During my time as a newspaper journalist, staff occasionally played a game called political bingo. Whenever an election telecast or Budget speech was on TV and a commentator or politician used buzzwords such as “economic rationalism”, “fiscal responsibility” or “western suburbs battlers”, you got to cross them off your scorecard. And it didn’t take long to find a winner.
Likewise, now that the US presidential election is filling our screens with elephants and donkeys, the world press are resorting to their hackneyed buzzwords to describe the church’s influence: Christian nationalists, white evangelical voters, America’s far right, pro-life activists, fundamentalists. Bingo!
It’s why we’re seeing headlines like The Guardian’s “Christian nationalists embrace Trump as their saviour—will they be his?” or The New York Times’s “After Conviction, Trump Presents Himself as a Martyr to the Christian Right”. Not even the Daily Bugle from the Marvel Cinematic Universe would make this up. Regardless of your political leanings, it seems clear: for some, Christians aren’t welcome in politics.
Subjects and Citizens
Michael P. Jensen
Subjects and Citizens
Michael P. Jensen
Jensen writes to help Christian rediscover “a truly Christ-centred vision for human politics”. The heart of that vision is based around a careful study of Romans 12-15, calling Christians to be who they are as the church: “subjects of the Lord Jesus and citizens of the kingdom of heaven”. The aim is that this perspective will help Christians to navigate the alienation and anxiety that dominate contemporary debates, providing a fresh way to think about contemporary politics.
The Elected People
Tackling this attitude is Michael Jensen’s challenging new book, Subjects and Citizens. A Sydney Anglican pastor, theologian and public intellectual, Jensen addresses the concerns, mistakes and problems with Christians politicising religion. By being cheerleaders for one side of politics or being priggish about a particular issue, they’ve created division and driven people away from the faith. He names the American church here—with returned US presidential candidate Donald Trump and his Trump-eteers clearly in mind—although he doesn’t let churches worldwide off the hook (15).
Jensen calls on Christians to end the division, stop grabbing for power and “recover a truly Christ-centred vision for human politics” (15). How? By going small, rather than big. By living first and foremost as subjects of the Lord Jesus and citizens of the kingdom of heaven, rather than trusting Big Government to change the world. Why? “The best and most authentic strategy for Christianizing a society is not primarily legislative. It is evangelistic” (193).
Jensen cuttingly remarks that too many Christians today are more passionate about a certain type of politics rather than the gospel of Christ (24). Others have completely thrown up their hands in dismay, forgetting that the Lord uses good government to restrain wickedness and promote justice (Rom 13:4)—“goals towards which Christians must surely work” (27). Balance can be found by reconsidering what politics is for Christians.
Just being the church of Jesus Christ is a political act. When we do that, we testify to our society that human power is not absolute and eternal, and we testify to a different way of doing politics, a way shaped by faith in Jesus Christ, love of our neighbour, and hope in Christ’s eternal reign. We do not take power in the name of Jesus. Instead, we are to be witnesses to the truth and the goodness of his power. (27)
Real Power in Action
Our world is ruled by people pursuing earthly power—or what Jensen calls Politics 1.0. However, drawing on Romans 12–15, Jensen challenges us to engage in Politics 2.0. His basic premise is: Jesus is Lord and no one else; worshipping Jesus is a political statement; and Jesus is the crucified Lord who rules his kingdom by humble service (20). In other words, Christ isn’t a powerful political donor who lurks in the background. You serve him, glorify him every day by serving him and serving others, and people will notice. Jensen proposes we show this in six ways:
1. Be Nonconformists
Vote God number one: “Our exclusive worship of Christ puts all other contenders in their place—and some of those contenders want more than to be second in our hearts” (36). It’s recognising that this world is corrupt and passing away, and instead focussing on Christ’s new kingdom (1 Jn 2:16–17; 2 Tim 3:1–5).
It’s about being a different kind of person, and a different kind of community, signifying and proclaiming a different kind of rule for the sake of others in the hope that they will be persuaded by the gospel. (54)
2. Champion Peace
“Solving the puzzle of how human beings can live together without killing each other is one of the central questions of all politics,” Jensen says (60). That has been answered by Jesus. His church is a community of people who live in harmonious peace with each other despite their differences. As his citizens, we show a love that is sincere (Rom 12:9), honour one another above ourselves (Rom 12:10) and bless those who persecute us (Rom 12:14).
3. Model Respect
All authorities exist by God’s decree (Rom 13:1). Therefore, Christians are not to reject them or live as anarchists. “Earthly political authority, in whatever form, has been established to serve the mission of the church, whether it realises it or not,” writes Jensen (90). Romans 13 encourages us to be realists, rather than idealists:
What we ought to look for in human governors is not salvation from our problems but rather as much justice as a human ruler can muster. (96)
4. Love Everyone
We love because God loved us first (1 Jn 4:19). And that stretches out to our neighbours with whom we agree and disagree with. “Love can never operate on a checklist,” Jensen helpfully reminds us. “It is never a completed task. It is always active” (128).
5. Be Selfless
In this world, the strong crush the weak. That must not be so in Jesus: “In the gospel we have freedoms and rights, but we are to express those for the good of others, and even for those with whom we disagree” (153).
6. Show Hospitality
Christians need to focus on breaking bread, rather than breaking heads. Drawing on Roman 15:7, Jensen argues that we cannot turn one another away, especially after Christ himself has welcomed us into his household at the cost of his own life (181). By practising hospitality, we strengthen unity and peace among one another, and enhance our ability to share the gospel with those looking for connection in a broken and divisive world (183). And he’s not just talking about opening our fridges, but opening our hearts to displaced people from war-torn countries.
Jensen successfully pricks one’s conscience with Subjects and Citizens. It forces you to weigh up your favourite political party or political issue against the Bible. And that’s not easy … or pretty. Subjects and Citizens gives hope to Christians wanting a godly alternative to shaping our neighbourhoods, let alone our nation. Simply because he champions one side of the argument, some may take issue with Jensen’s views on refugees (111, 171) and the plight of First Nations peoples (186), but that’s okay. More of us need to learn to sit at the table and talk civilly, rather than flip it over in rage all the time.
Fair warning, Subjects and Citizens is a dry read. Too often it “tells” rather than “shows” how ordinary people can shape the political landscape by living out their faith. Jensen leans too heavily on Very Quotable People rather than salt-of-the-earth Christians who exemplify this godly call.
Where are the nineteenth-century English abolitionists William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, Granville Sharp, Hannah More and Charles Middleton, who scuttled slavery across most of the British Empire? Or the cracking story of twentieth-century baseballer Jackie Robinson and Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey hitting racial segregation right out of the ballpark? Or Christian and Yorta Yorta elder William Cooper, who marched, aged seventy-seven, on the German consulate in Melbourne in 1938, protesting Kristallnacht?
They all spoke powerfully for Jesus, echoing Jensen’s exhortations by reminding us that there is a better way to influence society without megaphones, slanderous sound bites and demands to support one party or else. Christians and politics need not be poles apart.
