Thinking Theologically

Podcast | Political Issue or Church Issue?

Outline

What happens when our battles with the principalities, powers, and authorities in the heavenly places move to the political arena and become a part of partisan politics? 

Christian Concerns on the Political Stage

  • There are issues that Christians feel strongly are the result of the evil influence of the principalities, powers, and authorities, about which God has things to say, and which Christians are called to go to battle against but have become political hot-button issues that the government and politicians are engaged in. 
  • Examples
    • Abortion
    • LGBTQ+
    • Poverty
    • Health Care 
    • War

Possible Approaches

  1. Anti-Government Position – historical Church of Christ position
    • David Lipscomb
      • Believed that human governments are fundamentally at odds with God’s kingdom and are all the result of human efforts to rule without God.Did not believe that Christians should vote or hold political office. He believed that politics inevitably lead to violence, while Christians are called to spread the peace of Christ. 
      • “It is the duty of the Christian to submit to the human government in its office and work and to seek its destruction only by spreading the religion of Christ and so converting men from service to its existence and work. No violence, no sword, no bitterness or wrath can he use. The spread of the peaceful principles of the Savior, will draw men out of the kingdoms of earth into the kingdom of God.” – David Lipscomb, Civil Government
  2. Pro-Government Position – modern evangelical position 
    1. “We need men and women of God who will stand in the gap for America, to make our laws and policies reflect Biblical values.” – Franklin Graham 
  3. Moderating Position 

The Early Church’s Approach

  1. Abortion
    • Abortion existed in the Roman Empire in a variety of forms. 
    • Romans would “expose” unwanted children
    • Christians took them
      • People thought they engaged in child sacrifice 
    • Church Fathers
      • Clement of Alexandria (150–215 CE)

“But how much more worthy of love are those who have not yet begun to live! They are more free from sins than children; and though they are not yet capable of wisdom, they are not without judgment and feeling. Their souls are simple, and they are therefore dear to God.” (Paedagogus, Book 2, Chapter 10)

  • John Chrysostom (349–407 CE)

“What is a child? A being of no significance. Whence is it to be inferred? Not because of its size, nor of its age; for in these respects it differs nothing from the young of a beast. But it is a being made after the image of God, yet like to the young of a beast. Why then dost thou slight it? Because it is helpless? On this very account thou oughtest to show it the more love.” (Homilies on Matthew, Homily 56)

  • Created orphanages, the one of the early ones being that of St. Basil, the Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, in 370 CE.
    • The legal process of exposure being outlawed began with Constantine (he made efforts in 331CE) but concluded in 374 CE with Emperor Valentinian, also a Christian.
  • LGBTQ+
    • Normally the result of pagan worship or sinful power structures (e.g., pederasty). 
    • They preached the Gospel (1 Cor 6:9–11)
  • Poverty/Health Care (Acts 2:44–45; 4:32–35)
    • A large portion, perhaps even the majority, of the Roman Empire lived in poverty. 
    • Clement of Alexandria (150–215 CE)

“For charity combines, and tempers, and unites into one harmonious concord the many and various notes of virtue. And, as it were, a foundation laid for the erection of that perfect man, the charity which is greater than faith, greater than hope, and which excels in both offices.” (The Instructor, Book 1, Chapter 8)

  • War
    • Pacifism
      • Tertullian (160–225)

“Shall it be held lawful to make an occupation of the sword, when the Lord proclaims that he who uses the sword shall perish by the sword?” (The Chaplet, Chapter 11)

  • St. Augustine (354–430 CE) and “Just War” – developed by Thomas Aquinas 
    • Legitimate Authority
    • Just Cause 
    • Right Intention
    • Last Resort 
    • Proportionality
    • Martyrdom
      • Justin Martyr (100–165 CE)

“We who formerly used to murder one another do not only now refrain from making war upon our enemies, but also, that we may not lie nor deceive our examiners, willingly die confessing Christ.”

What Should We Do?

