On this, the Lord’s Day, Sunday 10 September 2023, we pause to reflect on the purpose of our blog, “Recovenanting America;” to restate its purpose and its parameters, and hopefully to generate a bit of discussion about the project it represents. This term “project” is important because, in our conception, Christianity itself is a project. It is a socio-political project even as it is a “religious” project: the two are inextricably intertwined. Christianity is a many-splendored thing; in our focus on the socio-political parameters of the Christian project, we by no means should be thought to discountenance its more spiritual dimensions of mystical relationship to God (without which its socio-political dimensions would be enervated), the various healing practices of Christianity (including, quelle horreur!, exorcism), prayer and certain ritual elements, to name some of its more significant “spiritual” elements. What we do decry is the argument that only these more “spiritual” aspects of Christianity constitute its nature, and that socio-political matters are rather meant to be “given unto Caesar.” It is true enough that the official church has often enough unwisely followed this theological track, but it is our contention that this has constituted a fatal error, one which it is our mission here to help correct.
At the risk of oversimplifying, it might be useful to think of Christianity as a three-tiered structure. On its highest level we observe “spiritual” elements such as those mentioned in the previous paragraph. At a middling level we find Christian morality, that moral code Christianity inculcates amongst its members. But there is a lower tier, too ,which is the politico-economic framework within which Christianity operates, and must therefore to a reasonable extent be informed by it. We cannot repeat too often that the core message of the gospel, that which constituted the “good news,” was the announcement of imminence of the Kingdom of God. Nor can we overstate the importance that by the very fact of its being a “kingdom,” it undeniably connoted a political dimension. As we have explored in previous writing here, this idea of a Kingdom of God had historical resonance for Jesus’ Jewish audience to whom he first deliberately preached it. Whether this history of a pre-monarchical theocracy is accurate or putative need not concern us – it was accepted as valid by his countrymen and this is all that matters. The Kingdom of God is understood, then, as a political arrangement in which God rules directly, through the hearts and minds of his people, rather than human rulers. It’s as simple as that. If we candidly reflect on it, we will come to see that the Decalogue which provided the Law to which all the people adhered (and to which Jesus makes frequent reference) as a matter of their covenant with their God, represented a kind of “constitution” whose purpose was to preserve a certain social peace and order in the absence of direct human government. And this was only possible because this covenant also included a concomitant subdivision of the means of production and reproduction amongst the people, such that each was guaranteed a fair share, a sufficiency, of both.
In part 2 of this thread we’ll undertake a deeper examination of these imperative preconditions for the full rule of God. Suffice it to say for now that whilst some higher-tier aspects of Christianity may transcend our understanding, in that God’s own will, purpose and action are involved, and we simply serve as His supplicant vehicles, in this lower tier of socio-political ramifications of the Christian project a complete understanding is indeed possible (and urgently overdue), because here the subject is ourselves and our own social organization under the inspiration of God and His Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, whose updated and reinaugurated Divine plan for human social existence is still on offer. Sadly, we Christians have yet to come close to implementing it to any significant degree, but that, dear readers, is the challenge that remains to all of us today.
Good read; Thanks. I am reminded of many references Jesus made that had a dual meaning, put hypocrites in a quandary and challenged the status quo, such as “let those among you without sun cast the first stone”. Also like unto, “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s; which. Hold be “nothing”, given the earth is the Lord’s, the fullness thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein...” “Judge not that yea be not judged” is also be challenged as to a meaning contrary to a nominalist interpretation. Keep up the good work, much appreciate your addressing the vital political-economic aspect of Christs true mission.