Ecclesial Leadership and Social Responsibility within the African C ontext of E conomic I njustice

This article explores the phenomenon of ecclesial leadership and its relationship with social responsibility within the Sub-Saharan African context where many nations are experiencing economic injustices. It argues that failure to adequately engage with the neo-liberal economic order has resulted in ecclesial leadership that is increasingly losing public trust as perceptions of the leaders and the offices that they control are being corrupted by their insatiable appetite for financial greed. Contemporary ecclesial leaderships are caught in an ethical conundrum through their inability to missionally negotiate the spiritually disarming, attractive and additive lure of the ideologies of neoliberalism and neo-conservatism that are weakening the effectiveness of religious leaders who are easily entrapped because of their ‘love of money’. Their inability to exercise critical distance from the infectious and addictive lure of greed has compromised the authenticity of their integrity and the witness of the church’s mission in the world to be in solidarity with people that live on the margins of society (Keum 2012:14-16). The fall in ecclesial standards of leadership in exercising authentic social responsibility within communities of oppressed peoples living on the margins has now placed the need for ethical formation at the centre of ecclesial leadership within the African context. The fast growth in urbanization with millions of Africans being attracted to cities for work, study and living, has led to the rise of many independent charismatic/ Pentecostal communities led by self-styled charis-matic ‘Prophets’, ‘Apostles’ ‘Bishops’ and ‘Pastors’. They operate an all-inclusive ecclesial business with vast budgets within the communities of the poor that are experiencing socio-economic injustices that are fallouts from the neo-liberal economic policies that have been and continue to be adopted by Ecclesial Leadership and Social Responsibility within the African Context of Economic Injustice