressed concern over cases sexual abuse of women and girls that it said are prevalent in these churches.

“It is now common knowledge that women and girls remain vulnerable before religious and other powerful figures whom they expect to provide them with support especially in times of social, spiritual, and economic need,” ZHOCD said in a statement in the aftermath of the death of a victim of child marriage.

ZHOCD is a body of various Christian religious groups that includes the Zimbabwe Council of Churches, the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops Conference and the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe.

“We are concerned that so many cases involving popular religious men accused of abusing women and girls have not resulted in a transparent investigation trail and successful prosecutions,” the group added.

Activists seek to end abusive doctrines

Sharon Moffat, a human rights activist, together with the Legal Resources Foundation and Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe, are suing the church, seeking to stop it from promoting doctrines that are harmful to women and children.

“The gospel preached by the first defendant (Marange Apostolic Church of St Johanne), and the religious values it espouses are also the hallmark of the more than 600 Indigenous Apostolic African Churches represented by the second defendant (Apostolic Churches Council),” Moffat and the two NGOs said in court documents.

They argued that some members have taken to child marriages, falsely claiming the practice to be part of their religious beliefs.

“In breach of first defendant’s doctrine, faith and the laws of Zimbabwe, certain of its membership have taken to marrying and/or are marrying off girl children falsely claiming that to be part of their religious beliefs,” the groups added. “In the wake of these breaches, first and second defendant have not taken a position to affirm their true beliefs and faith and to disassociate themselves from their adherents who violate the law in their name.”

Moffat, LRF and WCoZ want the court to declare that the practice of child marriages not an essential element of the religious beliefs of Marange Apostolic Church of St. Johanne and the organizations represented by Apostolic Churches Council and deem it against the law. Human rights groups in Zimbabwe said are happy, for example, that Mozambique has since banned the Johanne Marange sect in that country over its doctrine promoting child marriages and disregarding health rights.

Stockholm Syndrome and double standards

Chokurongerwa, however, has many supporters — even among those who aren’t members. Despite well-documented cases of human rights abuses, Apostolic churches have remained widely popular in Zimbabwe where their membership cuts across all socio-economic classes.

This comes as the police are currently investigating the mysterious death of Professor Itai Muhwati, a dean at the University of Zimbabwe, who was one of Chokurongerwa’s disciples and whose family claim to have been buried alive at the Canaan shrine.

Many said they find the continued popularity of these sects baffling. Cornelius Dudzai, an academic who has studied these Apostolic sects, said the continued popularity of these sects is best explained in terms of the Stockholm Syndrome.

“People continue to subscribe to abusive cults because of different reasons,” Dudzai said. “Firstly, Zimbabweans have been subjected to a culture of abuse and suffering to the extent that they have normalized such a status quo. To that effect, they consider abuse in churches as normal. The other thing is that in Christianity, people have been made to believe that they need to endure suffering so that they can see heaven. Suffering abuse in the church is therefore a form of qualifying for heaven. In summary, it is Stockholm Syndrome which makes people continue to be members of abusive cults.”

Despite the sect’s avowed stance against modern medical practices, Dudzai and his colleagues said with curiosity that the church’s leader, the late Taguta Momberume, had used corrective lenses for a long time, raising eyebrows about his own adherence to the church’s doctrine on faith healing.

“It is quite interesting to note that at the time of his death, Noah Taguta (Momberume) was putting on spectacles after experiencing eyesight problems for over a decade,” Dudzai and his colleagues noted in a study. “Believers believed that Noah Taguta might have got the spectacles at the recommendation of an optician. This is despite that church congregants were discouraged from seeking medical care at hospitals. It will therefore be significant for future research to establish how separate laws for leadership and general congregants are deployed in the church.”

Cyril Zenda is a Christian and an African journalist and writer based in Harare, Zimbabwe.