  1. Bottom-up approach rather than top-down
    • Violence that ensued once Christians gained power 
  2. Make our citizenship in God’s kingdom primary.
  3. Respect differing opinions as long as they put the kingdom first. 
  4. Our first response should be Gospel-oriented. Only after exhausting all other options do we consider becoming political (though this doesn’t mean we do).
    • Balance between anti-government and liberation theology

Watch the Entire Series

Transcript

Welcome to the Thinking Theologically podcast, where we teach you how and why you should think theologically. I’m your host for this solo episode, Spencer Shaw. We are continuing in the series that we’re in this month as we prepare for the election at the beginning of next month. Thinking theologically about politics. We began a couple of weeks ago as Jack and I gave an introduction to this series, and we talked about how we’re wanting to lay out a theology of the way that we as Christians, as followers of Jesus, as believers in the Bible, how we should think about politics and engage in politics, a theology that is built in Scripture that is built from the foundation of God as revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Last week, Jack continued by doing his own solo episode and talking about our battle against the principalities, powers and authorities that our battle is not against flesh and blood. As Paul says in Ephesians, but against these principalities, powers, and authorities in the heavenly places, he talked about in the way that the New Testament authors think about and view the world, that the evil and the brokenness that exists in the world, that there are spiritual powers that sit behind that evil and brokenness, spiritual powers that sit behind the earthly human powers that we see.

And so a Paul in particular would say that are battle as Christians is not against other human beings. It’s not against human institutions or human governments or human groups, but our battle is against the spiritual forces that sit behind them. Our battle is against the principalities, powers and authorities in the spiritual realm, and so would and so Paul would say, if we spend our time fighting earthly human battles against human people and human institutions and human governments, then Paul would say, we are wasting our time because our true battle, it’s against the principalities, powers and authorities in the heavenly places.

And so Paul goes on there in Ephesians to say that because this is the case, we need to put on the armor of God. We fight this battle not with human earthly weaponry that a human government might use, but with the weaponry of the kingdom of God. We put on the armor of God. And so a continuing the line of thought that Jack began for us in this episode, we’re asking the question, a political issue or church issue?

What happens when our battles with the principalities, powers, and authorities in the heavenly places move to the political arena and become a part of Partizan politics? Another way to state this would be to say this there are issues that we as Christians feel strongly are the result of the evil influence of the principalities, powers and authorities. That is, we as Christians look out into the world.

We see evil. We see brokenness. We see sinful groups and institutions and powerful people and governments. And we believe that this evil and sinfulness and brokenness that we see is a result of these evil spiritual powers as a result of the principalities, powers, and authorities. As Paul says. We also believe that these are issues about which God has things to say, that God has taken a stance on them and not just left us on our own to figure it out.

And issues which we as Christians are called to go to battle against, to speak out against, to seek to stop and to change. But these issues have become political hot button issues that the government and politicians are engaged in. And so what are we as Christians to do when there are issues that we feel strongly, are the result of the evil influence of the principalities, powers and authorities about which God has things to say and which we as Christians are called to go to battle against, but have become political hot button issues that the government and politicians are engaged in.

What are we to do? I’m going to. Before we dive deeper into that, I want to give a couple of examples about issues that I’m speaking about. Perhaps one of the first one that came to your mind was the issue of abortion. We look out into the world and we see abortion. We see the taking of innocent human life, and we believe that it is the result of the evil influence of these spiritual powers.

We believe that God has things to say about it, that God says that each human life is valuable from the womb to the tomb, because all human beings are created in the image of God. We believe that the issue of abortion is something that we are called to speak out against, to go to battle against it, to seek to somehow stop.

But yet it has become a political hot button issue. Governments are engaged in the question of abortion. State governments create laws and legislations that say when abortions can take place and when they cannot. Politicians are engaged in the question of abortion. All politicians, no matter what side of the aisle that they are on and no matter what office they are running for, run on a platform that takes some kind of stance on abortion.

And so abortion is an example of an issue that is a result of the evil influence of the principalities, powers and authorities. Something about which God has things to say and something which we as Christians are called to go to battle against as a part of this spiritual warfare that has become a political hot button issue that the government and politicians are engaged in.

But there are other examples that we could list. We can think about issues of LGBTQ related things because we as Christians believe that sexuality and marriage is a gift from God to be stewarded within the confines of a marriage between one man and one woman. We can think about issues of poverty. We see, for example, in the ministry of Jesus and God become flesh, that Jesus cared about the poor and the outcast and the marginalized.

