DEBATE: The Two Kingdoms: Mark Van Steenwyck and Keith Giles

In our first ever debate on the Libertarian Christian Podcast, author Keith Giles returns to debate author/activist Mark van Steenwyk on Two Kingdoms theology and Christian involvement in formal politics. 

As he explained in our earlier interview, Giles holds that formal politics is not a proper task of the Christian life. Van Steenwyk counters that Christians must be involved in direct political activism so as to undermine oppression and promote God's justice in the world. 

Nick serves as moderator and asks some critical questions of both debaters. We haven't heard of anyone advocating for a Three Kingdom theology, but if you're such a person and are offended that your position didn't get any press here, you might consider lobbying the FCC to implement the so-called Fairness Doctrine, but as much as we'd like to see Christian libertarian thought get air time on MSNBC we still wouldn't recommend that course of action.

How To Transform Culture Without Being Entangled In Politics

Honestly, this is a very challenging topic for me. Not only to write about, but more so to walk out in a practical way.

Here’s why: Because quite often people will mistake engaging the culture with being political.

For example, systemic racism is a pervasive reality in America. For many, this is seen as a political issue and not a moral issue. Therefore, if I write about the evils of racism, or if I point out the injustices suffered by people of color in this nation, I am often accused of being political.

But justice and politics are not the same thing.

Justice is about pointing out what is wrong [injustice] and working to make it right again.

So, feeding the hungry, caring for the outcast, standing alongside the LGBTQ community, speaking out against exploitation, and shining a light on racial inequality isn’t about politics – it’s about justice.

Politics is about choosing sides, advocating for laws to be passed or struck down, aligning with a particular ideology and standing for a certain platform.

Those who follow Christ cannot ignore issues of justice. We cannot turn a blind eye to suffering. We cannot allow people who are made in the image of God to be marginalized and exploited, especially if there is something we can do about it.

But, this is where the question arises: What can we do about it?

For some, a political solution makes the most sense. They rally around a particular party or politician hoping to bring about justice in that way.

For others, they are convinced that politics isn’t the best way to transform a culture or influence society. Instead of pursuing the political path, these people might instead seek to bring about a change at the grassroots level. This is often the slower approach to change, but in the long run, it is the most enduring one.

In the meantime, there are those from both sides who take the time to care for the broken, comfort the oppressed, and feed the hungry. This is how we should respond to the immediate needs of people who suffer injustice, long before we take the justice path or the political option, if we hope to alleviate the pain.

So, for someone like me who has abandoned the political option. It can sometimes be challenging to walk the line, so to speak, on issues of injustice.

There is still a need to critique the culture and to point out the contrasts between the glorious Kingdom of God and the pathetic kingdoms of the world.

For some, these critiques are interpreted as being political. And in some cases they may be right about that. But as long as we can critique the culture without taking sides, and without becoming nationalistic in the process, this critique is still valid.

Why? Because our main goal is to transform the culture from the inside out. One of the ways we do that is to point out how Jesus’ Kingdom is better and how He has a better plan to transform the world with preemptive love and proactive agape.

Many Christians take this too far, in my estimation. They not only want to speak out against injustice and point out the better way of Jesus, but they continue on to seek out political power and influence of their own. This, to me, is a mistake.

Why? Because the best way to change the world is through the Gospel, not through political influence.

Did the early church impact their culture? Yes, they most certainly did.

Did they do so by infiltrating the Roman government or political process? No, they did not.

And let’s keep in mind that they most certainly could have done so if that was their intention. There are numerous examples of Roman officials and civil magistrates who came to faith in Christ in the early church.

Instead of seeking to install Christians at the highest levels of power, they required every one of those new converts to resign their positions of authority in the Roman government and renounce political entanglements.

 "A military commander or civic magistrate must resign or be rejected. If a believer seeks to become a soldier, he must be rejected, for he has despised God." (Hippolytus of Rome)

Remember: Their own brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ were being arrested and put to death during this time. How tempting it must it have been for them to leverage their political influence to set those people free and to end the persecution of their faith?

