It is not hard to find support for the idea that the Bible intersects politics. What is difficult, however, is to find any consensus on what the political implications of the Bible properly are. A wide spectrum of possibilities offer themselves regarding the potential relationship between religion and government:

• Liberation theology argues that the gospel demands active opposition to social, economic, and political oppression, especially on behalf of the poor. It reads the Bible through the lens of the marginalized, emphasizing prophets’ denunciations of injustice and Jesus’ ministry to the poor. Liberation theologians contend that the church should participate in transforming unjust structures as part of its mission.
• The presently much-discussed term “Christian nationalism” itself represents a wide spectrum of different views, not one united program. Some CN folks merely want “Biblical values” to influence government policy. Ah, but which “Biblical values” take precedence — compassion for the foreigner, restrictions against homosexual behavior, …? Other folks want explicitly Christian governments to overtly support the cause of the church, the Kingdom of God, and/or the gospel. But again, each those things can mean drastically different things among people who identify as Christian.
• Perhaps ironically, a Biblical worldview also undergirds the essential values of modern Western secularism (at least arguably so), e.g.: universal human dignity (imago dei), freedom of conscience (e.g. Rom 14), and the fact that genuine salvific faith (Heb 11:1) and a moral heart/lifestyle (Mt 5-6) can never be merely expressions of external coercion. Such considerations lead some to the conclusion that secular government is not merely something Christians can accept, but indeed the best correct path to intentionally pursue, while each then lives out his particular faith within that secular context.
• Historic Christian Imperialism can be distinguished from modern, post-Westphalian Christian Nationalism. While many Catholic and Orthodox folks long for the good ole days of Christian emperors serving as benefactors to the church in Europe and Byzantium (again a non-uniform arrangement), even some Protestants see benefit in such a system wherein a federation of diverse nations are united in the Christian cause rather than each seeking its own “name.”

Count me among those who consider Joshua 5:13-14 to be a locus classicus in the formulation of a healthy political theology:

When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” And he said, “No; but I am the commander of the army of the LORD. Now I have come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, “What does my lord say to his servant?”

God is on God’s side. That’s the first thing to keep in mind.

Further, Christ’s people are a body of worshippers from every tongue, tribe, and nation (Rev 5:9; 7:9). He already inaugurated a polity called the “Kingdom of God”/”Kingdom of Heaven,” so any political institutions we attach the label “Christian” to are not only automatically, a-priori distinct from the KoG, but indeed (at very least) risk being or becoming a rival entity to it!

When I survey King Jesus’ teachings regarding His own Kingdom, which indeed was a central focus therein, and see what He and His personally-trained apostles modelled in their own lives and ministry, it just doesn’t appear to me that leveraging the political mechanisms of this world was a proactive focus, if even a concern at all. Sure, when you are “dragged before governors and kings” bear faithful witness to them (Mt 10:18), like Jesus and Peter and Paul did when arrested¹! But meanwhile the Kingdom of God foretold in Daniel 7 (cf. Rev 10-14) has its own eternal global agenda which rises above the particular ragings of this and that temporal, limited, beastly kingdoms of the present world. The politics of Christ’s very own kingdom wean us from being en-amour-ed with the politics of this world.

1. Arrests and being dragged before authorities does indeed tend to happen when you do the rest of the Matthew 10 stuff, like public proclamation of a rival kingdom which boasts greater authority than Caesar. ↩︎