The French military officer and statesman, Charles de Gaulle, was absolutely right when he said, “Politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.” It is more so relevant in a democracy because, as Plato said, one of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
The point here is that Church and Politics are not antithetical. Politics is the art of governance. Unlike popular understanding in this remote region of the world, politics is not about booth capturing, free flow of alcohol, proxy voting or show of money and muscle power during elections. Politics is about making decisions and agreements between people so that they can live together and thrive. Elections are a part of democratic process of electing representatives to make decisions and agreements on behalf of the people. There are no elections in totalitarian or theocratic states. Elections are held only in democratic states.
The Church launching the Clean Election movement is a noble and laudable cause. The Church voicing out against certain policies is a democratic exercise and the right to express its opinion should never be suppressed. Right to freedom of expression is a cornerstone of democracy. On the other hand, the Church must understand that a democracy is not a theocracy. The will of the Church is not supreme in a democracy. For the Church to hold the government to ransom is nothing short of religious extremism.
As can be seen above, in a democracy, the Church should involve in Politics but the question is how or in what manner. To answer that, an odd proposal here would be for the Church to launch a Christian political party. As odd as it may sound, a closer look at world politics proves that Christian political parties are neither new nor odd. There are more than 80 democratic countries in the world that has Christian political parties whose ideology is to seek to apply Christian principles to public policy. If the people elect the Christian parties to power, they formulate policies in line with their theology. That is the beauty of democracy.
Just like there are Christian political parties elsewhere, it is openly known that there are Hindu political parties in India. As long as the political parties operate within the purview and provisions of the Constitution of India, political parties of any ideology are permissible. As such, the Indian Christian Front, a Christian political party was launched in Tamil Nadu in the year 2000.
It is felt that, for the Church to further its agenda in Nagaland, the ideal way is to launch her own political party, contest and win elections, and apply her policies. Holding the government to ransom is blackmailing, which is the last thing a citizen would expect in a democracy.
