Photo by Nkonde Mulenga
THEOLOGIAN BECOMES PRESIDENT: Franklin Graham recently praised the election of Lazarus Chakwera as president of Malawi. Malawi became the first African nation to ever have the results of a presidential election overturned. Former pastor and professor Chakwera won 59% of the vote on June 28. He also previously served as Assemblies of God president.
Chakwera worked with Graham when he chaired the 2010 Billy Graham Evangelistic Association outreach called My Hope Malawi. Now-President Chakwera thanked “My Lord Jesus” on Twitter and called his election “a win for democracy and justice”. His experience in church and denominational leadership may serve as good preparation for ruling democratically and justly in a representative government.
As an example, the Apostle Paul did not rule autocratically over the churches he planted. Instead, he appointed local elders and let them govern as they saw fit. Paul did provide guidance and accountability to them and their congregations in his letters.
But he intervened only in extreme cases, such as 1 Corinthians 5:9-13. So let us pray that God leads President Chakwera to set another example of wise Christian rule. For all Christians should be training to reign with Christ when He returns (Rev. 20:4-6). And that may happen sooner than we think…
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Franklin Graham lauds election of theologian Lazarus Chakwera as president of Malawi
From Wikipedia article “Lazarus Chakwera”: “Lazarus Chakwera was born in Lilongwe, the current capital of Malawi, on 5 April 1955[2] when the country was still under British colonial rule.[3] His family were subsistence farmers in the city’s outskirts.[4] Two of his brothers born before him died in infancy and his father, believing that he would live, gave him the name Lazarus after the Biblical character raised from the dead.”
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