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Politics and the reign of God
Politics presents a double-bind. In
order to implement particular ideals for the human good within society, political
contenders must participate in the compromised quest to gain power and to sustain
it. In human life and memory, the quest for political power is frequently experienced
as the very antithesis of human wellbeing. The equation of any political ideology
and God ultimately makes a temporal and regional possibility absolute. Yet the
impossibility of securing the definitive good in any time and place of human life
is self-evident. The future of God becoming
present in grace represents another possibility, other than those configured
within the possibilities of human politics. v The Hebrew prophets enunciate the failure of politics.
The quest to establish a political
theocracy—a state under God’s rule—amid human compromise, requires a necessary
alternative in the promise of days to come
when the righteousness of God will be established in a new way as written into human hearts. The final word
on politics is articulated in prophetic critique of all political possibilities
with its anticipation of the future of God
who calls to be things that are not—that
is, eschatological resolution. In the inability of human regimes to
establish the reign of God, the significance of this reign is more sharply distinguished
from political possibilities. God reigns. Faith alone affirms this reality in
a politically ambiguous world. The future of God becoming present belongs to the initiative of God
in the same way, in biblical remembrance, exodus out of New Testament testimony neither revives
the political ideal of a theocratic state nor expects the future of God to be
realised as an endorsement of one among competing expressions of politics. Instead,
it articulates a new creation that is focused in Jesus Christ, which is always
coming obliquely as unexpected, transforming human life in the present, while
forming a permanent critique of all political expression. God in Christ alone
is the source of a truly new possibility within the recurrence of nothing
new under the sun in the machinations of power and politics. Governance, to which political contenders
aspire, is an aspect of God’s providence for the nurture of human society. Even
if its various political manifestations are impermanent, the state is nevertheless
beneficent in sustaining society through mechanisms of law, economy and various
civic responsibilities. Yet this beneficence is also easily reduced to a feint
concerning the human good. Alternatively, the Christian gospel of transforming
grace will always exceed the conflicted possibilities inducted by legislation.
Any form of governance represents a
limited system of values. This is inevitable, given human anxiety and self-interest.
The providential role of governance is invariably compromised. It is under critique
within the proclamation of gospel. This radical critique of human governance goes
to the root of its tacit and explicit expressions of perennial human self-compromise. The state endorses some form of authority;
law is contingent on a mechanism of its enforcement. The community in Christ articulates
the limits of all human rule and dominion, but not through partisan conflicts
that offer equally limited alternatives within perennial human compromise or sin.
All are indicted. Christian faith also gives testimony to the grace of God for
humanity, which is expressed through a new community in the Spirit that has its
definitive shape in Jesus Christ as the truth of integral human life. As transient,
every state is called into question by the community of Christ, which anticipates
human dignity in Christ. The state does not and cannot represent
the reign of God that comes in Christ. The state is always implicated in the ambiguities
of power. The grace of God exceeds the capacity of politics to give any enduring
effect to mere silhouettes of the good. New Testament testimony to the reign of
God articulates the conflicted and transient nature of human dominion, anticipating
instead, the reign of grace in Christ, which exceeds all human possibilities.
Every expression of human politics is partisan and inherently divisive by comparison to the grace of God for all. Christians cannot synchronise the reality of grace with the machinations of politics and its inevitable pursuit of power. Within the logic of Christian identity, their differences are sharpened. These differences are necessary so that neither the conflicted posturing of politics is confused with Christian faith nor the legitimate, even if compromised role of human governance is confused with God. Christian proclamation is a reminder that everything other than the reality of God in grace is temporary at best, while always implicated in potential and actual evil. Christians gives testimony to another reality other than politics, even as politics has its possibility and time under the sun only by virtue of this other reality. The
community in Christ articulates, by tangible deed and gracious word, the coming
reign of God. Throughout history, Christian institutions have often become closely
aligned with partisan political positions. By contrast, the called community in
Christ gives focus to Jesus Christ as the source of wholeness amid human compromise
through self-giving life in the Spirit, as the future of creation and its possibility
beyond all orders of creation. The
failure of Christian community to be distinguished from the machinations of politics
is perpetuated by over-estimation of politics and under-estimation of human transformation
focused in Jesus Christ as the definitive expression of human dignity. v A horizon can imply two possibilities—it represents a limit and it suggests a beyond. Any political pursuit of the good within a regional and temporal horizon is ultimately resourced from the existing possibilities that humans have within a political horizon. This is a recipe for more of the same or nothing new under the sun, with any anticipation for the good already within a specific horizon. Accordingly, human yearning, imagination and hope pertaining to the good are equated with existing possibilities—a sense that we can grasp everything, even if its final realisation is just over our immediate horizon. It is precisely in exposure to the reality of gospel as the reign of God in Jesus Christ we discover that political horizons are limited, their source of imagination truncated and their depth of hope for humanity too meanly hinged on ideals and possibilities within the human horizon—whether this is couched in sociological, economic or pragmatic terms. The reality of grace and life in the Spirit extend human life beyond any conceivable political horizon to the triune sociality of God. Pentecost gives an alternative horizon for human communities and their desire for the good. These are given tangible expression as eternal imperatives—as tangible, they cease to be political and as imperatives, they are initiated beyond the political. The horizon of every human life is death, beyond which there are no resources from anything within human life, except the risen Christ, whose life becomes our resource within and beyond every human horizon as already encompassed by the triune God. Selected
sources: Jenson The Works of God (STII); Käsemann Romans; Kasper Jesus the Christ;
Moltmann Theology of Hope; Niebuhr Nature
and Destiny I & II; Pannenberg, Sys.
Th. III. |
