Diane from Crossroads sent me this e-mail from the StormHarvest group that has provided some interesting insights from the last Australian election in comparison to the upcoming American elections.

I believe this guy has nailed it in reference to the observations and gives us a stern warning of what can take place if we decide to go this route.

Dear friends,

The following article was writing about the most recent Australian Federal election.

We feel that it also applies to the coming USA election.

May the Lord bless you.

Mario Liu

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

LESSONS TO LEARN FROM THE RECENT FEDERAL ELECTIONS

The recent Australian Federal Government Elections have raised some strong and controversial issues for many Christian people in Australia. Prior to the election we were encouraged by some groups to believe that God had made a choice between the leadership contenders and that John Howard was appointed by God to lead the governing party into the next term. Likewise we were told by some that if the Labor party were elected we would witness the demise of Christian values around the country. Add to that the way in which Kevin Rudd’s faith was either denigrated or denied and his leadership vilified and you have a cocktail that was bound to produce confusion.

For the people who sourced these claims, the worst thing happened. Mr. Howard not only lost his leadership but his seat as well, Peter Costello announced that he would not run for the leadership position in the Coalition government and Kevin Rudd was elected. Subsequent to that, we have had amazing statements made by the people who were putting this view to the Christian citizens of the nation. No retraction and no apology. It was variously blamed on the lack of prayer and faith of the Christians and for some people it was blamed on certain Christians or groups who dared to speak of Kevin Rudd as a “Christian” (and therefore “deceive” the church).

The Christian people of Australia are now being called to form up on one or other side of the issue. The issue is that God wanted John Howard elected and therefore the people who failed to vote in such a way as to make that possible are to blame. Rather than present yet another set of suggestions as to who is right and who is wrong, I believe we need to take a few deep breaths and then step back and look at the broader issues to see whether the foundational assumptions that support this idea are Biblical and credible.

NON-BIBLICAL ASSUMPTIONS

Some years ago I was involved in an extended time of prayer leading up to a Federal election. I was joined with a relatively small but fervent bunch of praying people. We were praying for godly righteous government. No single party was nominated in any of the discussion as the preferred party but as the praying progressed I became more and more aware that everyone else in the group was assuming that God would want the Liberal Coalition to govern and Labor to be defeated. It was the assumption in the prayers. Even though I was raised in a politically conservative home I have voted for members of different parties according to the character and capabilities of the person much more than which party they belonged to. I currently belong to the ACT Liberal party not because I believe God wants that party to govern more than another party but because I think of myself as a missionary church planter to that community sphere and I want to help the Liberal Party in the ACT to work better either in opposition (as they are at this time) or in government (if they were to be elected).

As I became aware of this assumption in the extended prayer time, I began to reflect on the issue of whether God was in the business of ordaining a political party for government. I also began to consider what would qualify such a party for that ordination. As I listened to the praying I began to see that people were making this assumption because they had isolated a few key moral issues at the time and felt that one party represented a closer alliance to Christian values than the other. At that point I began to wonder how the list of values was selected and whether the research had been broad enough to obtain an adequate result. As I began to tally up my own list I realized that one party would have a higher score on some issues and a lower score on others. The same was true for the other major party.

It seems to me that the nexus here has to do with an assumption about the government and theocracy. The people who tend to see the purposes of God inextricably linked to one or other political group must also believe that God will implement his rule on the earth in and through that agency. The Biblical parallels drawn here are usually with Israel in the Old Testament time. There were prophets priests and kings appointed by God to represent the rule of God on earth.[1] There is no question that the nation of Israel was designed by God to operate as a theocracy. The question is whether Jesus ministry and teaching implies that this was intended for all nations where the gospel would be preached. My conclusion is that he clearly did not intend that and the reasons for that had to do with the very nature of the kingdom of God that he was representing and proclaiming. His kingdom was not of this world, but from another place. My conclusion is that if Jesus was establishing a different kingdom, why would he want to re-introduce a form of governance that had failed and that was superseded by the message and ministry he brought.

What is theocratic governance?

Before we look at a few of the implications of this idea about the mission of the church, the civil governance and the idea of theocratic rule, let me put forward a working definition of theocracy.

