By Evelyn Usman

As a build up to the 2023 general elections, the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, PFN has called for the need for establishment of Politics and Governance units in churches , where members would be encouraged to go into politics , with a view to ensuring that men and women of integrity were nominated by different political parties to contest during election.

General Overseer, Charismatic Renewal Ministries/ National Secretary, PFN, Dr. Cosmos Ilechukwu, made the call while presenting a paper on the ‘Imperative of Social Arm of the Church’, at the General Overseers’ summit held in Joygate Hotel and Suite, Ajao, Lagos State.

Illechukwu, who frowned at what he described as deliberate negligence of politics and governance by the church, noted that the job of the church was not limited to helping people develop spiritually, but also to develop other spheres of human life on earth.

He lamented that one key area of service the church failed to pay adequate attention to was politics and governance, describing the negligence as the church’s greatest disservice to God and humanity.

He said: “The abandonment of politics as an unholy sphere is in every way distasteful. Hardly can anybody argue the truism that next to God’s power on earth is political power.

“The church made a great mistake by labelling politics dirty and shunning it. This gave room for the enemy to move in and take over the government of many nations. When we examine the prevailing attitude of the church in the light of the teaching of the Bible, it becomes obvious that we got it wrong.

“For example, the Bible makes it very clear that God wants Christ to have pre-eminence in every sphere of life on earth (Colossians 1:15-18), which certainly includes politics and governance. There is a clear statement of scripture that the government will be upon the shoulder of Christ and that the increase of His government and peace shall have no end (Isaiah 9:6-7). This makes God a principal stakeholder in politics and governance of nations. The resting of government upon the shoulders of Christ is indicative of the responsibility the believers are expected to shoulder by their participation in the political process”.

He pointed out that the church was composed of different individuals, each equipped with the capacity to make valid contributions to the overall progress of the kingdom of God, adding that God’s interest on earth was not only limited to what went on within the church but also on other sectors of human endeavor such as politics and governance, commerce, and industry, as well as for the social welfare of the people who he said were called to perform different roles for the progress of the kingdom of God.

He therefore charged the church to see it as a duty to represent God’s interest in the departments of government by becoming proactively involved in raising the spiritual, moral, and emotional qualities of politicians.

He was however quick to clarify that leadership of the church should not leave their core duty of preaching. Rather, he advised them to make provision for their members to engage in the political processes.

The most convenient way of achieving this according to him: ” is to establish an arm that will take care of this. In my own denomination, we have such an arm which we call “CRM Political Academy,” otherwise known as the Initiative for Development of Future Accountable Leaders”, he stated.

“The church’s involvement in the political process should go beyond encouraging her members to register and vote in elections. She must go further to encourage them to become party members and push to become among the delegates that will determine those to stand for elections. In that way, the church will ensure that men and women of integrity are nominated by different political parties to stand election.

“The church must act with stark intentionality toward the initiation of movements and agencies to enable her to promote the vision of helping people experience the kingdom of God on earth. This is where the imperativeness of the social arms of the church becomes most evident.

“For the gospel to have discernible inroad into the heart of the people and affect their mindset in a positive way, its social edge must be sharp. For the church to represent Christ and His interests on earth fully, she must pay serious attention to her social responsibilities and create structures that will enable her to respond to the growing needs of the society, especially as it concerns the social implications of the Christian ministry. The structure will help members of the church serve God in other spheres of human endeavor beyond the precincts of their denominations”, Dr Illechukwu averred.

In another presentation titled ‘Opertionalising the social arm of the church , General Overseer, Palace of Priests Assembly, Abuja/Project director, SHUN CORRUPTION project, Pastor Otive Igbuzor, disclosed that with the rise of Pentecostalism, there was emphasis on material prosperity, loyalty to the nation state and individualism, which resulted in the decline of the social dimension of the church.

This , he said , has led to the public perception that pentecostals were only interested in prosperity and not concerned about social issues in the society.

He therefore, called for the need to build the personal factors and motivate people to act on the environment to change behaviour so as to maintain public support for anti-corruption.

He said: “Members of the congregation in the church have a lot of trust in their leaders. The trust is based on embedded Christian values and the solid reputation of the church for meeting the spiritual and physical needs of its members.

“The behaviour of many people, even those who profess religion are guided by a secular mindset which is based on the notion that the source of knowledge is not divine as against religious mindset anchored on revelation from God.

“But it is clear that secular mindset has limited scope of its world view to the physical aspect of life only and does not play a crucial role in shaping moral character as religion”

He highlighted ways a local Church could establish and operationalise the social arm to include: identifying believers in the church who have experience on social issues advocacy and forming a team to establish the social arm.

Programmatic focus of the social arm of the church, according to him, should also include: Democracy: Elections, transparency, and accountability and stewardship.

He said, “ It will also include Peace Building: Human security and Conflict Transformation; Social Justice: Poverty, Inequality and Justice; emergency and Humanitarian services and Education and Health

“The role of PFN in operationalising the social arm of the church should include: accept, popularise and give priority to the dual mandate; institutionalise social arm of the Church as a core practice in Pentecostal Churches; encourage, support and motivate members to establish the social arm of the church

Its role also includes: advocate for institutionalisation of the social arm of the church for Pentecostal churches, give technical support to churches who want to establish the social arm of their churches, build capacity of Pentecostal Churches to operate the social arm of the church especially in terms of formation and management”.