HARARE – Reverend Kenneth Mtata, the secretary general of the Zimbabwe Council of Churches, is on a two-person shortlist to become the next general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF).

The 49-year-old will vie for the position with Estonian Reverend Anne Burghardt of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church.

Mtata, the leader of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe, told ZimLive that being on such a narrow shortlist was a “huge recognition” and “an honour.”

The 48-member LWF Council will elect the next general secretary on June 19.

The position of general secretary will be vacant from November 1, 2021, when Chilean incumbent Reverend Martin Junge leaves office. He announced he would step down in May last year.

Junge was elected for a first seven-year term in November 2010 and re-elected by the Council for a second term in 2017.

Canadian Bishop Susan Johnson, who headed a seven-member committee to search for the next general secretary of the LWF said she recommended both candidates “for their leadership skills, pastoral sensitivity, and wide experience of the global communion of 148 member churches.”

The Lutheran Church has a presence in 99 countries.

LWF President Archbishop Dr Panti Filibus Musa said: “The search committee has presented us with two excellent candidates for the post of our next general secretary. I’m grateful for their hard work and confident that the LWF will have strong leadership in the years to come.”

As secretary general of the Zimbabwe Council of Churches, Reverend Mtata has made several unsuccessful attempts to promote dialogue between the ruling Zanu PF party, the main opposition MDC Alliance and other interest groups.

Citing violence, a political and economic paralysis and incurable polarisation, the ZCC in 2019 also tabled a plan which would see elections in Zimbabwe “paused” for seven years “to allow for the rebuilding of trust,” but there was no appetite for the proposal among the main political protagonists.

Reverend Mtata holds a PhD in theology from the University of KwaZulu Natal where he once taught theology at undergraduate and post-graduate programmes and also at Fachhochschule für Interkulturelle Theologie in Germany. He has also been a visiting scholar in Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, the United States and Sweden.

Reverend Mtata was born on November 17, 1971, in Mberengwa.