The Myth of a Christian Religion Read online

  I’m married to my wife only because I’m willing to act on my beliefs by pledging my life to her and living faithful to this pledge every day of my life. This doesn’t mean my marriage is based on “works,” as though I had to earn my wife’s love every day. Rather, living faithful to my vows is simply what it means to be married.

  In the same way, we need to believe certain things to be Christian. We must accept that Jesus exists, for example, and that God will faithfully keep his word. But merely believing these things doesn’t make us “the bride of Christ.” These beliefs are the precondition for a marriage-like relationship with God, but they are not themselves the relationship.

  We become the “bride of Christ” only when we act on our beliefs by pledging our lives to him and living faithful to that pledge every day. This doesn’t mean we’re saved by “works,” as though we had to earn God’s love. Rather, living faithful to one’s pledge to God is simply what it means to be married to him. It’s what it means to submit to God’s reign. It’s what it means to belong to God’s Kingdom.

  And as we do this, we increasingly look like Jesus.

  Over the last several years the media has coined the term red-letter Christians to refer to believers who believe they’re supposed to obey Jesus’ teaching and live as he lived. (Some Bibles print Jesus’ words in red—hence the term red letter). What we’ve seen so far is that there is, in reality, no other kind of Christian. Obeying what Jesus taught and living as he lived is simply what the term “Christian” means. 3

  EXPERIENCING KINGDOM LIFE

  Living under the reign of God, as modeled by Jesus, is as contrary to the ordinary way of doing life as anything could be. It’s far more radical and countercultural than most people realize, so much so that it would be impossible for someone to live this way by their own power. This brings us to the center of what the Kingdom is all about.

  I’ve said that the Kingdom is not primarily about beliefs, for by definition it redefines how we live. But this doesn’t mean the Kingdom is primarily about how we live. Rather, the reign of God redefines how we live because it does something even more fundamental within us: it gives us a whole new kind of Life. (Throughout this book I’m going to capitalize Life when referring to this new kind of Life in order to distinguish it from mere biological or social life.)

  When we submit to the reign of God by pledging our life to him, he gives us eternal Life. This Life participates in the beautiful Life of God. It is the abundant Life Jesus said he came to give us. It ’s the only kind of Life that satisfies our inner most need to experience profound love, worth, significance, and security. It’s the Life we were created to share with God.

  The Kingdom is about living in a radically new way only because it’s first and foremost about participating in a radically new kind of Life. Followers of Jesus live and love like Jesus only because they participate in the fullness of Life Jesus unleashed into the world. Every Christlike thing Kingdom people do simply manifests the Life of Jesus that Kingdom people participate in.

  GIANT JESUS

  New Testament writers express the truth that the Kingdom is about participating in the Life of God by referring to Jesus followers as “the body of Christ.”

  Jesus acquired an ordinary body when he was born in Bethlehem, but now he has acquired a collective body with the Church. 4 The Church is his hands, mouth, and feet operating in the world today. The same Life that was in his first body is in us, his second body. And we who belong to this second body take our marching orders from the same “head” as Jesus’ first body.

  This is why Luke begins his work on the history of the early church by reminding his readers that in his earlier written Gospel he “wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven” (Acts 1:1). To say that Jesus “began” to do certain things in his incarnate form implies that Jesus is now continuing to do certain things in a corporate form—through his Church. In Luke’s mind, his Gospel was about what Jesus did through his first body, while the book of Acts is about what Jesus continued to do through his second, corporate body.

  In other words, Luke sees the Church as a sort of giant Jesus. And this giant Jesus is still ministering to the world today.

  In the book of Acts you can also see that Jesus identified with his corporate body. When Jesus knocked Paul off his horse on the road to Damascus, he identified himself as “Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:4). Since Jesus had ascended to heaven several years earlier, how could Paul be persecuting him? Clearly, he was doing so by persecuting the Church. Jesus apparently considered whatever happened to the Church as happening to him. Pain inflicted on his Church is pain inflicted on his body, as much as when spikes were driven into his hands and feet on Calvary.

  The call to imitate Jesus is not something people are to carry out by their own efforts. Rather, it’s the call to yield to the Spirit and thereby manifest the truth that Christ himself is working in and through us. Christ himself is transforming us into his image. Christ himself is working through his corporate body to carry on the work he began in his earthly body.

  Kingdom people truly constitute a corporate, giant Jesus.

  THE BEAUTIFUL REVOLUTION

  When people get serious about their call to follow Jesus’ example, it’s revolutionary. Literally. The Kingdom that Jesus ushered into the world is a revolution. It revolts. In manifesting the beauty of God’s reign, the Kingdom revolts against everything in the world that is inconsistent with this reign.

  But the Kingdom revolution is unlike any other the world has known. It’s not a revolution of political, nationalistic, or religious ideas and agendas, for Jesus showed no interest in such matters. Indeed, these “revolutions” are trivial by comparison to Christ’s, and whenever people have tried to transform the Kingdom into one of these revolutions they have trivialized the Kingdom and denied its essential character.