That Jesus said in the sermon on the plain in the Gospel of Luke, blessed are the poor. Are Jesus cared about the poor. We can think about issues of health care. We as Christians believe that if we’re going to stand for life from the womb to the tomb, then we have to care about the life and the bodies and the health of real people and how they can care for themselves when disease or accidents happen.

If we believe in the resurrection that our physical bodies will be resurrected, then we have to care about the physical bodies of people created in the image of God. But again, this is an example of something that the government has its hands in, that the government in many ways controls the health care in our country. And in most countries, politicians run on platforms related to what they’re going to do about health care.

We can think about questions regarding war again, if we’re going to be people who claim that all human life is valuable, and then that means that the loss of any human life is a tragedy in the eyes of God, and that war is a horrible result of life in a sinful and evil and broken world. But once again, governments have their hands in war.

Governments and politicians are the ones making the decisions to send people to war. And so again, what do we do when it’s when there are issues such as abortion and LGBTQ related things, and poverty and health care and war that we as Christians feel strongly that the evil in these areas, or the influence of the principalities, powers and authorities.

We firmly believe that God has said things about them, and that we as Christians are called to go to battle against them, but they have become political hot button issues that the government and politicians are engaged in. And it seems to me that there are three broad approaches that we could have to answering this question and figuring out what we ought to do.

On one side, we could take an anti-government position, which, if those of you who are watching or listening to this or a part of the Church of Christ or the Restoration Movement as I am, that you may know that the anti-government position is actually the historic Church of Christ position, that historically, for much of our history, we were anti-government, anti-war pacifists.

That’s the stance that we took. It is not until fairly recently that the majority of our people have kind of moved to a more pro-government position, interestingly enough, kind of following along the lines of a conservative and evangelical Christianity in the United States as a whole. But historically, we were anti-government pacifists and maybe one of the best people to explain such an anti-government approach is David Lipscomb, one of the most well known speakers and writers and preachers in our church of Christ heritage.

Lipscomb believed that human governments are fundamentally at odds with God’s kingdom, and are all the result of human efforts to rule without God. He did not believe that Christians should vote or hold political office. He believed that politics inevitably lead to violence, while Christians are called to spread the peace of Christ. Wherever you might think about Lipscomb anti-government position, I think we all should probably believe what Lipscomb says there that it does seem, at least in our experience, that politics leads to violence.

And hopefully we all believe that we as Christians are called to spread the peace of Christ and not violence. Lipscomb summarizes his position in this way in his work on civil government. He says it is the duty of the Christian to submit to human government in its office and work, and to seek its destruction only by spreading the religion of Christ, and so converting men from service to its existence and work.

No violence, no sword, no bitterness or wrath. Can he use the spread of the peaceful principle of the Savior will draw men out of the kingdoms of the earth, and into the kingdom of God. Notice a couple things about what Lipscomb says. He says that Christians yes, they are to submit to human government. So that goes along with what Paul says, for example, in Romans chapter 13, which Paul’s which Jack is going to to talk about in a future episode.

But he says that ultimately Christians are to seek the destruction of human government, not to violence or sword or bitterness or wrath, not through the weapons that the earth uses. But Christians are to seek the destruction of human governments by spreading the peaceful principles of the Savior, they are to seek to draw people out of the kingdoms of the earth into citizenship in the Kingdom of God.

And so one way we could try to answer our question and think about what we do when evil moves to the political arena and becomes a part of Partizan politics, is we could take an anti-government position, as David Lipscomb did. We could take kind of the opposite approach. We could have more of a pro-government position, which seems to me to be the modern evangelical position.

I see a pro-government position, in the words of Franklin Graham, when he says, well, we need men and women of God who will stand in the gap for America to make our laws and policies reflect biblical values. When I think of a pro-gun position, I think of it. So you think of Lipscomb, who says we deal with the evil of the world by drawing people out of human governments and into the kingdom of God.

