Thoughts on the Kingdom

Theologians, for better or worse, ride around on bandwagons. Trends in ways of thinking about God ebb and flow depending on contemporary culture and philosophy. This has been true from the beginning of Christian faith, when the early Church Fathers sought to distinguish themselves from Jews, until today, when modern Christian academics seek to take up a relevant theological task in the post-modern world. From Augustinians to Thomists to Barthians and all the rest, patterns emerge in Christianity and believers tend to view their faith, whether consciously or not, according to these modes of thought.

A pattern I’ve noticed more recently in the teaching of my professors, books I’ve read, and conversations I’ve had with brothers and sisters in Christ is the focus on a “Kingdom” perspective. The imagery is based on a biblical and Christ-proclaimed idea -- an idea that is mentioned several dozen times in Matthew’s gospel alone.

I was thinking about the idea of the Kingdom of God this morning and it struck me as strange that such a concept would be popular in today’s theology, let alone the theology of any time period. A “kingdom” is necessarily associated with a monarchy, which tends to go against everything the Enlightenment, democracy, and equality stand for. Furthermore, kingdoms are associated with imperialism, colonialism, and oppression, which are bad things in any society.

In the Old Testament, the idea of a kingdom is a compromise that God makes with the Israelites. The people rebel against the judges’ authority, and God concedes to give them a monarch who will reign over them with a host of heavy burdens and obligations. “And in that day you will cry out because of your king… but the Lord will not answer you in that day” (1 Sam. 8:18). God goes so far as to say that by establishing an earthly kingship, Israel is rejecting Him as their ruler.

Sadly, the earthly kingdoms of the New Testament do not improve much on the idea of the Old Testament monarchy. By the time Christ arrives, the Hebrew kingdoms have been defeated and Roman imperial rule is the norm. The people must pay taxes to Caesar, support Roman troops, and give appropriate honor to the emperor where due. Roman imperialism at the local level is characterized by the megalomania of King Herod in the slaughter of the innocents at the birth of Christ and the injustice typified by Pontius Pilate in the governor’s condemnation of our savior at his death.

Since biblical times, kingdoms haven’t gained a better reputation. The Kingdom of Jerusalem – a government built with the blood of Muslims and Jews during the time of the Crusades – is just one example that comes to mind. Slavery, colonialism, and oppression are aspects of more recent Western kingdoms stemming from countries like Britain, France, and the Netherlands. The devastating effects of these former empires are still being felt in nations of poverty and authoritarianism around the world. In every earthly experience, it seems that “kingdom” has a dreadful connotation.

I wonder, though, if this isn’t exactly the point of Christ’s proclamation of the new Kingdom of God. In theology, there are generally two methods of trying to describe God. The first method is positive in nature – we say that God is omnipotent, God is omniscient, and God is good, for example. The second method, though, is negative – that is, we say what God is not. God is not ignorant, God is not evil, and God is not a created being. In a similar way, our understanding of earthly kingdoms and the evil they often embody might be for us a way of knowing that God’s Kingdom will be much different. While we see injustice taking place in this world, we can be assured that there will no so such trouble when God’s reign is fully realized. While we know that man-led authorities are corrupt and dark, we can trust that the God-led Kingdom is pure and light. Thus, our experiences of kingdom in a fallen humanity point us to the ideal promise of Kingdom in the presence of God.

As believers who live in a time when the idea of monarchy and imperial authority is vastly unpopular, we can have faith that the idea of God’s own Kingdom reign is much different from our human perceptions of government institutions. What a privilege we have to know and to hope that the kingdom of the world will eventually and fully become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and that he shall reign forever and ever. Thus, we can gladly claim a divine ruler over our lives and unashamedly pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”