Jesus’ Political Party Ideology And Political Party System In Nigeria: A New Testament Hermeneutical Approach

 

 

Ezichi A. Ituma

 

 

Abstract

It has become a convention to represent the holiness of Jesus in such a way as to disassociate him from politics. This is because politics has been described as a dirty game where only dirty people could participate. As a result of this the Christian who is required to follow the footsteps of Jesus must stay away from politics. Since those who oppose the Christian participation in politics base their position on a contextual or socio-cultural definition of politics it becomes necessary to adopt the same definitive approach to establish basis for Christian participation in politics. A hermeneutical approach of the New Testament became necessary since a firm reflection of Jesus as a historical being must be biblically based. It was observed that Jesus was a real and ardent Jew who lived a Jewish politician and died a Jewish politician. If a Nigerian Christian must therefore be an ambassador of Christ he must be involved in Nigerian politics as Jesus was in his native country. It was also discovered that Jesus trained disciples beyond the Jewish Rabbinic course content to include clear political principles and ideology thereby maintaining a political party. As a result it is difficult to see how a Nigerian Christian could be committed to the course of Christ without being committed to politics.

 

Introduction

Reading Jesus as a political figure has received wide criticism especially when the term is used in a more recent sociological parlance. In a sociological sense the term seems to tilt towards ways and manners politics is practised in the different socio-cultural settings of the modern society. In fact, Lee Warren remarked that “In recent years, several Christian leaders have implored us to stop focusing so much energy on politics and focus more on making disciples--as if the two don't go hand in hand.¹ This approach to Christian religion and politics may have come because the intrigues and riggings of the modern politics are seen as the definitive stratum of modern politics and as a result Jesus the righteous must be completely detached from it. The socio-cultural setting of United States that sustains the two-party Democrats and Republicans becomes politics while the multi-party socio-cultural setting of Nigeria, with Peoples Democratic Party, sweeping over 90% of votes amidst riggings, intrigues and acrimony in 2007 election defines politics. The Kenyan political violence of 2007 election defines politics from that perspective. In the Kenya election of December 2007 the European Union Election Observation Mission made a preliminary conclusion thus: “The 2007 General Elections have fallen short of key international and regional standards for democratic elections. Most significantly, they were marred by a lack of transparency in the processing and tallying of presidential results, which raises concerns about the accuracy of the final result of this election.”² This posses the problem of defining politics from lack of transparency. The Observation Mission further said,

 

A high number of election related incidents of violence were documented and witnessed throughout the electoral period, including a significant number of killings. In most cases, abuses did not receive an appropriate response from the police and the judiciary and there was therefore impunity towards perpetrators. Candidates were also observed using hate speech on a limited number of occasions. The circulation of inflammatory mobile telephone text messages and emails, with no apparent attempts from the authorities to establish their origins, also acted to increase ethnic divisions.³

 

No simple, sincere and honest Christian who reads the humility, righteousness and caring life of Jesus would want to associate him with politics as has been defined above. To represent Jesus as a party leader taking part in political campaigns is even a more serious idea that will attract more criticism. The political party system has become a system that allows a group of accomplice, at least in Nigeria, who gather resources, mostly from public fund to trade on public mentality in the usual magical slogan of “the more you look the less you see” and at the end are able to take over government with the purpose of sharing political booty among members. Those for example, who want contract jobs in a government must join and support the political party so that at the end they will receive oil bloc allocations and other juicy contracts.

In Nigeria political parties often engage in violence, killings, burning down of structures and property. Hardly do Nigerians engage in party campaigns without violence. Peter Takirambudde, Africa Director at Human Rights Watch observed in the April 2007 election “Instead of guaranteeing citizens’ basic right to vote freely, Nigerian government and electoral officials actively colluded in the fraud and violence that marred the presidential polls in some areas, in other areas, officials closed their eyes to human rights abuses committed by supporters of the ruling party and others.”⁴ Kenya has lost thousands of innocent lives and properties worth billions of dollars destroyed as a result of party clash of 2007 election. 

Even the advanced countries like America still engage in clashes, mostly verbal and inimical representations. The cold war of the Democrats between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in the American Primaries is a case to substantiate political party acrimony in advanced countries.