The basic meaning of theocracy is “rule by God.” In essence, a group of people, a community or a nation could be said to be under the rule of God when their ways of life and all of their social systems represent the will of God. It assumes a direct relationship between God and the ruler or ruling group and it assumes that the ruling group do not exercise their own preferences or make their own choices but all of the laws represent what God wants. This was the case for Israel. Israel under Moses was a theocracy. Israel under David was a theocracy. When Moses or David mucked up they were directly challenge by God. When they exercised governance they were directly responsible to God and God’s authority backed them up. Moses parted seas and David won battles.

I guess different people will have different ways of applying this word to the situation in our own nation today. I will use the word to refer to the idea that God actually seeks to establish his rule not only in and through the church by means of the message and ministry of the gospel, but also through the implementation of Christian laws passed by governments. This would lead to the idea that if Christians were able to secure power over nations, states or territories they should use those powers and that influence to advance the kingdom of God.

The religious spirit and party politics

One of the most striking expressions of non-Biblical approach to political involvement is the way Christian people adopt what I can only describe as a “religious spirit” when it comes to supporting one or other of the political parties. I think Christian people should be engaging the people and the culture by getting involved in the local branch of a political party. The problem arises with the notion that their choice of party represents the more godly or more righteous alternative. I could understand it if it was a football team. Think of what it would mean if I announced to all and sundry that I had prayed and asked God which footy team he wanted to support. The answer would naturally be “the Swans,” or if rugby is the game played in heaven, then “the Brumbies.” My reason for making this absurd comparison is that the sound of someone espousing a particular political party as the one favoured by God amounts to the same level of absurdity. The reason it is an absurdity is because God has never at any time endowed a civil form of government with the task of representing him on the earth. Jesus is the only one given that task and the church of Jesus Christ is the only remaining entity charged with that task.

The idea of a particular political group or party being set apart by God for office can only be validated on the premise that God seeks to use the civil form of government as part of the theocratic process. There is just no Biblical basis for this. Having said that I need to repeat my previous statement, that I believe Christians should choose a party and work to engage the kingdom of this world with the keys of the kingdom of God. It is one of the best ways of serving God’s purpose for civil governance: i.e. to help the government to do its job. As we engage with that sphere and as we gain more opportunity and influence we must discipline ourselves to avoid perverting our influence by using the political power to try and further the purposes of the kingdom of God

Is a Christian candidate going to be better than a non-Christian one?

Here is another spiritual sounding furphy and its power to entice believers is also based upon the idea that God’s ultimate purpose is to re-establish theocratic rule as it was in Israel prior to the coming of Jesus. Just imagine if every electorate in the nation had at least one Christian candidate and, by some miracle we would all assume to be the work of God, all the Christians were elected. We would be wild with excitement. We would assume that the kingdom of God would come and that revival must be imminent. The fact is that there have been times in history where something almost equivalent has happened. >From my reading of history, the result was the antithesis of anything like revival. Neither revival nor renewal comes by legislation (Labor nor Liberal versions). It doesn’t come by a change in political philosophy (democracy or socialism).

Just think of another scenario. If you had the choice of voting for a Christian who was a foolish, inept or incompetent leader running against a good quality leader with a good record and with good values who would you vote for. I would vote for the second. My reason would be that Christians are not the only ones who can do what God has ordained civil governance to do. It would be the same principle if you were waiting in the pre-op room of a hospital scheduled to have major brain surgery. The registrar comes in and tells you that the specialist surgeon is not able to perform the operation. There are two choices. There is another very good surgeon who is unfaithful to his wife and cheats on his tax returns and a wonderful man of God called Brian Medway who has killed and dressed a few sheep when he was a farmer but will follow the instructions in an operations manual with great care. I don’t need to be a prophet to tell which one you would be choosing. And I would do the same thing for the same reason.

I wouldn’t necessarily vote for a Christian person just because he or she said she wanted to go into politics any more than I would support the idea of a person going to the mission field just because he or she said she wanted to be a missionary. I would vote for any person who clearly was called of God to represent his purposes in the Parliament if there was clear evidence to confirm that calling. Apart from that, I will vote for the person I think will best fulfill the task for which God has ordained civic office.

As Christians, our job is to make politicians better at their job. It is not our job to take over their job.

How is the kingdom of God advanced in any society, nation or culture?

