In Uganda, where I live, some church leaders’ car keys are known to pass certain hands before they get to the priest.
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We all kind of know it, a diocese appointment comes, not just with a responsibility to feed and nurture souls, but a recognition from a politician in town, represented by car keys.
The scenario represents the state of politics in the Ugandan church, our society, which is already bent towards respectability, easily bows to politicians when they show up at the church door. It’s as if their amens are more hallowed than ours.
This, ironically, also represents the politically centred humans we all are. We head to church on Sunday but speak into, and assess the day’s politics just like everyone else. Though we know our King, we whine about government, like they do, we Tweet our vendetta, tyrants despair us, and so do their cohorts, sometimes rightly so, sometimes obsessively so.
Of late, this irony has got me wondering whether there is any difference between those who give politicians front seats in churches (and get car keys in return) and normal believers like us, who struggle to shake off political rhetoric from the call to cultivate a renewed mind?
I have since arrived to these nugget reflections, as a result. Ponder with me.
The inspired writer of Psalm 73 laments the plight of a man-centred life, and eventually refers to himself as a senseless mammal (vs 22) for having assessed all things only materially.
If you don’t like the government God’s wise providence has put you under, don’t let whining blind you from the purposes God is still achieving even amidst the most corrupt. This does not mean believers should condone tyrants and abusers of human dignity, it’s a call to stay attentive to the subversive and often undercover movements of the Kingdom of God, even when your siblings are selling you to Egypt, or Potiphar’s wife is pulling your robe.
Citizen welfare is part of the biblical call to love my neighbour, yet Paul, a Roman citizen, seemed eager to remind believers of their citizenship in heaven. There’s certainly a higher citizenship that informs this one.
The election that ultimately informs all elections is the one God conducted for believers in eternity according to Ephesians 1:4. Not that voting is evil, but voting without recalling this has the potential to defraud your soul, here and now, if not eternally.
Christ amidst his oppression, never seemed intimidated by Pilate’s intensity, he reminded him of the source of his authority (John 19:11). He that would command a thousand angels to show up, withstood a mere man drunk with power.
True, church leaders everywhere need to put Christ, not Ceasar, at the centre of public worship, but now I wonder where that leaves the majority of us, who don’t receive cars from politicians per se, but privately swim in political rhetoric all week?
By putting politics far from our quest for a renewed mind, we would ideally be following those who (hopefully) will try to keep politicians in the backseat on Sundays.
