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Clergy Questions the Salvation of Traditional Rulers
Are Public Confessions of Faith Enough for Kings and Chiefs to Enter Heaven?
By Rev. Emmanuel Boachie
The Church and the Crown: A Warning from Pergamum to the Thrones of Our Age
When Thrones Meet Altars: The Gains, the Guilt, and the Gospel Call to Genuine Faith
History tells a cautionary tale whenever the Church weds the State. From Constantine’s imperial embrace of Christianity in Rome to the establishment of Anglicanism in Tudor England, the sacred and the secular have often shared a bed of uneasy alliance — one that has produced both blessing and betrayal.
Kings Who Shielded the Faith
When the Protestant Reformation shook Europe, it was the favour of certain monarchs that preserved the Gospel flame from Rome’s inquisitorial darkness.
Frederick the Wise of Saxony sheltered Martin Luther from papal wrath. Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden defended Protestant territories during the Thirty Years’ War. Queen Elizabeth I upheld a Protestant settlement that rejected papal supremacy.
Yet, as Church history reminds us, power came at a price. The same alliance that shielded the reformers also tempted the Church to court state favour. Once the persecuted bride of Christ, she risked becoming the pampered mistress of kings.
Pergamum: The Prototype of Compromise
Revelation’s message to the Church in Pergamum (Revelation 2:12–17) exposes the danger of compromise — believers dwelling “where Satan’s throne is.”
Pergamum symbolized the fusion of religion and empire; the corruption that seeps in when the Church becomes too comfortable with power.
Israel’s kings, too, fell to divided loyalties. The northern monarchs worshipped Baal, and the southern kings of Judah only half-obeyed Yahweh. Their thrones became altars of apostasy.
Modern Thrones, Ancient Warnings
Today’s kings and chiefs are not called to offer sacrifices but to surrender wholly to the King of kings, Jesus Christ. Across Africa, many traditional rulers are publicly joining Christian fellowships — a hopeful sign, yet also a peril of religious pretence.
The Church must beware of spiritual sycophancy — flattering kings while failing to disciple them. Chiefs who join churches without true conversion become symbols of empty religiosity. Their wealth may build cathedrals, but without repentance, it is vanity before God.
“Thou shalt have no other gods before Me,” declares the Lord. Can our rulers truly serve Christ while performing rituals before ancestral stools and shrines? The early martyrs refused to call Caesar “Lord,” knowing that only Jesus bears that name.
Kings must renounce all forms of secret societies, for no one can dine at the Lord’s table and the table of demons. Hidden covenants, occult oaths, and ancestral initiations are incompatible with the light of Christ.
Thrones may be ancient, but salvation is new birth — not inherited by bloodline, but granted by grace.
The Church Must Speak the Truth
The Church of Pentecost and all historic denominations must be bold and truthful with traditional leaders who profess faith. Christianity and paganism cannot coexist. As Christ warned,
“No man can serve two masters.” Until rulers renounce ancestral rites, polygamy, libations, secret societies, and necromancy, their worship remains illegitimate before God.
True Christianity is not ceremonial attendance but spiritual rebirth. “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith” (2 Corinthians 13:5).
The Evangelistic Appeal
It is compassion, not condemnation, that compels this warning. The Gospel extends an open invitation to all thrones:
“If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Romans 10:9).
One day, “at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow.” May our kings not bow in shame but in glory; as part of that royal priesthood which brings its honour into the New Jerusalem.
Long live the kings who surrender their crowns to the Lamb. Long live the Church that dares to tell them the truth.
REV. EMMANUEL BOACHIE:
Country Director, Awesome Bible College | President, Centre for Biblical-Historical Christianity Defence | Head Pastor, Souls’ Pasture Church, Asuofua-Achiase – Kumasi, Ghana | +233 240 375 959/[email protected].
