Sunday Agang Article
Langham Scholar Rev. Sunday Agang has seen firsthand the destruction of religious persecution as a pastor in Nigeria. He, along with other leaders, felt called by Scripture (James 1:27) to reach out to families whose husbands and fathers were executed because of their Christian faith. The result is the GAWON Foundation, an organization driven by evangelism and social transformation, launched in 2001, to aid widows, orphans, and needy who suffer as a result of persecution (www.gawonfoundation.org). Agang’s calling has particular relevance for the world, as it reflects on the five-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. His words that follow offer a contemplative look at the relationship of faith and democracy.
9/11 and The Dialectical Connection between Faith and Democracy(Freedom)
A Perspective by Sunday B. Agang
Reprinted from the Semi, Winter Week 8, Feb 21-25, 2005, Fuller Seminary
9/11 has impacted the political and religious landscape of America and perhaps the other nations of the world. For instance, a 2004 Fourth National Survey of Religion and Politics has demonstrated that there are settled connections between faith and the ballot box than just the usual identification of religious conservatives with Republican Party and the corresponding affinity of many mainline Protestants, minorities and secularists with the Democratic Party. The question really is what will happen if our form of government failed? Would God cease to be God when Christianity or our form of government failed?
More often than not, we act as if everything depends upon us to usher in the Kingdom of God either through democracy or religion. But why is it so? I suspect, it is because of the difficulty involved in grasping the dialectical connection between faith and democracy. This difficulty, to some extent, is not unconnected with the way Christians have treated Jesus’ statement, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s” as if Caesar has his separate domain and God has his. That is, as if the two are independent powers. We tend to forget what Christ says to Pilate, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.” By this statement, Jesus clearly shows that God is the one in charge of the affairs of wicked men and women in either the democratic or the religious community. Christ’s statement here confirms that human affairs or government are not absolutely independent of God’s sovereignty. The whole universe is under the controlling power of the Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
So in short, the dialectical connection of faith and democracy are really faith in the Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Jesus’ life and attitude, during his earthly ministry, profoundly demonstrated that God rules in the kingdom of humankind. He shows that our allegiance to Christianity or democracy should really emanate from the realization that God rules in spite of what any individual or institution does.
It seems to me that the real confession stems from where we put our confidence. There are two things that seem to be at stake: faith and freedom. Alan Wolfe recently pointed out, “Americans believe in God and they also believe in freedom.” Many Americans try to take both faith and freedom seriously. Yet finding the right balance between faith and freedom has been a bit of challenge to them because of the assumption that faith and freedom, or Caesar and God, are two different spheres.
How can we see the dialectical connection between faith and democracy? R.H. Niebuhr suggests that we must start with our attitudes toward both faith and democracy. We often tend to love one to the detriment of the other. I would say that we tend to sacrifice our faith for what we think we can do to bring about “freedom.” So it starts with our attitude toward faith and freedom. Does faith have anything to do with our understanding of freedom? Yes! God is the giver of freedom not human beings. It is our faith in God that helps us to appreciate the fact that all human beings are finite beings. And so also are the systems or institutions we create. That is, no human being is either less-than-human or infinite. As such all human beings must, can and ought to treat one another with respect and dignity.
H. R. Niebuhr has suggested three basic ways of looking at the interrelatedness of faith and democracy. First, look at politics as God’s initiative rather than human initiative. In H. R. Niebuhr’s words: “While Christians live, they live in the Kingdom of God; and this depends for its existence no more on democracy than on monarchy or aristocracy. If democracy fails, God does not cease to rule but even that fall is evidence of his justice and goodness, for this kind of government is also of sin as well as of grace.”
Second, we need to understand that the realization of the Kingdom of God on earth does not depend on what form of politics we practice. As Niebuhr points out, “Government by the people is not a stage on the way to the Kingdom of God, but realization of the actuality of divine rule does lead to government by the people. Democracy is a gift which is added to men who seek first theKingdom of God and all its righteousness.”
Third, faith in Christ, the only begotten Son of the Father and Creator of the galaxies, contributes to genuine democracy. R. H. Niebuhr sees the positive dialectical connection between faith and democracy from the standpoint of morality rather than from intellectual perspective. He aptly points out that faith calls democracy to “an ultimate court of justice, to an ultimate law, and an overruling executive.” Faith creates an atmosphere in which political as well as religious liberty may flourish.
Sometimes, the role of religion in politics gets stressed to the extent that politicians, for their own political agenda, take advantage of Christians. But there are committed politicians who know that their faith in God is not to be used as a ticket to political platform or as an instrument of oppression of other people who hold differing views. Such people realize, as James Gustafson puts it, that “inner freedom of spirit is part of their bearing toward one another, part of the manner of life that is worthy of the gospel. Freedom to give oneself in love for the neighbor, to seek the other’s good rather than one’s owns, to identify with oppressed and the anxious, to participate in causes that seek justice and peace in spite of their ambiguities, to make judgments that are particular and relative to complex and confused situation.” This is the freedom to which faith gives rise and that is consistent with a faith that puts confidence in God’s love and goodness. This faith and freedom will resist any attempt to be manipulated or denied. This is perhaps what Mark Souder means when he says, “To ask me to check my Christian beliefs at the public door is to ask me to expel the Holy Spirit from my life when I serve as a congressman, and that I will not do. Either I am a Christian or I am not. Either I reflect His glory or I do not.” I think, the love of democracy or religion should not become an instrument of intruding into others people’s spaces. Just a thought!
Sunday B. Agang (SOT, PhD in Christian Ethics) is even more knowledgeable in class than he is on pape