When I’m thinking of a pro-government position, I’m thinking of the position that says we deal with the evils of our world through elections and politicians and policies. We put people in office to, as Graham says, make our laws and policies reflect biblical values. That is the way that we deal with the evil and sinfulness and brokenness of our world.

And so one extreme you have an anti-government position. On the other extreme, you have a pro-government position. And the the third and final possible approach would be a moderating position. And this really is a part of a bunch of different types of positions that one could take between an anti-government position on one hand and a pro-government position on the other hand.

And there’s all kinds of different positions that one could take in the middle, that kind of moderate between these two. But the way that in this episode, I want us to think about how to answer this question, what we do when there are issues that we as Christians believe are a part of our spiritual warfare, that God has things to say about, that we are to go to battle against, but have moved into the political arena, become a part of policy and Partizan politics, things that the government and politicians are engaged in.

I want to answer how we are to address these by going back to the early church and looking at how the early church address these issues, because, believe it or not, all of the issues that I named earlier abortion, LGBTQ issues, poverty, health care, war, all of these, the early church dealt with how they might have not all looked exactly the same in the first few centuries as they do today in the 21st century.

And that’s likely the case. We live in a different time and a different culture, but but nevertheless, in many ways, the early church dealt with all of these issues. And I want to go back and look at how the early church I produced by the ministry of Jesus, people who were taught by the apostles, who walked and talked with Jesus, how did they approach these issues?

So first, let’s think about the issue of abortion. Abortion did exist in the Roman Empire in a very city of different forms. Now, obviously in the Roman Empire, they did not have the medical technology that we do today. And so in many ways it looked different. It would have been a very crude form of abortion terminating a a pregnancy, the killing of a child.

But nevertheless, similar things were taking place in the Roman Empire as what are taking place today in our country and our world and our culture. But particularly, I want us to think about one form of abortion that took place in the Roman Empire, or we may not want to actually define it as abortion. But one thing that’s abortion adjacent.

I guess, related to the topic of the killing of the life of a child, and that is the practice in the Roman Empire of exposing an unwanted child. So in the Roman Empire, there would have been a number of reasons that a family might have had a child that was unwanted. If the father wanted a male child to carry on the the family name, receive family inheritance, marry someone to bring in more money, and more status into the family.

But the family had a female child. That child perhaps might have been unwanted. If a family had a child who had some kind of disability. That child likely would have been unwanted. And if a family had a child that was unwanted, they would expose that child, which is exactly how it sounds. They would expose that child to the elements, leave that child somewhere.

Sometimes it was in a location that people traveled regularly, so maybe in the town square, hoping that somebody else would see the child and to bring that child in. Other times, it would have been in an area where they knew people didn’t pass. They would have left the child outside of the town or even at the town dump, and let the elements do their work.

They would expose the child to the to the elements, to nature, to the animals around, and let nature and the elements and the animals take the life of that child. This was what was going on in the Roman Empire around the early church. Now there’s no way for us to know for sure how often child exposure happened. You know, they didn’t keep statistics of these things.

We know that it happened. We know that it happened fairly regularly, but we don’t know to what extent it happened. But we know that it was happening and how did the early church respond? Well, the first thing that the early church and Christians did was they took these children and Christians, particularly women, would go around to the places where children would be left.

The town squares, the local dump outside the city. And when they would find these children, they would take them in and raise them as their own. And the reason that we know this is because it caused a lot of non-Christians to ask questions. So imagine with me what a non-Christian must have thought about Christians early on. You had these people who would gather to gather regularly in in homes, and non-Christians who weren’t a part of those gatherings.

A lot of the times didn’t exactly know what was going on. What were these Christians doing when they were meeting and when people don’t know and they have questions, they end up coming with all coming up with all kinds of crazy theories, conspiracy theories about what Christians were doing. And so, some people thought that Christians were engaging in child sacrifice because they saw Christians finding these children, bringing them into their homes.

Perhaps they don’t see these children for a while, but they do know that these Christians are gathering together with each other, and they don’t know what’s going on in those meetings. And so it led people to assume, well, maybe they’re taking in these, these children to engage in child sacrifice. And so it actually led to some early church leaders and church fathers to write apologies and defenses of the Christian faith to explain to not non-Christians.

