Of the mixing of religion and politics there is no end

Below is another excerpt from Jesus and the Powers, pre-order here to get more!

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Many will claim that the Church should never get involved in politics. The Church (such people will say) should not seek a place at the table of political power or even get involved in debates about civil rights, climate change and public housing. It’s not the church’s business to go around singing the praises of the West nor yelling tirades against the West. Our Lord said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world’[1] because the kingdom is spiritual and timeless, and belongs to the heavenly realm.[2] Many will wag a finger at us as meddlesome clergy planting their pulpit in places it does not belong. Keep your sermons in church, not congress; worship your Lord far away from the House of Lords. Stick to the cure of souls, not trying to save the world!

Many have indeed argued that Christ’s kingdom is a purely spiritual entity. But to our mind this is a gross distortion of what Jesus himself said to Pilate in John’s Gospel:

‘My kingdom isn’t the sort that grows in this world,’ replied Jesus. ‘If my kingdom were from this world, my supporters would have fought, to stop me being handed over to the Judaeans. So then, my kingdom is not the sort that comes from here.’ (John 18:36)

This translation captures something that many commentators gloss over. Yes, Jesus’ kingdom is not like the kingdoms of this world. It doesn’t originate the same way or behave like the kingdoms of this world. But Jesus’ kingdom is still for this world, for the benefit and blessing of this world, for the redemption and rescue of this world. If Jesus were an earthly king of this age, then there would be soldiers killing to bring about his kingdom, just as they do for every other earthly kingdom: victory through violence. Yet that’s not how Jesus’ kingdom will come. The kingdom will come rather through the imperial violence done to him on the cross and through the anti-imperial, death-reversing, justice-loving power of resurrection. Then the kingdom spreads, not through conquest, but through the spirit’s life-giving and liberating power being experienced by more and more people and through their life-giving contributions to the world. At the heart of John’s kingdom-theology is God’s love revealed in the death of his Son, the Lamb, the Messiah. This is conquest, but by love. This is power, but in weakness. This is kingship, but in self-giving suffering for others. This kingdom is not one that arises from within the world. But as it advances, as it spreads, it dispels and displaces the dark forces in the world.[3]

If Jesus’s kingdom is of such an order, not from this world but for this world, then keeping out of politics is impossible. We must be political in some sense because the kingdom of God has political implications for proclamation and poverty, for justice and judgement, for congress and church, for love and liberty. While Church and State are separable, there is always going to be a connection between religion and politics because of the intersection of values and voting. Religion is going to be part of the political conversation whether everyone likes it or not.

As Anglicans, we routinely get cornered by our Baptist friends who tell us that the Anglican arrangement, with the King as the supreme governor of the Church of England, and the Crown appointing bishops and key positions in the English Church, is a political abomination. Or worse, it is a rehash of the Constantinian corruption of power, grasping after a new Christendom while ignorant of the evils of the old one. The wall of separation between Church and State is good for Church and State, lest the two corrupt each other in some unholy theocratic alliance. So we are told ad nauseum.

We are no fans of theocracy nor the divine right of kings. Yet when we hear that complaint, we always have a standard answer. Yes, you want to avoid the evils of Constantine and Christendom. Instead of seeking influence in the halls of power, you want to be the angry prophet on the margins speaking truth to power. All well and good. But what happens when the power listens? What happens when the power or the people ask you to sit on a committee, contribute to an investigation, run a programme, advise on policy, or serve as a chaplain? That kind of absolute separation of Church and State is fine if you want to be a critic making snarky criticisms on the sidelines. But if you want to change the game you need skin in the game. The people who change history must make history. If you want to build for the kingdom, then you have to build something: relationships, alliances, advocacy, food banks, para-church ministries, youth clubs, foreign aid programmes. You need to be in the room where it happens.

In this book, we are trying to answer some questions. How do you build for the kingdom in an age of empire, where totalitarians tyrannize and our democracies appear dysfunctional? This is not a purely religious question; it is also a contemporary political matter. Back in 2019, Guy Verhofstadt of the European Union declared that the answer to the UK’s problems was to join a mighty European empire. The Dutch politician said:

The world order of tomorrow is not a world order based on nation states or countries. It’s a world order that is based on empires.

China is not a nation; it’s a civilization.

India, you know it better than I do, is not a nation. There are 2,000 nations in India. There are 20 different languages that are used there. There are four big religions at the same time, and its 2011 census recorded five regions with more than five million inhabitants. It is the biggest democracy worldwide.

The U.S. is also an empire, more than a nation. Maybe tomorrow they will speak more Spanish than English; I don’t know what will happen.

And then finally, the Russian Federation.

The world of tomorrow is a world of empires, in which we Europeans and you British can only defend your interests, your way of life, by doing it together in a European framework and a European Union.[4]

While we love Europe, we are highly resistant to the idea that a European empire is the solution to Europe’s problems (even more so if you know that the German word for ‘empire’ is Reich!). We believe instead in building for the kingdom of Jesus, not a social gospel, not a theocratic monarch with a magical sword, neither agrarian anarchism nor neo-liberal economics. What we believe in is a theo-political gospel that declares that Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not, and Jesus’s kingdom is about forgiveness and freedom to flourish as renewed human beings. What does that kind of kingdom look like among Ukrainian refugees huddled together in a Polish church? What does that kingdom mean for a pastor who saw a video featuring members of his congregation waving confederate flags inside the Capitol building on 6 January? What does it mean to pray ‘may it be on earth as it is in heaven’ in an age of authoritarian regimes and democratic chaos?

We are not offering a full-blown political theology, solving every controversial topic from abortion to climate change to religious liberty. But we believe Christians should be committed to the politics of divine love, that is, love for God and love for neighbour. We are of the conviction that the kingdom means seeing people come to Jesus in faith, just as much as it means advocating for a world where everyone can ‘sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid’.[5] Or, to use the words of a favourite Christmas hymn, ‘In His name all oppression shall cease.’[6] For the Christian hope is that all oppression, whether by political actors, or by powers of the present darkness, will be pacified and reconciled to the one who is King of kings.

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[1] John 18:36 (niv).

[2] See Eusebius, Church History 3.19–20. Similarly, Justin, First Apology 11.

[3] See N. T. Wright, How God Became King: Getting to the heart of the Gospels (London: SPCK, 2012), pp. 144, 228–32; N. T. Wright, History and Eschatology: Jesus and the promise of Natural Theology (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2019), p. 315 n. 2.

[4] Ben Johnson, ‘Only an EU “Empire” Can Secure Liberty: EU Leader’, Acton Institute,

16 September 2019: https://www.acton.org/publications/transatlantic/2019/09/16/only-

eu-empire-can-secure-liberty-eu-leader (accessed 15 August 2023).

[5] Micah 4:4; cf. Zechariah 3:10.

[6] Placide Cappeau, trans. John Sullivan Dwight, ‘O Holy Night’ (1847).