I was at a world missions conference about a month ago, and one of the speakers said something that I have been reflecting on a lot . He said that the Church runs into problems when it becomes political. He used the crusades as an example. He said that the Kingdom of God is a person, spiritual idea.
It took me a while to realize the contradictory nature of that claim, but the irony is that the Kingdom of God is a politically charged phrase. It is a clear allusion to a political system(monarchy). So, the conclusion that I have come to is the Kingdom of God is not an apolitical term, but rather a redefining of our political consciousness. The Kingdom of God is radically different from all other systems of politics, but it is still a political idea. Politics is nothing more than how an individual interacts with a larger society. Working from this definition, it is easy to see how Jesus redefines(or better put reaffirms) God's political vision.
In God's Kingdom the strong are put to shame and the weak are lauded. The wise become foolish and the foolishness of God is esteemed. The Kingdom of God seeks not to dominate the world through coercion and violence, but to restore the world through love and grace. It does not seek to destroy enemies, but to make enemies friends. The measure of economic success in God's Kingdom is not volume of production, but amount of distribution.
Now, it is important not to neglect the spiritual nature of the Kingdom. It is the foundation of our politics. Our concept of politics is modeled perfectly in the spiritual nature of our faith. Take the resurrection of Christ, it models perfectly what should happen to our old nature. Or baptism, it symbolizes the washing away of your old mind set, your old life, your old politics. At the core of Christianity, we find relationship. YAHWEH is a God who desires to be known. He seeks a relationship with His creation. That is what we find in Christ. God seeks to reconcile Himself to His creation through the death of His Son. The death and resurrection of Jesus is the pivotal point of all history. Both political and spiritual history. Christ dies on the cross and restores creation to its Creator. The transformation of individuals, was supposed to create a community that transforms.
The Church is that community. It has a pressing social and political agenda. The Church does not go bad when it has a political message, it goes bad when it has the same political message as the world.
Kodi and the Missional Lifestyle
13 years ago
I would agree.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think an important distinction is that you do say that it is a political movement that is based upon a spiritual movement. I've been shown that in a small scale lately, at least a small scale in my mind it seems, that we can study and learn and try really hard to be socially just and responsible and love people, but if we don't know and love our creator, we have gone nowhere.
And it's funny, because I would have thought, "Oh, this is obvious," but the way I, and many, live, it, obviously, is not.
But yes, I don't think I can deny, nor would I want to (although I'm sure if I could see more clearly what the "political" movement of Jesus meant to me personally, I would probably shy away from it), that there is certainly a very real political and action based part of God's Kingdom. His Church is founded on and in Him, and, thus, is about the same things He is. He is about justice, about goodness, about redemption, also about wrath (although that's reserved for Him), so we ought too be about justice and goodness and redemption in our outward lives, but also remember who we are being allowed to serve and how He relates to us.
Why do you say that wrath is reserved for God?
ReplyDeleteWhat you say about God's political vision is true but I have some thoughts of my own that my bring to a better light what you are discussing.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the gentleman's comment on the Kingdom of God.
I would not say his claim is contradictory.
The Crusades are a good example because the spirit instituted, by force, did not start with the spiritual change of Man first.
In the Kingdom of God, God's will is done perfectly because the King is perfect and has absolute sovereignty.
The Kingdom of God is Christ. The spirit and body of Christ were and still are in-sync. Christ continues to intercede for us to God.
Like the Spirit of God renewing the heart, the idea of the Kingdom of God must first reach and engage the spirit of a man before anything else can change.
In the Kingdom of God, everything is done according to the Spirit of God.
I would say that the Church does not go bad when has a political message, it goes bad when it has the outside->in pattern of the world, rather than an inside->out.
I guess I don't know why I say that wrath is reserved for God. That's just what I've always assumed? Perhaps it would be more clear to say that justice, in a final judgment type of justice, is reserved for God (not being just in our actions, but, as I said, the final judgment type of justice). Perhaps it is incorrect to say that God's wrath is here on earth, whereas it would be correct, I think, to say that God's love and grace are here on the earth. Perhaps wrath is reserved for Him because His wrath is shown/He doesn't act upon His wrath except when, well, either bringing people into Heaven or sending them to Hell?
ReplyDeleteHmm.. perhaps the Bible might shed some light on this..
My claim that the wrath of God isn't present here on the earth is, I think, incorrect also. Just taking a quick look at my index thingy in the back of my Bible (cheating?) the first verse that comes up is 2 Chronicles 36:16, the story of the fall of Jerusalem: (verse 15-16) "The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place. But they mocked God's messengers, despised his words and scoffed at this prophets until the wrath of the LORD was aroused against his people and there was no remedy."
But then in Romans 2:5 "...you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed."
So maybe I ought to talk about God's wrath in two different ways, maybe there are two types of God's wrath? Because it seems that one is certainly eternal and unfettered, as in the Romans passage, but another is somewhat restrained, as in the 2 Chronicles passage, because if it weren't restrained I doubt that we'd be here today. Well, my knowledge tells me that at least.
Hmm
Perhaps there are also two different types of His wrath, that culminate in different ways? Jesus' anger in the temple, God's judgment of lovers of the world. Perhaps we are to be wrathful in the sense that we hate sin and injustice and oppression, but not the kind of wrath that condemns people?