  The revolutions of the world have always been about one group trying to wrest power from another. The revolution Jesus launched, however, is far more radical, for it declares the quest for power over others to be as hopeless as it is sinful. Jesus’ Kingdom revolts against this sinful quest for power over others, choosing instead to exercise power under others. It’s a revolution of humble, self-sacrificial, loving service. It always looks like Jesus, dying on Calvary for the very people who crucified him.

  For this reason, the Kingdom doesn’t wage war the way people do. It’s not like the French or American revolutions, in which people relied on violence to overthrow tyrannical regimes. On the contrary, the Kingdom revolution Jesus unleashed wages war by loving and serving enemies instead of harming and conquering them.

  While ordinary revolutions achieve their objectives using the power of the sword, the Kingdom revolution achieves its objectives using the power of the cross. While ordinary revolutions advance by engaging in ugly violence as they sacrifice all who oppose them, the Kingdom revolution advances by manifesting the outrageous beauty of God’s love that leads people to sacrifice themselves on behalf of those who oppose them.

  The radical Kingdom Jesus embodied and established is all about manifesting the beauty of God’s love and revolting against every ugly thing that opposes it.

  Christians debate a million complex theological issues. Many are important and legitimate. But from a Kingdom perspective, all those issues are secondary to this one: Are we who profess Christ as Lord imitating his love, service, and sacrifice for others? Are we individually and collectively participating in the beautiful revolution Christ unleashed into the world? *

  Viva la revolution!

  CHAPTER 2

  CHRIST

  AND CAESAR

  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood,

  but against…spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

  EPHESIANS 6:12

  The kingdom is holy—meaning “separate, set apart, consecrated.” It looks like Jesus, nothing else. We can’t simply equate the
Kingdom with everything we think is good, noble, and true. Nor can we align the Kingdom with any nation, government, or political ideology. The Kingdom Jesus embodied and established is one of a kind.

  When Jesus was on trial, Pilate asked him if he considered himself to be the king of the Jews. Jesus responded, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest.”

  Governments and nations have always relied on fighting to survive. They punish criminals who threaten their welfare. They go to war against enemies who attack their borders or stand in the way of their agendas. This is how the kingdoms of the world maintain law and order and advance their causes.

  By contrast, the Kingdom that Jesus embodied and established refuses all violence, which is why Jesus pointed to his followers’ refusal to fight as proof to Pilate that his kingdom was not of this world. In fact, when Jesus was arrested, one of his followers tried to fight in a kingdom-of-the-world fashion. He pulled out a sword and cut off a guard’s ear. Jesus rebuked him and then healed the guard. He was demonstrating that the Kingdom he was establishing doesn’t wage war by using violence against enemies but by loving, serving, and healing enemies.

  The fact is that no government or nation in history has ever looked remotely like Jesus. None has ever made it a policy not to forcefully resist criminals or enemies. None has ever committed itself to blessing criminals, serving enemies, and refusing to retaliate when people or nations do it wrong. Nor has any political regime ever established laws to return evil with good, turn the other cheek, or lend to their enemies without expecting anything in return.

  Yet these are what Jesus and his Kingdom are all about.

  This isn’t meant to be an indictment of the kingdoms of the world, though it’s unfortunate that they need to rely on coercive power to keep crime in check and protect their borders. That’s the reality of living in a fallen world. Any kingdom that refused to punish criminals and defend itself would quickly fall apart. Scripture indicates that God uses the power of the sword wielded by governments to preserve law and order as much as possible (Romans 13:1 – 7). Even God, it seems, doesn’t expect governments to act “Christian.”

  Yet this reinforces the point that Jesus’ Kingdom looks nothing like the kingdoms of the world, for if God expects anything of Jesus’ followers, it’s that they act “Christian.”

  SWORD-POWER VERSUS CROSS-POWER

  The difference between the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of the world comes down to the kind of power they trust.

  The kingdoms of the world place their trust in whatever coercive power they can exercise over others. We can think of this kind of power as the power of the sword.

  In contrast, the Kingdom of God refuses to use coercive power over people, choosing instead to rely exclusively on whatever power it can exercise under people. This is the transforming power of humble, self-sacrificial, Christlike love. Exercising power under others is about impacting people’s lives by serving them, sacrificing for them, and even being sacrificed by them while refusing to retaliate, as Jesus did. We can think of this kind of power as the power of the cross, for the cross is the purest expression of humble, servantlike, self-sacrificial love.

  While cross-power may look weak next to sword-power, it is, in fact, the greatest power in the universe. The power of the cross is the only power that can overcome evil rather than merely suppress it for a while. It’s the only power that can transform an enemy into a friend. It’s the power that God promises will ultimately transform the world. It’s the kind of power the omnipotent God himself relied on when he came in the person of Jesus Christ to overcome evil and redeem all of creation from its grip.

