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

by N.T. Wright

Your church is supposed to be more like a boot camp for soldiers of Jesus who go out into the world wearing the full armour of God, preaching reconciliation with God, loving their neighbours, sowing good deeds in the soil of hurting hearts, and becoming the scourge of the corrupt and the champion of the weak.

To do that kind of work, to engage in that kind of holistic mission, will require from time to time doing some public theology. This means that we might be compelled to offer some political commentary, to take a stand in a protest, or to run for public office to effect change. If it is obviously unwise to make politics one’s religion, it is no less foolish to think that the life of faith has nothing to do with our political discourse and its legislative chambers.

We cannot abandon politics to those who carry guns, or for that matter to those who have access to our metadata.

Our goal should be promoting the gospel to bring people into the family of faith, not pandering to political leaders so that they might let us share their podium. Christian ‘values’ – a term open to notorious abuse – should not be reduced to trite slogans. Nor does promising to privilege Christianity compensate for a lack of character or for policies that benefit the rich at the expense of the poor. Let us beware of those who tell Christians to mind their own business, just as much as we rebuff those who offer Christians power and privilege at the price of their silence or compliance.

We must act in all earnestness to hold the State accountable and remind it, whether this is believed or not, that even the State is answerable to the Lord Jesus.

The problem with Romans 13:1–5 is not its opacity but its clarity, its plain and unqualified call for submission to governing authorities.

Government is a form of common grace instituted by God so that human rulers are appointed to execute justice, security and welfare for the peoples governed. What is more, governments will be held accountable in this age and the next based on how well they govern.

So, is disobedience to government possible for the Christian?

The answer is ‘yes’, for two reasons. First, no earthly institution, whether monarch or magistrate, possesses absolute authority. The authority of the State is not an inviolable position but a performance of service, a service rendered to God and exercised for the people. The government’s authority is, then, conditional upon its performance to meet God’s standards of righteousness and to win the consensus of the people in how they wish to be governed.35 Second, while government is divinely instituted for the common good, and should be obeyed in principle, not every governor is good. Government should not be obeyed in every instance, especially if it interferes with religious liberty, acts unlawfully, or renders harm to its own people.36

We might say that God does indeed bring order through government and wants every aspect of his world to be wisely governed through legitimate authorities. But this carries with it both the temptation to distort the vocation of governing and the culpability for doing so; that is, if rulers abuse their God-given position, then they are answerable to God himself. As for those rulers who engage in cruelty, injustice and avarice, they cannot say that they do so with divine sponsorship by virtue of their office. Their legitimacy is forfeit, for only good government can claim the mantle of a divinely appointed authority. Accordingly, God brings order through government but does not ordain every...

The question then is whether Christians can move from civil disobedience against unlawful authorities to active resistance to the point of violence against a hostile government.

So, in the face of injustice or tyranny, do you say, ‘God will save us from you, but if not, I’d sooner suffer than serve you’ or do you raise a flag, a cross or a gun, and cry out, ‘Pay the pagans back in their own coin’? How far is civil disobedience permitted to go? To engage in peaceful disobedience when the government tries to boss you about in religious matters is one thing, but what if the government does evil or harms its own people or even people in faraway places?

Many Protestants decided that obedience only applied to legitimate authority, authority that acted with justice and piety. So it was a duty, as well as a rightful desire, that one should actively and violently resist illegitimate government, that is, a government whose tyranny made it an enemy of both God and the people.

Thomas Aquinas had noted that authority could be illegitimate for two reasons: first, if it was attained by violent usurpation; and second, if it was exercised in violent and unlawful ways.

Even to consider the prospect of violence as permissible or divinely sanctioned enters into a morally fraught space. There is a reasonable argument for a just war against a foreign invader, but a justification for anti-government revolutionary violence against one’s own civic leaders and against one’s fellow citizens is more precarious. To take up arms or to use the might of a mob against one’s own people is an ethical minefield.

Tomáš Halík

One can only turn one’s own cheek, if there is hope that it will put a stop to evil, but not the cheeks of others. They must be defended.

Uncivil disobedience should only be undertaken for the public good and to uphold civil rights, not for the benefit of niche interest groups, nor to promote a self-interested cause. Furthermore, disobedience must be scaled to the detriment that a government performs against its citizens and non-citizens.

Christian teaching affirms that obedience and respect for government is the norm even if the government is imperfect or unjust in some matters. Civil disobedience is reserved for unjust laws, and uncivil disobedience should be reserved only for violent authoritarians.

Totalitarianism comes in many packages, whether Fascist, Communist or theocratic.

we should take heed of Fascist-like regimes who weaponise grievances, valorise militarism, play on ethnic prejudices, and believe that all the nation’s problems can be solved by a demagogue carrying a big stick.

