We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
Jesus and Democracy
Question: I’ve heard that the reason Jesus didn’t speak up on political issues was because he didn’t have the benefit of living in a democracy. Since we do, don’t we have a duty both to God and our country to be involved in politics?
Answer: If the reason Jesus didn’t speak up on political issues was because he didn’t live in a democracy, how do we explain the fact his contemporaries were constantly speaking up and arguing about politics? The fact of the matter is that, while ancient Jews obviously couldn’t vote by casting a ballot, they had plenty of other ways of “voting” if they were interested in trying to alter the political landscape. Some refused to pay taxes. Others sabotaged various Roman endeavors. And still others took up the sword and assassinated Roman solders. These were the very political issues ancient Jews debated so intensely. Yet, neither Jesus nor his disciples (once they got clear on how Jesus’ vision of the Kingdom of God differed from the kingdom of the world, e.g., Mk 8:27-38; 9:30-37; 10:32-45) showed any interest discussing these options.
On top of this, Jesus had plenty of other ways of affecting politics if this is what he was interested in doing. As he told his disciples, he could have called “twelve legions of angels” to defend himself and defeat his opponents if that is what he was concerned with (Mt 26:53). In fact, at one point in his ministry he had all the authority of the kingdoms of the world offered to him on a silver platter. He could have instantly given the entire world the best version of worldly government imaginable. Yet Jesus rejected this offer as a temptation of the devil (Lk 4:5-7), for the Kingdom Jesus came to usher into this world is not a new and improved – or even “the best imaginable” – version of worldly government.
Clearly, Jesus’ lack of interest in worldly government was not merely due to the unfortunate form of government he happened to be under. Rather, his anti-political stance reflects the radically unique way of Jesus, and, therefore, the radically unique way we who follow him are called to live.
Photo credit: garrettc via Visual Hunt / CC BY-NC
Category: General
Tags: Jesus, Kingdom Living, Politics
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
Related Reading
Part 4: An Alternative Cross-Centered Approach
Image by Karl Pang via Flickr As I mentioned in Part II of this review, I am deeply appreciative of the fact that Flood grasps the centrality of enemy-loving non-violence in Jesus’ revelation of God. And while many, if not most, of the depictions of Yahweh in the Old Testament are consistent with this revelation, I…
Take America (& the World) Back for God?
Kai Schreiber via Compfight Recently Missio Alliance has hosted a series of posts entitled “Christianity and Violence.” Since Greg has written quite a lot on this topic from the point of view of pacifism, we thought it timely to weigh in on this topic. The following excerpt is quoted from his chapter, “Taking America Back…
Shouldn’t preachers rally Christians to fight political injustice?
Question: My pastor has publicly supported your book The Myth of a Christian Nation. But he’s recently called on the church to take a stand against the injustice of our local government cutting funding for inner city recreational facilities. This seems right to me, since we’re suppose to defend the cause of the poor and oppressed.…
Christians & Politics: Where Do You Stand?
In the 1980’s, Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson were leaders in the Moral Majority, a conservative evangelical social and political movement that attempted to rally “moral” people to change public policy. The movement died out in the 1990s. In 1999, Thomas and Dobson wrote a book entitled Blinded by Might in which they declare that…
Gospel “Contradictions” and Orality Studies
* This essay has been adopted from G. Boyd and Paul Eddy, Lord or Legend? (Baker, 2007). One of the standard tests historians put to ancient documents to assess their veracity is self-consistency. Generally speaking, fabricated accounts tend to include more inconsistencies than truthful accounts. Hence, the absence of inner contradictions contributes to a positive…
Part 3: Disarming Flood’s Inadequate Conception of Biblical Authority
Image by Ex-InTransit via Flickr In this third part of my review of Derek Flood’s Disarming Scripture I will offer a critique of his redefined conception of biblical inspiration and authority. I will begin by having us recall from Part I that Flood holds up “faithful questioning” over “unquestioning obedience” as the kind of faith that Jesus…