Those Kooky Monarchical Christians!
One would not have to be a reader of this blog for long to realize that I am not a Fundamentalist. Nor do my views on heaven and hell find much in common with Evangelicals. Though at times, my economics may fall into sway with the Christian Right, on other issues they would have very little to do with me. Not even the more general descriptions of Protestant or Catholic would find me fully at home in their environs. I am, in short, a heretic who wanders among the categories.
Therefore, it should come as no surprise that, while doing the research for my review of Jeff Sharlet’s book on The Family that I found much to repel me about that organization. At the same time, I did find some points of agreement. Like the proverbial broken clock, even the Family may be right at least “twice a day.” According to Sharlet:
[The Family] is a lot more militaristic. Really at its fundamental core, almost monarchist. We would be told time and time again, “Christ’s kingdom is not a democracy.” (ALT)
In this assertion, I have to agree: Christianity, rightly understood, is monarchical in nature. Christ proclaimed the Kingdom of God. A Kingdom as such is not a democracy. It is the King that declares the law and enforces the law. It is the king that rules his realm. For Christ, God’s Kingdom was at hand; that meant God was soon to rule his Land and ultimately the entire Earth.
As such, this can only mean that Doug Coe, the leader of The Family, is correct on at least this one point: Christ was a monarchist. Accordingly, to be Christ’s followers, we must be monarchists as well. Nor is this conclusion mine—or Doug Coe’s—alone. For instance, in his blogsite Joe Carter lists this as one of his Six Thoughts About Jesus:
“Jesus is not a Republican or a Democrat,” said John Mark Reynolds, “He’s probably a monarchist.” When I first heard that at GodBlogCon several years ago I thought it was clever; now I find it to be a profound insight. Jesus constantly talked about the Kingdom of Heaven. So why do so few Christians talk about it? One reason, I believe, is that we are now all republicans and democrats (small-R, small-D) and simply don’t understand what Jesus is talking about. We may use the term “Lord” and “King of Kings” but—unlike the vast majority of people throughout history—we do not comprehend what it means to live under the reign of a king. We need some remedial training on how to live as subjects in a kingdom.
As King, God serves as the patron of the Earth, bestowing His favor upon us and expecting a return of status, honor, and public praise (as did all patrons in the ancient world). Also, scripture records that God as Kingly Patron appointed one and only one person to act as His agent, his intermediary, in this world (Mat 28:18). God is on His throne already and Christ is his “right hand man.” (Mk 16:19; Lk 22:69; Acts 2:33, 7:56; Rom 8:34; Eph 1:20; Col 3:1) Scripture describes this as a present, not a future, reality. The Kingdom of God was inaugurated during the life of Jesus, probably starting at the time of his passion but most certainly by the time of his ascension into the sky.
Such would be the unmistakable import of the scriptural witness. God is King now. Christ rules at his right hand now. Ultimately, the world—whatever its appearance—is ruled by a monarchy now. This is the message that the world tries to block out while it crouches in a corner with hands over both ears and a scream in its lungs. For us, there is One God and One Lord. The world is His Kingdom; the peoples of the world are His subjects. We can either be good subjects of that Kingdom or bad subjects, but we cannot escape being subjects.
One can understand why secularists find such an assertion by Christians threatening. One can even understand why religious agnostics like Jeff Sharlet would find this basic message from Doug Coe so alarming. What is confusing to me is that even Christians are embarrassed by this message. Witness Canadian Catholic Christian blogger, Deborah Gyapong, and her response to a recent Canadian Supreme Court Decision.
See, anti-Christian bigotry is fashionable. It’s even been useful in political campaigns to bash those scary Christian conservatives, paint them as theocrats, to portray them as morally equivalent to terrorist jihadists, to call them “anti-Charter” and “anti-Canadian” as Liberals have done in recent federal campaigns. There is a spate of books touting this thesis selling well in the United States and bloggers like Andrew Sullivan refer to Christian leaders as “Christianists” and warn they want to take over and impose a theocracy as dismal as that of the Taliban. These are pernicious misrepresentations at best, outright lies at worst. While there may be the odd kook who wants the return of Old Testament Law, or the ridiculous, tiny but ubiquitous Fred Phelps gang with their hateful messages, these people represent less than a fraction of one one-hundredths of a per cent of Christian believers.
Though Gyapong wishes to defend the Christian community, in the process she perhaps gives up too much. She betrays as much of a revulsion toward what the Reformed call the “crown rights of Jesus Christ” as does Sharlet; the only difference is that Sharlet attaches it to an elite “underground” of Christian political lobbyists and Gyapong applies it to the “odd kook” and “a fraction of on one-hundredths of a percent of Christian believers.” In that, both may be correct, perhaps this is now the position only of the fringe or kook elite. Yet in reading the Bible, it should be the unashamed opinion of the majority.
For Christians, if they proclaim Christ as King (or more properly, the King’s intermediary or right hand man), then to one level or another, they truly must be “theocrats” or “Christianist.” Though they may give sway to the democratic ideas, those ideals must work within the limiting framework (or “frame word“) of the Rule of God over His planet. We may, like Phelps, apply this position incorrectly, but that does not denigrate the fact that this is the position of the New Testament and the Church from the first century onward. The world is already a theocracy.
Yet the Christian theocracy differs from that of the Taliban or the Jihadists in that we would not describe it as “dismal” (though perhaps the same could be said of the Muslim belief about his theocracy as well). Also the methods of “imposing” the theocracy differ. The Jihadist imposes it by warfare of one sort or another. Though Christianity has in the past used such methods, such has never been in accord with its foundational documents. Instead, the Kingdom is not imposed at all. For the Christian, the theocracy already exists. God is already King and Christ already is seated at His right hand. He already has been given all authority in heaven and on earth. One does not impose something that already exists. There is no need to do so. The Kingly rule started during the lifetime of Jesus of Nazareth. All that remains is to proclaim the gospel, the imperial news of Jesus Christ, so that the world will recognize that fact.
In this, the supposed enemies of Christianity and David Coe are correct: Christianity is monarchical in terms of its ultimate view of reality. However, such a viewpoint does not necessarily mean it contends that a monarchy is the only legitimate form of human government. In fact, one may argue otherwise…
More to come..