On Being a Citizen, Part 5 of 5

My Response

Today marks the last of these entries. Before I begin with today’s post about what I view my response as a Christian to be, I need to make a point based on Marc’s comment from yesterday.

Everyone has to make their own choice to follow Christ, or else faith in Christ means nothing. As such even in a Christian nation parents would have to let their children decide for themselves whether or not they would accept Christ. Which makes this quite possibly one of the hardest aspects for a Christian nation: whether or not the children will follow in the path. But even if they didn’t, I think the Christian response would remain the same: love them. Disfellowship is something reserved for a person who is a believer that is saying things contrary to the doctrine or a public sin that they are unrepentant of. Someone who has not yet made that commitment, then, is not really subject to the terms of disfellowship. Even in disfellowship the idea is not out of punishment, per se, but of love. It is a tough love, but there is love in discipline, in being rebuked (some of the kindest things people have done for me are rebuking me openly and in love when I was wrong). Thus the answer would still be to love them as Christ loves.

Yesterday we examined what a Christian nation would look like in today’s world if a geographical location could possibly exist. I think the honest answer is that a geographical location as described yesterday is never likely to occur. But the wonderful thing is that it never has too! As a friend of mine, Trey Finley put it, the Kingdom of God “knows no geographical and political boundaries.” The Kingdom of God can operate in any country across the world, whether friendly or hostile. It needs no political machine to govern itself (although it would help if we got together every so often to discuss how things are going in our areas…). Not having ourselves limited to one specific geographic location gives us more opportunity to spread throughout all the world, letting Christ impact lives through ours. It also keeps us from huddling to close and forgetting the need to go out and spread the message.

Growing up in the Church of Christ, I am a part of the Restoration movement. But for much of my life I have had no idea of the history behind my fellowship. When I first began contemplating my current thoughts on politics, I was told that my views were very close to those of David Lipscomb. Lipscomb grew up in the Nashville area, promoted Christian education (he helped establish Lipscomb University), and lived during the Civil War. Impacted by Christ, his teachers and his experience in the war, Lipscomb found himself becoming a strict pacifist. In the years that followed Lipscomb developed some powerful ideas of Christian relations with the government, which has been a big influence on me in my development towards my response. But I think just like Lipscomb, my thoughts will be easily confused for other things. So let me clarify here.


My understanding of Christianity is not communism, although it definitely shares a trait, that obviously being that everyone shares their belongings. But in communism the State governs who has how much and when, so that everyone always has the same amount of everything. Christian society should require no such state agency to ensure that everyone is sharing the resources. A Christian society should realize that all things belong to God and as such if someone else has need of that item than they need it.

It is also not anarchism (as I understand it), where the idea is that there should be no governments. In fact Scriptures tell us that we should submit to the authorities we are governed by (whether we voted for them or not). 1 Peter 2:13-17, “ Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men. Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God. Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king.” Why would God say that? Because what good does it do to the perception of Christ when the world sees a people of love show disrespect and spite for the ruler in office? When people respond in hate to troops that return home that doesn’t honor God. (I’ll admit right now, I understand this passage means I need to be more respectful of the politicians and governments I’ve been blasting this whole time. I need work on this, so pray for me if you would.) This is also seen in Matthew 22:15-22, “Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. "Teacher," they said, "we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are. Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?" "Caesar's," they replied. Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."”

The point here is that there are many things that people will try to call us when we submit to Kingdom living. They will call us communists, Minarchists, meliorists, or any other number of things. But the fact of the matter is that we are none of those. We are Christians, and that stands different from any political system or movement available in the world today.

Politicians, political parties and governments are all made by God, therefore they all have the possibility for good in them and indeed have good merits to each. However, being human or human constructs they are also part of the Fall, and are therefore broken as well. Therefore while they may do some good from time to time, to rely on them to make the changes in the world that Christ calls for, in my opinion, is fundamentally flawed. The response for a Christian should not be to trust in politicians, political parties or governments to make the change needed. Instead we should return our trust to the God who saves us, for his name is Yahweh Jireh (The LORD will Provide). Christ is the only person in this whole world who can bring about a meaningful change in this world that stands any chance, and he wants to use his Bride to do so.

A lot of us have trouble in believing that the church today can bring about that change. Many of us have been hurt or disappointed in the Church because of our actions (remember, this is a community and we all are responsible). But just because the Church has currently failed in some of these regards does not mean that Christ can do nothing, either. If we truly believe that Christ through his Bride can change the world, then we are going to have to be willing to accept that the Church is made up of people just like us. That the Bride is built on broken people that have made mistakes, just like us. But that the Bride can also be healed through Christ, just like us, and that they are all our family, whether we like it or not. We need to realize that while the Bride is struggling right now, if we continue to see the flaws in the Church and only remain in our fears of what we have done then She never will be able to change. We have to be willing to remain as part of this body that we are in and willing to understand that if we pray for it, if we work with our people, if we stay on this long tough road that families have to travel, that Christ can heal this broken Church and make it once again to what he wanted. And that through this renewed Church Christ can make his change in the world. Imagine it like this: If Christ has been able to make as much progress in the world as he already has with the Church bruised as she has been, how much more progress do you think he could make in the world if all the church confessed and let Her wounds be bound in Christ?

And so, after having considered the thoughts of so many and thinking through them myself, after having prayed about this for some time I have come to the following conclusions:

First, that I am a citizen of the Kingdom, first and foremost. And that although I may be an American citizen and have the right to vote, I choose not to vote or register for any political party. While I will respect the authority of the governments in place today as tools of God, I do not put my hope or trust in a politician, political party or government to make the changes Christ wants in the world, although they may make some progress. Rather, I trust in Christ alone, and that he can do so through his Bride.

Second, that if I want to see the Kingdom on Earth as I see it, it begins here with me. I have to believe that Christ can do this, and I have to be willing to submit myself to that Citizenship. As such, I have decided that if in a Christian Kingdom all things and resources are freely shared, and my primary resource is to minister to the church, then I choose here and now that I will not be a paid minister. I intend to find work outside of the church and share my resource for free.

It’s been a long and interesting journey. I thank you all for listening and for sharing. Many of you have been influential in shaping my thoughts in this regard in one way or another.

I wish best of luck to the candidates.