Still, they remained true to their Lord’s example and refused the temptation to entangle their faith with politics. They were willing to obey Jesus and remain loyal to His Kingdom even to the death.

What’s more, they didn’t wait for the government to change the world. They got busy changing it themselves with the best weapon possible: The Gospel of Jesus.

The Gospel that had transformed their lives from the inside out was more than powerful enough to transform their neighbors, and their community, and yes, even their empire – one person at a time.

Untangling ourselves from politics doesn’t mean that we unplug ourselves from the culture around us. Far from it.

If anything, we must become more engaged with the culture – and more acquainted with those who are suffering at the hands of the Empire – so that we can administer the love of Christ and spread the virus of His Kingdom to those who are broken under the crushing weight of injustice.

We cannot transform the world by disengaging from the culture. Being salt and light involves getting our hands dirty. We must step into the fight. We must carry our cross and suffer with those who are suffering.

As my friend Jackie Pullinger once said, “The Gospel is always life for those who receive it and death for those who bring it.”

Our lives belong to the King. Let’s walk in the power of His resurrection and bring life and light to those who are in darkness.

-kg

NOW AVAILABLE: "Jesus Untangled: Crucifying Our Politics To Pledge Allegiance To The Lamb" by Keith Giles on Amazon in Paperback, Kindle [ebook], and Audio formats.

IS JESUS KING OF ANYTHING? REALLY?

The Gospel was once considered a threat to those who held political power.

When Paul and the other apostles started preaching about Jesus there were often riots because they were “….all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.” [Acts 17:7]

There was no doubt about it. This Gospel was dangerous. 

Jesus was a serious threat to status quo.

City officials and the crowds were thrown into turmoil over this subversive man. [See Acts. 17:8]

Those who accepted his message were arrested and tortured because of it.

Many went to their death because they refused to hail Caesar as Lord. They were burned alive shouting, “We have no King but Jesus!”

The line between following Christ and following the political systems of this world used to be unmistakable.

But not anymore.

Today, those who claim to follow Jesus may loudly proclaim that “Jesus Is Lord!” but they don’t mean that Jesus stands opposed to political powers.

They may have a “King Jesus” bumper sticker on their Lexus, but they don’t act as if Jesus is their choice for ruling their world.

A Christian in the first century knew vividly that their loyalty to Caesar was forfeited now that they had surrendered everything to their new King, Jesus.

Early Christian teachers spoke often about this shift in loyalty. 

As Tertullian wrote to the Romans around the year 195:

“In us, all zeal in the pursuit of glory and honor is dead. So we have no pressing inducement to take part in your public meetings, nor is there anything more entirely foreign to us than the affairs of State.”

Origen also wrote to Celsus in an attempt to explain the peculiar Christian practice of noninvolvement with Roman politics, saying:

"It is not for the purpose of escaping public duties that Christians decline public offices, but that they may reserve themselves for a diviner and more necessary service in the Church of God – for the salvation of men. And this service is at once necessary and right."

He also explains to Celsus that those who follow Christ recognize another, higher authority than the State and that because of this they urge their brightest and best to apply their wisdom and talents and qualities of leadership to further the more urgent and necessary work of the Kingdom of God:

"We recognize in each state the existence of another national organization [the Church], founded by the Word of God, and we exhort those who are mighty in word and of blameless life to rule over Churches. Those who are ambitious of ruling we reject; but we constrain those who, through excess of modesty, are not easily induced to take a public charge in the Church of God. And those who rule over us well are under the constraining influence of the great King, whom we believe to be the Son of God, God the Word. And if those who govern in the Church, and are called rulers of the divine nation -- that is, the Church -- rule well, they rule in accordance with the divine commands, and never suffer themselves to be led astray by worldly policy."

To Origen, and Tertullian, and every other Christian in those first 300 years of the Untangled Church, the issue was clear and the differences were distinct: Those who were citizens of the Kingdom of God were uninterested in the politics of men.

