political thinking and action with religious identity. The article below is a brief overview of the paper. CLICK HERE to view the full paper
How can a country in which 86% of the population identify as Christian also be ranked as among the worst in the world when it comes to the likes of rape, violence, crime, unemployment, corruption, failed state instituitons, educational and economical decline, xenophobia and more?
Political scientist and leadership consultant Craig Bailie suggests there are two broad reasons why South Africa’s majority “Christian” population has had relatively little impact on the quality of governance.
In a paper he penned ahead of the nation’s seventh General Election — and arguably most significant election since 1994 — he writes that SA’s social, economic and political problems resulting from poor or failed civil governance, are first and foremost religious problems.
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“They are first and foremost religious problems because they are problems resulting from the failure of South Africans who identify as Christian to align their political thinking and actions, including who and what they vote for or how they govern, with biblical principles and values,” he says.
Hence, he writes, that the first of the two main reasons for limited Christian influence on governance is that many South Africans who identify as Christian are nominal believers who don’t follow Jesus. These nominal Christians are therefore less able and willing in their political thinking and action to apply biblical principles and values that support and reinforce democratic governance.
He noted that at the National Conference of Churches in South Africa in 1990, theologian John de Gruchy said “almost 80 % of the population in South Africa may be nominally Christian” and that the Church in South Africa may well need to be evangelised before it can make a faithful and transformative impact on society.
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Bailie’s second main reason for the negligible impact of Christians in South Africa, is the question as to how many have been exposed to biblical teaching on Christian political engagement. “Without this exposure, their ability to serve as ‘salt’ and ‘light’ in South Africa’s increasingly distasteful and dark political, economic and social spaces will prove limited,” he says.
Bailie suggests there are at least four possible factors preventing Church leaders from engaging their congregants in conversations and teaching that encourage biblically-based political engagement.
These include the view among church leaders that government is benevolent, the view of politics as a dirty business, the belief that the Church should refrain from engaging in politics and focus instead on evangelism, and the fear of the fallout that may result from initiating and facilitating conversations and teaching about Christian political engagement.
Arguing that none of these views are valid, he says that the more that Church leaders equip congregants about biblical political engagement, the greater the potential for practicing Christians in South Africa to align their political thinking and actions with their religious identity.
“The question, therefore, is not whether the Church should be politically engaged, but how?” he writes.
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CLICK HERE to download the full Christians and Politics paper
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