Category: Bible & Theology

What is Wrong with Christian Nationalism?

I was recently invited to speak at an online web conference titled “Better Citizens for a Better World.” The conference addressed various aspects of how to live out our Christian citizenship in the here and now.

The conference addressed a wide range of subjects, including an opening talk about “God and Empire” followed by my talk, “Why Christians Can’t be Nationalists.”

My friend Dr. Rob Dalrymple does the first presentation, ending at the 20:15 mark. I then follow up with my presentation outlining what I believe are the proper Christian approaches to patriotism, nationalism and Christian nationalism.

My talk ends at 48:20 when Rob and I begin to answer write-in questions from viewers.

I hope that you find this interesting and helpful in this election season. Thanks for watching:

A Review of Andrew DeCort’s ‘Blessed Are the Others: Jesus’ Way in a Violent World’

Recently I have been trying to read more in the area of “peacemaking” literature. I seem to be bumping up against this topic a lot in my circle of friends.

So here is my brief review of the newest book in this field of study:

A review of Andrew DeCort, Blessed are the Others: Jesus’ Way in a Violent World (Bittersweet Books, 2024, 178 pp., $19.95)

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

–Yeats, “The Second Coming”

Andrew DeCort has an amazing, horrific story to tell, and he tells it well in his new book Blessed are the Others: Jesus’ Way in a Violent World. Civil war breaks out while Andrew and his wife are living and developing Christian ministries in Ethiopia. As Christian workers committed to serving in the kingdom of God and following the nonviolent way of Jesus, the DeCorts begin bravely to advocate for peace and reconciliation in a variety of important ways among the various parties in Ethiopia’s bloody conflict.

Eventually, they are branded as traitors by those in power. They receive death threats from authority figures who could easily carry out their threats at any time. If the enemy of your enemy is your friend, then the peacemaking enemies of warfare make themselves the enemies of warmongers who will eventually seek to eliminate you.

By the time the DeCorts leave Ethiopia for their own safety, Andrew is (unsurprisingly) experiencing serious emotional and psychological upheaval. Though he never uses the term, he undoubtedly experienced full–blown attacks of PTSD, complete with the entire range of physical and psychological symptoms involved. These experiences of warfare, trauma, peacemaking and persecution become the setting for DeCort’s exposition of the Beatitudes found in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:3–12); this is the subject matter of Blessed are the Others.

There can be no doubt that DeCort’s experiences have equipped him to provide wise, first–hand insights into the dynamics involved in the beatific states of poverty of spirit, meekness, peacemaking and being persecuted for the sake of righteousness. In circumstances where many would have abandoned Christian faith altogether, DeCort has persisted in wrestling with questions of faith all throughout his dramatic journey.

Yet, it is the power of DeCort’s storytelling that also raises several problems for this reviewer. For instance, a reader cannot help but feel deep sympathy and admiration for DeCort while reading his story. Much of this book reads like a series of journal entries kept during the author’s counseling sessions. Taking the step to risk such public transparency lends DeCort a moral authority, at least for the sensitive reader, that is easily transferred from the confessional sections of the book to the expository sections dealing with scripture. Thus, the reader is invited to embrace DeCort’s explanations of the biblical text with the same quality of sympathetic acceptance as the reader has already extended to DeCort’s dramatic storytelling.

But is this a wise step to take?

Throughout the book, DeCort reminds his readers that the Beatitudes are God’s recipe for becoming “humanely happy.” But for all their value in illustrating how and why DeCort has arrived at his theology of peacemaking and humane happiness, there is a difference between telling powerful stories to illustrate biblical teaching and telling stories to determine the intent of biblical teaching. For DeCort, his authority for explaining the specifics of humane happiness appears in the therapeutic lessons he has discovered throughout the long process of coming to grips with his trauma. The meaning of the biblical text ultimately becomes subservient to his lived experience, not the other way around (as it should be).