Nazism was not an alien political doctrine that appeared out of nowhere. Nazism succeeded because it embodied what people either believed or wanted to believe.2 Nazism was an incredibly eclectic world view, combining Darwinian science and pseudo-sciences such as eugenics, and incorporating some aspects of Lutheranism, elements of the philosophy of Nietzsche, the music of Wagner, Nordic mythology, anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, numerology, idealised masculinity, nationalism, militarism, anti-Communism and belief in the magical power of ancient artefacts – it had something for everyone!

One must therefore remain vigilant against any would-be Christian leaders who attempt to justify authoritarian regimes, who cooperate with them, or who try to reinterpret Christianity to fit with authoritarian dogmas.

Christian nationalism is a danger to Christians and non-Christians alike.

When we warn of the evils of Christian nationalism, we are warning of the danger of the government trying to enforce Christian hegemony combined with civil religion (that is, an outward and merely cultural version of Christianity). In other words, the danger is that Christians are given special privileges by the State and Christianity becomes an outward display of patriotic devotion rather than part of true religious affection.

This christianisation of kingship is not far from those who claimed that US president Donald Trump was a ‘new Cyrus’. Many admirers pushed the idea that Trump, despite his bawdy and tawdry behaviour, was a man whom God had anointed to make the USA great again just as God called the Persian king Cyrus to liberate the Judaean exiles in Babylon.

When such leaders are venerated with religious adulation, the result inevitably is that any critique of them, no matter how valid, is treated as either treason or blasphemy.

Christian nationalism of the kind we have described is bad on every level imaginable. Christian nationalism does not lend itself to a tolerant society since it diminishes the rights of the people of other religions or no religion. It leads to a superficial Christianity rather than to sincere faith and deep discipleship. Political leaders end up pretending to be religious merely to win the favour of their constituents. Christianity is used to justify unchristian policies and actions related to wars, immigration, income inequality, healthcare and a myriad other issues. Remember that even the devil can quote Scripture and try to rub it in the face of Jesus.

The other problem with Christian nationalism is which type of Christianity should be supreme. It is baffling that, in the USA, many Baptists are coming out as supporters of Christian nationalism. It is baffling to us because Baptists fled the religious sectarianism of the British Isles to go to America in the seventeenth century. The reason they fled was because Baptists, and other Nonconformists, were persecuted, discriminated against and cajoled in matters of religious conviction. They went to America so that they could practise their faith without government interference. As we all know, there are different Christian denominations, so which one should be supreme in a Christian nationalist state? Should it be Anglicans, who could then force everyone to baptise their babies, worship using only the Book of Common Prayer, demand adherence to the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, sing hymns that equate the British Empire with ‘Jerusalem’ on earth, and petition heaven with ‘God Save the King’? But the same is true whether you put Methodists, Presbyterians or Pentecostals in charge. They could impose their version of Christianity upon everyone else or grant special privileges to their version of Christianity. Religious liberty thus protects Christians from other Christians. And, if you are going to give religious liberty to Christians, then why not to non-Christian religions as well? The logical implication of religious freedom for Christians is religious freedom for all peopl...

Religious liberty thus protects Christians from o...

Christian nationalism also lends itself to feelings of ethnic superiority and promotes interracial tensions especially when Christianity is aligned with ‘whiteness’.

Finally, we must remember that Christian nationalism is not merely a US phenomenon. There are versions of Christian nationalism is Europe, Africa, Asia, South America and even Australia. Today, the most pernicious version is probably that in Russia, where there is an unholy alliance between the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church, a proper Caesaropapism. The Russian government has been able to leverage support by appealing to Christian nationalist sympathies in other parts of Europe and America, by feeding audiences an explicit focus on culture-war questions related to LGBTQ+ issues. Here, we have to ask some painful questions. Is Patriarch Kirill just a black-hatted and bearded version of American moral-majority founder Jerry Falwell, albeit with incense? Is Vladimir Putin (an ex-KGB officer) and his invasion of Ukraine any more legal than George H. Bush (an ex-CIA official) and his invasion of Panama? To be fair, we wouldn’t call them exact equations. We’d take Bush over Putin any day. But there are some disconcerting similarities between US imperialism and Russian aggression. Little wonder that the far right of US politics has been either critical of US support for Ukraine or fawning over Putin for defending a Christian empire.

In other words, we are concerned about a progressive post-liberal order that does not value the right to dissent, the value of ideological diversity or the necessity of public debate, and that does not tolerate religions it cannot dictate to.

