"Politics of Love"
The Kingdom of Self-Emptying Love
Theocracy is in its very essence a politics of love. Love must be the central focus of any attempt to construct a "Christian" view of politics is a common enough assumption.But unless we clearly understand the special biblical sense of love as agape, we are in danger of misrepresenting the true force of biblical theocracy.
God's kingdom is the kingdom of love. We must always keep in mind, though, that the word "love" refers here neither to sentimentality nor to the pleasantries of friendship, but to the creative experience of discovering the powerful powerlessness of self-emptying. Not only does it require us to endure suffering, it also opens us up to the risk of exposing our own hidden hatred, the purging of which is one of the purposes for our suffering. For this reason, apathy is always an easier alternative to choose, though often more destructive than hatred in the long run.
Our model for understanding how to put this politics of love into practise must be the revelation of God's own self-emptying nature in Jesus himself. Ellul regards this as the principal defining characteristic of the biblical concept of God, whose power (even as "King of kings and Lord of lords" [e.g., Rev. 19:16]) is always "a self-limited omnipotence", so that God creates not "by a terrible explosion of power but by the simple Word" [E4:33]. Some defenders of democracy would see this as a justification for the "separation of powers" in a government, perhaps also interpreting Jesus' willingness to empty himself of his divine nature as providing a legitimate basis for emphasizing human rights-i.e., as suggesting that we must stand up for the rights of others, just as God in Jesus stood up for our rights [cf. pp.28-29n]. Along similar lines, Tinder claims that "Christianity ... implies democracy" [T4:178; see also S7:120], arguing that this conclusion follows directly from the Christian principle of agape [T4:175-178]! But a close examination of the relevant biblical passages reveals this to be a gross misinterpretation of the doctrine of divine kenosis (emptying).
A verse that is sometimes quoted out of context for such a purpose is 2 Corinthians 8:9: "though [Christ] was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich." Paul makes this statement in the middle of a passage [8:1-15] in which he is pleading with Corinthian Christians (who were known to have problems misusing spiritual gifts [see 1 Cor. 12-14]) to learn to practise the "gracious work" of giving [2 Cor. 8:7]. Thus, verse 9 is actually making the point that we should follow Jesus' example by willingly giving of our newfound riches so that those who are poor can also become rich enough to practise the grace of giving. Paul's vision is not equality through defending equal rights, but equality through willingly sharing with those in need [8:13-14].
The most explicit "self-emptying" passage [Php. 2:5-11] would also have to be twisted in order to regard it as a pattern for defending anyone's rights. For when Paul says Jesus "did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped [i.e., as a right]" [2:6], he does not go on to say that Jesus then defended the rights of humanity; on the contrary, after emptying himself of his divinity Jesus proceeded to empty himself of his humanity as well, "by becoming obedient to the point of death" [2:8; cf. Y1:241-242]. Indeed, the Bible consistently portrays the incarnation as being motivated not by God's desire to defend human rights, but rather by his desire to show love [see e.g., Jn. 3:16; Rom. 5:6-8]. And if the Bible's message is that we should "have this attitude in [our]selves which was also in Christ Jesus" [Php. 2:5], then this clearly indicates that, as we saw in Chapter Two, the Christian Way is not meant to be one that involves (much less being based on) a defense of human rights. Christians are rather to give up their rights for the sake of loving their neighbor.
We must be careful not to assume, however, that the posture of self-giving love requires a person to have a low self-image. When Jesus gave up his divine rights, he did not give up his own realistic appraisal of his divine value in his heavenly Father's eyes [cf. pp.25-26n]. On the contrary, he must have had a keen awareness of his value as God's Son in order to have the faith to die willingly, trusting God to offer the gift of new life in return [cf. Rom. 1:4]. So also for the Christian, "dying to self" does not imply an attitude of selflessness ("I have no value"), but one of unselfishness ("I ought not to claim any rights as my own"); for if the self we give has little or no intrinsic value, then our self-giving love will not be of any use to the person on the receiving end.
A familiar, though quite controversial, example of such self-emptying love comes in Paul's view of the politics of family relationships, especially the bond of love between husband and wife. Feminists rightly reject the male chauvinism implied in the typical interpretation of Paul's account of the roles of husbands and wives in Ephesians 5:22-33. However, this is largely due to a common misunderstanding of what he means by "love": Paul is not saying that husbands can demand sex from their wives while wives must willingly cook and clean for their husbands! Once we realize that theocratic love requires self-emptying-that, as Paul himself says, a husband loves his wife by "[giving] himself up for her" [5:25]-then the political agreement he is proposing comes to appear, if anything, less "fair" to the husband. For Paul is asking husbands to die to their own self-interests, to seek always to do what is best for their wives. And what wife would complain about "submitting" to such an agreement? The wife is taking a risk, though, because she is supposed to submit even if her husband fails to love her in this way. The effect of Paul's outline for the politics of marriage is to divest the marriage agreement of any claim to "rights" by either partner.