This is what we’re doing when we gather together, and this is what we are not doing. So, for example, Christians talked about eating flesh and drinking blood in reference to the Lord’s Supper, which led some non-Christians to assume that Christians engaged in cannibalism. And so in some of these apologies, there had to be explanations of the Lord’s Supper.

Here is what we mean by that language. We take the Lord’s Supper. We’re not cannibals. And something similar had to happen with Christians bringing in these exposed children. They had to explain, here’s what we’re doing. We place value on the life of these children. We’re bringing them in. We’re raising them as our own. We are not engaging in child sacrifice.

And so the first thing that early Christians did was they took these children in. But secondly, a church leaders and the church fathers preached and spoke and wrote out against such practices. They talked about the value of the life of a child. For example, Clement of Alexandria, born in the middle of the second century and died at the beginning of the third century.

He writes this, but how much more worthy of love are those who have not yet begun to live? They are more free from sins than children, and though they are not yet capable of wisdom, they are not without judgment and feeling. Their souls are simple, and they are therefore dear to God. John Chrysostom, born in the middle of the fourth century, died at the beginning of the fifth century.

He writes this what is a child? A being of no significance. Whence is it to be inferred? Not because of its size, nor of its age. For in this respect it differs nothing from the young of a beast, but it is a being made after the image of God. Yet like to the young of the beast, why then dost thou slide it?

Because it is helpless on this very account, thou artist to show it. The more love. So early Christians responded to the exposing of children in the Roman Empire by bringing them in, by teaching against it. And third, they even created orphanages to bring in unwanted children or children without parents. One of the earliest ones that we know of was the one established by Saint Basil, the bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, in 370 C.E. so at the end of the fourth century.

And the interesting thing about all this is, is this process of Christians bringing in these exposed children, speaking out against it, creating orphanages. Eventually, as Christianity begins to spread, impacts the. empire as a whole, this begins to grow and grow and grow until the significant moment that you may be aware of the Emperor Constantine. Constantine converts to Christianity.

Kind of. We might want to do air quotes when we say converts, because it probably wasn’t a conversion as we would want to think about or define a conversion. But Constantine converts to Christianity. He makes Christianity the religion of the empire, and then he begins an effort to outlaw the exposure of children. He begins this effort in 331 C.E. so these efforts that have been done by Christian since long before bringing in these children, speaking out against these actions, creating orphanages, kind of comes to fruition when Constantine begins the process of outlawing it, and then it fully becomes outlawed in 374 C.E. with Emperor Valentinian, who is also a Christian.

And so what we see the early church doing is simply being the church they addressed the issue of exposure by doing what they could, where they were, and being the church, they brought children in, they spoke out against it. They created orphanages and eventually that spreads to the entire empire. When laws are put in place, beginning with Constantine, culminating with Valentinian at the end of the fourth century, that made this process illegal.

Second, let’s think about LGBTQ related issues. You likely know that homosexuality existed in the first century. Now, the homosexuality that existed in the first century was different than the way it exists. And the way we think about it today. So today, when we think about homosexuality, we think about a loving relationship, maybe a union or a marriage between two people of the same sex.

That’s not the way it existed in the first century. A people in the first century did not think about sexual attraction in that way, or sexual orientation. And homosexuality in the first century was generally the result of pagan worship or sinful power structures. That is, the worship in certain pagan cults would be to engage in sexual activity or orgies that might include sexual activity between two people of the same sex.

Homosexuality also existed in the Roman Empire as a part of sinful power structures. That is a lot of time, particularly men in power who had these positions would have young boys with which they would engage in sexual activity as a display of their power. So there’s actually an example close to this in the Old Testament that when you think of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, when the men of Sodom want to sexually rape the two angels, it’s probably not because of some sexual attraction or desire or orientation, but they want to do it to display their power over these visitors of their town.

And that’s not to say that, as I said earlier, I believe that sexuality and marriage is a gift of God to be stewarded. But in the context of marriage between one man and one woman. But nevertheless, we have to understand that that the way that homosexuality would have taken place in the culture of the Roman Empire did look a little bit differently than the way that we think about it and conceptualize it in the way that it takes place today.

