01 02 03 OLEM EDGE GLOBAL CONCEPT: Issue 4 Editorial: Turning the Church to political campaign ground 04 05 15 16 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 31 32 33

Issue 4 Editorial: Turning the Church to political campaign ground

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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.

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