Revolutions…A Church’s Role

I recently had the opportunity to travel with eight friends to the tiny country of Swaziland Africa where we spent 10 days becoming aware of the many social, spiritual, political, and physical problems being suffered each day in a relatively unknown country.  Swaziland is a country which nearly 47% of it’s people are HIV positive…the highest percentage of any country in the world.  Poverty is increasing every day, children are recieving little to no education and the jobless rate is at over 30%.  The parlaiment of Swaziland is in complete denial of it’s problems and continues to report to the world health organization that it is a middle-class country in terms of it’s economic status.  This means that they recieve little help and food from other countries and many people are going hungry because of the lies it’s government tells the world.  The US has backed off from much of it’s aid due to the fact that Swazi officials are making it so difficult for countries to give.  It really is heartbreaking!  While I was there a missionary friend told me that he’s hearing word of young men going to Johannesburg South Africa to be trained in organizing and leading peaceful revolutions.  They are learing how to mass communicate, stage protests, and have face to face conversations with the government.  They hope to eventually overthrow the King of Swaziland by the use of a peacful revolution.  Now, I have some questions about this…1) Can there really be such a thing as a peaceful revolution? 2) Should the church have a role in supporting/resourcing these revolutionaries?

This has been haunting me for weeks now and I’ve talked to many people about this and suprisingly, I’ve received little opposition to the idea.  I had the chance last month to sit with a distant mentor of mine, Brian McLaren and I asked him if he thought the church should play some role in helping people over-throw unjust goverments.  He shared that he’s heard this is beginning to happen in other African countries and it’s been something he’s just now exploring as well.  He even reminded me that this was essentially what the the race movement of the 60’s with MLK was about…the church opposing government.  I think this is a good example but it brings me back to my first question…can it really be done peacefully?  I’m sure there are churches doing something…I just wish we knew more about what’s happening here in the american church to help others’ like those in Swaziland. 

Peace and Love.