The Rt. Rev. Dr David Zac Niringiye, bishop at All Saints Cathedral in Kampala says that religious leaders who claim that they do not want to mix politics and religion should resign office because, they do not understand their calling.
This was all said during a live interview with NBS’s Mildred and Simon of the Morning Breeze Show. The show hosts raised concern over the fate of TDA after the Feb 18th elections and religious leaders who have explained that their silence towards ongoing political issues is because they do not want to mix politics and religion.
“Can I tell you, any religious leader who tells you that they do not want to mix politics and religion, tell them that please resign your office because he/she does not understand their calling. The calling of a religious leader is a calling to a life, an advocacy, a prophetic work of justice. Justice is deeply political,” the Bishop said.
He emphasized further that the calling of a political leader is to provide hope, to speak into the lives of people about the will of God – about- for Christian people, the kingdom of God. “So, any religious leader that says I will separate my role as a religious leader from engaging with issues of political nature, they do not understand,”
Asked as to whether political leaders should be as overly political as he is, Bishop Zac rephrased the question to what he termed appropriate, saying that, what Simon should have asked is, “Should political leaders be as overly political as Jesus was?”
“As Jesus challenged the injustice of the then existing political leaders. The Old Testament is very clear about the injustice of the widow, the orphan and the stranger. As He advocated that, ‘love the Lord your God, Love your neighbor as you love yourself,’ all these are concepts that challenged the existing religious establishment. As the religious leaders and political leaders wanted to get rid of Jesus, on this they agreed, to eliminate Jesus,”
Bishop Zac said that the temptation to abuse power in order to keep it continues to grow strong.
“The reason political leaders might go silent is because they are afraid of destabilizing those who occupy political power. Haven’t you seen how President Museveni Speaks, ‘I will keep it…,’ in fact there is a time when he said, ‘Anyone who gets in my way, I will crush,’ He was very clear and that was very clear to the Roman establishment,”
“I am simply saying that any priest, any Bishop any religious leader worth his name, has to engage with issues that are political, why, because he is called to speak about issues that are political, to engage with issues that are political,” he stated
More of the Interview Here
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