Western democracies on the centre left are in danger of turning their countries into a ‘bobocracy’: rule by the ‘bohemian bourgeois’.45 These ‘bobos’ are a group of mostly white, rich and upper-middle-class elites in politics, the media and influencer professions with niche progressive values. The bobos often exhibit a deep resentment towards the working class and their pastimes, pieties and penchant for populist rather than paternal leaders.46 The danger posed by the bobos is more than big government and empty virtue-signalling. It is government consciously committed to a radical sociopolitical project of attempting to redefine what it means to be a human being and the relationship of citizens to the State.

The peculiar thing is that the Western ‘culture wars’ between progressives and conservatives are really in-house debates in a post-Christendom context about Christian ideas. That is precisely why many Christians don’t map neatly onto the conservative versus progressive political dichotomy!

Tom Holland argues that the moral disputes at the heart of our culture are between rival versions of Christian ethics that are playing out in the conservative versus progressive divide.

The crusade to restrict freedoms of speech, association, conscience and religion in order to prevent certain deplorable people from exercising the aforesaid freedoms is not going to end well.

if we are to maintain the liberalism of a liberal democracy, there must always be limits to the limits we put on basic rights.

Those who acclaim Jesus as King will always be suspicious of a state or class that ‘claims to be [a mediator] of ultimacy’.72 Christians thus need to stand up to defend themselves and others, knowing that the threat to one group’s civil liberties, whether lesbians or Muslims, is a threat to everyone’s.

Christians thus need to stand up to defend themselves and others, knowing that the threat to one group’s civil liberties, whether lesbians or Muslims, is a threat to everyone’s.

Every church, whether in Nigeria or Nicaragua, in Uzbekistan or the United States, must address injustice, oppression and tyranny, and seek to discern its calling to be a city on a hill.

That is not to reduce the Church to a social action network, or to align it too closely with one political faction. It is to affirm what we know to be intuitively true, that our evangelical convictions about God putting the world to rights are only as strong as the evils we tolerate. So, whether we are resisting racism, illegal land seizures or a government controlled by gambling lobbyists, corruption and censorship, we must ask whether the governing bodies deserve our obedience, our dissent, our civil disobedience or our uncivil disobedience. This is no academic question but an in-your-face decide-right-now issue for Christians in many parts of the world.

For instance, consider those Christians in Hong Kong who have taken different paths on how to respond to the government’s repressive measures, as Kwok Pui-Lan describes: Christians organised prayer meetings in churches, public spaces, and in front of government buildings. Unlike public protests, religious meetings enjoy more protection from interference from the police, and the organisers do not have to apply for a permit to gather in public. Christians sang hymns and offered prayers for the city and for government officials and elected representatives. The Christian hymn ‘Sing Hallelujah to the Lord’ emerged as a unifying anthem during the early stage of the protests, sung by Christians and non-Christians alike. Some churches near the protest routes opened their doors and offered hospitality to protesters. But there were also Christians who believed in separation of Church and State, and that Christians should obey the authorities. Many evangelical churches did not want to become pol...

So how do we live, love, pray, work and follow Jesus Christ under the shadow of governments that deny citizens basic freedoms, manufacture idolatries and injustice, and act with impunity in their crimes against humanity? The answer is that faith is our defiance, and defiance is contagious. What is more, this is a faith working through love, faith in action, faith in a power higher than the powers who do evil. It is faith in a God who will bring the wicked to judgement and smash the thrones of evildoers. As to what this looks like in action, the Church and those who commit themselves to walk in the way of Jesus Christ must be known for what they are for, but occasionally for what they are against.

As to what this looks like in action, the Church and those who commit themselves to walk in the way of Jesus Christ must be known for what they are for, but occasionally for what they are against.

As Christians, we stand against Fascists and Communists; we must show solidarity with oppressed people, such as the brave Hongkongers and Ukrainians, as they discern in the precincts of their own consciences how to resist the oppressive and brutal actions of authoritar...

Against Christian nationalism, we must stand against political movements in the USA or elsewhere that take the name of Christ in vain through a syncretic blend of na...

Against civic totalists, we refuse to forfeit our freedoms to Statist projects, we refuse to subordinate the rights of one identity to another identity, but demand in...

Remember, the greatest evils are not done by people who believe that what they do is wicked, but by those who believe that what they do is righteous! In the face of such hate all too assured of its moral justification, followers of Jesus must deploy prayer and protests and sacred subversion against those who wish to erase or persecute the kulaks, the queers, Catholics, Jews, Palestinians, mestizo...

Christian faith is meant to be a public faith, for the common good, which compels us to do good, to make good, and to build good in private and public endeavours.