Pentecostal churches are one of the fastest growing Churches in Nigeria in the 21st century. The term Pentecostal Church shall be used interchangeably with the term New Religious Movement. The Pentecostal Churches have been defined by various scholars of Religion. Burgess (2018) opined thus “Pentecostalism is an umbrella term for African Movements and Churches which stress the experience of the Spirit”. Ojo (2010) said that “the Churches share common phenomena through literature, crusades, camp meeting and rely on the “new birth” and the power of the Holy Spirit”. Owoeye (2011) believes that Pentecostal Churches are Churches that emphasize the working of the Spirit in the Church, especially with ecstatic phenomena like prophecy and speaking in tongues, healing and exorcism. Pentecostal churches shares all the above features as a Pentecostal Church. Christianity can be described as the religion based on the ideas of Jesus Christ. Its followers worship in a church, (Macmilian 2017). The term “church” as translated in the English Language is from the Greek word “ekklesia”. This term had been in use before the emergence of the Christian church and it basically means “called out”. According to the Holman Bible Dictionary (2012), “… use of the term prior to the emergence of the Christian church is important as two streams of meaning flow from the history of its usage into the New Testament understanding of the church”. While the first meaning from the Greek translation is “called out”, signifying “an assembly of citizens of a Greek city” as used in Acts 19:32,39; the second meaning of this Greek term “was used more than one hundred times in the Greek translation of the Old Testament in common use in the time of Jesus”. The Hebrew term for this second meaning is “qahal” which means “assembly” and it can be used in a variety of ways, referring to an assembly of prophets (I Samuel 19:20), of soldiers (Numbers 22:4), or of the people of God (Deuteronomy 9:10) (Holman 2012). Invariably, whichever usage one adopts out of these two, it is evidently clear that the term “church” refers to a group of special and privileged people chosen or “called out” for a special purpose by God. Politics Just like Christianity, politics is variously defined as the ideas and activities involved in getting power in a country or over a particular area of the world. It is also a belief and attitude about how government should work (Macmillian 2017). It can also be said that the science and act of government, political activities, beliefs or affairs, factional scheming for power (Geddes and Grosset 2011). However, politics has been observed in human group interactions, including corporate, academic and religious institutions. It consists of social relations involving authority and power and refers to the regulation of a political unit and to the methods and tactics used to formulate and apply policy (Anifowose Remi 2015). Politics ultimately comes from the Greek word “polis” meaning state or city. In Latin, it is “politicus” and in French “politique”, thus it became “politics” in English. “Politicus” describes anything concerning the state or city affairs. The great Greek political philosopher, Aristotle, began his famous work “politics” with the observation that “man is by nature a political animal”. By this, he means that the essence of social existence is politics and that two or more men interacting with one another are invariably involved in a political relationship. Men are engaged in politics as they try to define their positions in society, as they struggle for scarce resources and as they try to convince others to accept their points of view. Aristotle then concludes that the way to maximize one’s individual capabilities and to attain the highest form of social life was through political interaction with others in an institutionalized setting, designed to resolve social conflicts and so set collective goals (James, 2019). Marshall (2014) shares his view by defining the state as follows: ‘The state is what God through Jesus Christ has set up to maintain justice.

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Its officers are as much ministers of God as the prophets and priests’. Marshall’s definition and classification of political officers as ministers of God helps us to transcend the situation where people only look and view politics as cruel and morally dangerous, and at that moment (negative viewing) there is something we miss. We forget and overlook that even in the church we have politics simply because human beings are involved. In some cases, these ecclesiastical politics are as cruel as secular politics. What we argue is that all human beings are bad, they act under compulsion. And because of our negative judgment of politics, we fail to see even the obvious good in it. The immediate question would be: is anything good that could come from politics or can be found in politics? The answer to this question is affirmed by Hulled (2013), when he asserted that: ‘The good in the sphere of politics is justice; and justice consists in what tends to promote the common interest’. This common interest can only be promoted by participation. Thus, exclusion from the structures (like political parties) where common interests are established and negotiated is immoral as it has ‘anti-creational sentiments’.
A controversy whether or not the Church should involve herself or play any role in the political affairs of the society often arises. While some have argued on the one hand that much involvement may jeopardize the Church’s spiritual status as the ecclesia (the called out people of God), others, on the other hand, have shown that being too distant calls into question the Church’s self-understanding as the light, salt and moral beacon on the earth (Callaway 2011: 1). It will seem more appropriate to take a reconciliatory or midway position that while she is not expected to become a political organization, the Church has a substantial role to play in politics by acting as a principled guide, moral watch dog, spiritual counselor and conscience to the society.

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