Aliens & Strangers or Culture Makers?

1. Aliens & Strangers or Culture Makers?

2. Public Theology: “Careful, theological thinking about why and how Christians should bear witness in the public square. Included here are questions about how a believer personally relates to public institutions, how Christians think about the best way public order should be constituted, how and to what extent a Christian should strive to influence public policy” John Bolt

3. What does God require and demand of a society? • What should we expect to see in a society in this current age? • What activities is the church as church responsible for within society?

4. What does God require and demand of a society? • What should we expect to see in a society in this current age? • What activities is the church as church responsible for within society? • Biblical passages? Theological concepts? Life and ministry questions?

6. The argument in a nutshell: • “The Kingdome therefore of God, is a reall, not a metaphoricall Kingdome.” Thomas Hobbes

7. The argument in a nutshell: • “The Kingdome therefore of God, is a reall, not a metaphoricall Kingdome.” Thomas Hobbes • “Ultimately, the purpose of this book is to understand the political nature of the church.” (185)

8. The argument in a nutshell: • p22 “The primary claim of this book is that the local church is… a political embassy. Indeed the church is a kind of embassy, only it represents a kingdom of even greater political consequence to the nations and their governors. And this embassy represents a kingdom not from across geographical space but from across eschatological time. In other words, this book is concerned with the biblical and theological question of what constitutes a local church.”

9. The key question: • Who gives whom the authority to do what? (153)

10. The context • “Generally we think of the public square as the place for politics, while the private domiciles of home and church are reserved for religion… This is the map I want to help throw out.” (13)

11. The context • “The public square is nothing more or less than a battleground of gods. And the church is a political institution inhabited by citizens of heaven who bear a distinctly political message: Jesus is king.” • “The division between politics and religion, I dare say, is an ideological ploy.” (14)

12. The context • “Public conversation is ideologically rigged. The secularist can bring his or her god. I cannot bring mine because his name starts with a capital letter and I didn’t make him up.”

13. The context • “To argue that ‘the conscience is entitled to remain free’ is an over-statement. It invests too much authority in the individual. it presumes too much about the rightness of the consciences’ claim. And in the end it will cave in on itself and undermine true religion because it’s accountable to nothing but the whims of whatever ideologies rule the day.” 91

14. The key terms: • Politics: narrowly conceived refers to a society’s governing institutions (which have legitimate authority over a population) • broadly conceived refers to the sense in which all of life is lived within the jurisdiction of God’s comprehensive rule

15. The key terms: • Institutions “tell you how to act, and they give you opportunities to act. They help define relationships, giving them purpose and direction.” (108) • marriage, the handshake, a B&B. • A political institution is one whose reach extends to the whole populace, and is recognised as having a legitimate right to coercive force.

16. How is this helpful?

17. “Think of that phrase of Abraham Kuyper overused by young preachers and bloggers everywhere; ‘There is not a square in the whole domain of our human existence of which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry “Mine.””’ Such a statement rightly affirms the universal nature of Christ’s lordship, but it remains institutionally underspecified.” (26)

18. The biblical covenants • “I will argue that (1) God rules over all humanity after the fall as a king over subjects with the power of the sword, requiring obedience and worship; (2) that he uses covenants to enact and publicise that rule; (3) that he specifically uses the common covenants to command all people everywhere to worship by acting as his image-bearing citizens; and (4) that he specifically uses the special covenants to create a people who will model true citizenship and worship. They key lies in properly relating the common covenants (the covenants with Adam and Noah) and the special covenants (the Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, and new covenants.)” 180

19. The biblical covenants • Adam • Subjects created to be citizens • “Structurally, Adam was to represent, or image God. Inwardly, he was to watch over the Garden since it was where God dwelled, keeping it consecrated to God and free of serpents. Outwardly, he was to work the Garden and push back the borders of Eden” (160) • “Humanity has been given the office of vice-regent or priest-king for the sake of representing God’s own rule throughout creation” (183)

20. The biblical covenants • Noah • Re-states the charge to humanity: • “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.” Gen 9:1.

21. The biblical covenants • Noah • Whoever sheds human blood, • by humans shall their blood be shed; • for in the image of God • has God made mankind. (Gen 9:6) • “These verses obligate all human beings, as a matter of obedience to God, to ensure that a reckoning for crimes against humans occurs. Humans in society must do it because God obligates them to do it. Three times in verse 5 God says “I will require it.” “By token of the obligation, these verses also authorise a human to stand in God’s stead: ‘by man’ shall this ‘reckoning’ be enacted.” (187)

22. The biblical covenants • Noah • “The inevitable and unavoidable implication of these two verses is that groups of people living in society must form or support a government – an orderly set of publically recognised institutional process – in order to employ this God-given justice mechanism justly.” (188) • cf. Bruce Waltke: Gen 9 is “the legislation that lays the foundation for the government by the state”

23. The biblical covenants • Noah • “God lays down his bow of war here and promises to not punish humanity presently for their wickedness as he had done in the flood. But to ensure that social chaos does not ensue, he licenses humans to protect themselves against harm from one another with the justice mechanism. what he specifically does not do in this same moment is authorise humans to prosecute crime (or sin) against him. There is no authorisation to prosecute false worship, idolatry, atheism and so forth, unless of course these ‘upward crimes manifest themselves as crimes against humans.” (198)

