Politics, Church and the Kingdom

In an earlier post, I said that if Christians wanted change they could believe in that they needed to focus on the Kingdom of God because the it is only through following Christ and his Kingdom that the world is and will continue to be changed.

The above sounds good in principle, but how can the Church and the government co-exist when, in many ways, they are opposed to one another? This is a difficult question to answer, as many Christians affiliate themselves with different parties that "seem" to support their particular understanding of the Christian worldview. But by aligning oneself with a particular political party is the problem because no political party can or does support all the features of the Kingdom that Christ charged us with following and living out in this world. The reason not party can do this is because the majority of those running our contemporary government believe that they are God's substitute and no political party of the government is willing to submit itself to God's authority through Christ in order to bring the Kingdom into reality.

This, of course, is not to say that government, by God's grace, doesn't or cannot do things that are not kingdom oriented in terms of morality. But the Kingdom is not just about making moral decisions. It is about having a relationship with God through Christ that is seen and experienced when Christians live out grace, forgiveness, justice, responsibility and peace. Unfortunately, however, our government, regardless of party, is incapable of being the Kingdom unless its motivation is to ultimately bring people into relationship with Christ. This is why government and the church are limited in their ability to cooperate with each other, as promoting the moral aspects of the kingdom are the only things the two share in common.

At this point, some may want to criticize me and say that one party is more moral than the other. So, for example, Republicans are more moral than democrats because they are generally anti-abortion, promote and support the individual's ability to financially prosper, wish to limit the power of government to control our ability to live life and hold individual responsibility up as a high ideal.

There are, however, many biblical contradictions in the more conservative line of thinking. First, God does not praise individual prosperity without responsibility. If one prospers, God allows the prosperity for a purpose, namely, to help those who are not prosperous. In other words, individuals may prospers, but they live in a community to which they are obligated. Second, many conservatives are anti-abortion but pro-war (i.e., national defense). These two cannot co-exists, as God respects all human life and wants it all protected, even the lives of our enemies. This is why Jesus tells us to love our enemies. Lastly, Christians align themselves with more conservative causes because conservative uphold more traditional values, such as the belief that marriage should be defined as the union between one man and one woman. Gay marriage is a sin and society should not encourage or endorse it and any that support it are not following God's plan for basic human relationships. Now let me say that I do not believe society should support or endorse gay marriage, but I also do not believe Christians can or should control the moral decisions of others. To do so, is not only to support legalism, but is also to be morally arbitrary. For example, how many Christians who are strongly opposed to gay marriage are equally opposed to obesity, which is just as sinful as we are temples of the Holy Spirit? Yet, there are many overweight conversative Christians, who are not bothered or give no spiritual relevance to their weight problems? Remember that sins are sins to God.

If the conservatives believe I have only picked on them, I could equally pick on liberals, as I see many liberals who are anti-war but support abortion, which is again contradictory to the Kingdom's mandate that we respect life. They tend to believe too much in the government's ability to "fix" problems can only be fixed by looking to God through Christ, and they tend to turn a blind eye those who have prospered, blaming them for the problems of inequality in our society. Again, some of their points are valid. Some are not.

I return, however, to my point, which is this: Christians need to ponder what their priorities are. Should we spend the majority of our time listening to Fox News and Rush Limbaugh? Should be consumed with listening to the generally liberal media? Or should we quiet ourselves and listen to what the Holy Spirit is speaking to God's people about His Kingdom and realize it trumps government in every way?

Just something to think about.

For an excellent text on the problems of Christian legalism see Gregory A. Boyd Repenting of Religion: Turning from Judgment to the Love of God (Grand Rapids MI: BakerBooks, 2004).