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Author: Prof> Johnson Odesola
Posted to the web: 10/15/2010 3:53:45 PM


IS IT A DIRECTIVE FROM GOD THAT THE CHURCH SHOULD BE SILENT ON POLITICAL AFFIARS?
 
The answer to the question depends entirely on what you think of politics. ‘Politics,’ says Ambrose Bierce in his Devilâ's dictionary, ‘it is strife of interest masquerading as a contest of principle the conduct of politic affairs for private advantage.’ But what is the Devilâ's definition. As Tokunbo Adeyemo (2009:80) asserted in his book “Is Africa Cursed” The words ‘politics’ and ‘political’ comes from the same Greek root as the words “citizen” and “citizenship. Polites, which means citizen refers to a member of a city or state or inhabitant of a country or district , or simply a citizen. Broadly speaking, ‘politics’ denotes the life of the city, polis and the responsibilities of the citizen, “polites”. Therefore, politics encompasses the entire aspect of life in human society. In the context of such a broad understanding, John Stott (1984:11) defines “politics” as “The art of living in a community”. But in a narrow sense, politics is “the science of government”, which develops and adopts specific policies as enshrined in the constitution and the laws of the land – and as government inevitably has profound consequences for those who are governed, it is unthinkable that the churches voice should not be head in the political arena. When we think of politics in the narrower definition of it, otherwise we are all “politician” or citizen in the broader sense of the word. Tentatively, we can say that in one sense or the other, Christians cannot evade politics although there are some Christians who think they can. Yet this is an illusion because whether you live in a monastery or a jingle, this is a political world. Instead, the question we should ask is “how” and not “whether” a Christian should be involved in politics . The prophets of the Old Testament certainly made their voices heard. They talked vociferously about the vices of the King and the greed of the landowners, about inflation and international treaties, about injustice and luxury. Amos, for example came to the regarded as political agitator and a menace to the establishment. Jeremiah was imprisoned because he spoke against the war. The prophets took up their unenviable task at the command of God because they were concerned about the effects of government upon the common man. It was their way of loving God and loving their neighbour. Given the facts then that the voice of the church ought to be heard in the political arena, how is it to be heard? Bishop to speak to law makers, Clergy to write to the members of the house of Parliament State and Federal. Christian academics contribute to the correspondence columns in national papers. What can be done? I suggest three possibilities. The Christian Witness First, individual Christian, who might be listening for a call to the ordained ministry or to the mission field, or to the social services or to the medicine, should be alert to the possibility of another calling, ie the science of government or politics. The prophets were for the large part of ordinary men/women called of God to influence the decisions which their rulers were making and to summon the nation to the bar of Godâ's judgment. They were not spectacularly successful at the time, but their utterances live on as a constant challenge to rulers and politicians and government officials. The churchâ's voice, if it is to be heard at all from within the political arena rather than from outside it. The spectator may see more of the game but he has scarcely any capacity for influencing the results. The committed Marxist is often to be found in the places of maximum power and influence. He has no need to raise his voice in public. He may be just an under-secretary or the head of department or a newspaperâ's correspondent for political affairs or the convenor of his union branch. Good luck to him – he deserve his success. But it would be a pity if the Christian case, which is often a thoroughly practical and persuasive one, should go by default for lack of anyone to sustain it. The church community Second, the local church should take the science of government seriously and accepts its responsibility at local and national level. There are many practicing Christians in both Houses of assembly, many more in local government and in union management. They need to feel the ground-swell of support from the church; they need more help than they commonly get from the congregation to which they belong. I seldom hear prayers in many churches for the local officials by name. What about the members of house assembly who may be involved in a crucial debate the following week or for the local councillor who has to chair an important meeting on certain burning issues or for the chairperson at the local government as he/she struggles with some bitter dispute? They need to be remembered personally. There are some parishes big enough and flourishing enough to constitute themselves into ‘support group’ who would make it their business, not only to pray but to know and to act. Church and nation Then the church as a whole should attend with greater seriousness to public affairs. There are more people than we sometimes imagine who are calling to the Church to do just that. For the past thirty or more years, for reasons good or for reasons bad, the church in Nigeria and in most countries in Africa has been steadily withdrawing from public life. The time has come to arrest drift. The time has come to try to articulate in political terms the kind of Christian aspirations to which many millions of our countrymen/women still give silent assent. Too often we simply react pressures from outside or protest at decisions already made. We trail rather limply in the wake of enthusiastic that unbalanced minority movements or climb on to bandwagons at just the point where they are grinding to a halt. This is no way for the Church of God to handle its responsibilities to the nation. We enjoy marvellous resources of knowledge, expertise and devotion in the church, but no apparent means of mobilizing them in the interest of a clear and practical approach to the great issues which trouble us all. The leaders of the church have some responsibility for being also leaders of the nation. ‘Ah,’ you will say,’ the church may never agree about anything. How can we achieve a Christian consensus in politics? No consensus is necessary. It is only necessary that Christians should have been expose to the realities of the political situation and are thus able to react to them in the light of their own conscience, added, I trust, by the mind of the Church as it has been exhibited down the centuries. We are not looking for a Christian political party; subject to the whips, voting one way, huddling together, but for Christian in every party of every persuasion who will act and try to cause others to act against the background of Godâ's prevailing will for mankind. We need men and women who are as devoted to Godâ's kingdom as they are to this nation Nigeria and Africa continent. ‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesarâ's and to God the things that are Godâ's,’ Jesus said. We have not begun to penetrate to the meaning of those enigmatic words, but at least they suggest that there are duties to Caesar and there are duties to God. The duties to Caesar are as arduous as the duties to God and not seldom prove to be singularly frustrating. Politics is the art of the possible and compromise to inseparable from it. Solid results depend on the willingness to accept certain conventions and certain inescapable condition. The author of Ecclesiastes tells how ‘there was a little city and a few men within it; and there came a great king against it and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it. Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city. Yet no man remembered that same poor man’ (Ecclesiastes 9:14-15). No matter – he did deliver the city. The Christian in public affairs may not make a name for himself. He may get precious little thanks. But by the gift of divine wisdom he may be enabled to deliver the city. Further readings Desmond Lee. 1987. Plato, the Republic: London, Region books. Michael Green. 1930. Freed to serve: London, holder and Stoughton.
 

Johnson Odesola (PhD) is a Regional Coordinator in the Redeemed Christian Church of God and a Professor of Divinity with Trinity International  Institute of Advance Studies UK/US. He is presently a missionary in Southern Africa based in Zambia