How can the holy Jesus, simple and caring be associated with this type of politics? How can the Jesus who came to direct human beings to God be associated with such mundane activities? These are questions which have bordered the pious minds and to disassociate Jesus from politics and political parties becomes the only way out. This in turn leads to the disassociation of even many pious Christians from politics on the grounds that politics is a dirty game.

The aim of the paper is therefore to examine the true meaning of politics, its recent methods of application and then ascertain how the holy Jesus could find a place in it. The paper would have at the end answered the question, how the divine, yet human Jesus could be relevant to the Nigerian multi-party political system. If Jesus was a Nigerian how would he respond to the Nigerian socio-political set up? These form the goal of the paper.

The paper examines politics and political parties from the socio-cultural perspective, which has formed the point of departure for most critical minds against Jesus’ involvement in politics. This method is very necessary so as to address the critical minds from their perspective and basis of judgment. Anchoring its points in the Bible it becomes necessary for the paper to rest on a text in the Holy Scriptures. Exegetical application of biblical texts of the New Testament was very necessary. Jesus could not be addressed outside the Bible. If he must be addressed from the Bible, then exegetical handling of biblical texts must be sustained. Citing the Old Testament texts would have offered more convincing points for the Jewish political life as basis for Jesus political actions. But care was taken to avoid the Old Testament texts for the fact that Jesus criticised many of the traditions of the Jewish traditions and our critics will disassociate Jesus from those texts making the arguments on this paper useless. Yet, it is impossible to remove the Old Testament texts completely noting that Jesus himself was a Jew of the Old Testament order.

Chambers Dictionary defines politics as “the art or science of government: the management of a political party: political affairs or opinions.”⁵ The key points of Chambers Dictionary are “government” and “political parties”. John Sinclair, ed, sees politics as “the actions or activities which people use to achieve power in a country, society, or organization.”⁶ This brings to fore the concept of power control. This definition seems very technical especially when politics is examined from its etymology. Polis, from where the modern concept is derived, means city, in Greek language. Politics came to mean the method of power control in the Greek city states of ancient times. As a result, politics must be technically defined to include the activities that have direct effect on power control and power sharing within a political society. This will therefore lead us to examine how the activities of Jesus had direct effect on the power control or political dynamics of his society.

 

Jesus the Politician

For one to understand Jesus as a politician it will be necessary to recall that our definition of politics is socio-cultural. Since the critics of Jesus as a politician have used this approach it will be necessary to rest our argument on this.

The first approach will be to understand the socio-cultural setting of the world of Jesus. In the first place, Jesus was a Jew, he lived a Jew and died a Jew.⁷ As an ardent Jew he was well involved in the Jewish religio-political life of his country. In the world of the Jews religion and politics were interwoven. A religious authority was invariably a political authority. A typical Jew cannot be one without being the other. The High Priest was both a religious and a civil leader.

One may recall, an attempt to put a cleavage in the duo created a conflict between the Pharisees and the Sadducees of the Hasmonean dynasty.⁸ While the Pharisees felt the religious freedom that has been achieved during the time of Simon the Great King and leader of the Hasmonean dynasty was enough the Sadducees could not see the difference between politics and religion in a theocratic state. When eventually political freedom was achieved there was real religious freedom which otherwise was only a mirage.⁹ In a theocratic state of the Jews if Jesus is recognized as a religious leader and transformer therefore he was a political leader and transformer. One cannot be one without being the other simultaneously. This is the socio-cultural setting in which Jesus was born. Arguments against the involvement of Jesus in politics cannot be based on the Bible where in Jewish culture politics and religion were interwoven.

When Jesus gathered disciples he followed the rabbinic trend of his time. But he went beyond the tradition of the rabbinic trend. The Rabbis gathered disciples who were students being trained to become lawyers (religious legal experts). Rabbis were fully involved in determining political and religious cases within the Great Sanhendrin.¹⁰ They trained students who graduated to become religious and political experts. Jesus took this ideology and in fact added some more serious political dimension to it. Because of the way he handle the political aspect of the training the mother of the sons of Zebedee came and requested that her two sons may sit one at his right hand and the other at his left hand in his kingdom (Mtt. 20:20-28). The analogy of the rulers of the Gentiles in this passage even brings the socio-cultural politics to the fore. So, Jesus was really a politician.