At the end of the day, Jesus’ experience on earth is reflected in DeCort’s; and DeCort’s life of trauma becomes the very image of Jesus’ experience. When answering the question, “How did Jesus make peace in society?” DeCort answers, “It’s clear that Jesus’ peacemaking began with himself. Having survived acute trauma (i.e., Jesus was traumatized by his parents’ flight into Egypt), there is no other way. He went out to the wilderness, wrestled with his demons . . . He took time to rest and to grieve his suffering” (129). Note that Jesus was not recovering from his suffering on the cross, but from his childhood trauma. That was Jesus’ therapeutic path to peacemaking. Thus, Jesus has been conformed to the image of DeCort, and DeCort has become the model for Jesus.

Earlier in the book, DeCort rooted our humane task as peacemakers in God’s role as Creator, rather than in God’s work as Redeemer—where I believe it belongs. Therefore, Jesus’ model of suffering is exemplary for all humanity, just as “God is actually our parent” who “calls us all beloved children” (147). The natural relationships forged within creation have priority. DeCort introduces his perspective early in the book: “Jesus of Nazareth invites us into a strange wisdom as ancient as the pillars of creation. He promises that opening ourselves to our pain is the beginning of the Beatitudinal Way. Paradoxically, this is the path of humane happiness” (11).

Note that, for DeCort, the Beatitudes describe a natural process rooted in creation. The key to learning the Beatitudes is therapy, opening ourselves to our pain. How the eschatological arrival of God’s kingdom may be subverting the natural relationships of a fallen creation is never discussed. I find this surprising given that the Beatitudes describe kingdom citizenship, not the natural order of things. The kingdom does not arise from within creation! It invades creation from without. But this oddity becomes understandable once we recognize that, for DeCort, the therapeutic has overwhelmed the exegetical.

An obvious sign of this unfortunate interpretive move appears in the way Moses and Joshua are turned into Old Testament villains. As the people of Israel emerge from their own four–hundred–year period of trauma in Egyptian bondage, Moses undermines the possibility of Israel’s healing by instituting the Sinai Covenant—a series of obligations and blessings based on the misbegotten notion of Israel’s election as God’s chosen people (24, 27, 38, 100, 108, 127, 130). This retrograde idea of chosenness then sets the stage for Moses’ (and Joshua’s) horrific calls for Israel to ethnically cleanse the land of Canaan (25). It also presents us with a wrathful, nationalistic God of vengeance who is hardly the kind of deity who calls his people to become peacemakers, opposing civil wars and working for reconciliation.

In effect, DeCort is presenting us with another form of Marcionism. Marcion was an early church father/heretic who taught that the Old and New Testaments told the stories of two different gods: an OT god of wrath and warfare, and a NT god of love and peace. For Marcion, the OT god had to go. DeCort appears to follow suit.

In making this interpretive move, DeCort follows an old, old pathway. This method is sometimes called Tendenz Kritik. In other words, the interpreter fixes upon a certain tendency or theme which takes centerstage in the interpretive process. This theme is made canonical. Any texts or theological implications that appear to diverge from this preferred theme are downgraded or excised from the Bible in one way or another. Enlightenment Rationalists eliminated the supernatural from scripture because it conflicted with their elevation of human reason. Rudolf Bultmann developed his program of demythologizing for the same purpose. As he famously said (my paraphrase), “No one who uses an electric light can possibly take the NT miracle stories literally.” DeCort is offering his readers his own form of Tendenz Kritik. Anything that does not cohere with his understanding of a peacemaking Jesus activating principles rooted in creation must be rewritten or rejected outright.

When everything else is said and done, I cannot help but conclude that Andrew DeCort is offering us another version of Walter Rauschenbusch’s rationalistic, nineteenth–century Social Gospel filtered through the lens of the Ethiopian civil war and the personal trauma it created for the author. As Rauschenbusch explained, Jesus’ exemplary life is intended to reveal the universal Fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of humanity. The Beatitudes lay out Jesus’ instructions for “humane happiness” in this world where divine, universal love is not taken seriously enough. DeCort is clearly reading from this script.