So how did the early church respond to this? Well, they simply preached the gospel. Paul says in first Corinthians chapter six and verse nine, do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy drunkards, reviled robbers. None of these will inherit the kingdom of God.

And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God. Notice that Paul responds to a world around him that engaged in homosexuality as a part of pagan worship, or as a part of sinful power structures, simply by boldly proclaiming the gospel.

He says, this is not what characterizes God’s kingdom. It does not include idolaters, which may have included homosexual practice as a part of pagan worship. Male prostitutes may be included of that. Sodomites, which would be male to male homosexual practices would have been a part of that. As well. Paul says that none of this is a part of God’s kingdom.

What’s the solution? What’s the solution? All these things. Is it? Is it government? Is it power? Is it influence? Is it changing the laws? No. For Paul, it’s the gospel. It’s the kingdom of God. Paul says, this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God.

For Paul, the solution is the kingdom. It’s being washed. It’s being sanctified. It’s it’s being given new life in Jesus through the power of the spirit. Third, let’s I think about a poverty and I’ll lump in with poverty. The issue of health care. We know that a large portion of the Roman Empire lived in poverty, and perhaps even the majority of the Roman Empire.

We don’t know for sure, but maybe even more than 50% of the Roman Empire lived in poverty. And so as the early church is surrounded by all of this poverty, how do they respond? Well, I’m reminded of two passages and acts. The first is acts chapter two, verses 44 and 45, where it says all who believed were together and had all things in common.

They would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.

Notice how, in a world where maybe the majority of people were living in poverty, what does the early church do? They create communities that look like the kingdom, a community where people share their goods and their possessions and their money, and even their status and privilege and honor to help those who are in need.

They lived as the church. Finally, let’s think of the issue of war. Now, throughout Christian history, different Christians have taken a different stances on how we should think about an approach, the topic of war. So, for example, some Christians took a stance of pacifism that their Christian should not support or engage in war. An example of pacifism is that taken by Tertullian.

He was born in the middle of the second century. Tertullian says, shall it be held lawful to make an occupation of the sword? When the Lord proclaims that he uses the sword shall perish by the sword. Other Christians throughout history have taken a more moderating stance on war. So Saint Augustine, born in the middle of the fourth century, is known for a the creation of a just war theory, that is, that there are times that Augustine believes that it is okay and just to go to war.

And this was later developed famously by Thomas Aquinas, and other Christians throughout history have come up with their own versions of just war. But but one thing that connects most of these theories of just war, from Augustine to Aquinas and throughout history, is a couple of things. A generally, it’s believed that the decision to go to war must be made by a legitimate authority.

That is, it’s a decision that is made by someone in authority or a power that it’s for a just cause. You go to war for there has to be a very good reason to go to war. You go to war for generally for the right intentions. So you might. So you could go to war for a just cause, but have the wrong intention for it.

So you not. The purpose not only has to be good, but the intention behind it has to be good. Generally, it’s believed that a just war is a last resort. So you’ve done everything else that you can, and the only thing that is left for you to do is to go to war. And finally, it, proportionality, that is the force that you use should be proportional to what has been done to you.

And so again, this theory of war is not war is good, but that sometimes in rare cases war is acceptable. It’s never thought of in Christian history as something that is good or that we desire or that is optimal. But sometimes, as a last resort, for very good reasons, it might be okay to go to war, but most of the time, what’s most interesting is that most Christians approach to war, particularly within the early church.

They approach to war and violence was martyrdom because a lot of violence early on was perpetuated against Christians. So here’s kind of a summary of the stance of Justin Martyr. Who was born at the beginning of the second century. We who formerly used to murder one another, do not only now refrain from making war upon our enemies, but also that we may not lie nor deceive. Our examiners willingly die confessing Christ.

So, with those thoughts in mind, I want to return now to the question we began with. What do we do when issues such as abortion, LGBTQ poverty, health care, war, when there are these issues that we as Christians feel strongly are the result of the evil influence of the principalities, powers and authorities about which God has things to say, in which we as Christians are called to go to battle against.