When he was arrested by the Jewish political authority one of his disciples brought out a sword and cut off the ear of one of the political agents. If this disciple had not understood the political ideology of Jesus from the socio-cultural perspective one would wonder what Jesus Christ was teaching them all those three years.

During the trial of Jesus a major accusation was that he claimed to be the king of the Jews, an accusation he did not deny (John 18:37; Matt 27:37; John 1:49-51; Luke 19:37-40). When all these passages are technically assembled it will become glaringly clear that Jesus was actually killed as a politician. This is a point that has led Michael White to insist, “We have to remember that it was known that Jesus was executed as a political criminal and the gospel traditions themselves preserved this tradition of Pilate questioning Jesus. "Are you a king?”¹¹

When John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus, challenged King Herod, "It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife" in Mark 6:18, what do we think he was doing? That was politics. If the spiritual Kingdom was what matters one would expect John to keep quiet and expect an ideal politics at the end of the age when the spiritual kingdom of Jesus would have started. The argument is that both Jesus and John the Baptist were fully involved in the mundane politics of the time though they expected a more ideal politics in the future. The ways and manners this future ideal politics would be introduced on earth is not the issue at stake since the different characters and players in the Bible times had their different ideas. All the biblical characters agree as to their participation in the politics of their time.

The Rabbis of his time trained disciples and commissioned them to protect the “Tradition of the elders” as they were taught. Jesus rather trained his disciples and commissioned them to represent him (Act 1:18); to be the vanguard of his kingdom. His discipleship training went beyond the content of the Jewish Rabbinic School. His own turned out a political party that would mobilize men after him to become the vanguard of the political monarchy of Jesus.

Jesus was a real politician, when assessed from the political definition of the Jewish culture. If politics is defined from Nigerian or American partisan politics of our modern society then politics must also be correctly defined from the Jewish partisan politics of the time of Jesus. If he was a partisan politician it becomes impossible to see him outside political definition of Nigeria.

 

 

My Kingdom is not of this world

It will be a sheer academic naivety to pretend ignorance of the texts where Jesus said his Kingdom is not of this world and how these texts have formed a veritable basis to rest the apolitical life of Jesus. But if the interpretation of these texts were made with balanced hermeneutical principles there would be a lot of points to draw the political life of Jesus from there. Before expatiating on this Dominican statement it will be necessary to highlight Arkansas Blog position, “It seems to me that Jesus’ life was very political – he directly challenged the existing socio-political order of his day, his focus was more on creating a kingdom in the here and now than in catapulting souls into extraterrestrial orbit”¹²The exegetes of apolitical Jesus would usually emphasize a Kingdom of extraterrestrial orbit against “The righteous shall inherit the earth” (Ps 37:9), “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness” (Ps. 24:1), “Let all the earth fear the Lord” (Ps. 33:8), Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth” (Matt. 5: 5). It should be emphasized here that the Beatitudes bore so much socio-ethical implication that extraterrestrial Kingdom was out of place. When Jesus said, “But seek his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well” (Matt. 6:33) he referred to socio-ethical implications as against extraterrestrial rectitude. This should in fact be understood when the Lord’s Prayer in the same text is studied (see v.10), “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” When Jesus therefore said, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18: 36) he simply meant that his Kingdom constitutes ethical rectitude here in this world as against a geo-political setting of rancour, envy and acrimony. He meant a geo-political sphere where righteousness, peace and love where to govern the lives of human beings, not angels or spirits. If this were not meant he would not have spent his time requesting men to “repent for the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mtt. 4: 17). He would have simply requested them to get ready to be catapulted into extraterrestrial orbit where they will experience God. It was the kingdom of this world that the devil presented to Jesus in ‘the temptation’ (Mtt. 4: 1ff) and not extraterrestrial kingdom. Jesus did not challenge the claim to the kingdom but the matter of worship. Perhaps Jesus’ claim in John 8: 36, earlier cited, is better understood when it is taken alongside John 7: 7, “The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify of it that its works are evil.” When Jesus differentiates his kingdom from that of this world the emphasis is on the ethical position of things.

 

When Jesus sent out “the Seventy” in Luke 10 to preach the kingdom it was clear these disciples understood a socio-cultural kingdom and not a spiritualized kingdom. When Jesus saw Satan fall like lightening from heaven, as an outcome of the mission of the Seventy should one think that their “kingdom of God” had no socio-cultural implications? The concept of the kingdom of God as understood by these disciples will further become clear when Acts 1: 6-7, Luke 1:33; 9:60-62 are studied in this context.

