18 March 2009

The reaction to ANC president Jacob Zuma's visit to our church this past Sunday got me to reflect on a number of questions.

Are Christians afraid of politics? Is God a remote Being who sits enthroned in heaven, absorbed in contemplation of His power and glory and totally oblivious to the grubby world of politics?

Is Zuma the first politician to visit a church, or is Rhema the first church he - or any other politician, for that matter -has visited? Do the media understand the thinking of politically awakened Christians and care to report accurately?

Let me start with the latter. Various media reported differently about what happened last Sunday. 702 Radio said there were about 60 people who left the auditorium in the middle of Zuma's address.

Business Day spoke about "50 or so people who walked out while Zuma was speaking". Sowetan and Mail & Guardian Online did not mention any people leaving. The Star said there were "scores" of people who left. I was on stage throughout and never saw these "scores".

In an auditorium that had approximately 7 200 congregants, when 60 or "50 or so people" leave that can hardly qualify as scores, let alone as statistically significant. But let me leave this to my friends in the media to debate who got the figure correct. If they still can't work it out, we have the video footage to help them, as we record all services.

Are Christians afraid of politics? One of my peers says they aren't, except for a few who are if the politics involves Zuma! Well, I did not endorse Zuma and his party last Sunday, but to those Christians who are terrified of Zuma and the prospect of his presidency, I can say to them without any fear of contradiction that the man is not a devil with two horns and a tail.

I dined with him on Sunday (the Pharisees would have been horrified) and I found him affable, humble and open to the concerns Christians have about abortion, same-sex marriage, the inclusion of evolution in the school curriculum and the elimination of prayer in schools. If Christians are afraid of politics and/or interacting with politicians, I don't see how we can get our voice heard on these matters.

Christianity in this country, with the exception of a few strands within our faith, has usually treated politics as a threat and tried to protect believers from it, in the false belief that exposure to politics might undermine their faith.

Indeed, many of us within the broader Evangelical, Pentecostal and charismatic movement grew up with a sense that politics is the enemy of Christianity and that as believers we should be wary of it.

I was once there, until I had the opportunity some 18 or so years ago to be involved, with other religious leaders, in efforts that birthed our new democratic dispensation. The challenges we faced then - violence and a political stalemate during the negotiations for a new political order - demanded of us to restructure and apply our Christian faith in an effort to relate Biblical truths to the then-existential situation.

Since then, I personally have developed the capacity to live quite comfortably with politics and to use my interactions with politicians to bolster our case for validating what we as Christians stand for.

To those who have not had the opportunity and experiences to develop this capacity, interaction with politicians may cause revulsion.

Given the socioeconomic and political challenges South Africa faces, we in the Christian faith have to recast our theology in the prevailing language and problems of the day. It is no longer possible to insulate ourselves from the country's broader challenges.

Our faith should not mean that we have to relinquish our hold on politics and the relationships we need to form this side of eternity. Zuma's visit to our church should be seen in that context.

Is God a dainty Being to whom politics is a subject too low or sordid for His notice and interest? God is concerned with the tangible, the mundane and what goes on in the life of a nation. When it comes to human affairs (including politics), God is not a pale abstraction, as some Christian fundamentalists would have us believe.

He certainly wasn't an abstraction in the national life of the Israelites, and is not about to be one in South Africa. The God of life and hope who was there in the politics of ancient Israel continues to be present among us.

Zuma's visit to Rhema was neither the first nor the only of its kind in our country. It gave us an opportunity to minister to him and his delegation in a significant way.