My Life and Books (8) Political Power

In the modern world, most authority is political. Human political institutions exercise immense authority. There are very few limits on their authority. The coming of the Kingdom of God means a huge authority shift, so it will bring enormous changes to systems of politics and government.

I worked for thirty years on the edge of the government system, close enough to see how politics works, but not close enough to be distracted by power. I learned a great deal from this experience. I always understood that political power has a significant influence on the functioning of society, but my book on this topic was the most difficult to write, because there were so many things that I needed to understand.

Government is a process for exercising authority over society. Politics is a tool for deciding who should have authority to control people. The basic questions of political theory are:

• How should humans govern themselves?

• Who should have authority in society?

• How should authority be exercised?

• What gives governments the authority to make people do things against their will?

Authority is at the heart of all these questions. Of course, the Kingdom of God provides a radically different answer to them.

A kingdom is a system for exercising authority and Jesus came proclaiming a new kingdom. The coming of the Kingdom of God requires a radical shift in authority, so it will have a dramatic impact on politics and government.

It took me a long time to work out what the impact would be. Over several decades, God showed me the answers to the problems of politics, but I was totally surprised by where he led me. I had a lot of hurdles to overcome, and some false thinking to let go. In the following posts, I will describe some of these surprises.

When I first started worrying about the problems of the world, I had faith in political power. When I became a follower of Jesus, I believed that God’s people could use political power to establish his Kingdom on earth. I studied economics, political science and theology to learn how political power could be used to advance God’s purposes in this nation.

At first, I assumed that it was fine to force people to do things provided that the things they are being forced to do are good. The problem with this approach is that people have different ideas about what is good, and power cuts both ways. If it is acceptable for Christians to force people to do things that they do not want to do, then we accept that other groups who gain political power can force us to do things that we don’t want to do.

Early on, I became worried about the conflict between human freedom and political power. I noticed that people who want to change the world choose politics as a vehicle for their aspirations, because politics has the power of coercion.

Whatever they want to achieve, whether it is elimination of poverty, making business easy, or improving education, they want to force other people to change, and they hope to make other people pay for it.

If these people chose any other vehicle to advance their cause, they could only make suggestions, and they would have to pay for the change themselves, or persuade others to pay for what they do. This always seems too hard, so politics is the preferred option for people who want to change the world.

Political power forces people to do things that they don’t want to do, which is a limitation of human freedom. I noticed that people say that they are going into politics to serve, but you cannot really say that you are serving people if you want to make them do things, or want to spend their money on things they do not want.

I tried to resolve this dilemma by relying on democracy to provide legitimacy. I decided that if Christians could gain a majority in a free election, they could legitimately use the power gained to force their values on the rest of society. I accepted that Christians would have to preach the gospel and win the hearts of the majority before they could gain sufficient political power to establish the Kingdom of God on earth.

The victory of the gospel has not happened, and it is just as well because that failure has proved the weakness in my argument. Christians are now a minority in many democracies. They don’t like it when other groups use the political power that they have gained to impose their standards on us. What is sauce for the goose is sauce of the gander. If we believe that it is acceptable for Christians to impose their standards on society if they win power in an election, then it is acceptable for other groups that gain power to do the same to us if their values are hostile to God.

It gradually became clear to me that the power of democracy is a two-edged sword. If it is legitimate for democracy to be used to advance the Kingdom of God, it can just as easily be used to oppose it and to harm followers of Jesus. I eventually came to the conclusion that if we are serious about the Kingdom of God and the gospel that sets people free, we have to give up seeking political power. That is a step that most Christians are reluctant to take, but it is absolutely essential if we are serious about bringing in the Kingdom in God’s way.

Once I understood the hazards of political power, I quickly noticed that Jesus refused to use political power to advance the Kingdom of God.

Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that (Luke 22:25-26).

Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place” (John 18:36).

Jesus refused to use political power to advance God’s work.

Once I realised that Jesus rejected political power, I came to understand that the spiritual powers of evil have used political power to increase their authority on earth. By attacking, manipulating and controlling political leaders, they gain far more power than they can get by possessing an individual person. Political spirits and government spirits have used political authority to leverage their power on earth, despite their terrible defeat on the cross. Those who try to use political power to do good unwittingly submit to the spiritual powers that control the political position they are seeking to use to accomplish good. Evil cannot be used to do good.

One of the biggest obstacles to the Kingdom of God is that most Christians still believe in political power. They disagree about how it should be used, but they believe that getting the right people into political power and changing laws in the right way is the key to advancing the Kingdom of God. This false belief has enabled the spiritual powers of evil to exercise power on earth way beyond their use-by-date, and the kingdom has not got any closer. If we are serious about the Kingdom of God, we must renounce political power.

Poltical Power (3) Prime Minister

Many cabinet ministers would like to become the Prime Minister. They believe that this would give them real power. Unfortunately, the prime minister has far less power than they expect. The Prime Minister does not have a government department to carry out their wishes. They have assigned all of them out to the members of their cabinet. They depend on them to carry out the party’s political promises.

