Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  Acts 1:6-8

Throughout the History of the church there have been times when the church has moved off mission and moved into tyranny.  This has happened when Christians have substituted the Kingdom of God with the Kingdom of humans or fused the two.  Even in the book of Acts, the disciples were yet uncertain how the Kingdom of God was to come when they asked Jesus this question, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

I think it’s hard for humans to grasp that the Kingdom of God is somehow fully other than the nations and reigns of this world.  We have from time to time merged the Kingdom of God with human systems of power. 

Continue reading Christian Nationalism or Mission? →