Few would deny that the kingdom of love can be realized in the context of a household, and perhaps even within the family of a healthy church congregation; but can this kingdom really compete with the prevailing kingdoms of fear we see operating in governments, based as they are on worldly politics? On any non-theocratic view of Christian politics, the notion of a "politics of love" would certainly be a contradiction in terms, since love cannot actually be enforced as part of a legal system without destroying the spontaneity that makes it love. Worldly politics usually aims at maximizing the selfish interests of the citizen, whereas love requires us to pay at least as much attention to the interests of our neighbor. Especially in modern democratic and/or capitalist societies, a "politics of love" therefore tends to sound like an impossible dream. Yet this is because we have been blinded by the mediocrity of democratic ideas such as "equal rights" and capitalistic institutions such as "life insurance", which harden our natural impulse to love and fool us into believing selfish politics is a necessary evil. Perhaps a politics of love would not sound so crazy if the modern world had more countries ruled by kings (i.e., by good monarchs with real political power, rather than just figureheads).
In any case, regardless of the nature of our particular political climate, the Bible asks us to believe that as individuals begin, one by one, to live with the love of God in their hearts, then theocracy, the politics of love, will become more and more real. This indeed is the bottom line. Our belief in biblical theocracy stands or falls on whether or not we have the faith to believe in a politics of self-emptying love whose creative power can penetrate even to the darkest domineering powers of worldly politics. "There is no fear in love", so if we really believe "perfect love casts out fear" [1 Jn. 4:18] in our personal relations, then why are we so reluctant to believe the same is true for international relations? Probably the most common excuse is that, although theocracy may be a nice ideal, it is unrealistic and "utopian": it would work only if everyone turned away from sin at the same time and became theocrats all at once. But this is an utter falsehood! As Sider puts it in S2:51, Christians must not be fooled into thinking "that they ought to delay living Jesus' ethic until non-Christians do so. That is to turn New Testament ethics ... on its head. Rather, Christians will by grace model now what they know all people will live when the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our Lord."
Being the only political system really capable of combatting evil without itself becoming evil, biblical theocracy is very much intended to be implemented in the same, sinfilled world into which Jesus Christ was born. But Jesus never said we could submit ourselves to God's rule without great sacrifice. Thus, in order to apply theocracy to international relations, "a nation must", as G.H.C. Macgregor suggests, "be willing, if necessary, to incur the risk of martyrdom by refusing to equip itself against the possibility of aggression." In other words, it must "risk crucifixion" [quoted in A3:64-65; see below, Appendix B]. Indeed, the Bible's insistence on theocratic politics, its consistent vision of a humanity governed by the God-Man, is to be treated as an historical reality in precisely the same sense that Christ's resurrection was a real event in human history. And so Macgregor recognizes that a truly theocratic nation "might lose its own national life; but it would set free such a flood of spiritual life as would save the world." With the prospects of this potentially apocalyptic path to human "progress" in mind, it should come as no surprise that Paul's discussion of death and resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 includes the revelation of the political significance of this pattern: "... then comes the end, when [Christ] delivers up the kingdom to the God and Father, when he has abolished all rule and all authority and power" [15:24].
Perhaps the most appropriate conclusion to a book which presents us with such ominous responsibility, and before which our own Christian walk so often pales in insignificance, is to pray earnestly for help and guidance. For this purpose, I can think of no better model than the prayer Jesus himself suggests in Matthew 6:9-13. When Jesus gives his followers what we now call "the Lord's Prayer", he does not tell them they must recite these very words in order to pray properly. For this would directly contradict what he has just finished saying about the meaninglessness of mere repetition [6:7]. Instead, he asks them to "pray ... in this way" [6:9], knowing that God already knows their needs "before you ask him" [6:8]. And this means he expects them to adapt this model to each situation, praying meaningfully about the concerns gripping their hearts. With humble hearts, let us therefore close this formal study of biblical theocracy by each bringing before God our Father the political powers operative in our own particular city, using the adaptation on the following page to focus our attention on the theocratic implications of Jesus' prayer.
Holy Father, unspeakable name,
Your heavenly kingdom is coming to this earth;
We see it, and so we acknowledge the presence of your perfect will in (name of city) today.
Open our hearts to receive daily the gifts of nourishment from your Spirit.
Forgive our selfish ambition to defend our rights,
Just as we now release from blame those who have hurt us by defending their rights.
Open our eyes to the temptations of the world,
And save us from the political and cultural traps set by the Evil One.
For this earth is your kingdom.
Our power is your power.