A few cabinet ministers will be really effective and get their plans implemented. A few will be incompetent, and the rest will be mediocre, because they have been given a task they have never done before. The inevitable consequence is that most of the party’s plans do not get implemented.

The main thing the Prime Minister has to do is to identify early the cabinet ministers that are incompetent, and get rid of them before they do too much harm. They have to watch for disasters emerging and shut them down before they get out of control.

The other task that the Prime Minister has to do is to communicate to the public and explain to them what the government is doing. They have to be doing this constantly ready for the next election. Prime Ministers cannot do things themselves. They have to persuade others to do the things they want done. That is not easy.

Political Power (1)

People who pursue political power often find it is an illusion. Here is how it work in my country, the names are different, but the roles are similar in other countries.

Members of Parliament
Members of Parliament have very little power and influence. They have to vote in the way that their party tells them to vote.

If they want to get ahead, they need to compromise, do deals, and support proposals they do not like for the sake of party unity. They go along to get on. By the time they get to a position of power or responsibility, they are usually so compromised that they cannot go back to the way that they were when they started.

Most MPs want to become cabinet minister, because they assume that this will bring them real power. Unfortunately, it does not. They do not get to choose their portfolios. They get the one they given, not the one they might want or the place where they want to have an influence.

US Church and Political Power

Political power is dangerous for the church.

• During the 1960s and 70s, Christians felt declining influence on their society. The Supreme Court was making changes that they did not. The judicial decision emerged out of the 1960s moral revolution.

• The Republican Party needed the evangelical vote to win power at the federal level, especially the presidency. Conservative Christians were essential for the election of Reagan and the Bushes.

• The Republican Party used wedge issues (like abortion, gay rights, euthanasia, death penalty) to bring evangelical voters over to their side, although they were not serious about doing anything about them. (Trump has actually done stuff for them, unlike Reagan and the Bushes).

• Evangelicals sold out their integrity to gain power. They gave the Republican party their loyalty in return for some scraps of political power. The moral/social decline has continued unabated, because the underlying cultural changes have had a much greater influence.

• The wedge issues were crucial to these Christians, because believed that they bring the wrath of God on the nation, and it will lose God’s blessing. This is not true. Judging by Jesus’ teaching, God cares more about unrighteous wealth and hypocritical religion that puts impossible legal burdens on people more than he does about the wedge issues.

• Appointing conservative judges pleases conservative politicians but is irrelevant to Christian who believe that salvation by law does not work, because only God can change hearts.

• Political power became a trap for the church. To maintain their grip on power, the church has had to compromise its moral standards and support a man who is immoral, by the church’s standards.

• The church’s moral compromise for the sake of political power undermines the gospel, because people’s trust in the integrity of the church is weakened.

• Like Samson and the Philistines, the political church and the conservative political powers will eventually undermine and destroy each other.

Political Power

In an article on the US Presidential election, Brandon Colbert wrote,

Progressive evangelicals often are the ones who like to talk about the significance of living in a post-Christendom context. Whereas, the religious right clings to the idea that specifically Christian values and ideas can be imposed on the rest of society with the help of government, progressive evangelicals point out that that quest is misguided, at best, and damaging to the church, at worst.

This is correct, but he should not have stopped there. Progressive evangelicals also want to impose Christians values on the rest of society with the help of the government. The only difference is that they want to impose a different set of values.

Attempting to agree on values will not help. Rather, we must give up trying to impose our values on society using the power of government.

Serving society by living our values is the better way.

Second Tempatation

The tempter showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world (Luke 4:5-7). This was a very tempting offer, because it would give Jesus political control over the world. If he had political control he could force everyone on earth to obey God. He would control all the armies of these kingdoms. He could use this political and military power to establish God’s kingdom on earth.

Jesus rejected this temptation. His kingdom cannot be established by him taking control of the kingdoms of the world. He is not interested in using their power to accomplish God’s purposes.

Jesus’ Kingdom is a totally different from every other kingdom. It is based on free authority and voluntary obedience to the Holy Spirit within Kingdom Communities that provide all the services that human governments promise to provide, but never do.

Unfortunately, this temptation is still strong. Many Christians want to take control of the kingdoms of the world and use their power to establish the God’s kingdom (or get rid of evil). This has been tried many times, but it cannot work, because the Holy Spirit will not use political and military power to accomplish his purposes. Jesus Kingdoms based on love and loyalty. The Holy Spirit flees from political and military power, wheres the spiritual powers of evil are drawn to it.

There is no point in trying to control the kingdoms of the world, because when we do that we end up being manipulated by the political-spirits and government-spirits that manipulate and control them.

The tempter was honest about this problem when tempting Jesus. He offered the kingdoms of the world, but the price was bowing down to the political-spirits and government-spirits that control them. This is a two-for-one package. Those who gain control over the kingdoms of the world find themselves manipulated and controlled by powerful political-spirits and government-spirits.