DeCort’s idiosyncratic version of the social gospel also reminds me of the classic work by Philip Reiff, The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith after Freud. In that book, Reiff details the extent to which the processes and benefits of psychotherapy have replaced the historic liturgies, traditions and authority of religious (Christian) faith in modernity. Reiff explains that:

Any religious exercise is justified only by being something men (sic) do for themselves, that is, for the enrichment of their own experience . . . What then should churchmen (sic) do? The answer returns clearly: become, avowedly, therapists, administrating a therapeutic institution—under the justificatory mandate that Jesus himself was the first therapeutic. (215)

DeCort’s “exposition” of the Beatitudes closely conforms to Reiff’s prescription for modern religious leaders. It is, indeed, the triumph of the therapeutic.

But this is nothing new; it is an old, old story.

In 1906 Albert Schweitzer published his important book, The Quest for the Historical Jesus. After surveying every scholarly effort to recover the Jesus of history from the accumulated traditions of two–thousand years of Christian development, Schweitzer concluded (I am paraphrasing): “After peering down history’s well, searching for the historical Jesus, all that researchers have discovered is their own reflection staring back at them.”

Reading about DeCort’s reflections on himself, superimposed onto the Beatitudes, is not without some interest; the human story is compelling. But the theological conclusions he draws, concerning Jesus and the Beatitudes, must be taken with a large block of salt. I’d like to see more of the incarnate Jesus who suffered on the cross in order to make peace between his heavenly Father and fallen human beings, and less about the power of therapeutic empathy to perfect human happiness through “peacemaking.”

That difference is stark.

A Review of Eric Metaxas’ New Book, Religionless Christianity

Review of Eric Metaxas, Religionless Christianity: God’s Answer to Evil (New York: Regnery Faith, 2024, $24.99)

Religionless Christianity is Eric Metaxas’ follow–up to his best–selling book, Letter to the American Church (see my review here). As in the earlier work, Dietrich Bonhoeffer remains Metaxas’ paradigm of Christian cultural engagement striving to effect societal transformation. By going so far as to participate in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Bonhoeffer exemplifies the kind of pious extremism expected of all truly radical Jesus–followers. (Yes, let the irony of that statement sink in.) According to Metaxas, Christians must reject “the idol of purity” (79). “Daring to act” (i.e. trying to kill Hitler), even if it means “making some mistake” (i.e. committing the sin of murder) is Metaxas’ exemplary motto for faithful Christian living (100).

Metaxas’ tone is strongly apocalyptic in response to the spreading “horrors” he believes have been encouraged by the Biden administration. What a difference four years of Democratic governance can make! (I say this with tongue firmly planted in my left cheek.) The dangerous implications of Metaxas’ valorization of Bonhoeffer’s decision to embrace violence are clear. Killing political opponents because they are judged to be God’s horrific opponents continues to be an important part of Metaxas’ message.

According to Metaxas, American society has become the resurrected analog of Nazi Germany complete with the demonic evils (and Metaxas means this literally) of socialism, cultural Marxism, critical race theory (all terms he never defines) as well as transgender advocacy. To his mind, one of the premier examples illustrating America’s slide into the pit of demonic thought and action is “the insane lie of the 1619 Project” (57). According to Metaxas, the 1619 Project’s lessons about the history of American slavery and the ongoing challenges of institutional racism are “lunatic,” “wicked,” “intentionally malevolent,” “dark and accusing,” and “diametrically opposed to God’s idea of grace” (58). In Metaxas’s mind, his political opponents are not well–intentioned human beings who hold different opinions or draw different conclusions from the historical evidence. No. Metaxas insists that all Democrats, liberals (whatever that label now means), progressives and left–wing social activists are involved in a dark, Satanic conspiracy.