24. The biblical covenants • Abraham • “The Abrahamic covenant, in short, promises to create a people, a people who will be God’s treasured possession and who, by following in the Lord’s ways of justice and righteousness, will embody true citizenship and implement a true politics. Through Abraham, the Adamic citizenship mandate was to be put into effect. It was how God’s purposes for Adam were to be fully realised.” (222)

25. The biblical covenants • Abraham • Gen 1:28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number • Gen 9:1 Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number • Gen 17:2,6 “I will make my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers…I will make you very fruitful”

26. The biblical covenants • Israel • “Since God elected Israel to be his model body politic, a priestly kingdom whose citizens were consecrated to him, it is not surprising that God’s law is articulated through the Mosaic covenant at a much deeper and broader level than what the nations as a whole receive… Nor is it surprising therefore that the Mosaic covenant would draw a different jurisdictional line than was drawn by the Noahic covenant, which authorised governments to bring the weight of the sword only for crimes against humans and not for crimes against God. The Mosaic covenant contains provisions for crimes exclusively against God, like idolatry, precisely because this nation was to be set apart as a nation of God’s assenting citizens – his ruled rulers. God’s comprehensive rule was to be demonstrated not at the end of history, when it will become manifest over all the nations at the final judgment, but in the life of Israel now.”

27. The biblical covenants • Israel

28. The biblical covenants • Israel • “Those who possess authority under the common covenants do indeed represent God’s authority but they represent him like a delegate might. God has charged them with fulfilling a certain function, and they will be judged according to whether or not they maintain his standards. But God does not attach his own name to every prince in quite the same way as he does with the people of Israel (and, as we will see, with the church.)” (227)

29. The biblical covenants • David • “The occupant of David’s throne was expected to preeminently embody the values of Sinai, thereby reflecting the kingship of God as God’s preeminent citizen, deputy, vice-regent, son.” (227)

30. The biblical covenants • Prophets

31. The biblical covenants • Prophets • “The new covenant establishes a model body politic – a nation of righteous citizens – for God by solving the self-enthronement and self-justification problems, as well as the objective justice problem.”

32. The biblical covenants • Prophets • “moving from the Mosaic to the new covenant, then, is not about moving from corporate to individual, from obedience-required to no-obedience required, or from political to spiritual. It is about moving from a political life dependent on their own strength to a political life dependent on God’s Spirit: from ‘Circumcise your heart so that you obey’ (Deut10:16) to ‘God will circumcise your heart so that you obey’ (Deut 30:6)” (253)

33. The biblical covenants • Prophets • “Any system that applies or imposes God’s new covenant rule to any person or part of creation that has not been regenerated or renewed by God’s Spirit is theologically naïve and potentially tyrannical…” (261).

34. Political Church in outline • or, 10 Marks of a Political Church…

35. Political Church in outline • The church “is not the kingdom; it is an embassy of that kingdom” What is an embassy: an institution that represents one nation inside another nation.” • “It is not an embassy presenting another nation across geographic space. It represents another nation from across time – from the future. The local church is an eschatological embassy.” (296)

36. Political Church in outline

37. Political Church in outline • What does the church jointly have the authority to do: “preach the gospel, celebrate ordinances, make disciples, exercise the keys, and so on.” • What does the church severally have authority and commission to do: “obey everything Jesus commanded, love one’s neighbour, do good, seek justice, glorify God in all of life and represent Jesus in all of this.” • (381-2)

38. Political Church in outline

39. Political Church in outline • “Jesus does not commission churches to wield the sword and challenge governments directly. But he does commission churches to challenge the idols and false gods that prop up every government and marketplace, whether the gods of the Roman Empire or the gods of the secular West.” • Acts 19: 29: the whole city was in an uproar. • Acts 26:31: “This man is not doing anything that deserves death or imprisonment.”

40. Political Church in outline

41. Political Church in outline • Three biblical grounds of religious tolerance: • 1. The state is not authorised to prosecute false religion or worship, at least until that false religion yields demonstrable harm to human beings. • 2. The new covenant life cannot be coerced, it can only come about by God’s work and human repentance. • 3. It belongs to the institutional church, not the state, to formally distinguish true from false doctrine and true believers from false.

42. Political Church in outline

43. Political Church in outline • questions of clarification?

44. Political Church in review • strengths • my questions • breadths • 4. your questions

45. Political Church in review • strengths

46. Political Church in review • strengths • “The Christian entering the public square has no other standard of justice and righteousness than a biblical one.” 268.

47. Political Church in review • strengths • “Fidelity to Christian Scripture requires that Christians join Polycarp in declaring that Christ is our sovereign.” Nicholas Wolterstorff

48. Political Church in review • strengths

49. Political Church in review • strengths • “Changing the definition of marriage… is not an exercise in human rights and equality. It’s an exercise in de-authorising the Judeo-Christian influence in our society.” (spectator.com.au, 7 September 2017)

50. Political Church in review • strengths