8/20/12: KINGDOM PEOPLE IN AN ELECTION YEAR

BLOG 8/20/12: “KINGDOM PEOPLE IN AN ELECTION YEAR”

In a previous presidential campaign, and in a large mid-western congregation, a sizeable number of members pushed the pastor to allow them to pass out leaflets advocating their candidate, and to call upon the membership to sign petitions advocating that their candidate was “the right candidate.” When the pastor and the church board refused, and when the pastor saw this as an occasion to preach a series of sermons exposing the danger of associating the faith too closely with any political point of view, or political party, the result precipitated the exodus of 20%, or about 1000 members. This was picked up by the New York Times and became something of such significance that the sermons were ultimately published in a book (The Myth of A Christian Nation, by Gregory Boyd).

But the effect was primarily positive since the rest of the congregation were ecstatic that the pastor had been so enormously helpful to them in understanding the role of God’s people as they live in a culture saturated with media reports, rumors, claims and counter-claims, and the confusing and intractable issue confronting the nation.

Election years are good times for God’s Kingdom people to remind ourselves that we can be troublesome and counter-cultural when we are formed by Christ’s teachings. Paul the apostle was both a Roman citizen and a Kingdom citizen, but when he became a threat to the Empire, he was executed by the very empire of which he was a citizen. Dietrich Bonhoeffer found himself and the witnessing church in German in diametric opposition not only with the Nazi regime, but also with the German church that had made peace with that evil regime.

Such election years are a good time to remind ourselves that we are primarily citizens of the Kingdom of God, and that our political persuasions and evaluations come from the teachings of Jesus and his apostles. These teachings are consistently counter-cultural and quite often subversive to the dominant political order. At the same time it is only as we live out these teachings that we are the Light of the world!

We are always those of dual citizenship, and our citizenship in the land of our sojourn is only secondary. We are primarily citizens of the trans-national Kingdom of God. We view the role of politics and national life through the lenses of teachings such as the Kingdom of God, not vice-versa.

We Kingdom people pray for our enemies, we pray for the leaders of other nations as we do for our own. We are not silent before injustice, nor indifferent to responsibility to the poor and helpless among us or of other nations. We view government budgets as moral documents.

We do not expect God to bless America, no matter what! Such an election season is a good time for some profound re-examination of our primary loyalties.

We Christians have always been a troublesome lot!

About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
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