God's Kingdom -- the Great Divine Clean up
My friend Steve Kindle, in a comment on an earlier post, suggested that we look to Crossan and Borg to get a sense of the context of the Prayer Jesus taught the disciples. The second petition, which we will consider this coming Sunday, speaks of the coming of the kingdom, so that God's will might be done on earth as it has been in heaven.
Looking to John Dominic Crossan for a moment, he writes in his book God and Empire
this of the Kingdom of God:
Looking to John Dominic Crossan for a moment, he writes in his book God and Empire
this of the Kingdom of God:The concern here, according to Crossan, is with changing the way the world runs and works. It puts God's kingdom in opposition to Caesar's. So, what does that mean for us? We don't live in Caesar's kingdom. In fact, at least in theory, it's "we the people" who govern ourselves. It is our kingdom -- so how does that relate to God's kingdom? In what ways are we participating in the transformation of the world in which we live. Calvin would have us live in opposition to the world. Is that what is expected of us? Constantine would have the world define the Kingdom? What is that Jesus wants of us?
"The Kingdom of God" was a standard expression for what I have been calling the Great Divine Cleanup of this world. It was what this world would look like if and when God sat on Caesar's throne, or if and when God lived in Antipas' palace. That is very clear in these parallel phrases of the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6:10: "Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." The Kingdom of God is about the Will of God for this earth here below. That earthly presence agrees, of course, with everything we have seen so far about apocalyptic eschatalogical expectation. It is about the transformation of this world into holiness, not the evacuation of this world into heaven. (God and Empire
Comments
John
America is no closer to the Kingdom than was Rome, the self-satisfaction of American Exceptionalists notwithstanding.
The question is: are we as Christians any closer to the Kingdom?
Regarding your final question: We have so capitulated to Constatinian Christianity that we are now merely a part of the problem; the solution will not come from the church until there is a radical reshaping of our self-understanding. Fortunately, there are signs that it is now underway. "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven!"
What defines "Constantinian Christianity"?
John
In January 313, Constantine legalized Christianity with an edict that read:
let this be so in order that the divine grace which we have experienced in such manifold ways, may always remain loyal to us and continue to bless us in all we undertake, for the welfare of the empire.
David Mc