The Wordnomics: Church Politics

Showing posts with label Church Politics. Show all posts

Saturday 3 October 2020

Is The Church in Africa Taking A Wrong Turn? A General View From A Villager.

When we look at the measure of Christ and his definition of ministry and probably the early church compare it with the 21st Century Church do we see the same theme as authored by Christ continuing and the impact and transformation power still changing lives and communities. If not so what could be the challenges and errors that the church have encountered.

Church on the wrong way

The Role of the Church in Africa is somehow complicated as evidenced by the mushrooming of small churches which are not standing for the people nor fighting for the cause of Justice, furthermore which can not speak the truth of what People are facing.

The church is an institution that has not truly provided the much needed support and teaching to the communities it is planted. Jesus in coming to the earth did not come to start a Religion that is a government or a movement that seeks to reach God and that establishes its people to follow certain Laws so as to serve God their Father.

The first error which can be seen by the church fathers is that they made Church a Religion and removed it of its power to truly transform mankind. Anything that can govern man that is not Christ Spirit will govern the same with rule, beliefs, traditions and Doctrine from its own source which is fallible

The head in it wrong Position

Jesus as one man transformed a nation with his message of salvation and made followers which he trained to spread the message so as to bring the message. Jesus in his sermons was always the religious leaders. At one time he called the religious forks blind guards, on another occasion hypocrite and yet on another account murderers.

The death of Jesus was as if as a result of his conflicts with the religious leaders. They accuse him of a crime, made all convictions to fit the Religious law and the Civil Law so as to deal away with a man who had no religion but in Him was the truth and grace.

The same is true in our time as we witness the church is so divided on issues to do with religion and not to do with Jesus the man. So is the role of the church to become religious and convict believers to a set of laws and principles. Or it is to bring Christ who is the fullness of all Godliness.

The church as a moral agent have failed to set the very example of Christ love, when Jesus was about to go to the cross He made a declaring of faith that set apart his ministry which he came to manifest to man kind. He agrees that the identity of any form of ministry is love. Love and you be know by the world by it,

The conflicts and splits in the church world wide is an indicator of the church failure to walk in love. Love is the very nature of God, without love the mark of sonship or better known as be born again is critically challenged.

As a religion of man governed by man the institution that was made to transform man and the earth has become a tool to transform the man of God to man of Gold. Which creates enmity and promotes corrupt self service ministers who seeks to please the sole called God of man in the form of a man.

Jesus appear to say that his way would create peace makers and people who are meek, but meek not referring to weakness and docility. The former man made religion and ministry seeks to promote hatred and dominance of its subjects. Families are divided over Bishops and marriages are broken because of failure to understand that the man of God is after all a man and not a god. The decisions of a man of God are taken as the counsel of God Himself.

Church has taken center stage on issues that it needs to correct. The media is awashed with stories of Prophets who rapes their own members, Pastors who steals money and Bishops that are involved in corrupt activities. Taking the words of Jesus to light, who implies the church or believers are
the light of the world. Who will the light so shine in the darkness when she ( the church )is in fact the darkness of the world.

How do we justify the fact that the nations that are declared to be Christian nations are the most corrupt nations. How do we justify again the fact that nations that prides its selves to have the highest Christian percentage have high crime rate, corrupt governing elites and religious leaders. It it mean that we have failed to understand what we claim to be, or probably the message that we carry is not redemptive enough?

One is left with so many unanswered question when one reviews the way church in our mother land operates, how the leaders functions and how its followers lives, can they be measured according to the measure of Christ.

Wordnocrate | 2020

Friday 20 May 2016

wordnomics

The 21st Century Church A Replica of the Christendom Era's Church Failures

Tonderai Goncalo 09:39:00

The 21st Century Church A Replica of the Christendom Era's Church Failures

The Church was instituted in the Christendom Era where the Gospel of Christ thrived. Jesus Christ was the center of the Teaching of the Church, they preached about the coming Kingdom. And indeed the message of Christ was so fresh in the mind of the populous. In the 21st Century the focus of the Church is it still Christ and its message is it about the coming Kingdom?

