2023: GENERAL ELECTION AND PULPIT MANAGERS
3 min read
As the 2023 general elections draw nearer, the pulpit managers should organize themselves when they stand on their podium to preach because the country is in neurotic tension of insecurity, ethnicity, herdsmen clashes, kidnapping and the activities of IPOB.
They should use the language that brings peace and harmony to the co-existence of this country. They should not use the political season to add more injury to the Frankenstein monster that is debilitating across the country.
The pulpit managers should preach according to the sources of their religion and shouldn’t allow themselves to be used by unscrupulous politicians in order to create problem that will lead us to another civil war. The Northern and Southern pulpits should preach without bias in their day to day sermon.
My advice to them is that they should enlighten their members how to preach during this political season in order to balance their preaching without promoting religious segregation.
Nigerian politicians should maintain decorum as the nation approaches the 2023 general elections, politicians must be aware that election is not about violence. They should promote peaceful coexistence amongst Nigerians, just as religious leaders must preach tolerance, unity and peace, and not to misinform their congregations at any level.
Pulpit managers must disciple their congregation to care about the common good. In our representative democracy, christians and Muslims can bless their neighbors by voting for what’s good and for leaders who will promote development. Every community has different needs, and how its citizens vote will reflect those different needs. God may use everything from local elections to global pandemics to raise nations high or bring them low. He is the Sovereign, and he leads all nations as he wills. Pulpit managers urging their congregants to vote for either culturally religious conservatives or culturally compassionate progressives won’t save our nation. We don’t need nation-wide reform; we need nation-wide repentance brought about by prophetic preaching.
In our two-party democracy, pulpit managers who endorse a specific candidate must count the cost of such endorsement. A religious leader can carelessly divide his congregation over public presidential endorsements. By endorsing a candidate, he attempts to do all the thinking and discerning for his people. God’s people don’t need that. Instead, they need a leader to disciple them to think Godly, leaders who trust that their members will carry out those God’s commitments when they vote. Of course, there may be times when a pulpit manager must exhort the congregation to vote for or against a specific presidential candidate.
For any pulpit manager troubled by how members of his mosque/church may vote in 2023, instead of using your pulpit to publicly endorse a candidate, perhaps it would be better to patiently disciple your congregation toward God-like maturity. Pulpit managers, whatever you do this election season, let’s strive to unite the congregation around God by preaching that he is our Creator.
Bello Shehu Shuni
08035114465 [email protected]
