5. The role of the Christian in the state

Due to computer-related problems, this article came much later than anticipated. Thanks for your patience!

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If there is one way Christians in Burkina Faso would like to impact their country positively, it is through their government. The Evangelical community stands squarely behind their Prime Minister, who is part of the Christian community. The Prime Minister has recently worked visibly against the corruption of the country. The President too claims to be Christian, although less is said about his attachment to any church.

A few weeks ago, I preached a sermon on Matthew 13 (the mustard seed and the woman hiding yeast in an enormous amount of dough). The theme was on how the little things we do count in the Kingdom of God. Referring to John Howard Yoder, I talked about how the Kingdom is less concerned with who is president or what kind of laws are made, but about how we are faithful in daily life: raising our children to be disciples of Jesus, caring for each other, loving our spouses, our neighbour, our enemy, and renouncing injustice. After the sermon, the worship leader got up and, as is often done, summarized my sermon. He said, “You see, we have to be faithful in the small things because that way God will make us big and powerful and give us important things to do.” Did I not fail to get my point across here?

The Kingdom is coming in a big way and through big efforts from the Burkinabé (Ouagadougou) church perspective. That’s what makes them excited every time a Christian moves up the ladder in politics. Enter the Mennonites and our political phobias and apprehensions. Where to go from here? Solutions?

This is where I end this series of articles (unless I somehow discover other themes in the near future.) In closing and in summary (and to answer the two short questions I just posed), the answer is time. We can’t expect our Burkina brothers and sisters to embrace such radical Anabaptist values overnight. Relationships must be continually developed. Many of you have suggested not speaking about Anabaptist values, but about what is biblical from the Anabaptist perspective without spelling out that these are Anabaptist principals. This has been helpful, but the challenge is still to tell some of our great Anabaptist stories in a way that makes the hearer reflect on whether or not this is something that is feasible or worth emulating in one’s own life.

It was interesting the response given by one Burkinabé to the story of Dirk Willems, who was fleeing from a guard who would catch him, and return him to prison where Dirk would ultimately be executed. As the chase was on, the guard fell through the ice. Dirk returned to save his life and help him out of the water. A Burkinabé response was, “God delivered Dirk, and judged the guard. Why did Dirk not accept this deliverance and flee?!!” Perhaps another thought might be, “How many Israelites jumped into the Red Sea to save an Egyptian after God closed the waters?”

As much as we would appreciate seeing more of the world embrace such Anabaptist values, we need to also be ready to learn from our Burkinabé brothers and sisters who unconsciously challenge our Anabaptist values. Do Mennonites not need to re-examine themselves and ask: Are we doing enough to work for ecumenical unity? How do we neglect the work and power of the Holy Spirit in our lives? In our attempt at a rebuttal of the evangelical perspective on eternal life, how do we snuff out the joy one feels in knowing that life next to God forever, away from sin and all that is bad, is what is awaiting us after death? How does a peace theology apply in one’s home country where there is already a relative peace? How do we limit God’s work by implicitly suggesting that God cannot or chooses not to work through national and international government bodies? This is the richness that exchanging with our Burkinabé brothers and sisters will bring.

Please respond!

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