It is not, however, to be denied that Jesus must have thought of some extraterrestrial eschatological kingdom in some of the occasions as his statements sometimes present equivocal ideas. Some spiritual sense of this kingdom is not to be discarded; neither should the “here and now” be explained away.

 

 

 

Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s

In Mark 12: 17 Jesus said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” A close examination of this text reveals a good support for political position of Jesus. Here Jesus established the validity of the tax that was paid to Caesar.  This in turn confirms a support to the political government of Rome. If the Jews had used the legal tender of Rome it shows their political submission to the Roman government. Not paying tax would portray a hypocritical position. Perhaps Jesus would have said, “I am not interested in politics, therefore do whatever you like!” But this is far from the political life of Jesus. Recognising the coin as a symbol of Roman overlord shows his political interest. However, Jesus demanded that people submit themselves to God in their ethical conformity as the most important thing that matters before God and as a definition of the Kingdom of God.

 

 

 

The Problem of Party Politics in Nigeria

Party politics in Nigeria revolves round the morality vicious cycle which actually creates the real problem of partisan politics. This is a situation that has drawn the committed Christian to the conclusion that neither Jesus nor the Nigerian Christian could participate in politics. Political parties are formed by a group of friends of like mind. They think the same way and believe the same thing. They present candidates who represent their interest in election not the interest of the electorate. Being dubious, most times, they formulate manifestos that are never followed when elections are won.

 

 

 

The chronic morality vicious cycle in Nigeria is represented in figure 1

 

Fig 1 The Morality Cycle

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nigeria has become such a lawless society that morality cycle is the bane of politics. Corruption is so high in Nigeria that ‘the Transparency international, in 1997, scored Nigeria as the most corrupt country in the world, and, in 2003, rated the country the second most corrupt country in the world.”¹³ This high level of corruption has led to a very low level of morality in the society. Morality is so low that both the “righteous” and the “unrighteous” are infested. It is almost impossible to maintain some level of morality in Nigeria. Since the society is made up of this low moral infested people, friendship of persons of like mind ensues. This low moral friendship constitutes political party so morally low that political manifesto is of very low morality. Political manifesto is only a deceit designed to woo the electorate. Low moral manifesto leads to low moral governance. When governance is of very low morality there is national moral decadence. This leads to a situation where the politicians see the national cake as their monopoly. They exploit and milk the masses to a point where one can only be corrupt to survive. This in turn increases the high level of corruption. The rich must see corruption as a way of life in order to maintain his position. The poor must on the other hand strive to be as corrupt as possible to keep the flesh and bone together. Corruption therefore remains the culture and politics of Nigeria. So, how can Jesus fit into this sort of situation as a politician? This has actually baffled the sincere Christian who wants to “protect” Jesus. In as much as the Christian wants to “protect” Jesus he must guard against eisegesis.¹⁴

 

Jesus in Nigerian Politics

When politics has become a “do or die affair and a dirty game” it becomes practically difficult to see how Jesus could be a politician. In the first place Jesus would need to be a Nigerian to become a Nigerian politician. However he has commissioned the Christian in Nigeria to be a Jesus the politician in Nigeria. The Nigerian Christian is called and commissioned to be an ambassador of Jesus. He is expected to do in Nigeria exactly what Jesus would do in Jewish politics. Anything outside this is unbiblical.

It will be recalled that the Jewish political climate of the time of Jesus was full of violence, either caused by the incessant insurgence of the zealots or the corrupt Roman procurators and Governors who want to amass wealth through all dubious and corrupt means. The typical Jews were either saboteurs (e.g the Herodeans) or exploiters of the highest order (e.g the publicans and soldiers).¹⁵ The situation was so bad that John the Baptist called for those who would take sides with God against the Jews to come for repentance and baptism, a cause he was eventually executed for. It was in this context that Jesus openly called the political leader a fox (Luke 13:32). He could not have posed such a challenge if he himself was not interested in the liberation of the masses from political oppression.

The low morality and national moral decadence held sway the Jewish society. Yet, Jesus stood above board. He impacted morality on the disciples. The corrupt Judas Iscariot was judged and he died a miserable death. It was morality that sustained the primitive church. Ananias and Sapphira were judged and they died a miserable death. These biblical characters of the primitive church that faced judgment as a result of moral decadence present a case against the Nigerian Christian who thinks “if you cannot change them you should join them.”