But it become political hot button issues that the government and politicians are engaged in. And how do we learn something from the way that the early church handled them? I’ve got four things I want to say. First, it seems to me that the most important thing that we learn from the early church is that the early church responded to the evil and the brokenness in their world with a bottom up approach, rather than a top down, top down. I mean, seeking to gain power and influence and status, change the empire, change the laws.

That is not the way that the early church went about engaging the evil and the brokenness of the world. They started from the bottom up. They simply lived as the church. They lived as Christians, as followers of Jesus. They lived in the power of the spirit. And by doing so, they changed the world.

The the question of the exposing of Roman children is the prime example, right? Christians didn’t try to gain influence or power, so they brought these children in. They spoke and preached out against it. They created orphanages and eventually it changed the entire empire. The early church responded to the evil and brokenness of their world with a bottom up approach.

And I want to point out something, though when Constantine Rome rose to power and Christians gained influence and power. Look at the rest of the history of the Western world. It is filled with brutality and evil and violence perpetuated by Christians. So don’t tell me that absolute power does not corrupt. Absolutely. What’s changed? Christian. And a lot of the time not in a good way, was when they gained power and when Christians gain power.

There are a ton of examples of when they stopped living like the church, like followers of Jesus, empowered by the spirit. So the first thing that I would say that we are to do is let’s take the bottom up approach. Let’s learn from the early church and not try to change the world through power and status and influence, but simply by living as the church, living as followers of Jesus, living in the power of the spirit, doing what we can, where we can.

I firmly believe that if most churches would spend a little less time worried about what is going on in Washington and a little more time worried about what is going on in their own communities, in their own backyards, the poor that are living down the street from them, the single mothers that are living next door to the church buildings, the violence that is taking place in their streets.

If churches would spend a little less time worried about what’s going on in Washington and a little more time worried about what is going on in their own towns, and being the church, living by the power of the spirit in their own location. A lot of the evil in the brokenness of our world would be solved. I think the early church is an example.

We don’t need power and influence to change the world. We simply need the power of the spirit, the power that is present in the Kingdom of God that you and I are a part of. So first I would say we need to take a bottom up approach rather than a top down approach. Secondly, we need to make our citizenship in God’s kingdom primary, something else that we see in the early church is there.

Citizenship was not primarily in the Roman Empire. Paul utilized that citizenship for his benefit at times, but for Paul, he was not primarily a citizen of the Roman Empire or of the Jewish nation, but he was a citizen of God’s kingdom. And we need to make our citizenship in God’s kingdom primary. We are not first and foremost citizens of the United States of America we can be proud to be.

But our primary citizenship lies in the Kingdom of God, and so we seek to live for the benefit of God’s kingdom. First, not our earthly kingdom. We seek to spread first the values of God’s kingdom, not the values of our earthly kingdom. We pledge allegiance to God’s kingdom, not to any earthly kingdom. We bow down to the power of the King of the Kingdom of God, not the kings and the powers of this earth.

We recognize that the ultimate power to change and transform the world is found in the Kingdom of God, in Jesus, who will return and usher in a new creation, not through the powers of the kingdom of men. Third, we respect differing opinions as long as they put the kingdom first. Now, a couple things I want to say there.

I think it’s very important that we respect different political opinions, because different people are going to see the way that you live out. Kingdom values. You live as a follower of Jesus in the power of the spirit. They’re going to see the ins and outs of the way that you do that a little bit differently. No two people are going to see that the same.

So, for example, we can all look out and see the problem of of poverty that exists in the world, but no two of us are necessarily going to fully agree on how you deal with that. One person might think that you do it one way. Another person might think that you do it another way. And if we’re both coming to that decision by putting the kingdom first, if we can, both with a clean conscience, say, I think this is the right way to help people because of the kingdom.

And another person can say, I think this is the right way to help people because of the kingdom, then we need to be able to respect the other person’s opinion. We need to be able to sit down and have good and open and honest conversation, to be able to agree to disagree and both value the kingdom and both value the poor, and both want to see solutions happen.

But I say that we need to respect differing opinions as long as they put the kingdom first. Because I would also say if someone is saying, hey, this is what we need to do, and it’s obvious,

yes, that they’re not putting the kingdom first. It’s obvious that they’re putting themselves, their livelihood, their business, their bank account, their family, whatever it is first and not God’s kingdom.

