Political Polarization Is Pushing Evangelicals to a Historic Breaking Point
Toyin Falola
Cornelius Hamelberg
At first I thought that the headline was a piece of Pan-African news. How else can I explain this? For context, my reaction came immediately after first thing this morning, reading this daunting piece of news about some forthcoming trouble in the sky, looming high on the peace in the Middle East horizon :
Fundamentally speaking, I was therefore in a state of rare panic. I, I. I. That was the mode I was in and for one mad moment I thought that the screaming headline
”Political Polarization Is Pushing Evangelicals to a Historic Breaking Point”
was about Nigeria and Nigeria’s various fundamentalist Christian orientations in reaction to the Muslim-Muslim ticket was ”at a historic breaking point” - i.e. Nigerian Catholics ( mostly of the Igbo East - and of course Bishop Hassan Kukah’s Sokoto flock in the true North) the various Protestant denominations mostly in the Yoruba West, but generously scattered throughout Benue, the zone known as the so called Middle Belt and everywhere else in the country, namely the diverse Pentecostals and Evangelicals and their mega churches organised under the powerful patriarchal albeit charismatic leadership of local pastors .
Indeed, collectively and united - if politically conscious, a force that would be one to reckon with should they wish to take collective action - in reaction to the idea of a “ Muslim - Muslim ticket” when but for the grace of God, in fact but for Jesus having instructed them “ Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven” - and “ Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's” - for a surety, collectively we are to imagine that they would much prefer not just a piece of the cake but the whole cake - for a change, under the auspices of a Christian - Christian ticket and lest we forget, it is Jesus and not Muhammad that’s head of the Church…
What a relief , ( anti-climax) that ”Political Polarization Is Pushing Evangelicals to a Historic Breaking Point” is about Nigeria's Evangelical brothers and sisters problems in the United States