Theology for the Masses

Should you translate ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ as “the kingdom of God” or “the rule of God?” I favor rendering it as “the kingdom of God,” but technically, I think you can do it either way.  If you have an interest in this topic, or know Greek, I encourage you to read what Hank has to say and contribute to the convo over there.

Jews or Judeans? There has been some debate as to whether or not the use of the term “Jews” is an appropriate translation of Ἰουδαῖοι.  There are  a slew of posts on this topic over at ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ on this topic. See Judean and Syrian, and Being a ‘Jew’ or a ‘Judean’.  Elsewhere you can find John H. Elliott’s article on Jesus the “Israelite” and Was there such a thing as ancient “Judaism”?: Steve Mason’s recent article on “Judeans” (Ioudaioi) in antiquity.  Me?  It depends on the context and who is writing.  I think that most of the time "Judeans" should be used in the gospels, but in other sources, such as Paul’s letters, "Jews" should prob be used.

I try to stay out of politics as much as I can.  However, I did leave some feedback on a column over at Worldview Network that I bloged about the other day.  Much to my surprise, it survived moderation and even received two responses.  Since all of this reflects how I see the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of America interacting, I thought I’d copy the discussion here.

My first comment:

How much should Christians be involved in political affairs? I don’t see Jesus or Paul or anyone of the New Cov era getting involved with Rome’s invasions or defense. I wonder (and I am not sold either way) if we followers of the prince of peace should be concerned with advancing and defending America’s political, economic, and cultural power and instead be concerned with showing God’s love to the world though our deeds and actions and rhetoric. What do you think?

First Reply by Lou

JESUS CARED FOR ALL

Are we not to lead all men to Jesus Christ. Would that not include people in the government, people of the government, and people for the government. I try to show the Way of Jesus Christ by all that do or do not do. Jesus was concerned for every single person and died for all. Should I be unconcerned about one group trying to take the property of others or even one group trying to take the life of the poorest and weakest and most innocent of the humans here on this earth. We know that most of these illegal immigrants have a religion that is hostile to true Christianity. Our government is giving this nation away to those who have not shed any blood, sweat, or tears for it. Should we not protect the innocent in this matter. I do care about a van load of children being killed by Mexican trucks that can not even read our signs let alone obey our laws. Lou

Second Reply by John

answer

Well, Christianity is giving. If we say we have love and aren’t involved in the affairs of the world, do we have love? You say Jesus was not involved in the affairs of the world, however, he battled the world, the world systems, and their beliefs. This is why He is hated and why we are to be hated. Jesus also said to give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. He said this because governments are instituted by God and we are to be salt and light, defend righteousness, and be bold. To put this all together, I would say faith and love requires action. As for the USA, we still should defend the good and proactively try to change the bad. The principles of freedom and democracy are biblical and worth defending, bondage (Egypt) is the alternative and the unsaved seek it. John

My Response to John and Lou:

Hey, Thanks for the gentle feedback Lou and John. I appreciate your thoughts.  So, Lou, you rightly say that Jesus cared and died for all.  I think we should very much be concerned about one group taking the lives and livelihood from another group of people.  What I am not sure about is if war with that first group of people is the best way forward.  Why are we upset with one group taking from another?  Because it denies the image of God present in the second group.  Our challenge is to respond to the situation that shows Christ’s love for both the attackers and the attacked.  How do we as citizens of the Kingdom of God help the situation without denying the images of God in the attackers?  Christ loves and died for them as well.  I am not advocating any sort of easy solution, but rushing to defend them through killing their enemies seems to fly in the face of what Jesus advocates.

Lou, you also talk about how most illegal immigrants are hostile to Christianity and suggest that on this basis we keep them out.  (I might be misrepresenting you on this point, so let me know if I am, for that is not my intention.)  Assuming for the moment that this is the case, I love the idea of having people move in around me that are hostile to Christianity, for there are more opportunities to grow the Kingdom of God and help restore interpersonal relationships and to help them get to know their creator and to trust in Him for their salvation.

