Building for the Kingdom

Tom Wright and Michael Bird’s new book Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies builds a comprehensive theological case in short order for pluralistic, liberal democracies “after Christendom.” The authors claim that this form of government is not only our least worst option, to paraphrase Churchill, but also the peculiar flower of “the Christian vision” in Western soil (157-59). If this delicate flower is to survive in our post-Christian world, liberal democracy will need to reengage a compelling metanarrative (154-56), fortified with “good…people and institutions guarding it” (163). What better resource to draw upon than “the Christian revolution” that birthed it? 

Could this then be our political vocation as the Church, at least in the West? 

The authors begin, appropriately enough, with Jesus and the Kingdom of God. As his disciples, our task is not to “build the kingdom” here – “lest we naively equate our own efforts directly with the kingdom of God itself” (9) – but to anticipate it by “building for the kingdom.” The theology of political engagement they develop is ecumenically informed, citing pundits from Wayne Grudem to Cornel West, and manifestly evangelical in its contours: the divine institution of governing authorities, the legitimacy of Christian civil service as well as civil disobedience and the tragic necessity of uncivil disobedience in extraordinary circumstances. 

Unfortunately, their case is somewhat obscured by Wright’s rhetorical idiosyncrasies (e.g., un-capitalizing “the holy spirit,” confusingly pitting “an older form of Christian teaching” on “going to heaven” (9) or “a post-mortem hell” (67) against the teaching of “the early church,” etc.). Perhaps most muddying is the repeated, nebulous call to “build for the kingdom,” when the clearer directive to bear witness to it appears to suffice (83-93). 

In clearing the path toward a Christian support for liberal democracy, Bird and Wright address two radical and polar positions in our present discourse. After taking aim at the specters of Fascism and Communism, they adeptly critique an increasingly popular Christian Nationalism, which is helpfully defined (129-36) and the threat of a progressive “civic totalism” (136-47). If one is the state institutionalizing religion, the other is ideology sacralizing the state. Between these two extremes, liberal democracy is presented as our sanest option – modestly landing “somewhere between expedient and advantageous” (162). 

The authors acknowledge that their discussion is “admittedly Anglo-/Eurocentric” (166), and that “the Western preoccupation with individual rights and liberty over, say, the common good and combating poverty, betrays a hierarchy of values…which is neither self-evident to, nor expedient for, every other Christian church in the world” (167). Yet they are convinced that “liberal democracy is one of the most noble achievements of human civilization, an achievement that would not have happened, and is not even conceivable, apart from the Christian heritage of the West” (167). 

Whether or not you find their arguments for liberal democracy and “a confident pluralism” persuasive, the more pressing question concerns the mission of “the Church” (which, interestingly, they do capitalize). “Applied to the mission of the Church, this means that we must erect in the present the signs of [God’s] kingdom, providing a preview of what everything will look like when God is ‘all in all’, when his kingdom has come and his will is done ‘on earth as in heaven’” (87-88). 

Amen! But how will we do this? 

Wright and Bird answer with a focus on individual activism (88-89), including faithful civil service and formal political engagement (90-102). These are all good and just things. Yet it seems to me that the most significant political work of the Church is found in discharging its unique mission to the nations (Matthew 28:18-20) as the divine polis (Matthew 5:14; 16:18-19). Under whichever political arrangement a church finds itself, the call to make disciples and bear faithful witness to Christ is primary. 

In defending a cooperative Church and State arrangement, Wright and Bird note, “if you want to change the game, you need skin in the game. The people who change history must make history…You need to be in the room where it happens” (37). Our authors are not likely imagining smoke-filled rooms where the “powers that be” conspire and scheme. Nevertheless, sometimes “skin in the game” is less being “in the room” and more being “on the street,” where those decisions play out. It is less “making history” and more witnessing and bearing history with “the least of these.” After all, the ancient church unleashed the “Christian revolution” outside any room within the halls of power. Reading the Will Durant quote they cite on page 23, I was struck again by this wonder: 

“There is no greater drama in human record than the sight of a few Christians, scorned or oppressed by a succession of emperors, bearing all trials with a fierce tenacity, multiplying quietly, building order while their enemies generated chaos, fighting the sword with the word, brutality with hope, and at last defeating the strongest state that history has known.” 

This is the central political vocation of the church and its most captivating political vision. Building order among ourselves (Titus 1:5ff.), multiplying disciples quietly (1 Timothy 2:1-6), forging trust among one another, among our neighbors, even among our enemies (1 Peter 2:11-17). 

The institutions that once safeguarded our democracy appear to be crumbling. Who knows whether we can prop them up or repair them in time? But we can certainly build relationships of trust – the currency of institutional integrity – here on the ground, in the street, and then, perhaps, in the rooms where the decisions get made. We can certainly build healthy political communities of “heaven on earth” in local churches, where the beautiful gospel of Jesus is compellingly taught and embodied in our villages, cities, states and nations.

The views represented in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Evangelical Free Church of America.