Our glory-
What glory can we claim except that which comes from you?
Theocracy is in its very essence a politics of love. Love must be the central focus of any attempt to construct a "Christian" view of politics is a common enough assumption.But unless we clearly understand the special biblical sense of love as agape, we are in danger of misrepresenting the true force of biblical theocracy.
God's kingdom is the kingdom of love. We must always keep in mind, though, that the word "love" refers here neither to sentimentality nor to the pleasantries of friendship, but to the creative experience of discovering the powerful powerlessness of self-emptying. Not only does it require us to endure suffering, it also opens us up to the risk of exposing our own hidden hatred, the purging of which is one of the purposes for our suffering. For this reason, apathy is always an easier alternative to choose, though often more destructive than hatred in the long run.
Our model for understanding how to put this politics of love into practise must be the revelation of God's own self-emptying nature in Jesus himself. Ellul regards this as the principal defining characteristic of the biblical concept of God, whose power (even as "King of kings and Lord of lords" [e.g., Rev. 19:16]) is always "a self-limited omnipotence", so that God creates not "by a terrible explosion of power but by the simple Word" [E4:33]. Some defenders of democracy would see this as a justification for the "separation of powers" in a government, perhaps also interpreting Jesus' willingness to empty himself of his divine nature as providing a legitimate basis for emphasizing human rights-i.e., as suggesting that we must stand up for the rights of others, just as God in Jesus stood up for our rights [cf. pp.28-29n]. Along similar lines, Tinder claims that "Christianity ... implies democracy" [T4:178; see also S7:120], arguing that this conclusion follows directly from the Christian principle of agape [T4:175-178]! But a close examination of the relevant biblical passages reveals this to be a gross misinterpretation of the doctrine of divine kenosis (emptying).
A verse that is sometimes quoted out of context for such a purpose is 2 Corinthians 8:9: "though [Christ] was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich." Paul makes this statement in the middle of a passage [8:1-15] in which he is pleading with Corinthian Christians (who were known to have problems misusing spiritual gifts [see 1 Cor. 12-14]) to learn to practise the "gracious work" of giving [2 Cor. 8:7]. Thus, verse 9 is actually making the point that we should follow Jesus' example by willingly giving of our newfound riches so that those who are poor can also become rich enough to practise the grace of giving. Paul's vision is not equality through defending equal rights, but equality through willingly sharing with those in need [8:13-14].
The most explicit "self-emptying" passage [Php. 2:5-11] would also have to be twisted in order to regard it as a pattern for defending anyone's rights. For when Paul says Jesus "did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped [i.e., as a right]" [2:6], he does not go on to say that Jesus then defended the rights of humanity; on the contrary, after emptying himself of his divinity Jesus proceeded to empty himself of his humanity as well, "by becoming obedient to the point of death" [2:8; cf. Y1:241-242]. Indeed, the Bible consistently portrays the incarnation as being motivated not by God's desire to defend human rights, but rather by his desire to show love [see e.g., Jn. 3:16; Rom. 5:6-8]. And if the Bible's message is that we should "have this attitude in [our]selves which was also in Christ Jesus" [Php. 2:5], then this clearly indicates that, as we saw in Chapter Two, the Christian Way is not meant to be one that involves (much less being based on) a defense of human rights. Christians are rather to give up their rights for the sake of loving their neighbor.
We must be careful not to assume, however, that the posture of self-giving love requires a person to have a low self-image. When Jesus gave up his divine rights, he did not give up his own realistic appraisal of his divine value in his heavenly Father's eyes [cf. pp.25-26n]. On the contrary, he must have had a keen awareness of his value as God's Son in order to have the faith to die willingly, trusting God to offer the gift of new life in return [cf. Rom. 1:4]. So also for the Christian, "dying to self" does not imply an attitude of selflessness ("I have no value"), but one of unselfishness ("I ought not to claim any rights as my own"); for if the self we give has little or no intrinsic value, then our self-giving love will not be of any use to the person on the receiving end.
A familiar, though quite controversial, example of such self-emptying love comes in Paul's view of the politics of family relationships, especially the bond of love between husband and wife. Feminists rightly reject the male chauvinism implied in the typical interpretation of Paul's account of the roles of husbands and wives in Ephesians 5:22-33. However, this is largely due to a common misunderstanding of what he means by "love": Paul is not saying that husbands can demand sex from their wives while wives must willingly cook and clean for their husbands! Once we realize that theocratic love requires self-emptying-that, as Paul himself says, a husband loves his wife by "[giving] himself up for her" [5:25]-then the political agreement he is proposing comes to appear, if anything, less "fair" to the husband. For Paul is asking husbands to die to their own self-interests, to seek always to do what is best for their wives. And what wife would complain about "submitting" to such an agreement? The wife is taking a risk, though, because she is supposed to submit even if her husband fails to love her in this way. The effect of Paul's outline for the politics of marriage is to divest the marriage agreement of any claim to "rights" by either partner.