Why? Because they already had a King. His name was Jesus. They had already pledged their loyalty to another nation. It was called the Kingdom of God.

Try to imagine if Jesus were the King of your life in the same way that He was King over the lives of those early Christians who defied Caesar to the point of death and who pledged allegiance to "another King, one called Jesus."

What would that look like? How would it change the way you live today?

I wonder, if those early Christians could see the Church in America today, what would they conclude?

Would they assume that, to us, Jesus is really only "King" in a metaphorical sense? 

Or would they see a Church that was under the absolute authority of Christ? 

Would they see Christians who loved their enemies, welcomed the stranger, cared for the hungry, showed compassion to the prisoner, and forgave those who spoke against them?

Or is Jesus only King in a metaphorical sense?

If Jesus is your King, are you putting His words into practice?

Or are you still searching for another political ruler who can provide security, and comfort, and prosperity?

Jesus was pretty clear about the fact that we cannot serve two masters.

Cast your ballot.

-kg

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NOTE: My new book, "Jesus Untangled: Crucifying Our Politics To Pledge Allegiance To The Lamb" is coming soon. Stay tuned for more info.

READ MORE:
*A BETTER WAY TO END ABORTION IN AMERICA

*NEVER TRUMP. NOT HER. WHO THEN?

*SOMEONE TO RULE OVER US

*HOW TO SAVE AMERICA

*THE JESUS UNTANGLED BLOG SERIES

The Cyprian Influence

For most of his life, Cyprian was a distinguished and wealthy pagan who lived in a luxurious villa which sprawled across much of the hillside of Carthage where he was born, in the late 3rd century.

Born Thascius Cyprianus, he later took the name Caecilius in memory of the man who introduced him to the Christian faith. Due to his great wealth and influence in the pagan community, Cyprian was ordained as a deacon in the Christian church soon after his baptism and in very short order he was named as Bishop of Carthage, to the protest of many of the faithful in that region.

In spite of the very vocal opposition to Cyprian's fast track to Bishop-hood, which continued to plague him throughout his tenure in that office, his talents as a pagan orator and teacher of rhetoric, along with his great wealth, afforded him great influence within the 3rd century Christian church.

ON THE RUN
Early in his career as Bishop of Carthage, Cyprian was ordered to offer sacrifices to the Emperor or face persecution. He fled to a secluded village and maintained contact with the Church via an appointed contact. As more persecution came upon the members of his church, many others fled as well. However, Cyprian felt very strongly that the Church should not welcome back those Christians who escaped the sword by running away, as he had done. Instead he argued that they should be treated as unbelievers and not be welcomed back into fellowship.

Of course, when he eventually returned from hiding to resume his public office, he wrote a compelling letter explaining why his escape into seclusion was for the strengthening of the Church and that he should, therefore, be allowed to continue as Bishop of Carthage. None of the other Bishops opposed his return to his diocese and he was allowed to continue as if nothing had transpired.

RE-WRITING THE NEW TESTAMENT
Cyprian's greatest influence on the Church was introducing the concepts of priest, temples, rituals, altars and sacrifices to the faith. Until his writings, the Christian church had operated under the New Testament system, largely influenced by Jesus and his Apostles, which held firmly to the notion that the temple, the priesthood and the sacrifice were fulfilled in Christ at His Crucifixion and further that His Followers were also the temple of God, the royal priesthood and that their sacrifice was expressed in the way they lived their lives each day.

Because of Cyprian's skill as an orator and his prominence as a Bishop in Carthage, his pagan ideas of worship were given serious acceptance within the larger Body of Christ. In his writings Cyprian argued for a return to Old Testament Jewish practices which closely mirrored the concepts he had grown up with in a paganized culture.

Sadly, the Christian faith adopted Cyprian's ideas of spiritual covering, the special clergy caste, the importance of ritual and the need for a temple and sacrificial system of worship within one generation, effectively undoing the revolutionary concepts of Church found in the New Testament.

