'Catch the cockerel before dawn': Pentecostalism and politics in postcolonial Zimbabwe

The article examines relations between pentecostalism and politics in postc olonial Zimbabwe through a case study of one of Africa's largest pentecosta l movements, Zimbabwe Assemblies of God, Africa (ZAOGA). The Church's relat ions with the state change considerably from the colonial to the postcoloni al era. The movement began as a sectarian township-based organisation which eschewed politics but used white Rhodesian and American contacts to gain r esources and modernise. In the first decade of independence the leadership embraced the dominant discourses of cultural nationalism and development bu t fell foul of the ruling party, ZANU/PF, because of its 'seeming' connecti ons with the rebel politician Ndabiningi Sithole and the American religious right. By the 1990s ZAOGA and ZANU/PF had embraced, each drawing legitimac y from the other. However, this reciprocal assimilation of elites and the a uthoritarianism of ZAOGA's leadership are in tension with the democratic eg alitarian culture found in local assemblies, where the excesses of leaders are challenged. These alternative pentecostal practices are in symbiosis wi th radical township politics and progressive sources in civil society. Thus , while pentecostalism may renew the process of politics in Zimbabwe, it ma y itself be renewed by the outside forces of wider Zimbabwean society.