Democracy in Africa — biblical or demonic?

By Craig Bailie — Originally published by Democracy in Africa

Is there a biblical case for democracy? Do churches prepare their congregations effectively to engage in everyday politics? And if not, should they? These questions are as important today as they have ever been. In Zimbabwe, opposition leader Nelson Chamisa regularly signs his tweets off with the line #GodIsInIt, but many of his supporters have grown frustrated that he mentions God more than practical efforts to strengthen the country’s democracy.

A quick survey of the continent suggests that Chamisa’s exasperated followers are not alone. Kenyan theologian Bernard Boyo writes: “Most Christians in Africa have no theological or biblical foundation to guide their [speech about and] involvement in politics. They have not been prepared to think biblically about what to [say or] do when personal, group, and national interests clash, nor have they thought deeply about what is involved in living in states characterised by religious pluralism.”

According to Boyo, then, the Church hasn’t used Scripture to prepare Christians in Africa for engaging with politics, even though sufficient scholarly work suggests that it is feasible to make a biblical case for democracy. This suggests that the Bible can be a tool for advancing and realising democracy, but the Church in Africa isn’t biblically prepared to engage with politics, or emphasises getting souls into Heaven to the neglect of being “salt and light” on Earth.

This is not a new concern. Instead, it was one of the main preoccupations of researchers such as Jef Haynes, who has written about the uneasy alliance many religious organisations brokered with authoritarian governments in the 1980s to enable themselves to continue operating.

Nor is this an “African” issue. CS Lewis, the famous novellst and Anglican theologian once said: “It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.” Is it not also true that Christians who think only of the other world, fail to do their biblical duty in this one? As Oliver Holmes, Sr once put it: “Some people are so heavenly minded … they are no earthly good.” To the extent this is true of the Church, it isn’t effectively positioned to help realise democratic governance in Africa.

“Demonic” democracy

Boyo’s words rang true during a men’s conference held in South Africa in 2023. The guest speaker, who has since announced publicly his intention to run for president in 2029, reflected his lack of biblical understanding of Church-State relations when he said: “The Church [in South Africa] is a government in waiting”. As I have argued before, the aspiring president isn’t the only prominent South African Christian leader to have a skewed understanding of Church-state relations.

More recently, at the presentation of a course on good governance and freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) in West Africa, a prominent Church leader from a country ruled by Africa’s oldest dictator and beset with a separatist struggle and an Islamic insurgency, boldly proclaimed to the course facilitator and fellow attendees – among them Christian politicians, state employees, and students of politics – “I hate democracy because God is not democratic. Democracy is demonic”.

In East Africa, a conference in April 2024 brought together Church leaders and government officials to discuss how the Church in Africa can come alongside the African Union (AU) and its member states to help achieve the AU’s Agenda 2063 aspirations – one of which is “An Africa of good governance, democracy, respect for human rights, justice and the rule of law.” A conference speaker, who happens to be a prominent anti-corruption figure in Kenya and who holds a PhD from a Christian university, took a stab at democracy when he told delegates that if God allowed the ancient Israelites to vote about whether they should enter the Promised Land or not, they never would have occupied Canaan.

This approach is one that fails to lead to productive engagement. Concerning the recent protests in Kenya, one Christian journalist wrote about “the perception that the government and politicians have not listened to the cry of the citizens”. One must wonder how the conference speaker who appears to disfavour democracy, thinks Kenyans must act for change, if not through democratic means.

For Christians to refrain from advocating for democracy is one thing, for Christians to actively agitate against democracy is another. In a continent where Christianity is the majority religion, where Christians are the “most committed” in the world, where “[r]eligious leaders are more trusted and less widely seen as corrupt than any other group of public leaders,” and where several heads of state profess to be Christian, the potential implication of Christian leaders who claim that democracy is demonic for the future of politics is profound.

Ideas matter

Ideas matter because they have consequences. Ideas rooted in or linked to the belief in a transcendent, supreme being can prove especially stubborn and consequential. It follows that there in the world where Christians exist in greater numbers, and where, therefore, at any given time, a significant number of heads of state may be professing Christians; where Christians are “most committed”; and are more biblically informed on matters of civil governance than Christians elsewhere; there one will find the greatest potential for establishing and maintaining democracy.   

