The Editor Zambia
Former National Guidance and Religious Affairs Minister Godfridah Sumaili’s condemnation of the decision to merge Zambia’s October 18 National Day of Prayer, Fasting, Repentance and Reconciliation with the December 29 National Day of Prayer and Christian Heritage raises a fundamental question: is her outrage genuinely about protecting the Christian faith, or is it another attempt to turn a government administrative decision into a political controversy?
Sumaili has described the abolition of the October 18 public holiday as a betrayal of Christians and an affront to God.
She argues that a day dedicated to repentance and fasting cannot be combined with a celebration of Zambia’s declaration as a Christian nation. 
These concerns deserve to be heard, but they should not be accepted uncritically. The government has not abolished national prayer or removed Zambia’s Christian heritage from the public calendar.
Instead, it introduced a single public holiday on December 29, incorporating the prayer element into the commemoration of the country’s Christian identity.
One may reasonably debate whether the two occasions should remain separate. Prayer, fasting, and repentance have a different emphasis from celebrating a national declaration.
However, a disagreement over the arrangement of public holidays is not automatically evidence of hostility towards Christianity, nor does it justify the dramatic suggestion that the country is turning its back on God.
More troubling is the political context surrounding Sumaili’s intervention.
During the previous Patriotic Front (PF) administration, she served as Minister of National Guidance and Religious Affairs, a portfolio created under President Edgar Lungu’s government to give institutional prominence to religious affairs and the declaration of Zambia as a Christian nation.
She was the political office-holder responsible for a ministry specifically established around this agenda.
There is nothing inherently wrong with creating a ministry to promote religious values. However, it is legitimate to question whether Sumaili’s present position reflects a consistent principle about the relationship between faith and the State or a political disagreement with the government of President Hakainde Hichilema.
Having occupied a political position that placed her at the centre of the State’s religious affairs machinery, she cannot credibly present herself as though the issue exists outside politics.
Her former office makes it particularly important for her to distinguish genuine theological objections from partisan opposition.
If the central concern is the spiritual significance of October 18, she should explain why the incorporation of prayer into the December 29 observance makes national repentance impossible.
Does the spiritual value of prayer depend on a particular date being declared a public holiday? Can Christians not fast, repent, and seek reconciliation without a day off work?
These are not trivial questions. They go to the heart of whether faith is being defended as a living spiritual commitment or as a political symbol.
Developments in Britain offer a useful comparison. Research by the thinktank Theos, based on a survey of 1,765 adults conducted in April 2026, found that the people most strongly inclined towards Christian nationalism were often more concerned with defending Britain’s Christian heritage than with practising Christianity.
Although 81 per cent of this group identified as Christian, only 13 per cent attended church weekly.
The findings highlight an important distinction between practising a faith and using it as a marker of national identity.
Christianity can become a political badge, invoked to define who belongs to a country without a corresponding commitment to the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Britain’s debate over Christian identity is not identical to Zambia’s circumstances. Zambia has constitutionally declared itself a Christian nation while also protecting freedom of conscience and worship.
Nevertheless, the British experience provides a warning against confusing the public visibility of Christianity with the strength of religious commitment.
The Christian message is not merely about preserving symbols, holidays, and declarations. It is also about humility, honesty, compassion, justice, forgiveness, and concern for the vulnerable.
This is an area where our former minister lamentably fails to tick because if one reads between the lines, one can tell that she is lamenting the loss of her position rather than the decision to merge the holiday.
If Sumaili’s concern is genuinely spiritual, it should rise above partisan calculations. Otherwise, what is presented as a defence of Christianity is less a theological intervention and more like opposition politics conducted in the language of religion.