Some Christians want Jesus to surrender to the second temptation when he returns at the end of the age. They want him to use political and military power to establish his rule over the earth. People who want this do not understand his ways.

The truth is that as the gospel advances, the kingdoms of the world will collapse under the weight of their own failure and their flesh will be eaten by the birds of the air. Those who are back them have chosen the wrong horse.

Those who follow Jesus will have obeyed the Holy Spirit to form Kingdom Communities that bring justice, peace and plenty without the need for political and military power (see Government of God). As the kingdoms of the world collapse and wither away, kingdom communities will multiply and shine like the sun.

Political Power

Political theology has many problems, but the biggest is that political power is used by the spiritual powers of evil to leverage their power to maintain control over nations and cities. Once a political leader submits to a political-spirit, it has authority over all the people in the city or nation that are submitted to the politician(s). By manipulating a single political leader, a government spirit or political spirit can control a city or nation.

Politics relies on coercion and force. The spiritual powers love coercion and force and are drawn to them. The Holy Spirit avoids them. So wherever, coercion and force are at work, the Holy Spirit is absent, and the spiritual powers of evil are all over them.

The spiritual powers of evil use various hooks to seduce political leaders. They use finance and debt to manipulate some politicians. They often use a love of power to control the political leader. Some are seduced by sexual power. Some get to enjoy controlling other people. Others are taken in by pride. Often the spiritual powers of evil use more than one of these hooks.

These hooks are techniques that the spiritual powers of evil power use to gain control of political leaders, but they are not the real problem. If we get focussed on any of them, we will miss the point. The underlying problem with political power is the politicians and rulers are manipulated by government-spirits and political-spirits.

Voting for Principalities and Powers

When the people of a city or nation submit to their political leaders, they give them authority over their lives. If the powers of evil get to control the people at the top of the political hierarchy, they gain authority over all the people submitted to them. Concentration of political power leverages the authority of the powers of evil.

The spiritual powers that control political leaders are called “principalities and powers” in the Bible (Eph 1:21). Some, like Prince of Persia, take the name of their nation (Dan 10:20). They have immense authority on earth, despite their defeat on the cross, because people submit to the leaders controlled by them. Political leaders have legal authority over their people, so attacking them gives the principalities and powers control over cities and nations.

Focussing on individual people is a very inefficient way for the powers of evil to use their shrinking power. If an evil spirit gains control over one person, it can make that person’s life miserable, but that is all. By getting control over a political leader, the same spirit can make an entire nation miserable. The powers of evil amplify their power by attacking people with political authority.

The power of evil is mostly an illusion, but concentrating on a few powerful people has allowed the forces of evil to magnify their pathetic power. Controlling human political power has amplified their authority out of proportion to their strength.

In the modern world, political power has been centralised and consolidated as never before. The leader of a modern democratic nation has greater power and authority than an emperor in Old Testament times, because they can control every aspect of life in their city or nation. This gives the principalities and power that control nations immense power.

When we vote, we submit to the political powers of our nation. We are saying to them, “You can rule me and the rest of the nation”. At the same time, we are legitimising the power of the principalities and powers that control them, which gives them authority in our lives. Voting gives them power.

I refuse to submit to the principalities and powers that control this nation, by voting for the political leaders that they manipulate and control.

Political Power

Christians are ambivalent about political force and power.

• They want a political force to control bad people. They want people to be forced to do the right thing.

• Christians do not want the political powers telling them how to live. They do not want to be forced to do things that are contrary to the gospel.

• Because political power is so influential, Christian want to be involved in its exercise. They believe that they can use political power to do good.

• When Christians get involved in politics, they are often ignored, because they are not tough enough to get things done.

• When Christians get involved in political power, they often get corrupted by it. To get things done, they have to use manipulation and intimidation.

We need a new society that does not depend on political power. I describe how this can happen in Government of God.

Wrath (4) Political Powers

In his letter to the Romans, Paul explains that the political powers are “Agents of Wrath” (Rom 13:4). This should change the way that we think about them. God might use them from time to time, but the principalities and powers that control the political powers are intent on evil. This is why the proverb warns,

A king’s wrath is a messenger of death (Prov 16:14).

We need the gospel and local judges applying God’s law, so that the agents of Wrath do not get hold in our society (Rom 13:5).

Shisak the ruler of Egypt was controlled by Wrath.

My wrath will not be poured out on Jerusalem through Shishak (2 Chron 12:7).

It is terrible to live in an empire whose ruler is controlled by Wrath.

Daniel described an evil political leader who will emerge during a time of distress on earth. He will do terrible evil on earth, because he is controlled by Wrath. When he is disturbed.

He will go forth with great Wrath to destroy and annihilate many (Dan 11:44).

Political powers are dangerous because they are often controlled by Wrath.