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

by N.T. Wright

To recap, we’ve seen that Christians have a complex relationship with the State, existing between the poles of seeking political favour with civic leaders and being a political nuisance in Jesus’ name. Furthermore, while government is instituted by God for public justice, security and welfare, we have concluded that it is permissible to disobey unjust laws and to resist unjust government. That should be done preferably by peaceful means, but with a door slightly ajar to just war against tyrannical government in the most extreme of occasions. Now we wish to explore the type of unjust governments that Christians may find themselves called to resist. This too is not straightforward: it is contested and a moral minefield if ever there was one. What follows is not an exhaustive exploration; it is a selective case study, intended to be relevant to current events in the 2020s.