According to Metaxas, the main instrument used to propagate this demonic, Nazi–like degeneration is the promotion of “cancel culture” (chapters six and seven). By this he means the suppression of one set of ideological voices by those on the opposite side of the debate. Metaxas warns that “at the dark heart of the evil we are seeing in our time lies that hideous thing called ‘cancel culture’” (55). His primary example of cancel culture concerns Christian voices being criticized or condemned on social media platforms. Combatting cancel culture is elevated to the status of spiritual warfare since “the spirit of cancel culture always operates in environments that are openly anti–God” revealing nothing but “a satanic spirit of accusation and cursing” (59).

In Metaxas’ worldview, only conservatives suffer the oppression of cancel culture. He remains blind to the many instances where either conservative and/or establishment forces have worked to “cancel” progressive/liberal voices in public conversation. (For instance, notice the absence from mainstream media of: anti–Zionist critiques of Israel’s war against Gaza, or any discussion of the war in Ukraine that places primary responsibility not on Russia but on the provocation created by NATO expansion. My political opinions are never represented in mainstream media. Yet, I restrain myself from imagining I am a victim of demonic forces.)

Metaxas’ believes that it is the church’s responsibility directly to attack such demonic phenomena as cancel culture and the 1619 Project. An obedient, socially active, politically engaged church that explicitly promotes conservative policies via Christian nationalism (120–25) is the only hope for national transformation.

The Christian church controls the tiller of society, according to Metaxas. A degenerate society, such as ours or Nazi Germany’s, reveals an apostate church. Bolstering his case by way of analogy to the German church prior to World War II, he lays the largest portion of blame for the rise of Naziism at the feet of the German church—a church that had surrendered to the demonic powers of secularism and religion.

This is where Dietrich Bonhoeffer reenters the picture. During Bonhoeffer’s imprisonment (for plotting to assassinate Hitler) he began writing about the need for “religionless Christianity.” Though I am not a Bonhoeffer scholar—by all academic accounts, neither is Metaxas—I understand Bonhoeffer’s call for a religionless Christianity to be a doubling down on his condemnation of “cheap grace” made so thoroughly in his book The Cost of Discipleship.

Rejecting the empty formalism and pietistic trappings of religious posturing, which includes the brand of rationalism that excludes the possibility of supernatural miracles, Bonhoeffer called for a thoroughgoing surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in every dimension of life. This would be religionless, i.e., authentic Christianity which is exactly what both Germany and America require(d). A truly religionless American Christianity would lead to the final victory of conservative values in a Christian nation worthy of America’s Christian heritage.

This brief review of Metaxas’ arguments in Religionless Christianity has already indicated the book’s major problems. A little elaboration will fill in the picture.

Sections of this book sound as if the author has recently emerged from a time capsule. He seems to have missed the decades–long history of political activism instigated by America’s Religious Right movement, including such organizations as the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council and more. The problem, obviously, is that acknowledging this piece of American history undermines Metaxas’ insistence about the ability of a politically active church to control the tenor and direction of American society. Why hasn’t the Religious Right’s decades of religious, political activism created a more moral, Christian society? Metaxas ignores the question because the answer undermines his thesis.

Metaxas also fails to grasp the internal problems of the German, Christian church in the early twentieth–century. Thus, his comparisons to American society consistently miss the mark. The German church’s two principal problems were theological before they were pragmatic.

First, the German church adhered closely to Martin Luther’s two–kingdom theology in which secular, political leaders—including a man like Adolf Hitler—were believed to be divinely installed by God’s providence. The Christian’s duty was to obey government leaders not to dissent; for civil disobedience was rebellion against God.

The second issue was closely related to the first. The Christian church in 1930s Germany wholeheartedly embraced its own form of Christian nationalism. Germany was God’s exceptional nation, carrying out God’s purposes in attempting to conquer Europe. Germany was establishing the kingdom of God on this earth, on both the eastern and the western fronts.

