The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism

by Tim Alberta

many of those same people have nonetheless allowed their national identity to shape their faith identity instead of the other way around.

We should think of ourselves as eager dinner guests at someone else’s banquet. We are happy to be there, happy to share our perspective. But we are always respectful, always humble, because this isn’t our home.”

This compartmentalization of standards is toxic to the credibility of the Christian witness. Many evangelicals have come to view politics the way a suburban husband views Las Vegas—a self-contained escape, a place where the rules and expectations of his everyday life do not apply. The problem is, what happens in politics doesn’t stay in politics. Everyone can see what these folks are doing.

There’s more than one way to be an idol worshipper. In the Old Testament, you had Moloch and child sacrifices and all this stuff. But Satan is subtle. We don’t have statues now; we have political parties and presidential candidates.”

This is the gospel we are to proclaim both in word and in deed: To be a Christian is to sacrifice not for the benefit of those we already have around our table but for the betterment of those we have never considered to invite.

“Taking a stand,” Zahnd scoffed. “There’s this false assumption of action we’re called to take. The task of the Church is simply to be the Church. All of this high-blown rhetoric about changing the world—we don’t need to change the world. We’re not called to change the world. We’re called to be the world already changed by Christ. That’s how we’re salt; that’s how we’re light.”

There is nothing inherently wrong with legislative engagement. People of faith should advocate on moral grounds for the betterment of their fellow man. But politics are one tool to help construct a movement; politics are not the movement itself.

This is the enduring purpose of the Church: to mold fallen mortals into citizens of a kingdom they have inherited, through the saving power of Jesus Christ, to the everlasting glory of God, so that they might go and make disciples of their own.