When Jesus told Pilate “my kingdom of is not of this world,” he meant that his authority came from God and not from human authority (John 18:36). He did not mean that Christians would escape the world since Jesus prays, “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one” (John 17:15).
The Lord did not, however, imply that Christians should be swayed by partisan politics. Instead, he planned to build his church—his body across the globe to house the Holy Spirit (Eph 2:22; 5:23). And Christ’s church is itself a political body of necessity.
Defining Politics
Lest I be misunderstood, allow me explain what I mean by the word political. For many today, politics means voting or supporting one political party or another. I do not mean this definition.
By politics, I mean the ordering of a society—the ways of life that make up what we call nations today.
Such ordering involves marriage, child-rearing, education, crime and punishment, acceptable and unacceptable moral claims. These underlying ways of life form a political society, which in turn we call a nation or some equivalent.
The necessity of the church’s political engagement becomes fairly clear at this point. In obedience to Christ, Christians affirm marriage between one man and woman; Christians affirm the goodness of procreation; they call abortion evil; they educate their children in the ways of the Lord; they have a distinct way of life—the earliest Christians were called The Way, after all (Acts 9:2; 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:14, 22).
Earliest Christian Politics
Jesus himself orders the church to be a sort of veiled political community ready to be revealed when the Lord returns. Our citizenship remains in heaven (Phil 3:20), but Christ left us on earth to fill outposts of the mission of God.
Paul perhaps gives the simplest summary of our political life. The apostle urges the Thessalonians “to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one” (1 Thess 4:11–12).
Believers ought to “be dependent on no one” but each other. Paul’s instruction here reveals a political society in miniature. Elsewhere, Paul even sees congregations sharing both spiritual and material goods with each other across the Mediterranean (Romans 15:24–27).
We are by necessity political. But that does not mean we are by necessity partisan.
And these Christians through their quiet and independent lives made a deep impact in the world. Early Christians were known to rescue babies abandoned or exposed after birth to the elements. In other words, they adopted babies that parents abandoned. In one of the earliest documents that we have on the Christian way of life, The Didache, we learn that early Christians forbade abortion (§2).
These acts of life changes society. Lives abandoned to death gained new life; lives in wombs that otherwise would be terminated receive a stay of execution. As the anonymous Letter to Diognetus says, Christians are like a soul to a body. As the soul gives live to the body, so does the church give life to the world. And it did by saving the lives of many precious children an and by its commitment to witness to Christ who is our life (Col 3:4).
Jesus
What these early Christians did fulfills the expectation of Jesus who said of believers: “You are the salt of the earth” (Matt 5:13) and:
You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven (Matt 5:14–16).
Christians cannot forgo our commitment to be the salt and light of the world. When we see evil done, we cannot turn a blind eye.
But the way in which we are political is as the church of God. We preach Christ and him crucified, and by faith unbelievers unite to Christ and so his body, the church. When that happens, we instruct them on the Way of life and death, as the earliest Christians did.
The Church Today
We become as the church the salt and light of the earth, the soul to the body. We become like a sword in the sheath of the world.
And when we do, we must expect the nations of the world to take notice. If governments say abortion is good, we say it is evil. If they say marriage is evil, we say no, it is good. We live in such a way that our habits and actions tell a political story even though we don’t live by partisan politics.
We adopt the unwanted. We prevent the death of unborn children. We educate our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. We preach Christ and him crucified. We say that not every Way is good—some are evil. We support one another by bearing each other’s burdens, creating lists of widows in need, and by sharing financial and spiritual resources across the globe.
We are lights on a hill, the salt of the earth, the soul to the body, and the sword in the sheath.
Since we affirm the goodness of sex, marriage, procreation, life in the womb, and so the evil of anything that contradicts these biblical teachings, how can we not be political? What I mean is: we order our lives as a community according to the Bible. And that ordering can conflict with the political opinions of our country.
We will be political. There is a certain necessity to it. But we may not be partisan to the world’s political parties, not given to the Pilates and Caesars of this world. If Christ is Lord, then we must not put our hopes in princes and horses. We may vote as our civil conscience allows. But always Christ is Lord.
But I am not talking about political parties and voting. I am speaking about how we order our lives as a community. Baptists have called their congregations voluntary societies and spoke of voluntary associations (denominations).
This sounds suspiciously close to Cicero’s definition of what makes a people: “a multitude of reasonable beings voluntarily associated in the pursuit of common interests” (Rep 1.25; cited in Augustine, City of God19.24)
And perhaps more importantly for Christian thinking, it sounds close to Augustine’s definition of people: “a people is an assembled multitude of rational creatures bound together by a common agreement as to the objects of their love” (City of God 19.24).
And given our common love of God and neighbour, we order ourselves as a community by appointing elders and deacons, creating lists of widows in need, forming habits and practices of worship, bearing one another’s burdens, sharing food and wealth with one another. As Acts 4:32 says, the earliest Christians “had everything in common.”
And so preach Christ and him crucified. Bring people into the church, the body of Christ. Follow his commands. Love life. Love God. Love neighbour. And we will become in veiled form the kind of political society that Christ will fully establish in his kingdom when he returns. Veiled now, revealed then in glory. We are by necessity political. But that does not mean we are by necessity partisan.
Further Reading
See my article on seven ways that Jeremiah 29 helps us to be political Christians by clicking here.
For what political discourse looks like as a Christian, see my article on Christian political discourse by clicking here.
To understand how Peter’s language of resident aliens changes how we think of our relation to the world and to heaven, see my article here on the topic.
