Jesus And The Powers: Christian Political Witness In 2024

Christianity Today Book Review:  T. Wright: What Jesus Would Say to the ‘Empire’ Today (reviewing N.T. Wright (University of St Andrews) & Michael F. Bird (Ridley College), Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies (2024):

In a year seeing over 50 countries at the polls—half of which could shift geopolitical dynamics—the timing of Jesus and the Powers’ release was no accident.

A few years ago, N. T. Wright (author of Surprised by Hope) and Michael F. Bird (Jesus Among the Gods)—who had collaborated on The New Testament in Its World—realized there was a lack of biblical guidance on how Christians should engage with politics, and they decided to do something about it.

“We both had the sense that most Christians today have not really been taught very much about a Christian view of politics,” Wright said. “Until the 18th century, there was a lot of Christian political thought, which we’ve kind of ignored the last 200–300 years—and it’s time to get back to it.”

The “gateway” to political theology, Wright believes, is the idea that, until Christ’s return, “God wants humans to be in charge.” And while all political powers have in some sense been “ordained by God” according to Scripture, he says, Christians are called to “take the lead” in holding them accountable.

“The church is designed to be the small working model of new creation, to hold up before the world a symbol—an effective sign of what God has promised to do for the world. Hence, to encourage the rest of the world to say, ‘Oh, that’s what human community ought to look like. That’s how it’s done.’”

And as the global church becomes “a community worshiping the one God and doing justice and mercy in the world,” this is a “sign to the caesars of the world that Jesus is Lord and that they are not” and a “sign to the principalities and powers that this is the way to be human.”

Q: What would you say to Christians who are like, “Well, this world is going to hell in a handbasket anyway”—those who don’t get involved in government because they’re thinking, “Well, the church is separate—it’s a bastion away from the world”?

A:  ... People have come with the assumption that the biblical story is about how human souls can find their way up to the beatific vision in heaven. Whereas the entire biblical narrative runs the other way—it’s about how God comes to dwell with humans here. The strapline in Revelation chapter 21 isn’t that the dwelling of humans is with God—it’s that the dwelling of God is with humans.

The older I get, the more I realize Acts 2, the descent of the Spirit filling the house, is a temple scene; it goes straight back to 1 Kings 8 or Exodus 14. It’s a way of saying, “This is what God always intended to do. God, the Holy Spirit, always intended to live with and in—and be operative through—human beings. And wow, it’s actually happening.” This is a totally different way of doing theology.

The old idea of God throwing the present creation away—so why would we bother to put it right?—simply does no justice. We urgently need as a global community to think more Christianly, more biblically, about the whole scenario.

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