dominion theology

Thinking about this subject more last night while I walking the dog.

In addition to the example of Christ refusing earthly dominion over the nations when Satan offered it to him, and in addition to the clear teachings of Christ that his kingdom is "not of this world" and manifests itself within people's hearts (as opposed to their legal, economic or political systems), we also have the account of the Israelites.

For those not familiar with the establishment of the Davidic dynasty in Israel, essentially the Jews were upset that while other nations had a king, the closest thing they had was a crazed lunatic who lived in a cave and came out every now and then to rout the Phillistines.

When they requested to go from a theocracy to a monarchy, the Bible says that God grew angry with the people, that their request for a king was a rejection not of the judge Samuel but of God himself. I would posit that this was so -- even when the king was faithful to God, as Saul initially was, and as kings like David and Hezekiah generally were -- because the nation was putting its trust in something tangible and "real," rather than in an unseen deity.

That's often the same pit Christians fall into when we start relying on political means to improve society or to stave off something we consider sinful. The idea is that if abortion is outlawed, if gays are not afforded special protection, if school-sponsored prayer is allowed again, somehow our nation will be more godly and a better place to live.

That is, of course, utter nonsense. We're relying on external criteria to measure what only God can perceive, because he weighs our hearts and that is where he jduges. When we focus on bringing those external appearances into conformance with our expectations instead of dealing with the underlying problem -- people are disconnected from God -- we sell our soul for a misplaced relevance, and lose the moral and spiritual authority the church has.

Our responsibility as Christians is to model Christ's character. That means bringing people to him through sharing the gospel, through feeding the poor, through visiting those who are sick or in prison, through clothing the naked, and generally coming to the aid of those in need.

If we do that, we're going to see a lot of changes happen in our society whether we engage in political activism or not. I would contend that we would in fact see more changes because people would be seeing the gospel being lived out all around them instead of listening to well-paid, finely dressed lobbyists who claim to represent the disadvantaged. More than that, when the church gets into the streets of the cities and engages the people there, they change: crime drops, drug use drops, recidivism drops, and so on.

Sometimes being a watchman simply means making people see what they don't want to. Wasn't it William Booth who forced England to see the illegal traffic in children by carefully documenting the steps he took to buying a child to have sex with him? He personally didn't engage in any political manuevering, but England changed pretty dramatically overnight.

That, I think, is how we're supposed to treat the ailments that sin has afflicted our world with. We get involved in people's lives and get them to see the abhorrence of what they're doing. Abortion will drop much faster if only one in ten people who claim to be pro-life takes in a teenager in crisis pregnancy or pledges to take financial responsibility a child of a woman who "can't afford to have a baby," than if we continue to lobby Washington to rewrite the nation's abortion laws.