Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies

by N.T. Wright

There would never be human rights as self-evident truths without scriptural notions of the ‘image of God’ and the command to ‘love your neighbour as yourself ’ as it was interpreted in Christian societies.

The worrying signs that democracy was being undermined included sabotaging constitutions, sidelining legislative bodies in the name of representing the people, packing courts with loyalists, delegitimizing opponents and the election processes, attacking the free press, condoning or encouraging violence, and threatening to take legal action against political rivals.

political disappointment is better than having our own despot in power.

We can embrace pluralism precisely because we are confident in our own beliefs, and in the groups and institutions that sustain them.

the idea that politics has instrumental rather than ultimate value.

We need confident pluralism, or something close to it, because liberal democracy creates a plurality of political perspectives.

Xian Nationalism lacks this confidence in its beliefs and the institutions that sustain it.

as Alasdair MacIntyre said, politics is ‘civil war carried on by other means’.

the world we live in now is at a moment of social and economic turmoil, with new imperial powers rising and democratic nations tearing themselves apart.

While Christians had often been agents of resistance and revolution against empires, truth be told, at other times they were all too happy to act as chaplains of a christianised state.

Christian testimony must not shrink back from its theopolitical implications, even if it must be vigilant not to be seduced by the temptations of proximity to political power.

That’s why we are to pray that it will be on earth as it is heaven, to colonise earth with the life of heaven,

While Christians are called to public service, they are not called to wield absolute power. Christians must seek to serve, not dominate.

Disobedience to unjust government is possible since it is the institution of government, and not every individual governor, which deserves our obedience.