The bigger Picture! The church and quest for durable peace in South Sudan
By Makwei Achol Thiong, Bor, South Sudan
Tuesday, September 29, 2020 (PW) — The role church plays in the society in terms of bringing about durable peace, preventing violent conflicts, building sustainable peace, delivering essential services, societal organization and protection of certains values and norms associated with cultures and good practices and above all speaking up for the voiceless and marginalized; all these and more make church in any society a silent government for the people.
In our context as South Sudanese, the role of church has been instrumental in bringing peace to the Sudan including in the negotiation and implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) leading to secession and independence of our country.
In continuity, the church in the independent South Sudan continued in the same wavelength; helped end Yau-Yau rebellion by negotiating peace with the government, involved in reconciling Jonglei and South Sudanese communities through series of conferences, save lives during the 2013 rebellion and subsequent crisis particularly in Wau where a church hosted thousands of IDPs, involved in various efforts to bring waring parties on negotiation table, played critical role in the signing of (R)-ARCSS, etc.
The church has never been an observer on issues that matter. In fact it has always been the sanctuary for our people; a place they find hope in the event our politicians forget to build legacy but scramble over making their plates full!
But now where is the church and what is it doing?
In December last year the Catholic church was in chaos over the appointment of Stephen Ameyu as the Metropolitan Archbishop of the Archdioceses of Juba with some clerics rejecting his appoitment by Pope Francis. As Catholic church politics was dominating media, the Episcopal Church of South Sudan (ECSS) politics was boiling. It would later mature into the defrocking of the Archbishop of Jonglei Internal Province, Bishop Ruben Akudid by primate Justin Badi.
With similar crises marring Pentecostal church, some breakaways within the Seventh Day Adventists, among others, the church in South Sudan is in serious administrative loggerhead within itself. The government is being possessed by dollar (Economic crisis) and lack of compromise in implementing important provisions in the R-ARCSS while the church, an important actor in the implementation process, is in lockdown over its own administrative irregularities.
Now the two big agenda remain at the periphery; the implementation of R-ARCSS and mobilization of resources to save lives in the midst of devastating floods in Upper Nile and parts of Bahr-el-Ghazal regions. The current church crises, particularly the standoff in the ECSS is an impedement to the implementation of R-ARCSS.
It’s creating division that the church is supposed to prevent in the first place or end by reconciling the grassroots. Instead of engaging communities to rally behind Wani Igga’s peace efforts in greater Jonglei, church leaders are busy in their efforts to fattens their own camps with followers.
With communities already polarized by recent wars and history of intercommunal violence, can the people of South Sudan afford to lose the church, regarded as the only remaining impartial body, in to chaos?
With so much faith, trust and respect for it, the church should do better. Despite this long standoff in the church of God particularly in the ECSS, it is the only serious case the national security has distant itself away from it. This respect and freedom should not be taken for granted by our religious leaders to hold the church and people of God hostage for this long with little in their accounts to reconcile.
Why would our church leaders forget to seek God’s intervention in order to deliver us out of all these calamities? What is it that is greater than the power of LOVE and the heart to COMPROMISE and FORGIVE when wronged?
It is not about Justin Badi. It’s not about Ruben Akurdid. Neither is it about Pope Francis nor Stephen Ameyu. It’s about the people of South Sudan wanting peace in order to regroup to face floods, poverty, underdevelopment and worsening economic crisis.
To Justin Badi and Ruben Akurdid, you don’t need any pressure from outside to restore calm, the only pressure and the greatest of all, is from the God you worship. Let His LOVE for His people to which He sent His only son, Jesus Christ to come and die for our sins, guide you in bringing back peace in the house of God.
Break the deadlock and shame the devil!
The author, Makwei Achol Thiong, can be reached via his email; makweiachol@yahoo.com
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