Professor sharp pen stabs Anglican bishop, Malawians call for restraint

Malawians are calling for a ceasefire in the Anglican church of Upper Shire after a leaked letter from a University professor shows crude, unholy language against bishop Brighton Malasa.

University of Malawi’s professor Paul Kishindo describes the bishop as a juvenile delinquent.

This was after Malasa had ex-communicated Kishindo and 20 others over church politics, a decision the bishop rescinded later.

“As a matter of principle, I refrain from engaging in arguments with intellectual midgets; but your most recent pranks in which you purport to have excommunicated me and more than twenty others from the Anglican church is so blatantly stupid that it cannot go without comment,” says Kishindo in his opening letter to Bishop Malasa.

Malasa has been fighting with some rebels within the church who do not recognize his authority, accuse him of abuse of office and church money, allegations Malasa denies.

“In that stupid act, you arrogate to yourself powers that you do not have. I am not sure if you sought the advice of the Chancellor; but on past second it is likely that you did not seek his advice, otherwise he would not have allowed this public stupidity to happen,” says Kishindo in his letter in reference to his excommunication from the church.

Adds Kishindo in the letter: “I believe the Chancellor has a professional reputation which your impulsive actions, fueled by alcohol, are tarnishing by association.

“It never ceases to amaze me how an intellectual efulefu like you assumes a ‘know it all’ attitude…”

Kishindo describes Malasa as a damn fool, saying he believed the excommunication order, ‘probably written in drunken stupor” would be obeyed.

Kishindo accuses Malasa of ‘buying’ a doctor of divinity degree from a conman to boost his social status, whilst him has a chain of degrees from real universities and a professorship to match.

“If there is one person that should be expelled from the church it is you. You have brought the Anglican church into disrepute.

“Your everyday life is a complete negation of all that the Lord Jesus Christ represented during his sojourn on earth. Your name has become synonymous with immorality and wickedness,” says the letter.

There was no immediate comment from Malasa but his office said the bishop had received the letter.

Last week, scores of church faithful held a vigil at his residence at Chilema in Zomba to force him out of office.