On of the foundational flaws we have seen before, through and after this last election has to do with the nature of the kingdom of God and the process by which it advances in a nation or society. It operates totally differently to the ways of the kingdom of this world and we need to be careful to distinguish between the two. If we don’t we run the risk of seeking to represent the kingdom of God by operating according to the principles of the kingdom of this world. The operatives of the kingdom of this world will never result in the advance of the kingdom of God. We Christians can only ever follow and represent Jesus Christ and our approach to life in general and our engaging with the community must follow the principles and practices modeled and taught by Jesus Christ. Jesus was the one who stood before the representative of Roman rule, Pontius Pilate, and said, “…my kingdom is not of this world. If it were my followers would fight to prevent my arrest. But now my kingdom is not of this world, but it is from another place.” (John 18)

For the first three hundred years of the history of Christianity on the earth, the church operated without sanction and without support. It was misunderstood, persecuted and attacked. Its members were tortured, executed and rejected. During these years the church prospered, increased and gained incredible social influence. During the fourth century the son of Constantine declared Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire. Shortly before that date and for centuries after, the church was synonymous with civil governance. They were among the darkest years of Christian history. All kinds of atrocities were carried out by the state on behalf of the church. In fact, wherever the church has aligned itself directly with the state it has resorted to all kinds of abuse and by and large lost its spiritual dynamic. Instead of the challenge to allow God to make the heart new and the life transformed, the church bullied and coerced people and substituted personal choice with legal threats and sanctions. This method never produced more holy lives or more just societies. There were far more advances made when they had no power than when they had power.

The Bible says that God has appointed civil governmental systems to encourage justice and the good and to thwart sin. Nowhere does the Bible lay on the civil government the responsibility to proclaim or minister the kingdom of God. That is clearly God appointed task of the church. If we were to ask how the kingdom of God will advance, we have a weighty set of references in the teaching of Jesus. None of them assume that the change is brought about by getting the numbers. I must make it quite clear that I am not saying that Christians should not hive off into a holy huddle and say nothing or do nothing. What I am saying is that we can say what we like about the best way to have political influence and we can rally for causes and the like. We must simply understand that if we get the laws we want or if we get Christians in the parliament to represent electorates, that in itself is not the coming of the kingdom of God. The “world” of civil governance is a world that operates by the principles of the kingdom of this world.

And there is a clear God given role for all expressions of civil governance. They are there to thwart evil and encourage good. When they step outside that mandate, history has witnessed a very consistent end state. No individual or group of individuals given civic responsibility can avoid being accountable to the God who transcends them and will judge them. So we should give advice and wisdom whenever and however we get the opportunity. Just understand that at no time did Jesus give any indication that the kingdom of God would come through the passing of a civil law. No matter where you look in the ministry of Jesus (as modeling the life of the kingdom) and in his teaching there is a clear intersection between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world, but the “rules of engagement” are almost totally different. It is a profound and exciting exercise to read through the gospels and see how Jesus did it. If we were to make a study and research the principles involved we would end up with a very important tool for us in our God given function of proclaiming the good news of the kingdom in the midst of the very limited and mostly dysfunctional ways in which the kingdom of this world operates. Look at the seven kingdom parables in Matthew 13[2]

What really does belong to “Caesar?”

The only nation in the world that was established as a theocracy was Israel. There is no evidence that Jesus anticipated the believers from the various nations to work to transform their respective governments into theocracies. There is no assumption that those governments should ascribe to the rule of Christ as whole entities. The post Constantine switch was the first time there was a strong link and it didn’t work very well indeed. It is totally embarrassing to read how Constantinius had to intervene again and again to try and resolve fights between Roman and eastern bishops. If you go to any of the nations of the world where the church is legally tied to the civil government it is also a bad testimony to the idea of expecting governments to take up the work of the kingdom of God on behalf of the Christians. I can’t think of a single one that has served to bless either the nation or the church. It has usually messed up the work of both. If we put together two different pieces of New Testament revelation (Romans 13 and 1 Timothy 2) we can clearly see the responsibility God has given civil governance.