The supreme irony of Metaxas’ book resides in his failure to notice the overlap between his own political views and those of the Nazi, German Christian church which he criticizes. Though he calls upon the American church to follow in the footsteps of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he fails to recognize that he is defending the very political positions— [1] Christian nationalism and [2] seeing God’s “blessing” on one’s preferred political leader, i.e., Donald Trump—that Bonhoeffer condemned. Metaxas’ partisan applause for Trump, especially as Trump promises evangelicals that he will protect Christian dominance throughout America, are mirror images of the theological posture taken up by the German church. THIS was the “secularism” condemned by Bonhoeffer’s call for a religionless Christianity. Yet, it is the very brand of American civil religion propounded by Metaxas.

But Metaxas is too busy promoting his own right–wing political ideology to notice that in riding the wave of today’s MAGA movement and blatantly manipulating Bonhoeffer’s legacy, he has styled himself as one more political hack pretending to write as an historian–theologian. Unfortunately, I suspect that Religionless Christianity will become another bestseller for Metaxas. But then Naziism was also a bestseller among members of the German Christian church.

My First Book, “Feeling Like God”, is Now Back in Print

I am happy to announce that the publisher Wipf & Stock has agreed to reprint my book, Feeling Like God: A Spiritual Journey to Emotional Wholeness.

The original publisher, a small Canadian press, went out of business years ago, so the book has been unavailable for some time.

In my humble opinion, it’s a great book well worth reading!

I tackle the ancient theological question of whether or not God has passions, emotions, feelings that are part and parcel of his sovereign plans for the world.

My answer to that question is a resounding YES, in contrast to much of the orthodox, theological tradition which said NO. I approach this answer through a brilliantly composed (LOL!) integration of biblical theology,  an examination of Greek philosophy, a look at the early Church Fathers, illustrative  stories,and personal application.

What more could you ask for?

Publisher’s Description – “An engaging blend of biblical study, historical theology, and personal testimony, Feeling like God takes the reader on a journey to understand God as revealed in Scripture. It shows that following Jesus Christ necessarily means bringing our feelings to God, rather than trying to suppress them, and shows how expressing emotion is something central to what it means to be created in the image of God.”

Check Out My Recent Article in the “Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies”

Today the Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies published my article  titled “Echoes of Slavery, Racial Segregation and Jim Crow: American Dispensationalism and Christian Zionist Bible-Reading.”

Below is the abstract, that is a brief summary of the article:

The apologetics of pro-slavery, pro-segregation Christians in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were identical to the methods of biblical interpretation used by Dispensationalist Christian Zionists today. The ideology’s specific rules of ‘literal interpretation’ and ‘antecedent theology’ led both groups to similar conclusions about slavery and racial segregation, on the one hand, and Jewish privilege and Palestinian displacement, on the other. Abolitionist efforts to promote a Christ–like hermeneutic rooted in Christian morality points the way forward to correcting modern theologies, such as Dispensationalist Christian Zionism, that continue to sanction human oppression.

I believe that clicking the highlighted title above will allow access to the article online. However, if this does not work for you, let me know and I can send you a copy.

Yes, I too am disappointed by the numerous formating and editorial errors in my article. Yuck! Unfortunately, it is too late for me to do anything about it now…sigh…

Chris Hedges’ Sermon for Gaza

The current student anti-war, pro-Palestinian demonstrations are if historic significance.

Despite the establishment media’s scurilous attempts to vilify these college students and their supportive professors as churlish antisemites, the abundance of video clips avalable on youtube, X, tic tok, facebook and elsewhere reveal the truth.

Whatever violence my occur is consistently started by the police.

The rare instances of genuine antisemitism are either the outlier having nothing to do with the demonstration’s organizers and membership, or they are false flag incidents committed by pro-Israel agitators trying to make trouble.

These campus demonstations give me hope, not only for the future of our country, but for the eventual demise of Israel as an apartheid state.

The American journalist, Chris Hedges, understandings all these things and eloquently expressed his support by delivering a sermon yesterday on the grounds of Princeton University.

