BiAS 7 – The Bible and Politics in Africa
New Testament the situation was not the same but the concept of the
religious community and the place of children within the community
essentially stayed the same.
Our religious communities in secular governments have no part as
religious community per se of government. We are normal citizens or
non-governmental organisations that have to take part in or influence
good governance in those roles. Our opinions and votes do not convince
government as religious opinion. They must influence political policy
decisions. Once Government is convinced of a matter, a political deci-
sion has to be made, based on the Constitution and other human rights
policies subscribed to and ratified by Government.
If we say this, what do we take from the Bible? And on what do we rest
our opinions and advocacy? The Bible can at most provide us with cer-
tain principles, which we find with sound and thorough interpretation of
the Bible and which we may now call “ethical” principles. But even these
principles are mostly rather broad and open to new interpretation, be-
cause our principles and our understanding of them can be brought to
government in an advocacy campaign but they will ultimately not neces-
sarily look like we have meant them to be. For instance, if we interpret in
our theology that our children are condemned from the beginning we
would have a different perspective on illness than when we would have
the Old Testament opinion as extracted above, that children are born
free of “sin” and do not know good from bad, but even this is an inter-
pretation, because “do not know good from bad” is only an epistemo-
logical expression. Many other examples can be taken in this regard.
The problem is, though, that if our principles from the Bible are so
broad, they can be written or “found” by any religious text. We have a
major problem. Our text is not unique and may not bring unique princi-
ples to the table when advocating for major problems in society. We have
to have a canon that can address issues of society without simply repeat-
ing texts and verses like empty refrains! This does not mean rewriting
the Bible, but it means that pastors and other church people must have a
handbook that follows the principles of advocacy; that can address politi-
cal officials on their level of thinking; that can take into account the
social problems and their tentacle effects; that can convince Government
that homework has been done on the issues of the day; that research has
been done which takes into account the beliefs and basic text of our
beliefs but is a well-informed canon, which, when used in advocacy