WHICH IS TOPS, CHURCH OR STATE?

Sir,

Does the state have authority over the church or is it vice versa? According to an observation by a pastor at the Jesus Worships Centre, he said the state had no authority over the church. Instead, it was the church that had authority over the state.

So, as an interested party, I must say I agree with the pastor. Why? Because in the first place, who established the state? The Holy Book said it was God and this is confirmed in the book of Romans 13:1-3.

So it is a normal procedure that a pupil cannot be above his teacher. A child cannot be above his parent. A player cannot be above his coach, a congregant cannot be above his pastor, a woman cannot be a head of a family; unless we were crazy. I encourage people to give credit where it is due! Can we say an ant is bigger than an elephant? Only an insane person could do that!

Then, what does ‘the church’ mean? I believe it represents Christ the Messiah, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. So in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and this is confirmed in the book of John 1:1-5. Also, all things are made or created by God and this is confirmed in the book of Genesis 1:1. So, it is true that the church is above the state!

Peter Sibeko,
Luyengo

Dear Peter Sibeko,

In short, the state has authority over the church. Actually the relationship between religious and political power is a little more complicated than that. Some states have been, or are, ruled by the dominant religious hierarchy; such as Tibet used to be and Iran is today. These states are known as ‘theocracies’. Most modern states however, including Swaziland, separate the powers of church and state so that the state has authority over political decisions and the Church does not. This is in the interests of fairness, as there are non-Christians in Swaziland. What the church has in this situation is moral authority – the precepts of the church are not law (otherwise we would probably have to stone adulterers to death in public and Christians would be banned from lending money to Christians, etc) but instead the church can persuade people that a certain course of action is moral or not and encourage people to support that endeavor or not. Thus the church in this country is a very powerful social voice. But it’s not a legislative or law enforcement institution and is bound to follow secular law like everyone else. The Christian church is also divided over the way that Christianity should be interpreted; in Swaziland there are three main schools of thought on this, as represented by the League of Churches, Conference of Churches and Council of Churches. And by the way, the 2007 census proved that there are more households headed by women in this country than by men.

Editor

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