If Jesus was fully engaged in the politics of his time and still lived above board the Nigerian Christian has no excuse. The Nigerian Christian in politics who is tossed by every wind of political misdemeanour has no biblical basis. The church is called to be the vanguard of the Kingdom of God in the world and cannot do it without being involved in all spheres of the societal life and structure. If Jesus was a Nigerian he will join the politics of Nigeria and fully commit himself to the emancipation of the Nigerian oppressed.

 

Breaking the Vicious Cycle

It is an extremely difficult task to break a vicious cycle. It is very difficult because every point in the circle leads to another point and the cycle of points is just endless. A vicious cycle can only be broken by an external force. Without external force, it is practically impossible to end a vicious cycle. The vicious cycle that has formed the bane of the political dynamics of Nigeria cannot be broken by the helpless and incapacitated politician who is so entangled and enslaved in the cycle. This is where only God, an external and greater force, can come in.

The Church preaches a God who is almighty and all loving. The Church preaches the endowment of power from on high. It is expected that committed Christians must posses some potentialities greater than the forces that sustain the vicious cycle. This greater force is referenced in 1 John 4:4 “Little children, you are of God, and have overcome them; for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world”. This is referred to in Acts 1:8 “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witness in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.”

If the Nigeria Christian, with the inherent power to break the vicious cycle, cannot utilize his divine potentialities “how shall its saltiness be restored?” Before I recommend a practical step for the Nigeria Christian I want to stress that the woe of the Nigerian Christian is complicated by too many church goers who claim they are Christians but have never been changed by the God of Christianity. Such church goers have no divine power. They could be called John, Andrew, Paul etc. But the fact remains that they are Judas Iscariot, Ananias and Sapphira. A thief was to face firing squad in Lagos; when he was asked his name he said his name is Salvation. This shows the level of criminality in the use of religious names and concepts by Nigerian evil perpetrators.

 

The Task for the Christian

That politics has become a dirty (corrupt) game in Nigeria does not mean the Christian must distance himself from it in the process of staying away from corruption. Jesus was a politician, well involved in the society yet righteous. At the high level of corruption and the enormity of Nigerian political criminality it is not advisable for the Christian to jump into political parties blindly just because Jesus was involved in partisan politics. No, he requires a high level of calculation and wisdom. The recommendation is very straight forward and practicable.

a.                   Pastors should mobilize the church members who are committed to God with the right political ideology. When the mobilization comes from the pulpit the Christian is better assured that God is very interested in the Nigerian politics and that politics in Nigeria can turn from a dirty game to a godly game.

b.                   At the level of corruption it will be very difficult for isolated individuals to join the ready-made political parties and succeed. What the committed Christians need is either to form their own parties or join ready-made political parties en-mass. With concerted effort it is much easier to effect a change than when an individual dives into a sea of corrupt and dirty politicians. The recommendation is not for a religious political party, which of  course, is not allowed by Nigerian Constitution but a formation of like minds who have zero tolerance for corruption based on religious ideology. The emphasis here is that Christian ideology should be at heart leading to practical life of transparency.

c.                   Christians in politics should be encouraged by both pastors and church members with utmost priority. In the same effort with which the Pentecostal pastor organizes his evangelism crusades and missions awareness campaigns he should support the Christian politician as a vanguard of Christian mission is a system that is fast declining into oblivion. Unless the church sees the Christian in politics as a missionary that needs missionary support Nigeria will continue to degenerate into political and national cataclysm.

d.                   Both the church and the wealthy Christian who are not in politics should not only pray for those in politics, they should support them financially as unto God. The same way multimillionaires who are Christians donate fabulously for church building projects they should donate even much bigger to support Christians in politics.

e.                   Christian ethics should form the bedrock of both Christian education in all levels of secular institutions and theological seminaries.  The much emphasis on miracle, signs and wonders in Nigerian Christianity must be replaced by Christian ethics. Christian ethics itself goes with the divine power to live above board in a corrupt and perverted society as Nigeria. If the effort directed at miracles and deliverance in Nigerian Christianity was directed to Christian ethics Nigeria would by now become the best country to live in in the world. Christian politicians should be given a more serious attention in the training and re-training on Christian ethics.

