CHURCH AND POLITICs: What Put One into the Other?
6 min readCHURCH AND POLITICS: what puts one into the other?
(The case of Emmanuel Jieng Cathedral in Juba city)
By KON Joseph LEEK
Emmanuel Jieng cathedral, one of the churches used as a forum for the Monyjang’s disgruntled politicians who usually turned demagogue seeking for congregation’s sympathy making the church almost turned in to political ground.
To believe it, go any Sunday especially those ones that ends the moons when there is a huge gathering and attend the prayers.
At the langsyne, the chances which are currently called “chances for greetings” were used to be called chances for “thank giving”, other churches called it “chances for testimonies”. These thanks giving chances or testimonies were usually given to those ones who might have had difficulties in the past but the “Son of Mary” has delivered them, those ones who were sick but got recovered due to the power of lord, those ones who would want to have a journey and would want the children of the “Most High” to pray for them in order to travel safely.
In the past too, there was no class’ consideration in the “greeting chances” for you all know that almost all the Junubin were peasants because we were busy running in the bush searching for our lost home, South Sudan from the hands of the then Khartoum regimes who had lost it. Junubin’s difference of social class was only in military rank not in wealth’s possession, so those times peasants were the acceptance, or was it that the church had no choice or was it the system? Now, it is completely hard to see a peasant on the church’s podium unless you see him (peasant) in a collar, preaching and supposed in anything, consideration is to be put highly on anything that has the fingerprint of the most high.
Again, a little more of that has been added, political campaign. The”disgruntled Dinka political heavy weights” are the most dominant in the “greeting chances”, which chances most of them use them to either talk against the government or praise it and that is mostly after the “reshuffles” or shortly before it. Others tend to be sarcastic against others or government but the congregation seems to take pleasure in it (this is the time you really pity those ones who His Excellency’s (Gen. Kiir Mayar kuethpiny Lual) decrees have not favored because the tense qui vive times of expectations have gone and now they would be looking for a revenge and fortunate ones appreciating his Excellency; you know politic is all about quid pro quo’s expectations.
Among the congregation, many people goes solely for political words which they would listen from the politicians and when they return home, they seem to know more of what the politicians said than what was preached.
We understand that South Sudan is where politic is heating violently and everyone has a bit of his/her effect or symptom (ones inflicted in the brain) of the on-going political turmoil, so almost everyone in the Country wants to follow up what is going on at the parliament, cabinet and Addisababa as a way to resolve it. As for that, some politicians are greatly on a hunt to exploit that public needs to their best while the “desperately-information-searching-congregation” applause every little they exhale out.
What the congregation needs to know is that most of the information they are getting from those politicians are indeed getting them from wrong people (opportunistic opinion leaders).
To save the church from such interference (I may call it political interference), the church would need to give some restrictions to politicians. Not that no any politician should be allowed but the one who would tell us how God saved him in some hideous situation, I think it would be good if the chances were given to those who comes from the front line to tell us the horrors they have gone through and how the most-high is doing his work with them, how he is saving them in the field among others. It would have also been better on the situation of Majak D’Agoot, pagan Amum and their colleagues when they were released if any of them had wished to thank God for his release, it would have been welcomed because the situation “behind bars” is not very interesting indeed since jail is not a merry-making room. But things to do with government this or government that, things we already know, things that are running as films in our eyes and experiencing as well are not what we are supposed to be given the “chances” leaving aside the right people who deserve them (chances).
We want our very own church to be solely a prayer room not to be hijacked by some self proclaimed political mafias fully stylishly dressed in their luring attires as their dancing arena for the congregation to pick the best dancer.
I doubt if churches are the places the politicians should politically talk to us. Parliaments among other places are the better places. He who was unlucky enough to make it through in the previous elections should rehearsal for the elections are zooming. And if you are already successful then you better go to the parliament and tell them what you think you can tell them because that is where the political words belongs not in the church because you would automatically be speaking them out in a wrong place probably to the right people (though good number sleeps there (in the parliament), you should tell it to those ones awake and the sleepers later help support the motion with their hands highly raised up).
I cannot imagine seeing a pastor in his collar matching towards the podium in the parliament to address the legislature.
What we want is to see the church completely observing its territories from the political trespassers.
We also want the church to be completely independent and make more policies to restrict political encroachers not to talk beyond the church.
Though the religion, our own Christian religion is made up of the politicians, it is as well made up of the military (SPLA), police, students, pupils, peasants, convicts, criminals among others and so everyone has a right of (thank giving chance) but must do so within the “church” (not to speak outside the church or along professional line unless it is an announcement). Thank giving or greeting should purely be non-political, non-military, non-everything but should be purely “Khristianik” in the sense of praising God, thanking him, not going against others or institutions, because God loves you all even those ones you seem to hate that you would want God to hate them too. So, when you are in the church, know very well that you are not somewhere to table a motion
The writer is a journalist and can be reached on 0955091449 j.konleek@gmail.com
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