As movements of healing and exorcism so-called African Independent Churches (AICs) were disparaged and persecuted by colonial officials and missionaries alike in Southern Rhodesia. Led by prophets who convened meetings of white-robe wearing adherents under trees in the African wilderness (reserves), their pneumatic practices of glossolalia and deliverance appeared as uncapturable discourses to Europeans who cast them as reversions to paganism, syncretistic and a threat to the social order. Moreover, AICs' rejection of biomedicine for divine healing, and dismissal of literacy and education in favour of divine revelation and self-reliance put them on the wrong side of the colonial project. On the other hand, they were celebrated in scholarship as examples of cultural resilience, proto-nationalism and models of authentic African Christianity -- the future of the Church in Independent Africa. Nevertheless, their persecution continued for the first two decades following Zimbabwe's independence. As in many post-colonial African regimes, Zimbabwe's ruling party drew much legitimacy from its programme of modernising development and expected civil society to acquiesce to its goals. AICs were maligned in the religious press and by state media. Their outdoor worship was curtailed by local government regulations. However, once Zimbabwe's economic and political crisis struck in the 2000s AICs were embraced by the ruling party. Politicians in search of legitimation and votes attended their services and conventions and AIC leaders were rewarded with state patronage. The paper will examine the reasons for this realignment. It will discuss a related series of issues around patriarchy, the glorification of the rural, sovereignty, indigenous leadership, and theologies of land.