Quarterly Bulletin

Throughout the three regimes in Zambian politics, the high profile of Christianity in public life has been constant.  It is also clear that Christianity has been co-opted to varying degrees to serve political ends.  For that reason the church needs to re-think its relationship with the state in order to uphold its mission and to be a respected player in the public sphere.

A clear theologically rooted sense of the church’s own identity and mission is key to that quest.  It would help the church to take a principled stand in matters in the public square. Primary to the church’s theological foundation and character is the authority that brought it about, constitutes it and defines its role in society. 

THEOCRATIC PARADIGM

Brueggemann speaks of a “theological imagination that affirms YHWH, the God of Israel, as the key political player…(who)…stands at the centre in the political process and is the defining factor and force around which all other political matters revolve” (O’Donovan and O’Donovan, 9). Church-state relations need to reflect a theological interpretation that upholds God’s reign among his people. 

Such an interpretation empowers the church and roots its identity in the truth that God is involved in every aspect of human life.  As God’s people the church is emboldened by the knowledge that the political arena is also God’s arena.  Rather than be subsumed by state authority, the church becomes grounded and lives out the terms of the gospel out of a secure identity that makes the church a counter cultural participant in society as God’s peculiar people in the world. This is what Brueggemann calls “contrast society.”

We cannot, however, transplant Israel’s total experience and apply it to the life of the church without understanding the identity of the church from Scripture. A thoughtful apprehension of Old Testament and a well grounded Christology are needed to come up with a balanced political theology that draws upon theocratic ideas. 

FORM AND SUBSTANCE OF THE CHURCH

The church’s theological identity is foundational to a viable political theology. The hidden and undisclosed status of the authority which constitutes the church points to the essential nature of Christ’s political governance of the church. Christ’s authority is not overt but it is to be discerned by faith.  The church needs to appropriate the reality of what Christ has done to bring the church about as a theological given. The church’s role is to actualise that reality in the world. 

As an earthly community living under the rule of Christ, the church is equipped and inspired by the Holy Spirit to make Christ present in the world.  The church is in that sense a separate society ruled by another king.   Theologically the church cannot be understood   in   isolation  from the historical existence of Christ.   The church however is not a proxy for Christ to form its own system of government.   The declaration of a Christian nation in Zambia seemed to aspire for that kind of government.  The church needs to understand itself as a paradoxical community that lives in conformity of and independently of the laws of the state.  

The church in Zambia (or anywhere else) is not a monolithic entity. There are as many institutional arrangements in the church as there are denominations. In the case of Zambia, there are three church mother bodies. How does such a diversity of churches and wide spectrum of theological views work out an adequate common political theology in order to position the church on a sound footing in relation to the state?

We have asserted that the church is ruled by the invisible authority of Christ which is to be discerned by faith. The catholicity (universality) of the church is the outcome of the Spirit’s authorisation of the catholic social reality.  That means the church in its catholicity is larger than its visible structure.   It is to say the church has a guaranteed solidarity which has nothing to do with ecclesiological differentiation or similarity.  It is a substantive reality imbedded within the theological identity of the church.   Pentecost authorised the church and gave it authority for its mission in the world.   

Churches which work together through the mother-bodies in Zambia are united by the fact that they all subscribe to the Apostles Creed.  In the Creed the words “I believe in the holy universal church” are important.  Being united as a result of theological grounding means the church can work together in the public arena. 

That means church leaders cannot easily abandon that sense of solidarity without devaluing the work of Christ. Whenever churches work against each other in preference of the state they ignore that theological foundation of the church’s unity.  

A commitment to an ecclesiology that takes catholicity seriously underlines the fact that the church is first of all God’s and that the mission in the world is also, first and foremost, God’s mission.  The church as God’s agent in the world is invited to participate in what God has already accomplished in Christ and what the Spirit is already doing in the world.  

The church has a chance to work together to present Christ in the world.  The state would take the church more seriously if the church functioned as a unit and acted from a genuine consensus.  That does not mean there would be no disagreement, but it means even when in disagreement church leaders will not go solo, abandoning the collective and going it alone.

At the declaration of Zambia as a Christian nation, the then president was able to play church leaders against one another with embarrassing consequences for the church.  The basis for church unity seemed to lack a theological imperative. 

If social causes are the only basis for the church to work together in the public square, the church’s identity as a theological entity is compromised.  The church becomes no more than just another non-governmental organisation with no claim to a God-given mandate.  A Christological identity confers on to the church a mission that is not defined by a temporal agenda. 

            Within biblical revelation we come to a theological definition of the church as the sphere in which God as king is interested in every aspect of life. Christ is the basis of its unity. And the Spirit’s gifting enables the church’s mission and Christian vocation. These assertions accord the church a place to stand in the larger scheme of things.  It also affirms the church as participant in the public arena. 

The church neither needs to be in conformity nor necessarily in conflict with the state.  The church can take an independent stand in society and assume its role, aware of its accountability to God and its prophetic mission in society.

CHURCH-STATE RELATIONS

The church’s self-understanding is a basis for its relation to the state.  The Bible does not give a formula of what church-state relation should be for all time.  History presents different models of church-state relationships. 

Being harmonised does not amount to an enmeshed relationship  between   church and state. Rather it calls for maintaining dialogue with the state, from an understanding that God is the source of all authority.  

CONCLUSION

Zambia is one nation that would benefit from a theo-political assessment.  The country has struggled to place the Christian faith at the centre of its national life. That the church has sought to play a role in public life is a sign of hope that our nationhood is not conceived in purely nationalistic aspirations. Rather our national identity has potential to also be shaped by theological and ecclesial constructs.  

But for that to be constructive, the church needs to do its homework of working out the theological implications of God’s rule, the basis for church unity and church-state relations.  The church’s eschatological hope is in the Christ who has come and is to come.  That hope keeps the church socially engaged in God’s world, constantly outgrowing its own efforts and subverting status quo in favour of God’s rule.

Kuzipa Nalwamba
Zambi