a. The authority to govern is given by God and its use of that authority is directly accountable to God. By implication, the use of that authority for the good order of the society can expect the favour of God. Alternatively, the abuse of that authority will be judged by God

b. It is given by God and therefore needs to be respected by all people (especially believers). It is important to distinguish between the institution and the individual. Where a governing institution is represented by an evil person, that person should be resisted but not in a way that undermines the institution of governance itself. Anarchy will never be blessed by God no matter how evil the particular individual might be.

c. It is given by God to encourage right and good behaviour. There is no suggestion here that the scope of that responsibility extends to imposing a full blown Christian value system by law. The scope relates to good and evil as it effects public community.

d. It is given by God to punish wrong behaviour

e. It needs to provide services and therefore rightly applies taxes and levies that should be paid with that understanding.

f. It is to seek to provide law and order so that the church can be unhindered in its work of proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom. (1 Tim. 2)

The closest thing the world of the New Testament would have known was probably Greek democracy. Otherwise it was the rule of a king or an emperor by the use of military strength. Like most governance the authority to rule was drawn from their capacity to coerce people by military strength. That strength was exclusively guaranteed by military power and the military power was based upon drawing enough revenue. This almost always was totally exploitative.

The kingdoms of this world exercised authority by gaining power over people. Jesus made the assertion a number of times that the kingdom which he represented did not operate by that method. There was no doubt about the fact that Jesus represented a kingdom. The point was that it was nothing like the methodology of the kingdoms of the world. His clearest statement comes when the disciples want to impose the principles of the kingdom of this world on their function as followers of Jesus. (Matthew 20:20-28). Jesus clearly says that the kingdom he represents does not operate by means of a “power over” approach. It operates by a “power under” approach. It is a kingdom where serving and giving your life for the sake of others is the foundational principle. Governments have been given the “sword” (Romans 13) by God and have been given authority to have “power over” by God. The church has never been given that power. Power over will never accomplish what power under can accomplish. They are two kingdoms and must operate by two methodologies that will be like oil and water - they will never mix. If we try the same thing will happen to the two institutions as happen to oil and water. People who drink the water will get sick and every care that uses the oil will be damaged.

Before anyone might be tempted to wade in and seek to justify the cause of coercing people by law to live as if they were Christians even though they are not, you need to interpret this statement using the ministry of Jesus as the defining principle of interpretation. Jesus lived out this principle as an example to us. His way of intersecting with the various expressions of the kingdom of this world was to meet them by declaring how close the kingdom of God was and declaring its promise. Only rarely do you find Jesus meeting human argument with human argument. He didn’t try to out-argue the various leaders, he simply injected the kingdom principle that governed that issue. We need to likewise serve the governing authorities. We must never treat them as if they are accountable to God to become a theocracy. We must serve them in their God given function and serve them as individuals who are greatly valued and loved by the redemptive heart of God.

Does God want civil governance to manifest theocratic rule?

There is one further issue regarding the intersection of Christian ministry and civil governance. It is based on the question of whether God wants civil governance to become the expression of a theocracy. Let me illustrate the issue by asking the question, “If revival came and every member of the parliament was saved, would that parliament be mandated from heaven to operate as a theocracy?” Very often the ministry of John the Baptist is quoted, along with the prophets of the Old Testament, as prima facie justification for the many efforts made to put pressure on governments to pass laws that represent Christian values. The important issue to understand is that Israel was meant to operate as a theocracy. When prophets spoke, they were speaking on behalf of the God who had entered into a covenant with the people and the land. That covenant was based upon the idea that whether it was a king or a peasant farmer, the people were required to live according to the law of God.

Jesus did not re-invent this expectation. God’s covenant with the nations was not based on their commitment to follow his laws. He had made that covenant with one nation only. This is seen at a number of points in the New Testament. It is most clearly seen in the struggle between the Jewish believers and their Gentile brothers and sisters with respect to the laws of Moses. After some considerable pain, it was agreed that even the Christians of other nations were not required to fulfill the ritual laws of the Old Testament, let alone the pagans and their governments. They were living in a world that was far less moral than most western societies today (if that can be imagined!).

