Botswana Christian Council (BCC) said that Christianity will not be threatened by any new religion or religious literature.
He was reacting to a recent SABC radio broadcast of an interview with a certain Apostol Diphakwane who said that he was busy working on another addition to the Bible he dubbed the Third Testament. Diphakwane said that in the document, he would reflect the life of Africans, which he complained is not in the current Bible. He said that he will indicate names of great African leaders who had influence in the liberation struggle. Diphakwane asserted that the current bible encouraged racism and colonialism as it purported that Jesus Christ is a white man while the names of great Africans are not mentioned. However, Diphakwane came under fire from callers who denounced him as evil. They accused him of trying to bring confusion and anarchy into the Christian faith as predicted in one of the books in the Bible. However others applauded him and encouraged him to fight on until he finishes his project.
For Hambira, Diphakwane's attempt is just a publicity stunt. "He is just seeking glory and publicity, a thing he has failed to do during the struggle for liberation and even today during hard times of HIV/AIDS. Where was he all these years when men and women were fighting the apartheid regime? Where has he been and what has he been doing since the AIDS epidemic invaded our lives a long time ago?" Hambira asked. He said that a new testament will not be part of Christianity but a new religion that will take thousands of years for people to understand.
He added that even Diphakwane's African heroes believe in Jesus Christ and wherever they are, they would not be happy to hear that a new religion has been established in their names. "The African leaders he is talking about believed in God and were very happy that God had helped and protected them in hard times". Hambira said that even Islam and Hindu religions came into existence after Christianity. He denounced Diphakwane's idea of sampling some books in the existing Bible to enrich his document as a sign that he was trying to do something he does not know. "Even before he starts writing, he is contemplating sampling from the existing Bible. This is a sign that he is not prepared. I think he should have said that he was writing a re-discovery of Africa or a documented history of our time. It took 2000 years after the birth of Christ for people to understand Christianity and only the credibility of his document will convince people of what he is trying to communicate to them. He must finish his project and that will be the right time for us to comment on it," he said.
"Great African thinkers like Saint Augustine had influence in the religion and the sufferings like slavery, colonialism that Africans went through are similar to those Jesus Christ experienced. When Jesus was born he was almost killed by the Egyptian King. Where is Egypt, is it not in Africa, doesn't that link Africa to the Christian religion? Hambira asked. Unlike Diphakwane, Hambira said that Africans have had a great influence on Christianity.