And identical to in Jesus’ day, political leaders defend this association whereas spiritual leaders bless it. Because the French author Frédéric Bastiat warned, “When plunder turns into a lifestyle for a bunch of males in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a authorized system that authorizes it and an ethical code that glorifies it.” That was true in first-century Jerusalem. It stays true at this time.
For the reason that Nineteen Eighties, actions just like the Ethical Majority and the Christian Coalition, and extra lately, the New Apostolic Reformation, haven’t challenged the empire however somewhat sought to commandeer it. The Seven Mountain Mandate urges Christians to grab management of key sectors of society, together with authorities, enterprise, training and media. This isn’t a motion looking for to interrogate or problem the injustice of empire. Fairly the alternative. It’s an ideology — a starvation for energy and dominion — cloaked in pious language and baptized within the logic of empire. That is Christian nationalism in a nutshell.
Bear in mind, Rome didn’t start as an empire; it started as a republic. However over time, it ceded energy to the few, tolerating cruelty, corruption and the consolidation of management, as long as it got here wrapped within the promise of peace and prosperity. The emperor grew to become each ruler and redeemer, honored not for ethical readability however for the phantasm of restored nationwide greatness.
The false promise supplied to each Romans and the individuals they conquered was that Caesar was divine — a selected one, a lord. At present, Donald Trump is usually forged in eerily related phrases by Christian nationalists: not as an ethical chief, however as a determine who will ship prosperity, safety, and cultural dominance, no less than for a choose few. To defy him, on this worldview, is not only to reject a person, however to reject a sort of sacred order. That impulse isn’t new. It’s as outdated as Pilate’s procession.
However Jesus by no means sought to exchange Caesar with a Christian Caesar. He got here to dismantle the very logic of Caesar: the assumption that may makes proper, peace comes by violence and politics is finest wielded by worry, coercion and management. As an alternative, he inaugurated a counter-kingdom that aspires to loving kindness, radical welcome, mercy and justice — a kingdom the place the susceptible and the poor are lifted up, and the idols of empire are uncovered as frauds.