Few would deny that the kingdom of love can be realized in the context of a household, and perhaps even within the family of a healthy church congregation; but can this kingdom really compete with the prevailing kingdoms of fear we see operating in governments, based as they are on worldly politics? On any non-theocratic view of Christian politics, the notion of a "politics of love" would certainly be a contradiction in terms, since love cannot actually be enforced as part of a legal system without destroying the spontaneity that makes it love. Worldly politics usually aims at maximizing the selfish interests of the citizen, whereas love requires us to pay at least as much attention to the interests of our neighbor. Especially in modern democratic and/or capitalist societies, a "politics of love" therefore tends to sound like an impossible dream. Yet this is because we have been blinded by the mediocrity of democratic ideas such as "equal rights" and capitalistic institutions such as "life insurance", which harden our natural impulse to love and fool us into believing selfish politics is a necessary evil. Perhaps a politics of love would not sound so crazy if the modern world had more countries ruled by kings (i.e., by good monarchs with real political power, rather than just figureheads).
In any case, regardless of the nature of our particular political climate, the Bible asks us to believe that as individuals begin, one by one, to live with the love of God in their hearts, then theocracy, the politics of love, will become more and more real. This indeed is the bottom line. Our belief in biblical theocracy stands or falls on whether or not we have the faith to believe in a politics of self-emptying love whose creative power can penetrate even to the darkest domineering powers of worldly politics. "There is no fear in love", so if we really believe "perfect love casts out fear" [1 Jn. 4:18] in our personal relations, then why are we so reluctant to believe the same is true for international relations? Probably the most common excuse is that, although theocracy may be a nice ideal, it is unrealistic and "utopian": it would work only if everyone turned away from sin at the same time and became theocrats all at once. But this is an utter falsehood! As Sider puts it in S2:51, Christians must not be fooled into thinking "that they ought to delay living Jesus' ethic until non-Christians do so. That is to turn New Testament ethics ... on its head. Rather, Christians will by grace model now what they know all people will live when the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our Lord."
Being the only political system really capable of combatting evil without itself becoming evil, biblical theocracy is very much intended to be implemented in the same, sinfilled world into which Jesus Christ was born. But Jesus never said we could submit ourselves to God's rule without great sacrifice. Thus, in order to apply theocracy to international relations, "a nation must", as G.H.C. Macgregor suggests, "be willing, if necessary, to incur the risk of martyrdom by refusing to equip itself against the possibility of aggression." In other words, it must "risk crucifixion" [quoted in A3:64-65; see below, Appendix B]. Indeed, the Bible's insistence on theocratic politics, its consistent vision of a humanity governed by the God-Man, is to be treated as an historical reality in precisely the same sense that Christ's resurrection was a real event in human history. And so Macgregor recognizes that a truly theocratic nation "might lose its own national life; but it would set free such a flood of spiritual life as would save the world." With the prospects of this potentially apocalyptic path to human "progress" in mind, it should come as no surprise that Paul's discussion of death and resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 includes the revelation of the political significance of this pattern: "... then comes the end, when [Christ] delivers up the kingdom to the God and Father, when he has abolished all rule and all authority and power" [15:24].
Perhaps the most appropriate conclusion to a book which presents us with such ominous responsibility, and before which our own Christian walk so often pales in insignificance, is to pray earnestly for help and guidance. For this purpose, I can think of no better model than the prayer Jesus himself suggests in Matthew 6:9-13. When Jesus gives his followers what we now call "the Lord's Prayer", he does not tell them they must recite these very words in order to pray properly. For this would directly contradict what he has just finished saying about the meaninglessness of mere repetition [6:7]. Instead, he asks them to "pray ... in this way" [6:9], knowing that God already knows their needs "before you ask him" [6:8]. And this means he expects them to adapt this model to each situation, praying meaningfully about the concerns gripping their hearts. With humble hearts, let us therefore close this formal study of biblical theocracy by each bringing before God our Father the political powers operative in our own particular city, using the adaptation on the following page to focus our attention on the theocratic implications of Jesus' prayer.
Holy Father, unspeakable name,
Your heavenly kingdom is coming to this earth;
We see it, and so we acknowledge the presence of your perfect will in (name of city) today.
Open our hearts to receive daily the gifts of nourishment from your Spirit.
Forgive our selfish ambition to defend our rights,
Just as we now release from blame those who have hurt us by defending their rights.
Open our eyes to the temptations of the world,
And save us from the political and cultural traps set by the Evil One.
For this earth is your kingdom.
Our power is your power.
Our glory-
What glory can we claim except that which comes from you?
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