  KEEPING THE KINGDOM HOLY

  Why am I making such a big deal about the different kinds of power manifested by the different kinds of kingdoms? Because the power of the Kingdom of God to attract and transform people lies in its beautiful, humble uniqueness. In a violent world filled with people vying for Caesar-like power over others, the Kingdom offers people the peacemaking beauty of Christlike power under people.

  The power of this distinctive, self-sacrificial beauty is lost, however, whenever the Kingdom of God gets blended with the power-over attitudes and practices of the kingdoms of the world. The Kingdom stops looking like a giant Jesus and starts looking like a giant Caesar—which means the Kingdom for all practical purposes simply ceases to exist.

  Kingdom people are called out of the world to be a holy, separate people. We’re called to be nonconformists, resisting the “pattern of the world” as we’re transformed into the image of Christ. This holy nonconformity isn’t just one aspect of who we are—it’s the essence of who we are. It’s how we manifest the beauty of God’s character and Kingdom. Out of the wellspring of the abundant Life we receive from Christ, we are to live in revolt against everything in our own lives, in society, and in the spirit-realm that is inconsistent with God’s reign. This can only happen if Jesus followers refuse to get co-opted by other things.

  Since everything hangs on keeping the Kingdom holy, it’s no surprise that the devil continually tempts Kingdom people to fuse it with the kingdom of the world.

  SUCCUMBING TO THE TEMPTATION

  It started with Jesus.

  The devil offered Jesus all the authority and splendor of the kingdoms of the world, claiming that “it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to.” It was a genuine temptation. Think of all the good things Jesus could have accomplished had he become Caesar over the whole world. He could have immediately put in place all the wisest and most just laws. The painful oppression of his own people could have instantly been brought to an end. He could have ended world hunger. He could have commanded an end to bloodshed around the world.

  Jesus came to win all the kingdoms of the world and alleviate suffering and oppression. But he didn’t come to do it that way. So he resisted the temptation to grab Caesar-like power and chose instead to be faithful to his Father’s call to exercise Calvary-like power. He was certainly going to win the kingdoms of the world, but he was going to do it through the slow, impractical, painful route of Calvary.

  During the Church’s first three centuries, Jesus’ followers imitated, for the most part, his beautiful example. They resisted the devil’s temptation to grasp power over others, even when it would have been practical for them to do so. Most wouldn’t serve in the government or in the military because they believed this was incompatible with a humble, Calvary-like lifestyle. These early Christians kept the kingdom holy by not buying into the values of the empire and by being willing to suffer and even die rather than engage in violent self-defense.

  Unfortunately, this came to an abrupt end in the fourth century. In AD 312 the emperor Constantine allegedly had a vision, which he believed was from God, that told him to fight an important upcoming battle under the banner of the Christ. It was the first time Christ’s name was invoked in the cause of violence, but unfortunately it would not be the last.

  Constantine won the battle and claimed to become a Christian. He immediately legalized Christianity, and before the end of the century it became the official religion of the Roman empire. For the first time the Church was given access to the power of the sword.

  Rather than viewing this new sword-power as Jesus did—that is, as a temptation of the devil that needed to be resisted—influential Church leaders like Eusebius and St. Augustine saw it as a blessing from God! Instead of remaining faithful to the way of the cross, many Church leaders chose to embrace the practical way of the sword. If God has given us Christians the power of the sword, Augustine reasoned, we have a responsibility to use it to advance his cause (as if God’s cause could ever be advanced by such means!).

  On one level there’s nothing new in this line of reasoning. Pagans throughout history have equated military power with divine favor. What was shockingly new, however, is that Jesus’ own followers now thought this way.

  Once the Church acquired power over others,
everything changed. A movement that began by viewing the acquisition of political and military power as a satanic temptation now viewed it as a divine blessing. A movement that was birthed by Christ refusing to conquer his enemies in order to die for them now set out to conquer enemies—for Christ. The faith that previously motivated people to trust in the power of the cross now inspired them to trust in the power of the sword. Those who had previously understood that their job was to serve the world now aspired to rule it. The community that once pointed to their love for enemies and refusal to engage in violence as proof of Christ’s lordship now pointed to their ability to violently defeat enemies as proof of Christ’s lordship. 1

  In other words, the movement that had previously suffered because it refused to buy into the nationalistic ideology of the empire was now, to a large degree, defined by the ideology of that empire. The Church allowed itself to become co-opted by typical, pagan nationalism. The beautiful revolution begun by Jesus was largely reduced to an ugly, violent-tending, nationalistic religion.

  This is the religion of Christendom, the Church “militant and triumphant.” Insofar as it looked and acted like a religious version of Caesar, it was as far removed from the Kingdom as any religion could be. For the Kingdom always looks like Jesus, not Caesar.