John, I completely agree with you when you say that we need to be involved in the affairs of this world.  I agree wholeheartedly.  I think we disagree in terms of how we go about doing that.  I see us as citizens of the Kingdom of God first and American citizens second.  As such, I think that Christians as a group and individually should act from our primary membership, as citizens of God’s Kingdom, not America’s Republic.  Jesus did confront the world, but he did not battle it (in terms of physical aggression, that is).  He used teaching, aid, and relationships to transform the world.  We should, as citizens of His Kingdom, employ the same tactics.  We are called to be good citizens, to be sure and God has instituted the governments of America (and Iran and China by the same logic).  But we are to be citizens of God’s Kingdom first and to our local political systems second.  I think (and I could be wrong) that God’s Kingdom would be better served if we acted via God’s Kingdom rather than via America’s interests and methods. 

What do you think?

Meredith and I are trying to decide where to worship this coming Sunday.  Should we go down to the courthouse and worship our great country or drive 30 minutes to the state capital to show our allegiance to Rome America?

All snarkyness aside, what should the attitude of citizens of the Kingdom of God be towards their place of temporal residence?  I thank God that I live in such a libertine country, but I don’t want that to spill over into worship of the nation and slipping into placing my allegiance to the nation over the Kingdom.

How do you all construct and resolve this problem?

John 18:38:

Jesus answered, “My Kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my Kingdom is not of this world.”

Two things come to mind as questions to think about:

1. What does this mean for Christians and governments?
2. Is the kingdom of god that we hear so much about on earth now?  Or is it just something that comes later?

here’s a thought I had a few days ago…

…rough and unexamined, off the top of my head.

your thoughts/critiques?

“The Kingdom of God is the only state that will endure eternally. Thus, any war undertaken by any other state to preserve itself is unjust because that state will not endure anyway. The only kingdom we can justly defend is the Kingdom of God, and the final, decisive battle for that kingdom was fought at the Cross. We already won. Thus, any war we undertake to preserve the kingdom of God is also unjust.”

* this does not include, obviously, wars fought to protect the powerless (if that has ever actually happened).

In the Roman world, within the household, the position of child is the lowest in terms of power and hierarchy.  Taking this into account, consider Mark 10:15:

I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.

Rather than assuming our standard in pouring of innocence and naiveté into the phrase “like a child,” perhaps we are better served with assuming a Roman view of children, of powerlessness over others into this phrase.

Also consider Luke 22:25-27

Jesus told them, “In this world the kings and great men lord it over their people, yet they are called ‘friends of the people.’  But among you it will be different. Those who are the greatest among you should take the lowest rank, and the leader should be like a servant. Who is more important, the one who sits at the table or the one who serves? The one who sits at the table, of course. But not here! For I am among you as one who serves.

Here again we see the same theme – the relinquishment of dominance as a command of Jesus to his followers, to the members of the Kingdom of God.

If we do not relinquish culturally inherited claims of dominance over others and see them as true equals then ours is not the Kingdom of God.

Seeing people as the imago deis involves the complete removal of claims of dominance and superiority.  This must be applied in terms of race and gender.  It is a command to give up our claims of dominance over others.

As I am going through part of of Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza’s book In Memory of Her I came across this nice, compact orienting passage of the various Jewish movements in Israel before 70CE and how the Jesus movement fit in with these other movements.

All these diverse Jewish renewal movements of the time were strongly concerned with how to realize in every aspect of life the obligations and hopes of Israel as the kingly and priestly people of God. … Some stressed and strongly utilized the cultic priestly traditions, some claimed prophetic authority, some reenacted the Exodus, and still others integrated wisdom teachings with an apocalyptic perspective. Regardless of differences in lifestyle and theological outlook, however, all these groups were united in their concern for the political existence and holiness of the elected people of Israel. the proclamation of the [kingdom] of God by Jesus and his movement shared this… However, the Jesus movement refused to define the holiness of God’s elected people in cultic terms, redefining it instead as the wholeness intended in creation. (Page 113)

A comment by Hank on The Way I need Jesus got me thinking: is there such a thing as a “biblical notion of husband and wife?” What notion are we talking about? Pre-Israel marriage? We gonna pattern it after the marriages in Genesis? Ancient Israel? 2nd Kings? Isn’t that what got us good US citizens up in arms against the Mormons a hundred or so years ago (poly-what?)? Are we gonna talk about the Jewish ideas of what marriage is in the time of Jesus? Are we gonna talk about marriage as it was practiced by the Romans (i.e. baby factories = wives)? Are we going to talk about those writing in the name of Paul when they are giving advice on how to be a couple of equality under the yoke of the empire?

