The Critical Role Of The Church In Nation Building

By Bishop Taiwo Akinola

lYe are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is

Introduction:

The Church in any geographical delineation is supposed to positively impact her system of governance, growth and development. She is positioned to clearly contribute towards the delivery of social outputs that are crucial to nation building. 

History has shown that whenever right religious/moral foundations of a nation are eroded, the nation declines. If the Church is to succeed in impacting society and, therefore, contribute her quota to nation building, she must give close attention to her role of establishing God’s righteousness in the various communities and in the nation at large.

It is glaringly observable today, that many nations, including our beloved nation Nigeria, are going through a season of depression. Unrighteousness is enthroned both in high and low places,  educational systems are in poor ranking, and evil has been thriving for too long. Moreover, God’s commandments regarding humility, justice, love, fairness and equity, which help to build humanity in us, have been neglected, and God’s manifest grace upon the nation is being taken for granted.

In fact, in some quarters, patriotism and due respect for national identities have soured into agitations and disillusionment because leaders, driven by vanity and greed, and governments riddled with corruption, have destroyed economies and made the nations’ infrastructure to deteriorate and decay.

Of course, the above cannot come without social consequences. Hence, the resulting poverty and suffering, which equally spawn waves of brain drain of emigrating professionals, especially healthcare providers and other skilled workers, fleeing our country in search for a better life.

It goes without saying that no government can be better than the character of its leaders, which is the real crux of our national malady (Genesis 26:4-5). But, the most unfortunate dimension to this is that many Christian leaders that should assume their rightful places as the salt and light of the world have rather lost focus, and have now turned themselves into partial devotees of Mammon and such other social diversions.

Is There Any Way Forward?

Yes, many people have been trying their hands at tackling these challenges — human rights activists, sociopolitical players, media practitioners, monarchists, and even religious leaders — but none has been able to provide a lasting key for salvaging our decaying communities.

Happily, even though many modern secularists won’t find this fact appealing, there are practical guidelines about nation building in a Source that is seldom consulted today: the Bible. 

The process of nation building is recorded as history in the Bible, and it contains vital perspectives and practical guidelines for dealing with real problems that face societies today. The lives and the times of Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David, etc tell this fact very vividly (Genesis 12:1-3; Deuteronomy 4:6). 

In fact, the gospel of Jesus Christ is about right government and a new kingdom order. I make bold to say then that many of the nations that have become great today didn’t achieve that status by accident, but by biblical laws which form the basis for their culture, government and legal systems.

What Is The Role Of The Church In Nation Building?

The Church has the sole responsibility of bringing people to the consciousness of God, and of the invisible world, to release their  dormant spiritual energies, which are capable of re-engineering societies. 

In other words, it is the Church’s critical role to educate society about the true identity of the “righteousness”, which exalts nations (Proverbs 14:34; Romans 3:22; 1 Corinthians 1:30). This is real ministry to the inner life, and when we get it right in this regard, we will be determined enough to raise the quality of the believers capable of positively impacting the nations. 

There are many civil and public servants, legislators, judges, policemen, governors, etc., in some of our Churches in Nigeria today. Yet, these set of believers hardly reflect on our structures of governance. Absurd, isn’t it? We must certainly improve in this regard.

Fitting Ourselves for Our Role In Nation Building 

Jesus Christ said we are the salt and the light of the world. This means we are expected to be positive necessities in our communities. If our nation must grow within the context of God’s purpose, therefore, we must be adequately fitted for this role. 

In this regard, there are certain Christian virtues we need to make very central to our day-to-day living. The first is practical righteous living. This calls for nothing less than godly and exemplary believers’ lifestyle, to usher in God’s blessings to our nation. We are the conscience of our nation as God’s standard bearers, and the instrument that sets the standard must be precise. 

The second is purposeful unity. In order to maintain relevance in the important project of nation building, the Church must be united and be seen to be so. We must start speaking with one voice, and with sound biblical standardization. 

Truth be told, I am aware that this could be quite involving. It calls for humility, painful submissions to anointed leadership and mutual respects for the biblical views of other believers. But really we cannot do otherwise if we indeed hope to fulfill our role in building a decent, egalitarian and God-glorifying nation.

The third essential virtue is deliberate socio-political involvement of the Church in the nation-building project. We must be awake to developing our socio-political involvement and relevance in our nation. Get your PVC. Vote as of your civic duty. Encourage those who have callings into politics among us by praying for them and supporting them. And, in this light, we must consider it necessary to also boost our numerical strength within Biblical allowances.

Let me leave you with this important consideration. We all can galvanize our influences together and make very strong contributions to nation building if we all choose to speak up for the truth at all times (Proverbs 31:8). 

Church leaders, and indeed all Christian folks, have the responsibility to lend their voices against the social issues of corruption, nepotism, ethnocentrism, political deceit, injustice, impunity and such other ills in the land. As long as we keep quiet, the political leaders will continue to think that nobody knows what is right, or that they are a special specie with privileges to live above the law, whereas they are also mortals.

Friends and brethren, please keep it in mind that building a strong and virile nation requires not only the intellectual capability of view citizens, but the readiness of all of us, especially Church folks, to play our role in educating people in God’s laws, and to speak up courageously where violations are noticed (Joshua 1:5-8). May the Lord bless you, bless our nation, and bless the Church worldwide, in Jesus name. Amen. Happy Sunday!

Bishop Taiwo Akinola is the Presiding Bishop of Rhema Christian Church of God, Temidire, Sango Ota, Ogun State.