 

Conclusion

It should be emphasized that the formation of Christian Political Parties may not necessarily determine the solution of political problems. This paper actually stresses that there is nothing wrong for the Christian to be in politics. In fact, it encourages and mandates Christians to be involved in politics. However, more important emphasis should be stressed on Christian ethics. There are many Christian political parties in Europe, Latin America, Asia, Australia and New Zealand.¹⁶ Many of them are making great impact in the society. If Christians form political parties but the nominal type of Christianity is transferred into it the formation will turn as useless as the secular.

The political party system in Nigeria has come to stay. The political pendulum could dangle from multi-party system of the independence politics to the two-party system of the 1993 politics and back to the multi-party politics. Party politics has become the constant. Party politics takes membership from the Nigerian society where corruption has become a baneful monster.

            If the Christian politician must be involved in the Nigerian politics he must come to accept this truth. He must be ready to be involved in party politics to make an impression. He must also accept that abandoning politics as a dirty game will only worsen the situation. Evil doers do not and cannot effect a positive political change in the country. The Christian must accept that God is involved in the society and working day and night to bring about a change in the political system of the day. God is interested in the society just as He was interested in His beloved Son on earth.

In 2 Samuel 23:3 David insisted that a ruler (politician) must be just and have the fear of God. Would he be complacent and indifferent to the political dynamics of Nigeria if David were a Nigerian? Would he require the fear of God from a godless politician? Would he not be requiring that from a godly politician? What is the fear of God from biblical perspective? Should we not define the fear of God from the biblical perspective if we are to understand the mind of the author and to apply it in our immediate setting? John the Baptist challenged Herod (the politician) that it was wrong for him to marry Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife (Mark 6: 17-120). He opposed Herod the ruler to the point where Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him (Mark 6:19). Would John the Baptist keep aloof from politics if he were a Nigerian, bearing in mind the way he opposed King Herod? 

The Christian must accept that to bring about a change in the society God uses human beings. When the Christian dedicates himself to God He uses him to bring about the desired change in the life of the society. It is not therefore an impossible task to break the morality cycle in Nigerian politics. It only takes a purpose-driven church to effect a divine force that is capable of breaking the cycle. If a little proportion of the effort on prayers that go on daily in Nigeria were to focus on Christian ethics Nigerian politics will change drastically.

            If Jesus was a politician then the Christian must not only become a politician he must take politics very seriously.

 

 

 

 

End Notes

¹http://www.opinioneditorials.com/freedomwriters/warren_20030429.html browsed 19/3/08

 

²http://kenyavotes.org/docs/Kenya_2007_Final_Preliminary_Statement.pdf

 

³ Ibid

 

⁴http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2007/04/24/nigeriil15763.htm browsed 19/3/08

 

⁵E.M Kirkpatrick ed, Chambers 20th country Dictionary (Edinburgh: W & R Chambers ltd, 1993)

 

⁶John Sinclair, BBC English Dictionary (London: Harper Collins Publishers, 1992) p. 887

 

⁷E.A Ituma, Introduction to Early Christianity (Lagos: Chinedum Publisher Ltd, 2001) p.19

 

⁸Robert C. Walton, A Source Book of the Bible for Teachers (London: SCM Press Ltd, 1970) p. 194;  E. A. Ituma, Critical Points on the Background of the New Testament (Lagos: Maidik Publications, 2005) p.

 

⁹John Sinclair, Op. Cit, p.736

 

¹⁰D. R. W. Wood, ed, New Bible Dictionary, (England: Inter-Varsity Press, 2003) p.1060

 

¹¹L. Michael White, “Kingdoms in Conflict” www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline /religion

 

¹²Arkansas Bog, www.arktimes.co./blobs/askansasblog/

2006/04/jesus_as_politician .aspxle

 

¹³S.C Chuta, Corruption in Nigeria (Nsukka: Afro-Orbis Publications Ltd, 2004) PP667

 

¹⁴ Eisegesis is a technical concept that means reading into the scripture what is not there. “While exegesis draws out the meaning from the text, eisegesis occurs when a reader reads his/her interpretation into the text” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisegesis

 

¹⁵Consice Bible Dictionary (Dillenburg: Gute Botschaft verlag, 1993) p.641

 

¹⁶ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_democracy