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.

giving

The Politics of Jesus

Many are so conditioned by the mindset of the world that they can’t even envision an alternative way of affecting society and politics other than by playing the political game as it is done by the established governmental system. Some thus conclude that, since Jesus didn’t try to overhaul the political systems of his day by using the common tactics of those systems, the Christian faith must be primarily about personal piety and thus has no social relevance.

In his book The Politics of Jesus, John Howard Yoder has demonstrated that everything about Jesus’ ministry was socially and politically relevant. Precisely because he did not allow the politics of his day to define his ministry, he positioned himself to make a revolutionary prophetic comment, and ultimately have revolutionary impact on the society and politics of his day.

Jesus didn’t buy into the limited options the culture placed before him. He rather exposed ugly injustices in all kingdom-of-the-world options by offering a radically distinct alternative. It is a kingdom that resists the demonic pull toward coercive, “power-over” violence that characterizes all versions of the kingdom of the world. (See post on the connection between violence and governments.) It is a kingdom that, through self-sacrifice, unmasks the ugly injustice and violence of all versions of the kingdom of the world and the demonic powers that fuel them. It is a kingdom that doesn’t wage war “against flesh and blood” but instead fights against “rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness” (Eph 6:12) that hold all people in bondage.

It is a beautiful kingdom that is not so much spoken as it is displayed in loving action. For example, Jesus never entered into the fray of particular debates about the status of women in society. He rather exposed the ugliness of patriarchalism by the countercultural way he treated women. Ignoring negative consequences for this reputation—and ultimately for his life—Jesus befriended them and gave them a culturally unprecedented dignity. In a society in which women were generally understood to be the property of men and in which women had few rights, Jesus’ actions were revolutionary.

The same may be said of Jesus’ treatment of social outcasts, including lepers, the blind, the demonized, the poor, prostitutes, and tax collectors. Instead of trying to legislate justice for them, he provided an alternative to the sociopolitical structures of the world and exposed the injustices of these structures in the process.

Most fundamentally, Jesus exposed the barbarism of the Roman government, and ultimately the barbarism of all kingdoms of the world, by allowing himself to be crucified by them. Instead of using the power available to him to preserve his life, he exercised the power of love by giving his life for the very people who were taking it. Jesus’ death established that the kingdom community would not be characterized by “power over” but by “power under.” It would be a community where people have the same attitude of Jesus and place other people’s interests above their own (Phil 2:4-5).

In this way, Jesus offered a different kind of politics. He provided a beautiful alternative to the “power over” structure of the world and exposed the self-centered ugliness of these structures in the process.

This is the politics that the community of God is called to emulate, characterized by Calvary-like love. As such, this community strives for justice not by conquering but by being willing to suffer. How socially and politically revolutionary it would be if we put our trust in Jesus’ politics instead of the politics of this world!

Photo credit: Funky64 (www.lucarossato.com) via VisualHunt.com / CC BY-NC-ND

Related Reading

Why Did Jesus Curse the Fig Tree?

One of the strangest episodes recorded in the Gospels is Jesus cursing a fig tree because he was hungry and it didn’t have any figs (Mk 11:12-14; Mt 21:18-19).  It’s the only destructive miracle found in the New Testament. What’s particularly puzzling is that Mark tells us the reason the fig tree had no figs…

Quotes to Chew On: Religious Violence

“The myth of religious violence promotes a dichotomy between us in the secular West who are rational and peacemaking, and them, the hordes of violent religious fanatics in the Muslim world. Their violence is religious, and therefore irrational and divisive. Our violence, on the other hand, is rational, peacemaking, and necessary. Regrettably, we find ourselves forced to bomb them into the higher rationality.” ~William Cavanaugh,…

The Wrong “Bulls-Eye”: Reflections on the “Christian Left”

As it has since the fourth century, the Church today for the most part operates with a Constantinian (“power-over”) paradigm. Because of this, most socially concerned Christians are inclined to define the Church’s mission as adjudicating between and tweaking political options “in Jesus’ name.” We accept Caesar’s definition of “power” as the ability to get…

Dear Greg: How Do You Handle Assumptions People Make About You When They Learn You Are a Christian?

Greg talks about demonstrating counter-examples in a world overflowing with assumptions and prejudices.  http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0350.mp3

The Jesus Story is a Myth!…And History

Image by Len dela Cruz  The Jesus story has a curious, and fascinating, relationship with myth and legend. The story of God coming to earth, being born of a virgin, manifesting a heroic, counter-cultural love toward outcasts, dying for the people who crucified him and then rising from the dead has a familiar “echo” to it.…

Topics:

Why NO Violence in Jesus’ Name is Justified

Image by papapico via Flickr On Friday, Greg posted a response to Obama’s speech about religiously-inspired violence.  Here are some further thoughts on why violence in the name of Jesus—no matter whether we call it just, redemptive, or defending ourselves—is just another form of kingdom-of-this-world living. The love we are called to trust and emulate is supremely…