Should Christians be the most powerful people in the world?
On facebook this morning I took a line I’d crafted related to recent thinking on gender issues and reworked it. Here’s the original line, taken from a paper I wrote Monday about much of the Church’s teaching on gender and sexuality:
Men are domineering leaders who, through sheer expression of their potency, conquer hostility in the marketplace and reluctance in the bedroom, bringing forth a dual harvest of subservient wealth and children as their enduring legacy.
Personally, I don’t believe this is what it means to be an authentic man, but, unfortunately, many Christian men and women do (including many pastors). I think their belief betrays a fundamental error about the nature of Christian power in general and the nature of Christ’s power in particular.
So, today, while thinking of the recent idiocy surrounding the so-called Ground Zero Mosque (which, is an imaginary figment of right-wing propaganda), I took that line and reworked it:
Christians are domineering leaders who, through sheer expression of their potency, conquer hostility in the world and reluctance in the heart, bringing forth a dual harvest of subservient nations and converts as their enduring legacy.
Obviously, I don’t believe this is true either, but I think it is what many Christians believe – that the consequence of Christ’s victory on the cross is that Christians should come to rule in this present age, whether that be through governmental power (i.e. the Religious Right), cultural power (entertainment media), commercial power (business success and dominance), or familial power (husband/wife, parent/child). For me, the very nature of the gospel, and especially Christ himself, speak directly to these issues in a remarkably clear way.
Then in the comments, Jonathan Brink asked me a provocative question:
Jason, how would you say that to my 8 year old son?
Hmm. Good question. I took Jonathan’s prompt and asked my own 9 year-old daughter, Alannah:
“Alannah, I have a question for you. I have a friend who says that being a Christian means we should be the most powerful people in the world. What do you think?”
“What? Who’s this friend?”
“Oh, just someone I know on the internet.”
“Um, No.”
“No? Why not?”
“Well, first of all, I know some people say that we should make everyone Christians, but I don’t think so. I think if you’re Jewish or whatever, that’s not wrong. It’s not wrong to be Jewish. And, if we had all the power that would ruin everything! I mean, the only one who should have all the power is God. That way we would all have a leader.”
Wow. She covers alot of ground in that answer. Freedom, power, evangelism, and a sense of God that transcends religion. You can tell Alannah had thought about this before my question. We continued our conversation. I wanted to share with her my own thoughts about how Jesus exercised power in a surprising and truly revolutionary way, and how his life informs and empowers his followers’ recapitulation of that same pattern.
But what do you think? How should Christians wield power? Can they? What ought to be the power relationship between ourselves and non-Christians? Or between us and other family members? Between men and women, parents and children? Or between Christians and the State?
>>the consequence of Christ’s victory on the cross is that Christians should come to rule in this present age
Personally, I always thought Post-Millenialism was rather at odds with reality. Never could buy into it.