Jesus did expect that there would be a theocracy. It was to be represented by the church. The church was to be the group of people who had been taught, “…everything I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28). They were the people with whom God had made a covenant on Calvary through the shedding of the blood of Christ. This new covenant was a covenant where righteousness was given by the power of the Spirit, not imposed by some appointed spiritual leader. It was a covenant that operated from the experience of a relationship of knowing Christ and sharing unbroken fellowship with the Father and the Son (1 John 1). Sadly many church congregations and movements have set aside the call to live according to theocratic principles and have rather copied the ways of the “nations around them.” Based on the desire for a “power over” relationship with people, they have chosen one or other of the “kingdom of this world” models (e.g. dictatorship, democracy etc.). The fruit it produces generally exposes the nature of what is going on.

The church in its relationship to civil authorities

a. The church, in all of its expressions has only one task, i.e. to be the ongoing tangible presence of Jesus Christ on the earth. It needs to live, breath and proclaim the kingdom of God

b. The church needs to honour and support all of the God given functions of civil governance

c. The church should inform and assist the government by declaring the wisdom of God as that wisdom relates to the God given functions.

d. The church should love, support, pray for and lay down their lives for the people involved in civil governance in the same way as they should for all other community spheres.

e. The church should not expect or demand a civil government to represent theocratic rule.

f. The church should not tie itself to any form of civil government in order to use its influence

g. A political group will never legitimately represent the kingdom of God. It may make more decisions based on justice and mercy but because its primary tool is legislation, its agency is limited to public behaviour, not private spirituality. To link together with a particular political group as an ally in the work of the kingdom of God is doomed both by the testimony of history and revealed truth.

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. That Christians and Christian groups gain a greater understanding of the comparative and complementary functions given by God for church and state by a detailed study of the ministry of Jesus.

2. That Christians and Christian groups study the Scriptures to gain a greater understanding of the difference between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world.

3. That Christian groups seek to represent the rule of God by modeling the operation of theocratic rule in all aspects of their personal and corporate life (i.e. the life of the individuals and their families and the life of the particular Christian organization or group).

4. That Christians and Christian groups be encouraged to serve and engage with the processes of civil governance in all of its forms across the community and the nation. That their objective in doing this should be threefold:

a. to serve, support, advise, inform and challenge the governing bodies so that they will be able to better fulfill their God ordained function,

b. to provide personal love and support to the individuals and their families who serve the community by means of holding public office.

c. when given opportunity Christians should use their vote to support those candidates for public office that they believe will best govern according to the purpose of God revealed in Scripture.

CONCLUSION

I fear for the people who will create a further division over this. I plead with Christian leaders and people to avoid the temptation to align with a group they think is “right” and to perpetuate a series of reactions that simply criticize those they think are wrong. What would be even worse is to vilify and demonize someone for taking a different view. If there have been things said and done that we disagree on, let’s try and find a way to “strive to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” and then we may create an environment for more light to shine. Even more to the point, we will fail the real people who are depending on us to represent God, I speak of the wider community who are desperately lost and have no resource that will bring about the hope of change. If we continue to vilify each other, especially in the wider community we will see more thousands of people going to hell largely because they never heard or saw anything except Christians fighting each other. We should all be ashamed of the possibility of that let alone the certainty.

Brian Medway

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

[1] If the supporters of this view were going to be pure about this they would have to face the fact that God never intended Israel to have a king like the other nations. The inference may also be that his primary desire would be to provide governance without a parliament (civil governance). The way some people seem to talk perhaps we should all aspire to replicate Calvin’s Geneva. I don’t want to insinuate that Calvin did not do wonderful things in Geneva. He was responsible for taking the city from an economic and moral desert to a veritable garden. The cost of that exercise was enormous in terms of the way he exercised “power over” governance and the theological cost was that he succeeded in making Jesus statement, “Render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar..” redundant. That is a worry to me.

[2] THE SOWER The kingdom comes as a message to the heart of a person (13:19)

THE WEEDS The kingdom will always need to operate in the midst of the kingdom of this world (13:38)

THE MUSTARD SEED The kingdom starts small and increases in an almost unnoticed way to become the main influence (13:32)

THE YEAST The kingdom operates in an almost secret but profoundly influential way and affects the whole (13:33)

THE TREASURE/PEARL The kingdom happens by discovery, not coercion (13:44, 45)

THE NET The kingdom of God will always happen in the context of the kingdom of this world until the end of the age (13:49)

——————————
WEBSITE (Please note new web address)
Storm-Harvest Ministries
http://www.stormharvest.com.au/