Prayer or engagement: The skill called compromise

Christians’ influence or lack of it has been of interest to scholars for a long time. The intra-Christians’ conflict of opinions between those that favour a prayer-without-engagement of society and those that prefer active engagement over prayer. This paper employs a ‘dynamics assessment’ approach to Bible interpretation and the historical method based on a theoretical framework from Max Weber’s, Reinhold Niebuhr’s and Ernst Troeltsch’s works to survey past records and contemporary opinions for Christians’ divergent perspectives on engagement of societal issues. It argues that conflicting Christian opinions have not considered ‘compromise’ as a strategic skill of engagement with each other and with society. The two must find a common Biblical and theologically sound approach to guide responsible Christian citizens’ engagement in society.