As a Christian, I wish that I could call Mr. Hedges my brother in Christ. Unfortunately, his disbelief in the incarnation and the bodily resurrection of Jesus prevents me from saying that.

I do not believe, as Hedges does, that the crucifixion of Jesus Christ stands as metaphor for the redemptive power of unjust suffering. I see the cross, as I believe the New Testament does also, as the inevitable climax of a life lived in complete obedience to our Father in heaven. (There is much more to be said about this, but that is for another post.)

Nevertheless, as a fellow human being I can only applaud Chris’ profound understanding of the human condition in this world and the cries for justice that arise from those who suffer.

In fact, Chris Hedges has a better understanding of God’s heart for justice, and the work that our Creator asks his people to perform in the temporal pursuit of this justice here and now than does the typical church-goer — fundamentalist, evangelical, liberal or mainline — in this country.

There is much to learn from Chris’ message. I urge you to read it all, prayerfully with a heart ready to respond.

All truth is God’s truth no matter who says it or where it is said.

Here is an excerpt:

. . . To resist radical evil, as you are doing, is to endure a life that by the standards of the wider society is a failure. It is to defy injustice at the cost of your career, your reputation, your financial solvency and at times your life. It is to be a lifelong heretic. And, perhaps this is the most important point, it is to accept that the dominant culture, even the liberal elites, will push you to the margins and attempt to discredit not only what you do, but your character. When I returned to the newsroom at The New York Times after being booed off a commencement stage in 2003 for denouncing the invasion of Iraq and being publicly reprimanded by the paper for my stance against the war, reporters and editors I had known and worked with for 15 years lowered their heads or turned away when I was nearby. They did not want to be contaminated by the same career-killing contagion.

Ruling institutions — the state, the press, the church, the courts, universities  — mouth the language of morality, but they serve the structures of power, no matter how venal, which provide them with money, status and authority. All of these institutions, including the academy, are complicit through their silence or their active collaboration with radical evil. This was true during the genocide we committed against native Americans, slavery, the witch hunts during the McCarthy era, the civil rights and anti-war movements and the fight against the apartheid regime of South Africa. The most courageous are purged and turned into pariahs.

The theologian James Cone in his book “The Cross and the Lynching Tree” writes that for oppressed blacks the cross was a “paradoxical religious symbol because it inverts the world’s value system with the news that hope comes by way of defeat, that suffering and death do not have the last word, that the last shall be first and the first last.”

Cone continues: “That God could ‘make a way out of no way’ in Jesus’ cross was truly absurd to the intellect, yet profoundly real in the souls of black folk. Enslaved blacks who first heard the gospel message seized on the power of the cross. Christ crucified manifested God’s loving and liberating presence in the contradictions of black life—that transcendent presence in the lives of black Christians that empowered them to believe that ultimately, in God’s eschatological future, they would not be defeated by the ‘troubles of this world,’ no matter how great and painful their suffering. Believing this paradox, this absurd claim of faith, was only possible in humility and repentance. There was no place for the proud and the mighty, for people who think that God called them to rule over others. The cross was God’s critique of power—white power—with powerless love, snatching victory out of defeat.”

Reinhold Niebuhr labeled this capacity to defy the forces of repression “a sublime madness in the soul.” Niebuhr wrote that “nothing but madness will do battle with malignant power and ‘spiritual wickedness in high places.’ ” This sublime madness, as Niebuhr understood, is dangerous, but it is vital. Without it, “truth is obscured.” And Niebuhr also knew that traditional liberalism was a useless force in moments of extremity. Liberalism, Niebuhr said, “lacks the spirit of enthusiasm, not to say fanaticism, which is so necessary to move the world out of its beaten tracks. It is too intellectual and too little emotional to be an efficient force in history.”

The prophets in the Hebrew Bible had this sublime madness. The words of the Hebrew prophets, as Rabbi Abraham Heschel wrote, were “a scream in the night. While the world is at ease and asleep, the prophet feels the blast from heaven.” The prophet, because he or she saw and faced an unpleasant reality, was, as Heschel wrote, “compelled to proclaim the very opposite of what their heart expected.”