The more I look at actual marriages in the Bible the less I am enamored with the monolithic notion of the so-called “biblical notion of husband and wife.” We need to realize that marriages in our Holy Scriptures are described (not prescribed) in different structures with different power realationships between the parties involved.

We see in the myth of Genesis 3 the consequences of the fall in marriages – women and men will try to dominate each other. This arrangement (both women looking to dominate their husbands and husband dominating their wives) is unnatural; God teaches us this in Genesis and He confirms it in the writings of Paul.

It gives me great pleasure to see people attempt to justify our culture’s (or rather the 1950’s) version of marriage where one party dominates the other.

With the coming of the Kingdom of God, we must work to restore the equality inherent in the “two becoming one flesh” by means of our practice and our teachings. What we need to do is rediscover the the pre-fall power relations between husband and wife and make those relations real in our lives. It is up to us to enact the Kingdom of God on Earth – now.

Given the shift in the way the Bible portrays Satan from a member of God’s royal court in Job to leader of the rebellion against the Kingdom of God with Paul, how do we, as Christians, construct our concept of Satan?

I think this is a great question on two levels, i) what the heck is Satan and how does it function? and ii) how do we interpret scriptures that have varying views on religious phenomena?

I have some suggestions, but I have a couple of hours to iron out a paper proposal, a panel proposal, and have lunch with Meredith, so I will leave mine later.

If we accept, which I do, Tom’s rejection of the soteriology of the State, how should Christians interact with the government? I don’t see a scriptural imperative, as the situation of a participatory government as we Americans have currently did not exist during the writing of our set of sacred texts. Given that lack of an imperative, do Christians vote, run for office, try to legislate the tenants of our faith?

Do we wash our hands of participation in government and focus solely on the work of the Kingdom of God, the whole while reaping the benefits of this country’s contradicting history of domination and freedom? Do we actively engage it, using it as a tool to bring God’s distributive and or retributive justice to the people that we can bring it to?

I don’t know, but with the November of 2008 slowly approaching debate by debate, I am giving increasing thought. I’d like to hear yours.

I took this picture a few weeks ago while I visiting my hometown.

A couple of things leap out at you at first:

1. The American Flag draped around the Cross
2. The lack of any Church officials on the parade, just two service persons.

However, the most striking part of the float is the captions at the bottom:

The Savior and the soldier

paid the price to set us free.

The Savior and the soldier ~

we give our thanks to thee!

This is a haunting image. It animates the term, American christianity.

One of the things I have been rethinking this year is the role of the Christian in a government. This picture serves to remind me that it is a topic worthy of consideration.

At what point does one meld the Christ and the military? Where is the message of peace? How does this function to a) define Christians from other cultures/nations; b) tie our faith to the state; c) link criticism of one to criticism of the other?

On the one hand, military personnel are responsible for the creation and sustention of my political freedoms and Christ has freed me from the bonds of sin. I like both of these things. On the other hand, the float serves to equate the two, to meld them together, to raise up the political (earthly) to the religious (heavenly). Should we, as Christians, be overly concerned with our political freedoms, or should we simply focus on furthering the Kingdom of God and let our political/economic conditions take care of themselves? I can justify the words and the float a variety of different ways. However, I keep coming back to one question:

Why did this church decide to interweave the message of patriotism with the message of Christianity in their singular public statement to the thousands of people that would be watching the parade?

I’d like to get your thoughts on the matter.

Today I want to discuss the next objection on my list, Election and Evangelism. Let me review the series so far. In the first post, I tried to distinguish historic, five-point Calvinism from hyper-Calvinism. In the second post, I showed that election in a Reformed soteriology is not a source of pride and arrogance, but is a humbling action of God that reveals his glory, from Romans 9:11 and 1 Corinthians 1:20-31. In the third post, I argued that election does not diminish our pursuit of obedience and holiness, but rather grounds our pursuit and gives us confidence that we will be obedience.

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