Some thoughts on Election Day...

I know today is considered quite the historical one and yes, we did vote via absentee ballot. But that being said, I read this really great excerpt from Greg Boyd's book entitled The Myth of a Christian Nation and have to say, that no matter what the results end up being tonight, as a Christian I must choose to ask God to help me to live as one under His rule above that of the world's. I desire to be a participant in the Kingdom of God of which Jesus has made available to everyone but that we then must choose to grab a hold of. The excerpt is long, I know, but I encourage you to take a little time to read it, and if you only have a few minutes, I recommend at least reading the bold paragraphs at the beginning and end. Would love to hear your thoughts. This way of being has not only my vote, but my very life.

The Kingdom of God in contrast to the Kingdom of the World

"Once again, this is the kingdom of God: It looks and acts like Jesus Christ. It looks and acts like Calvary. It looks and acts like God’s eternal, triune love. It consists of people graciously embracing others and sacrificing themselves in service to others. It consists of people trusting and employing “power under” rather than “power over,” even when they, like Jesus, suffer because of this. It consists of people imitating the Savior who died for them and for all people. It consists of people submitting to God’s rule and doing his will. By definition, this is the domain in which God is king.

It this light, it should now be obvious why Jesus said his kingdom was “not from this world,” for it contrasts with the kingdom of the world in every possible way. This is not a simple contrast between good and evil, for, as we’ve seen, God gives the governments of the kingdom of the world power to carry out the service of keeping law and order in a fallen world. Not only this, but kingdom-of-God citizens are to humbly acknowledge that we are the worst of sinners (Matt.7;1-3; cf. 1Tim. 1:15-16), acknowledging, as Jesus himself did (thought he was sinless), that the only one who is truly good is God (Luke 18:19). The contrast is rather between two fundamentally different ways of doing life, two fundamentally different mindsets and belief systems, two fundamentally different loyalties.

It will be helpful to end this chapter by summarizing these contrasts under five headings.

*A Contrast of Trusts: The kingdom of the world trusts the power of the sword, while the kingdom of God trusts the power of the cross. The kingdom of the world advances by exercising “power over,” while the kingdom of God advances by exercising “power under.”

*A Contrast of Aims: the kingdom of the world seeks to control behavior while the kingdom of God seeks to transform lives from the inside out. Also, the kingdom of the world is rooted in preserving, if not advancing, one’s self-interests and one’s own will, while the kingdom of God is centered exclusively on carrying out God’s will, even if this requires sacrificing one’s own interests. To experience the life of the kingdom of God, one has to die to self (Matt. 16:25; Mark 8:35; Luke 17:33; John 12:25; Gal. 2:19-20).

*A Contrast of Scopes: The kingdom of the world is intrinsically tribal in nature, and is heavily invested in defending, if not advancing, one’s own people-group, one’s nation, one’s ethnicity, one’s state, one’s religion, one’s ideologies, or one’s political agendas. That is why it is a kingdom characterized by perpetual conflict. The kingdom of God, however, is intrinsically universal, for it is centered on simply loving as God loves; It is centered on people living for the sole purpose of replicating the love of Jesus Christ to all people at all times in all places without condition. The kingdom-of-God participant has by love transcended the tribal and nationalistic parameters of whatever version of the kingdom of the world they find themselves in.

*A Contrast of Responses: The kingdom of the world is intrinsically a tit-for-tat kingdom; its motto is “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” In this fallen world, no version of the kingdom of the world can survive for long by loving its enemies and blessing those who persecute it; it carries the sword, not the cross. But kingdom-of-God participants carry the cross, not the sword. We, thus, aren’t ever to return evil with evil, violence with violence. We are rather to manifest the unique kingdom life of Christ by returning evil with good, turning the other cheek, going the second mile, loving, and praying for our enemies. We are to respond to evil in a way that protects us from being defined by it and that exposes the evil as evil, thereby opening up the possibility that our “enemy” will be transformed. Far from seeking retaliation, we seek the well-being of our “enemy.”

*A Contrast of Beliefs: The kingdom of the world has earthly enemies and, thus, fights earthly battles; the kingdom of God, however, by definition has no earthly enemies, for its disciples are committed to loving “their enemies,” thereby treating them as friends, their “neighbors.” There is a warfare the kingdom of God is involved in, but it is “not against enemies of blood and flesh.” It is rather “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12).

Conservative religious people involved in kingdom-of-the-world thinking often believe that their enemies are the liberals, the gay activists, the ACLU, the pro-choice advocates, the evolutionists, and so on. On the opposite side, liberal religious people often think that their enemies are the fundamentalists, the gay bashers, the Christian Coalition, the antiabortionists, and so on. Demonizing one’s enemies is part of the tit-for-tat game of Babylon, for only by doing so can we justify our animosity, if not violence, toward them. What we have here are two different religious versions of the kingdom of the world going at each other. If we were thinking along the lines of the kingdom of God, however, we would realize that none of the people mentioned in the above lists are people whom kingdom-of-God-citizens are called to fight against. They are, rather, people whom kingdom-of-God citizens are called to fight for.

Our battle is “not against flesh and blood,” whether they are right wing or left wing, gay or straight, pro-choice or pro-life, liberal or conservative, democratic or communist, American or Iraqi. Our battle is against the “cosmic powers” that hold these people, and all people, in bondage. Whatever our own opinion about how the kingdom of the world should run, whatever political or ethical views we may happen to embrace, our one task as kingdom-of-God disciples is to fight for people, and the way we do it is by doing exactly what Jesus did. He defeated the cosmic powers of darkness by living a countercultural life characterized by outrageous love and by laying down his life for his enemies. So too, we contribute to the demise of the “power over” principalities that hold people in bondage when we retrain from judgment of others and rather extend grace to them, when we let go of anger toward others and instead “come under” them in loving service.

A person may win by kingdom-of-the-world standards but lose by the standards that eternally count—the standards of the kingdom of God. We can possess all the right kingdom-of-the-world causes, but if we don’t look like Jesus Christ carrying his cross to Golgotha—sacrificing our time, energy and resources for others—our rightness is merely religious noise. Jesus taught that there will be many who seem to believe right things and do religious deeds in his name whom he will renounce, for they didn’t love him by loving the homeless, the hungry, the poor, and the prisoner (Matt. 7:21-23; 25:41-46; cf. Luke 6:46-49). However right we may be, without love we are simply displaying a religious version of the world, not the kingdom of God."