They promise them riches whereby they are not even shy to parade their own ill-gotten wealth. Nothing could be further removed from the Bible – especially the teaching and life of Jesus. Do our journalists have nothing better or more relevant to report? Or are they trying to distract us from the real issues that our nation is facing?
Politicians of all shades and colours in our political landscape are using the name of God to make their statements more credible. This makes our political leaders look like the ancient emperors – pre-French revolution – who derived their power directly from God and therefore had a right to do as they pleased by way of decrees. Surely this has nothing to do with the modern democracy we claim to be?
Spill blood
What is particularly disturbing is that the same politicians who keep referring to God, use a language of intimidation and open threats of violence such as “I will spill blood”.
How can the two be reconciled? Does God want us to eliminate one another? Does God want us to promote hate speech?
It is even more shocking that some of our so-called “men of the cloth” are seen to applaud such blasphemous utterances. Shouldn’t they be in the forefront of condemning this?
I therefore appeal to all public speakers, and especially our politicians, to refrain from this kind of blasphemy where God’s name is used, or rather abused, to assert one’s position of power. This does not make us the God-fearing nation we claim to be according to our constitution. Quite to the contrary: It makes us a nation that needs to be reminded of real Christian values that could indeed help us to take our country forward such as:
• respect for all people regardless of political persuasion, colour, gender or whatever else is dividing us
• servant leadership and a sense of accountability as opposed to corrupt and selfish lording it over the people
• compassion for the vulnerable members of our society whose number has grown enormously in recent years
• promoting peace in its fullest sense including social peace in our communities, and justice for all. – Concerned citizen
Post published in: Faith