No easy solutions to the issues we all face. But ‘we’ have been here before. What about life under Rome in the first century? ‘We’ (believers) in every generation have to learn how to negotiate discipleship of Jesus in the context of anti-Christ spirits. In this short post I simplistically suggest that it might come down to how we view one central element of our faith, and how we approach this will probably manifest in a divided response among us who claim to follow Jesus of Nazareth. (I appreciate what follows is either simply simplistic, or it is at core simply simple. I was told years ago that truth though profound is also simple’).
Power – what kind of power does God call us to share? Did he intend that the church have power at the centre to shape from the top-down? Or to be the salt in the land and the light to the land? Legislation is important… any legislation that dehumanises by intention is anti-God. The resurrection being an enormous God-speech of ‘yes’ to humanity. Maybe there is good and necessary legislation that will unintentionally dehiumanise – the effects of what could be good but applied in a fallen world. But anything that intentionally or overwhelmingly dehumanises has to be viewed from a ‘there is something wrong with this at the core’.
I believe in the transformative power of the Gospel and not just at the personal level, but for the land(s) beyond the personal. I think that is the Pauline gospel and there is a shift from 12 core disciples to 12% of the Roman empire who were willing to be be marginalised and give their lives for Jesus that took place across the first 3 centuries. From an obscure sect in Israel to spreading right across the Imperial lands. That is transformation. For a kingdom that is not of this world that is quite an impact on the world!
It is this tension – a kingdom that is not of this world, and if it was then all the normal means of exercising power would be validated (including the sword, which is simply the final outworking of top-down authority); yet it is a kingdom that challenges all the power-structures of this world to a higher calling, the higher calling of love, compassion and care.
Two views of power, hence two views of the cross (a call to our death in the context of the world, or a symbol by which we may conquer), and ultimately two views of the one true God. How does he ‘rule’? I think (simplistically) it comes down to that. If, as I have been suggesting for some 2 decades, that Islam is a mirror religion of Christendom, maybe shifting our view of the rule of God could be very vital as we learn how to live as disciples of Jesus in our challenging context.
[The image of course is to the book by Roger Mitchell. Available also as a kindle book. The Fall of the Church is far more profound than I had anticipated. I thought pre-Constantine ‘good’, post- as ‘bad’. Alongside other books, such as Thomas Jay Oord’s Uncontrolling Love, these writings are great resources to help us re-think the rule of God and therefore how we are to live.]