I would argue that we have a responsibility to call that out as evil, as antithetical to the kingdom of God. Now, I also think we have to be very careful in doing that. We don’t just jump to that conclusion. That’s something that we come through, come, that’s a decision that we come to through a lot of of time, a lot of discernment, a lot of prayer, a lot of sitting and listening and building a relationship with that other person.

And just because somebody disagrees with you, this is my point, does not mean that they’re not putting the kingdom first. So we respect differing opinions as long as they put the kingdom first. And the fourth. And final thing I want to say is that our first response should be gospel oriented. The first thing we do, we see a problem abortion, poverty, war, health care, whatever it is, our first response must never be political, must never be through using earthly powers or earthly influence.

The first response is gospel oriented. It’s proclaiming and living out the gospel, the Kingdom of God, through the power of the spirit. That’s the first thing that we do. That should always be our first response. Only after exhausting all other options do we consider becoming political, though this doesn’t mean that we do. We don’t have to become political.

The early church illustrates for that we can simply live as the church and change the world. But we start with a gospel oriented approach, and only after exhausting all of our other options do I think we then consider becoming political. And here’s what I mean by that. So let’s take the example of poverty. We care about the poor and the marginalized and the outcast.

And so our response begins by living out the gospel, by seeking to care for people, bringing in people into our homes, giving up our means, doing things as a church to provide a food and water and shelter for for the people of our community. We we live out the gospel, but there’s a very real possibility. And I think in a lot of cases, this is what happens or living out the gospel eventually comes to the point where it backs up against politics.

That is, we’ve done all that we can, but there’s legislation, there’s a policies or there’s a lack of some kind of legislation or policies that is allowing bad things to happen, that is allowing the poor to remain poor, that is keeping them from.

Getting out of the poverty that they’re in or is preventing them from getting the health care that they need or whatever the case may be, and and our backs then back up to politics. And at that point we’ve done what we’ve can. But to stand on the side of the people who were poor and to plead their cause then means we may have to plead for some changes in politics and policies and laws in order to help them.

Let me give you a prime example from history of the way this work. You just think of the civil rights movement. If we’re going to say we stand with black Americans, and if we were there and we were to say we stand with them because they are equally image bearers of God, they should be treated with equality. We can stand with them, we can help them.

We can change our churches and our businesses and our towns to reflect that. But eventually that backs up to the fact that there were laws and regulations that made it okay for businesses and schools to treat black people differently, and at some point, if we are going to stand with them as image bearers of God, we also have to take a stand and say, those things must change.

But here’s my point. It begins as gospel oriented. It begins with a bottom up approach, doing everything that we can where we are to spread the kingdom of God in the power of the spirit. And once we have done that, we then consider becoming political. I want to tell you to look forward to a future episode where, Jake Dobyns comes back on the podcast and we have a conversation about some of the application and, implications of a lot of the things that we’re talking about in this series, particularly talking about that balance of how do we live out the gospel and then when, when do we come political, when our backs up

against the wall in those kind of cases, when standing with people means we also have to stand against certain politicians and certain policies and certain laws, or to stand for things happening to help the people that we are standing with, because that is part of what it means to live out the gospel. I thank you for joining us for this episode.

If you haven’t seen the previous ones in this series, I encourage you to do that. Also, make sure to look out for there’s a few more episodes and articles that will be coming out in the remainder of this month as we continue discussing our theology of politics. But, thank you for joining us in this episode. As we asked the question, political issue or church issue, and I want to encourage you, live out the gospel, live as a citizen of the kingdom of God.

Take a bottom up approach. Do what you can, where you are. And once you’ve exhausted all of their options, only then consider becoming political. if you have any questions, comments, concerns, criticisms, you can find us at strongchurchministries@gmail.org. You can also find us on our website, thinkingtheologically.org, where you can find this episode, as well as all the episodes in the series, in this series, and a bunch of other content there at the website. You can find Thinking Theologically and myself on all social media a Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. If you find us there, make sure and like or subscribe to our page. It helps us to spread this content. Thank you for joining us. And that’s the episode.

 

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