Wineskins Contributor・03/11/19

Who are we, brothersand sisters?  Now, more than ever, the American Church needs toanswer that question.  A cursory answer you might pose is, "Weare the Church."  You might say, "We are Christians."The response might even be, "We're God's people." While those aretrue, I'll ask again.  Who are we?

One need only lookaround the assembly on Sunday to see that partisan politics have found awilling home within our congregations. Republican or Democrat? I contend thatthe idol of politics has become the real dividing issue of our time. 

These divisions are notnew among God's people. Jesus' world included four partisan parties among theJewish people: The Zealots, the Essenes, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees. Eachhad its own ideology about how the world should work considering Romanoccupation.   Zealots were coercive revolutionaries. Sadducees werecollaborators. Pharisees were the separate and pure; superior and far apartfrom sinners. The last group is the Essenes who withdrew from social andpolitical affairs. 

All but the Essenespracticed a fierce belief of the national superiority of Israel.  TheEssenes hyper-spiritualized the concept. They did not put as much stock in thephysical, but they were nonetheless following the same ideology to theirchagrin. You cannot blame them at all.  God had told them they would be a"kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:6). They received thePromised Land to dwell in.  So, when foreign interlopers defiled the landby their presence, it's understandable that it would offend them. 

The power struggles andhateful interactions between these sects of the Jewish people created the toxicenvironment into which Christ was born. It is into this charged, divided worldthat Jesus stepped into history and with Him brought a new approach. He livedin a time consumed with the damnable idol of nationalism - not unlike the placewe live today.

His death andresurrection birthed the Church.  God introduced the Church as analternative to partisan politics. He raised up his Son to set the standard thatcrushed nationalism and bred brotherhood. The Church had, as Scot McKnightwrites, an "Ethos from Beyond." This Kingdom of God that Jesusbrought was that it was so revolutionary that even today we cannot comprehendits scope and implications. 

One of the great thingsthat drew me to the heritage of the Restoration Movement was the desire to belike the first Christians.  We've made great strides and for that I amgrateful to God. In the realm of politics, we have in our time, undonethousands of years of Christian progress. Again we find ourselves stuck in theirresistible pull of political power and nationalism.  Our divisions havecaused the Body a great harm to ourselves and to our witness. We have donegreat harm to one another. We have divided the body.

Political processcannot ever build God's kingdom. That does not mean that political processescannot be a force for good.  It means we cannot put our hope there. Ever.A nation and its politics are just that - a nation.  A nation cannot submitto God as it isn't human, therefore it cannot be part of the Kingdom of God. Wemust come to grips with the truth that nationalism is idolatry. Why? Because it stifles the Kingdom.

How can we be salt andlight if we side with political power? How can we have a single-mindedallegiance to God, while grasping on to earthly structures? Forgive me if I'mwrong, but doesn't God demand and command allegiance to Him alone and not to afallen human, state, flag, or political party? Does He not introduce an alternativeKingdom called the Church?

The State is part ofthe world, and God's Kingdom never can be the state, part of the state, or atool of the state. It would do us well to retrace history and see what hashappened when the church has given herself to the State.  The Crusades,the Middle-Ages, the Salem Witch Trials, Segregation, Slavery, and racism.Atrocities like this happen when God's people drink the maddening wine ofnationalism and partisan politics.

Instead, we present analternative - a new social order as Viola states, and an ethic from above.Instead, the ekklesia is a place where racism, social prejudice, sexism,discrimination, etc., are absent (Gal. 3:28). Instead, justice, mercy,reconciliation, love, forgiveness, and unity are the law. We do not belong tothe world (John 8:23, 15:19, 17:9, 17:16). 

When we try to be part of two kingdoms, we poison the Lord’s Supper. There is "death in the pot," (2 Kings 4:38-41), and though wine doesn't mess with the poison, the poison makes the wine toxic.  Being consumed with politics makes us useless in the Kingdom. I must be a citizen of Heaven, and only then, can I be a part of the alternate Kingdom of God. 

I am an Americancitizen by birth, but to a degree I am not. My citizenship is in heaven (Phil.3:20). If my country asks me to do something or go along with something that isat odds with Scripture, then I have an obligation.  I am obligated to renounce my citizenship asan American for my true citizenship. We must always remember that everypolitical system is threatened by the radical message of Jesus. When the threatgrows large enough, they will crucify our Lord all over again; even if it callsitself a “Christian Nation.” Every government will eventually find itself atodds with God’s Kingdom.

Let us remember thatthe Church is the alternative to all the political divisiveness and partisanpolitics.  It is above the fray of mudslinging.  Christ gives HisChurch a distinct role to shine our light and point to Jesus.  The Churchspeaks to earthly powers, not for them.  We speak for God.  God'spower and God's Word are the final authority and therefore, are superior toanything or anyone.  

Instead, may weremember who we are instead:  Christians.  We are the bedraggledunderdogs of the world in which God has given the Kingdom to.  We areambassadors of a higher ethic, an alternative one. When we stoop down tonationalism and partisan politics, we divide Christ. Scripture is clear onthis:  dividing the Body is a sin. We cando better. We can dialogue better.  Wecan love one another, even if we disagree. We must.  For if we do not, it is my fear, that we willcontinue to speed toward irrelevancy in an already doubting culture. Evenworse, my fear is that we will repeat atrocities of the past.

Let me close with thetimeless words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his 1954 sermon: “Paul’s Letterto the American Church”:

"But AmericanChristians, I must say to you as I said to the Roman Christians yearsago, “Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed bythe renewing of your mind.” Or, as I said to the Philippian Christians,“Ye are a colony of heaven.” This means that although you live in the colony oftime, your ultimate allegiance is to the empire of eternity. You have a dualcitizenry. You live both in time and eternity; both in heaven and earth.Therefore, your ultimate allegiance is not to the government, not to the state,not to nation, not to any man-made institution. The Christian owes his ultimateallegiance to God, and if any earthly institution conflicts with God’s will itis your Christian duty to take a stand against it. You must never allow thetransitory evanescent demands of man-made institutions to take precedence overthe eternal demands of the Almighty God."