THE CHURCH JESUS BUILT
Inspired by Jesus, the Apostles established a community of believers; a church, based on the revolutionary concept of People-as-Temple and a corporate body which depended not upon a special clergy class, but upon the Holy Spirit Himself.

"...the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you." - Jesus (John 14:26)

Under this radical new concept, the Church was built upon the foundation of Christ as our ultimate priest and sacrice and temple so that each of His followers could also become a temple of the living God, a daily sacrifice and a priest of God.

No one was more vocal about this concept of a living temple of God than Paul the Apostle who wrote prolifically on the subject in nearly every single epistle.

"Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?" 1 Cor 3:16

"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own." 1 Cor 6:19

"What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people." 2 Cor 6:16

"Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit." - Eph 2:19-22

THE TESTIMONY OF PETER
Peter himself was also very clear on the concept of a living temple made up of people who were also the new priesthood and the daily sacrifice.

In his first epistle he clearly outlined this very concept to those early Christians:

"As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him— you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." 1 Peter 2:4-5

"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy." - 1 Peter 2:9-10

THE CYPRIAN SWITCH
Sadly, in the third century, Cyprian came on the scene and unraveled the tightly woven tapestry spun by Jesus and taught by His Apostles in the New Testament by someone who clearly did not fully understand the genius of this design.

Jesus himself spoke clearly on this subject when asked by the woman at the well about the location and method of proper worship to God. His response was that the temple in Jerusalem was no longer the "special" place to find God. Instead, one could find and worship God wherever they stood, as long as God's Spirit was within him or her.

"Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." - Jesus (in John 4:23-24)

The very fact that the early followers of Jesus did not adopt a system of priesthood, or continue to offer daily sacrifices in a special temple bears witness to the fact that, as evidenced in the Apostolic writings, there was a new temple, priesthood and sacrifice now, and they were it.

Under Christ, the priesthood was now more than just one man overseeing a congregation of several hundred people, the priest was now every single one of those people. It was an exponential multiplication of priests who were also temples of God's Holy Spirit where a daily sacrifice of will and self took place.

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.
- Romans 12:1

"Then (Jesus) said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it." - Luke 9:23-24

JUST IMAGINE
When Cyprian used his influence to undermine the New Testament and introduced his own ideas about temple, priest and sacrifice, he effectively introduced a virus into the Church which continues to pervade our concepts of worship and church to this very day and hour.

But, what if we could return to the ideas of the New Testament? What if we could learn to live as if God's Holy Spirit lives within every single follower of Jesus? What if we could begin to think of ourselves as priests of God who daily offer themselves as living sacrifices so that Christ could live through us?

What if?

kg

3-D Communion: From Ritual to Relationship

Guest Post by Christopher Dather

A few months ago, our organic church group celebrated its first Lord's Supper.  Think less a wafer and a shot of grape juice, and more a "love feast."  

Everyone pitched in and served everyone else.  The meal was homemade- nothing processed.  Everybody helped make the bread- even the children.  We did everything but stomp the grapes.

We fellowshipped while we prepared the feast.  We shared thoughts, songs and passages of Scripture during the meal as the Lord led, and we carried that communal time into the post-meal cleanup.  In short, this experience revolutionized the word "fellowship" for me.  

This experience also brought an entirely new meaning- a deeper meaning- to Paul's rebuke of the Corinthian believers in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34.

Under-Interpreting 1 Corinthians 11

Some Christians in the contemporary church today fail to grasp the deeper meaning of 1 Corinthians 11.  We don't necessarily misinterpret, but we probably under-interpret the immensity of the problem.  It wasn't until I began to experience organic church life that I was able to grasp the depth of the offense Paul was seeking to correct in the Corinthian church.  

Many of us cannot fathom what a 1st century Lord's Supper may have looked like.  I couldn't.  Until recently, I never knew the Lord's Supper as a full meal. All I knew was a Styrofoam wafer with a factory-stamped cross on it, and a shot glass of grape juice, served on a golden tray that passed by me as I sat quietly in my pew. Somber music played in the background while I waited for everyone else to get their Communion elements before we "feasted" on the Lord "in our hearts."  