The word Christendom generally refers to the global community of those who adhere to the Christian faith, with religious practices and dogmas gleaned from the teachings of the Bible. Spread throughout the world, Christendom consists of literally billions of people among many nations and peoples of various ethnicity. Correspondingly, Christendom also refers to those countries where Christianity is the dominating or territorial religion

In the age of Christendom, the church occupied a central and influential place in society and the Western world considered itself both formally and officially Christian.

So when we speak of post-Christendom, we are making the point that the church no longer occupies this central place of social and cultural hegemony and Western civilization no longer considers itself to be formally or officially Christian. http://www.christianpost.com/news/31585/#upAPO4xTpxqffgKC.99

According to Abraham Kuyper 'When the first contest eventuated in this that the emperor bowed to Jesus, then... the kingship of Christ began to be triumphant in society...The kingship of Christ from this time on stood as a direction-giving power above the imperial power, which, in order to strengthen its influence, tried for an ever increasingly close integration with the kingship of Jesus...

When in the fourth century persecution ceased and the imperial power evinced a readiness to accommodate itself to Jesus, the basic victory became apparent...This principal victory continued on during the entire course of the long period known as the Middle Ages'. http://missionalchurchnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/christendom-murray.pdf

It is evident during this period that the Church obtained a very powerful position in the society. As highlighted by Murray in his article christendom ( page 2).

Christendom meant: ·
The adoption of Christianity as the official religion of city, state or empire, thus the message of Jesus Christ to be central and the pivotal focus of Faith. It was attractive and receptive to all societies and nations.

Furthermore in the Era we witness the imposition of a supposedly 'Christian morality' on the entire population (although normally Old Testament moral standards were applied)
In this Era the defense of Christianity by legal sanctions to restrain heresy, immorality and schism, and by warfare to protect or extend Christendom.

Indeed the Church as an institution was very powerful and its teachings and life style was the model for the whole communities. From the Government to the Peasants in the land their lives were hinged on the Gospel.

That which brought the downfall of the church as a central power

It with great displeasure to note that Corruption erupted in the church as a result of the favors that the church was receiving from the Empire and the power the Papacy had amused. The church was involved in the Politics of the day. Priests and Bishops would spend much of their time in the Political debates and not in the church teaching and molding the believers to keep moving in the faith.

Church in the 21 Century must bring its members to the place where Christ is back to be the center of their focus. However, we see the almost the same image of the church, Most Nations have even Christianize their Nations and have vowed to live by the principles of the Bible and later on to be molded by the Message of Christ. Some Great Nation have even crafted their national Constitutions with the foundations of the Bible.

The church and the State have been separated technically, but from time to time the two always satisfy each others missions and goals. Directly the Clergy are not running the State and not involved in the day to day Politics. But there do contributes much in the formulation of its Policies and Moral Practices.

In Africa at large one can witness the emerging of new ministries which seeks to milk and suck believers of their resources. Such Corrupt events we witness in the Church, Individuals raising to pursue their self goals at the expense of the Gospel and defrauding man by simply manipulating their faith. Paganism and Christianity has not been separated, the scared and profane is as it were one and the same thing.

This why we can be having a Nation having statics that shows that there are 90% of believers and yet there is again 90% people who are corrupt. Is the Church still relevant in our Time?

The Church is that part of the human community which responds first to God-in-Christ and Christ-in-God. It is the sensitive and responsive part in every society and mankind as a whole. It is that group which hears the Word of God, which sees His judgments, which has the vision of the resurrection.

In its relations with God it is the pioneer part of society that responds to God on behalf of the whole society, somewhat, we may say, as science is the pioneer in responding to pattern or rationality in experience and as artists are the pioneers in responding to beauty. Niebuhr, H. Richard. "The responsibility of the church for society." The Gospel, the Church, and the World. New York: Harper & Row (1946).

To a great extend the church's message needs to remain making Christ the center of its Message. The Christendom Era and our 21st Century Church, which is under the Modern Era have not much to offer in terms of transformation and realigning the church's life to the message of Christ.

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