One of the
responsibilities with which the Church has been saddled is ‘compliance with
established authority’, because God identified every authority that be – as
divined.
“Let every soul be
subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from
God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever
resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will
bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to
evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you
will have praise from the same. For he is God's minister to you for good. But
if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is
God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.
Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for
conscience' sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God's
ministers attending continually to this very thing. Render therefore to all
their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom
fear, honor to whom honor.” (Rom 13:1-7, NKJV).
In view of this
requirement (obedience to the government from the Church), the Church is not to
compromise her purpose – not allowing politics and politicians to take her to
ransom: if we look at it very well, all over the world, politics had become a
trade.
It became a trade
because of all the pranks involved in its practice, and the Church, though
cannot totally be separated from the government, must put a differentiation of
purposes between her-self and the government.
The Church exists for
the salvation of lost souls, as well as, the salvation of sinners; she exists
for the exhortation of the saints; and the preparation of all – for the second
coming of Jesus Christ.
Politics on the hand,
occupy itself with the governance of affairs of a people, a nation, a
community, and beyond (so far it relates to regulations of people’s conformity
to the set standards).
The major
differentiation between the Church and politics is that, the Church uses the
Holy Bible as her basics, while politics use constitution – formed by men of
various degrees of character complacency, as basics.
Politics being a trade
therefore, must be separated from the Church: this is not to say that
Christians should not engage in politics, but what we are trying to clarify
here is the fact that – Church and politics have no correlations in their
purposes. The Church exists in a way to support the government, but the people
in government are to yield theirselves to God, through the Church – by giving
their lives to Jesus Christ.
“Then Jesus went into
the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple,
and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold
doves. And He said to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a
house of prayer,' but you have made it a 'den of thieves.'" (Matt
21:12-13, NKJV).
All politicians can be
said to possess the characters that Jesus listed in this scripture, Matt 21:12-13, but the Church, not all
denominations, is given these politicians – the free-hand to politicise the
Church, for the forthcoming 2015 General-Elections, which will hold in the
month of February.
Not mentioning any
church in particular, why would a General Overseer, General Superintendent, or
National Evangelist (of a denomination in Nigeria) openly endorse a political
office aspirant before his/her congregation – encouraging the congregants to vote
for the aspirant? Is that among the forms of support that were enumerated in Rom 13:1-7 or should we say that those
ministers that engage in such practices are all ‘money-bag’ pastors, teachers,
evangelists, prophets, apostles, bishops, and whatever else that they might
call themselves?
It should be noted
that the Church comprises people of different affiliations: there are so many
political parties’ representatives in each Church that the resident pastor of
the Church could not just associate himself or herself with a particular party by
endorsing an aspirant against others, because it is tantamount to forming a
caucus against other parties.
This is why we have
always maintained the stand that, ministers of the gospel should not engage in politics.
However, they should use their positions to instill godliness in their entire
congregation, and avoid being bought-over by any politicians, either in their
congregation or from outside their respective churches.