Bishop Daniels Withdrawn

8 June 2011

The inclusion of the President of the Liberian Council of Churches (LCC), Bishop David Daniels, on the campaigners’ list of the ruling Unity Party (UP) had raised questions about the integrity and political neutrality of the Christian umbrella group. Consequently, UP withdrew the LCC president’s name from the list. But observers say the withdrawal itself leaves behind another fundamental question: “Was the bishop’s inclusion a political misstep, or has it made him a victim of proletariat tyranny?” The Analyst has been finding out.

President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, yesterday, announced the removal of the name of LCC President, Bishop David R. Daniels, from the list of the Unity Party Campaign Advisory Group.

She said the party took the decision after it concurred with the African Methodist Episcopal prelate about the inappropriateness of placing him on a list of campaign advisors, vis-à-vis his positions as head of the Methodist Church and the Liberian Council of Churches.

President Sirleaf disclosed Bishop Daniel’s withdrawal in her capacity as standard-bearer of the ruling Unity Party (UP).

“The Standard Bearer wishes to clarify that the team assembled is not a Campaign Team, which already exists, and that the Ministers named are part of the Advisory Group,” Presidential Press Secretary Cyrus Badio told reporters during an Executive Mansion press briefing on Monday, June 6, 2011.

Mr. Badio did not say whose idea it was that it would be inappropriate to include Bishop Daniels on the list of the UP Campaign Advisory Group since both the party and the bishop knew who he (Daniels) was at the time of his enlistment.

It remains unclear whether President Sirleaf’s Monday announcement was the outcome of the pressure the public had reportedly mounted against the selection of the bishop as campaigner for the ruling party at the time Liberians expect the church (especially LCC) and the mosque to stay clear of Liberia’s electoral politics.

However, it appears clear to observers that the President’s announcement might have something to do with the pressure that came from one of LCC’s affiliate organizations, the Liberian Media Center (LMC), which vehemently opposed the selection and called for Bishop Daniels immediate withdrawal and/or his resignation as head of LCC.

Background

In a release issued last week, LMC gave Bishop Daniels the option to immediately withdraw his name from the UP Campaign Advisory Group list or relinquish his position as president of the LCC.

The release quoted LMC’s director of Christian Affairs, Nah Davis, as saying at the time that the selection of Bishop Daniels “on the campaign team of Madam Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and the Unity Party in the 2011 elections compromises the neutrality of the Liberia Council of Churches role and responsibilities of the LCC”.  Mr. Davis had contended that Bishop Daniels’ selection, as an electoral campaigner for a political party, would break the council’s tradition, since its founding some 31 years ago, of staying clear of electoral politics.

“Over the war tone years, the Liberia Council of Churches under the leadership of several key bishops including, Bishop Arthur Kullah, Bishop Michael K. Francis, Bishop Nah Dixon, Bishop Sumoward Harris, Bishop John Innis kept the Liberia Council of Churches at neutral page in an efforts to bring an end to the civil war and restore peace to Liberia,” the LMC release had contended.

It noted further that LCC’s pro-peace and political neutrality has brought glory to its fame and enabled it to work for peace and unity in Liberia following a long period of bitterness.

The faith-based media group conceded the Methodist bishop’s right of association, but it noted that his responsibility to the LCC, by its moral force, has restricted that right.

“The Christian Media Center sees it as a violation of the organic laws of the Liberia Council of Churches as thus bringing to credibility the neutrality of LCC and its entire membership,” LMC had said.

Neither the Methodist Church nor LCC had commented on Bishop Daniels’ inclusion on UP’s Campaign Advisory Group list, leaving observers to wonder what the two institutions made of the political inclination of their head, vis-à-vis the separation of church and state  clause of the Liberian Constitution.

Beyond the silence of the two institutions and in the wake of the reversal of the UP decision to deselect the bishop as political campaign advisor, the public is equally divided over whether the bishop and UP had done anything wrong.

Mixed reactions

The division, from analysts make of it, is about law versus morality, about expectation over reality, and about right of the individual over the right of a group, rather than what anyone had done or failed to do.

For one group, unless the laws of LCC and the African Methodist Episcopal Church specifically ruled out the political involvement of their leaders in electioneering politics, it was tantamount to the tyranny of the proletariat for the church or the council, or anyone associated with them, to forbid the bishop’s participation in electoral politics.

“This is plebs tyranny to say the bishop cannot be part of a political party. There is no law prohibiting that,” said Julia A. Mulbah who claimed to be a Methodist herself.

Julia said neither the UP nor the bishop did anything to contravene the laws of Liberia, let alone to wrong anyone.

“The law calls for the separation of the church and the state. This does not mean that Christians, who are in the majority, are excluded from politics. It simply means that church leaders should not make state decisions. That is not what the bishop was selected to do. Those who pushed for him to be dropped from the UP list were simply imposing their will on him, making him a victim,” she contended.

According to her, most Liberian political leaders in the past were also heads of the church, citing specially President William V. S. Tubman, whom she said was a Methodist deacon and President William R. Tolbert, who she said was a Baptist preacher and president of the World Baptist Alliance at the time of his death in 1980.

Ms. Mulbah’s view cut cross those of the several Liberians this paper has interviewed regarding Bishop Daniels’ removal from the list of the UP Campaign Advisory Group. Not all of those surveyed, however, saw things from her point of view.

“There might not be any laws specifically banning the bishop from campaigning for UP or being a partisan of the party, but morality does. What moral grounds will the Methodist Church or the LCC stands on to want to arbitrate any electoral dispute when their leader is an active campaigner for UP?” Bahway Doe of Barnesville asked rhetorically.

He said that notwithstanding the withdrawal of his name from the UP list, the Methodist bishop has forever muddied his integrity and soiled the neutrality of the organizations he served as head.

“He did something he should never have dreamt of doing. The way out is for him to heed the advice of LMC and graciously bow out of the LCC leadership. He may even consider resigning as bishop so he can comfortably run the UP campaign,” Doe, who claimed to be a partisan of the opposition CDC, insisted

Which of the two groups has the upper hand in the debate is difficult to say. But analysts say the debate over the bishop’s selection by a political party to perform a political function, at the obvious detriment of the institutions he serves, opens a huge debate about tradition, expectation, morality, and deportment over law and the right to association as Liberians head to the polls in four months’ time.

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