This scene is a far cry from the Communion of Paul’s day.  The 1st century Christians knew Communion as the Lord's Supper, a love feast- an entire meal shared between disciples who gathered to fellowship with one another and remember the Lord who sacrificed Himself for them on the cross.  And now that I've experienced natural, God-led fellowship in the context of a full-fledged communion meal, Paul's rebuke of the Corinthian believers becomes more pointed and heartbreaking than ever.

Re-examining 1 Corinthians 11:17-34

In 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 Paul told the believers in Corinth that he could not praise them for the way they acted when they gathered together to break bread.  Why not?  

The Corinthians who gathered to celebrate the love feast honored neither God nor neighbor by their actions.  When they gathered, some believers gorged themselves while others went hungry.  As Paul wrote,

"...When you come together, it is not the Lord's Supper that you eat, for when you are eating, some of you go ahead with your own private suppers.  As a result, one person remains hungry and another gets drunk" (11:20b-21).  

His most incriminating rebuke comes in v. 22: "Don't you have homes to eat and drink in?  Or do you despise the church of God by humiliating those who have nothing?"

He even goes on to say that those who are guilty of acting in this way are "guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord" (11:27).

Ouch!  That's a weighty accusation to throw out against a church.  But honestly, I couldn't completely understand why.  I never got it because I always assumed it was about the communion elements themselves.  While, yes, that's obviously important, that also misses a huge detail.  It was never only about the food.  It was also about the people; the people who missed out on the fellowship; the people who didn't connect with other believers; the people who were shortchanged of the opportunity to both serve others and be served by them.  

I'm also floored by the way the offending believers acted toward the poorer disciples at these love feasts.  I simply cannot imagine someone showing up to our supper and me telling them, "I'm sorry, brother, but we went ahead without you.  We feasted- and it was good!  We fellowshipped and really connected in such a powerful way that only God could have done that!  Sorry you didn't get here sooner.  We don't really have much left, but maybe I could whip you up a bologna sandwich...."  The poorer believers were left with not only mere physical crumbs of food, but also spiritual crumbs of fellowship.

Do you see how spiritually criminal this was?  They gathered together to celebrate the Lord's Supper, but they obviously forgot to bring God with them!  Expecting God to be okay with the way these believers were acting was no different than the wayward Israelites offering sacrifices while trampling mercy and love underfoot.

The believers at Corinth failed to realize the truth that James so beautifully captured when he wrote: "Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead" (Jam. 2:17).  

If our faith is not a tangible faith, then what good is it?

From Ritual to Relationships: A Paradigm Shift

What tripped me up when I used to approach this passage was that I looked at the situation in terms of the sacrament, but failed to truly grasp what was going on.  I failed to understand that Paul warned the believers to check their hearts before taking part in the Lord's Supper, (not because we have to be paranoid about any lurking unresolved sins and confess them lest we invite the punishment of the Almighty), but rather because communion had become something less than it was intended for the Corinthian believers.  It had devolved into something somewhere between a rote ritual devoid of its true meaning and an outright excuse for the wealthier believers to get together and feast without restraint.

So, where's the application here?  Actually, I have two application points.  First, we have to be so very careful when we approach the text of the Bible. It’s easy to read what we think it says rather than what it actually says. This is a Hermeneutics 101 lesson- check your biases at the door.  It's easy to slip up, anyone can do it.  

The second point plays off of the first: faulty interpretation can lead to misguided application. I misinterpreted this passage and only saw the ritual, but Paul was speaking just as much about the people who were being overlooked as He was about the supper itself.  I saw communion elements, he saw the poor being neglected.  I saw ritual, he saw relationships.

Our new life in Christ was never supposed to be primarily about lifeless religion- the world has enough of that. It's supposed to be about a living, breathing, vibrant relationship with the Lord that is expressed in the context of relationships with others.  

The world needs to see authenticity like this – true disciples filled with the love of Jesus and living missionally. 

You were reborn for more.  Don't settle for anything less.

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(Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version NIV

Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.)