Worship as Higher Politics

Here's a section from a Christianity Today editorial that says better than I ever could about our need to be the church rater than to control the political system.

"In the heat of partisan politics ... we are tempted to forget that the most potent political act - the one act that deeply manifests and really empowers a 'kind and noble society' - is the worship of Jesus Christ.

In worship we signal who is the Sovereign, not of just this nation, but of heaven and Earth. In worship we gather to be formed into an alternate polis, the people of God. It is here that we proclaim that a new political order - the kingdom of heaven - has been preached and incarnated by the King of Kings, and will someday come in fullness, a fullness to which all kingdoms and republics will submit:

'I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. The city does not need the sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the Earth will bring their splendor into it' (Rev. 21:2, 23-24).

Nearly a quarter of a century ago, just as the Religious Right was blossoming, Richard John Neuhaus put it this way: 'Jesus Christ is Lord. That is the first and final assertion Christians make about all of reality, including politics. Believers now assert by faith what one day will be manifest to the sight of all: Every earthly sovereignty is subordinate to the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. The church is the bearer of that claim.' Theologian Stanley Hauerwas, no political ally of Neuhaus, extended the point in a recent interview: 'Christians' first political responsibility is to be the church, and by being the church they should understand that their first political loyalty is to God, and the God we worship as Christians, in a manner that understands that we are not first and foremost about making democracy work, but about the truthful worship of the true God."

Let us be clear: The Christian citizen of every nation has a moral obligation to engage at some level in that nation's political life. We do not recommend withdrawal from the political arena. We admire especially those whose calling falls in this area—mayors, councilmen, senators, representatives, presidents. Theirs is as noble a calling as that of a plumber or pastor.

But Christians who enter that calling, and those who pray for and work with them, must not forget one thing: where hope for this nation, and the world, really lies, and where that hope is most manifest Sunday by Sunday.

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