This sublime madness is the essential quality for a life of resistance. It is the acceptance that when you stand with the oppressed you will be treated like the oppressed. It is the acceptance that, although empirically all that we struggled to achieve during our lifetime may be worse, our struggle validates itself.

You can read the entire sermon here.

A Review of “Jesus and the Powers” by N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird

A Review of N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness In an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies (Zondervan, 2024, $22.99)

As I begin this review, I must admit that I am not a dispassionate analyst. I do have some skin in the game since this new book by Wright and Bird covers very similar ground as does my book, I Pledge Allegiance. I have some firm opinions in this area of study.

Having put my cards on the table, however, I can say that Wright and Bird have given the church a very helpful book providing biblical guidance on how followers of Jesus are to deal with the practical matters of church–state relations. Can a Christian be involved with politics? What is the proper relationship between church and state? How are disciples to conduct themselves as responsible citizens? What guidance does scripture offer for answering these types of questions?

All this and more is tackled here with the deft biblical–theological hand one has come to expect from Wright and Bird.  With numerous historical examples illustrating the strengths and weaknesses of alternative approaches to such matters.

The first three chapters lay out the church’s relationship to world empires, beginning with Rome’s domination of Jesus’ homeland, up to the church’s contemporary interactions with the Soviet Union, China and the United States. The spiritual backdrop to these interactions is helpfully cast in terms of the spiritual, cosmic powers always at work behind the temporal authorities we see in our national, international, global relations. Thus, Wright and Bird endorse Walter Wink’s important three–volume work on Christianity and the Powers.

Chapter four, “The Kingdom of God as Vision and Vocation” begins the turn to a more pragmatic description of what exactly Christian disciples ought to be doing, and how we ought to be thinking, about our place in secular society. Here they thankfully emphasize the vital unification of both gospel proclamation and social justice activism as equally vital, and ultimately indivisible, kingdom activities for the local church. Across the entire spectrum of Christian, kingdom activities we are reminded that “the whole purpose of Christian influence is not the pursuit of Christian hegemony but the giving of faithful Christian witness,” thereby endorsing James Davison Hunter’s concept of the Christian church offering a “faithful presence” in the world (93).

The book’s second half focuses on matters of church–state relations in the modern day. There is an excellent critique of Christian Nationalism,” as well as the vigorous defense of liberal democracy, pluralism and secularism as the political venues most conducive to religious freedom.

The book’s conclusion reminds its readers that “we are called to be disciples with a theo–political vision of the gospel” (174) meaning that “a kingdom perspective requires prophetic witness, priestly intercession and political discernment” (175). The church cannot build the kingdom of God, only God can construct his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven (176).

This is a fine piece of work. And I am happy to encourage my subscribers to read this book by Wright and Bird, although I encourage you to do it in tandem with my book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America (Eerdmans, 2018).

Now I must turn to my critical analysis of the work.

Wright and Bird have written a handbook of sorts dealing with the questions of church–state relationship and Christian political involvement. Biblical references are treated as proof–texts cited in footnotes with no close reading or interpretation provided along the way. Since both of these men are fine New Testament scholars, this was obviously a deliberate decision. But this  omission leaves the reader with yet another book on politics and theology where we are simply expected to take the authors at their own authoritative word.

The problem with this decision appears most obviously in the discussion of Romans 13. Despite the fact that Paul never uses the vocabulary of “obey” or “obedience” in these verses, Wright and Bird repeat the frequent mistake of taking Paul to say that Christians are responsible “to obey” their secular, civic authorities (105, 109, 110). But this is not the case, and I explain why at some length in my book, I Pledge Allegiance (55–62). Granted, the authors redeem themselves by eventually, and quite rightly, explaining that it is “only good government can claim the mantle of a divinely appointed authority. Accordingly, God brings order through government but does not ordain every individual ruler” (112). Thus, Paul does instruct us to submit to the divine ordering of government, but we are not responsible to obey every person or directive in authority.

