There is a growing number of Christians, like me, who sometimes see how unChristlike our government is, whether it be the current administration or past administrations.
I need to be clear here. I am not at all doubting our leaders’ sincerity or allegiance to their faith.
I just believe it often is mistaken and misaligned.
The problem is that there are those of us who see the “good news of Jesus Christ” differently, who see that the character and policies of any administration, from Obama to the Bushes or to Clinton, as un-Christlike, and who believe that any pronouncement of the “good news of Jesus Christ” ought to be accompanied by a people resolved to be like the Christ they profess to follow.
I want to be consistent, though. I am not saying that I believe a country should, or even could, be Christlike because I don’t think that is even possible, nor is it what Jesus ever intended.
Yet, I must ask a question: Does the good news have any real-world influence, or is it just something that guarantees salvation to a future in heaven?
If you haven’t figured it out by now, we have two very different and distinct understandings of what the “good news of Jesus Christ” even is. And it is this difference in understanding that has led to very different ideas about what that means in the world, and then how that ought to be expressed.
Some Christians believe the “good news of Jesus Christ” is the saving work of God through Christ accomplished through the death of Jesus on the cross in order to defeat sin and death, thereby satisfying the wrath of God and granting forgiveness to all who repent and are baptized so that they may go to heaven for eternity in a spiritual afterlife.
The limitation of this understanding of the “good news” is that it does not offer a cohesive moral lens through which to see the world. Because this understanding is largely end-oriented, it is significantly limited in how to view (and relate) to the world presently.
That is why many within this version of the “good news” have adopted the most accessible lens in front of them to understand the world — the Judeo-Christian American lens.
The problem is that the Judeo-Christian American ethic is a mishmash of selective and inconsistent ethics from the Old and New Testaments. And those who see the world through that Judeo-Christian lens seek to impose those values on the governmental system as their ultimate goal, because they believe it is what God has always wanted.
The Judeo-Christian American ethic is believed to be fundamentally and unequivocally Christian by those Christians who use it as their lens, even though its ethics are thoroughly un-Christlike.
There is no such hybrid entity within Christ. And we are mistaken if we believe they are synonymous.
However, there are those, including me, who believe that the “good news of Jesus Christ,” which Jesus and Paul referred to as the “good news of the Kingdom of God,” is an entirely different nation and citizenship without boundaries or divisions or hierarchies, and whose values look exactly, and consistently, like the king in this kingdom — Jesus.
Jesus isn’t simply a means to an end. Jesus is the means and the end. Jesus isn’t just good for getting to heaven. Jesus is the template and the lens by which we pattern our lives and through whom we see all things.
The good news of the Kingdom of God stands in sharp contrast to the selective and inconsistent morality of the Judeo-Christian American lens.
For example, when we say “pro-life,” we believe that God loves all life from womb to tomb, not just in the womb, because that is what Jesus taught and what Jesus embodied. The good news of the Kingdom of God is that all people are loved and worthy.
And in this Kingdom, like Jesus, one does not see enemy-combatants or people worthy of death row or illegal aliens or garbage human beings or humans referred to as animals. We simply see people who are made in the image of God and loved by God. We see, like Jesus, people whom we are to love with our heart, mind, body and soul.
Let me give another example to illustrate the profound difference between the two lenses.
A Pew Research article posted on May 24 looked at whether or not the United States has a responsibility to accept refugees.
Of every single demographic analyzed in the study, from age to gender to class to ethnicity to education level, the groups most against the United States accepting refugees were the white Protestant evangelicals at nearly 70 percent, and white Protestants at 50 percent.
The people of Jesus. The people of compassion. The people who have become the very “body of Christ” in the world. The people of the “good news.” The people who are to see others as Jesus sees them, is the single demographic most against accepting and helping a refugee.
When a Christian religion adopts a lens — a lens through which to view the world — that is in stark contrast to the lens of Jesus, this is exactly what we end up with. Whether or not one breaks an American law, whether or not a person deserves the help, whether or not the person comes from another country or not, the good news of the Kingdom of God welcomes in and cares for the foreigner, the outcast and those pushed to the edges of society.
The good news of the Kingdom of God has deep compassion for the poor seeking a better life, for those being hunted and killed by their own domestic oppressors, and for those seeking religious asylum from violent regimes. A people who understands the good news of the Kingdom of God is not singularly concerned about preaching the self-sacrificing Christ.
We are resolved to pattern our lives after, and see the world through, the self-sacrificing Christ.
That’s the difference.
Brandon Andress of Columbus is a former local church leader, a Christian book author, a current iTunes podcast speaker and a contributor to the online Outside the Walls blog. He can be reached at his website, brandonandress.com.