However, where these same conditions hold, but Christians are less biblically informed on matters of civil governance (as Boyo has observed in Africa) and are therefore at greater risk of adopting the counterproductive views of Church-state relations and democracy cited above, the more likely it is that the potential support that the Church could offer to democracy will be frustrated and unrealised.

If a significant number of Christians in Africa (among them, Christian leaders including heads of state and government officials) believe that democracy is undesirable because democracy is demonic, could this be a part of the explanation for the recent decline in support among Africans for democracy and weakening of opposition to military rule; the growing disparity between the demand for and supply of democracy in Africa; and the inclination of several heads of state to extend term limits or abolish them altogether?   

A flawed political theology

Underlying the thinking that characterises the aspiring president in South Africa, the Church leader from Cameroon, the learned anti-corruption official from Kenya, and potentially many others in Africa, is a flawed political theology. The Christian who assesses the value or desirability of any governance system, including democracy, based solely on what the Bible reveals about who God is and how He governs, fails to recognise how the Bible differentiates between God’s nature and human nature or fails to properly consider the implications of this difference for God’s comparatively direct governance of ancient Israel vis-à-vis human governance elsewhere in space and time.

Scripturally, Christians ought to agree that God is undemocratic and that the Kingdom of God is not a democracy. This much of what the Cameroonian Church leader said is true. God is not democratic, if only because His will and laws are not determined according to the collective will of the governed, in ancient Israel, for example, or humankind more broadly, whether as a whole or in part. Therefore, God’s Kingdom is not a democracy.

At the same time, however, if what the Bible reveals about the Christian God’s sovereignty and nature is true – that He is all-sovereign and perfect – there is no need for Him to be democratic or govern democratically. Because the Christian God is all-sovereign and perfect, He doesn’t abide by, nor is He restricted to human standards and measures, including standards and measures of what constitutes good governance.

As much as the Bible reveals the Christian God’s sovereign and perfect nature, it also reveals humanity’s imperfect fallen nature as distinct from God’s nature. Human beings will therefore of necessity require a different governing system to God, because they are unlike God: the Bible tells us that Christ came to Earth as a perfect, unblemished sacrifice to die a sinner’s death on behalf of fallen humans.

The best form of governance Christians can hope for

From a biblical perspective, the best form of governance that any professing Christian in Africa or elsewhere could hope and advocate for is that which best aligns with Scripture by accommodating and making allowance for human nature and at least two other related biblical truths, namely, that humans possess inherent dignity and significant potential. 

According to the Bible, humans are created in God’s image. Can a stronger case than this be made for inherent human dignity? From a biblical perspective, the form of government that best balances the realities of fallen human nature and inherent human dignity will also have the greatest success at cultivating an environment that promotes and allows for the freedoms without which human potential is stifled or oppressed.

The Bible is not only a religious account of the Christian God’s sovereignty and perfection, humankind’s fallen nature, and God’s redemptive plan considering this fallen nature. For Christians, the Bible also tells of humankind’s potential. American Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr’s assertion that “man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary”, recognises both humankind’s potential and fallen nature.

Because democracy, allows, (1) “A system that places limitations on power to avoid abuse (and not just government power, but also on the power that any one individual or group can exercise over or against any number of other individuals or groups)”; (2) “Inclusive and participatory governance so that beings of intrinsic value can contribute [to governance according to their potential]”; and (3) “A secure, free and relatively predictable environment so the individual can pursue and fulfil his/her potential [as much as possible]”, it is the form of governance that best aligns with Scripture.

Given this, democracy is the best form of governance that Christians can hope for in the present age.

Is democracy biblical?

Even though the Bible doesn’t address or endorse democracy directly, much of what we read in it, bound by, or founded upon the realities of human nature, dignity, and potential, lends support to democratic government and society. This is why several authors including Oates, Hutchison, Oesterley and Robinson, Barth, De Gruchy, and Cope draw a positive correlation between Christianity, its guiding Scripture, and democracy.

It is also important to note that the Bible as a whole lends more support to democracy than any other type of national organisation of human affairs. Democracy remains, therefore, in the words of political theologians Neuhaus and Chaplin, “a Christian Imperative”, in Africa and elsewhere. The sooner this is recognised by Christians in Africa, starting with those occupying formal leadership positions, the greater the potential for realising democracy in Africa will be. 

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