Again, Wright and Bird finally reach this conclusion themselves in their section discussing civil disobedience (107–121). They agree that unjust laws may be resisted or disobeyed by believers, although, while admitting that “one needs to have criteria for determining unjust laws,” no specific guidance is offered (119).

They draw a distinction between civil disobedience and uncivil disobedience, the latter being “reserved only for violent authoritarians.” In the face of authoritarianism, Christians are justified in resorting to violence in their efforts to overthrow an oppressive, unjust government. In my view, this is where their argument and methodology go off the rails. Not only is there no biblical evidence on offer, but even the biblical footnotes disappear. Instead, the authors appeal to traditional just war theory, a few notable philosophers, and the example of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s involvement in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

I obviously disagree strongly with these (less than compelling) arguments justifying a Christian’s turn to violence in civil war. (Again, check out the extensive argument in my book insisting that Christians must always embrace non–violence in every circumstance.) Actually, Bonhoeffer’s own turn to violent anti–Nazi resistance is, in my opinion, the great tragedy of his otherwise exemplary life. For, when all is said and done, Bonhoeffer did not die as a martyr for Jesus Christ and the gospel. He died as a violent insurgent helping to plot a violent murder.

Here we come, perhaps, to the principal problem with Jesus and the Powers. For all the discussion of the kingdom of God and the need for Christian ethics to direct our political engagement, there is no extended discussion of the upside–down nature of Jesus’ kingdom ethics; no exposition of what numerous scholars have called the “kingdom reversal.” In my opinion, this is not only a major oversight but an inexplicable omission in a book like this. Jesus makes it clear, that living out the seemingly upside–down values of the kingdom of God — in every dimension of our public and private lives, political and apolitical — is THE means of demonstrating that the “not yet fulfilled” kingdom of God is, nevertheless, “already present” in this world. Living a non–violent life as Jesus lived a non–violent life, even in the face of the most authoritarian, bloodthirsty injustice exhibited on the cross at Calvary, is our gospel–kingdom mandate.

Similarly, a great deal of additional instruction in political directives could be added, but first we must immerse ourselves in a new way to think, a new way to view life in this world, a new way to live: an upside–down way, a contrarian way in all of life, whether the government is democratic or totalitarian. Unfortunately, Jesus and the Powers gives little attention to this crucial piece of the church and politics pie.

A Christian Look at the War Against Gaza: Episode Nine with Dr. David Crump

Rob Dalrymple has become a good friend of mine, so it was fun to do this interview with him. We began with a few technical difficulties, but it smooths out quickly.

We discuss several different but related topics: Palestinian life in the Occupied Territory of the West Bank; Christian Zionism and its relation to the modern state of Israel; the current war against Gaza; and the ethical demands for citizenship in the kingdom of God today.

I hope you find this conversation interesting, challenging and educational. I pray that it will move you to action in protesting the current war, calling for a ceasefire and negotiations.

Call you elected representatives and ask them to please demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

Do Christians Have a Theological Obligation to Support Israel’s Right to the Land?

Dr. Gary Burge was recently interviewed on the podcast Theology in the Raw.

My friend Gary provides an extensive argument for answering NO to this question. No, Christians do not have a theological obligation to support Israel’s right to the land.

If you have any questions about these matters, then please give Gary an hour of you time. You will be glad you did:

Do Christians Have a Theological Obligation to Support the Modern State of Israel? Dr. Gary Burge

Bruce Fisk and His Wife Alessandra Explain the Background to Israel’s War Against Gaza

Bruce and Alessandra are both friends of mine. Bruce is a retired New Testament professor. His wife, Alessandra is a Palestinian. Together they make a formidable team explaining the ins and outs of the dire situation in Gaza and Israel.

They recently gave a seminar to an East coast church. It’s 90 minutes long but well worth every minute: