Power and One Kingdom Theology
By Al Baker - Posted at Forget None Of His Benefits:
“And He said to them, ‘This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer,’”-Mark 9:29
Over Memorial Day weekend six people in Birmingham were shot and murdered, two of them in Fairfield and one in Bessemer. In one of the murders police say ninety rounds were fired within one minute. In Chicago, over the Memorial Day weekend fifty people were shot, ten of whom died.
LGBTQ+ activists have called for a new campaign to warn corporate leaders not to bow to pressure from Christian groups and others who are calling for the boycott of Target, Bud Light beer, and other companies which have been pushing homosexuality and transgenderism. And in the midst of all our troubles the church seems unable to address with power the devastating effects of a nation which has forgotten God and has been drowning for many years in secularism, which is the absence of the Christian faith from the public arena. Secularism leads to the notion that Christianity has nothing to say to the state, a position two kingdom proponents are only too happy to accept.
To be sure, the church has in varying degrees attempted to address the woes of culture and church but with very little societal impact. Why is this the case? Consider the account in Mark 9 of Jesus who came down the Mount of Transfiguration where His disciples, Peter, James, and John, witnessed the amazing scene of Jesus with exceedingly white garments, changed before their very eyes and where both Moses and Elijah appeared with Him. When they came down the mountain they saw a large crowd with Jesus’ other disciples. The disciples had been attempting to cast a demon out of a young man but they were unable to do it. Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and cast it out of the boy. When asked by His disciples why they had not been able to cast out the demon, something they had previously done many times (Luke 10:17), He said, “This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer,” (Mark 9:29).
Two kingdom theology, which believes in the “spirituality of the church,” meaning the church is not to engage in politics but is only to do those things deemed spiritual—preaching, evangelizing, counseling, and leading people in corporate worship (this view, by the way, was held by the Southern Presbyterians in the antebellum south and was a convenient excuse for them to espouse chattel slavery since they deemed this “peculiar institution” a political issue rather than moral one), seems to be particularly impotent in addressing the woes of our culture. While two kingdom proponents believe the Bible most certainly is authoritative within the kingdom of the church, they are far less confident that the Bible can hold sway over the opinions of people in a world gone mad in secularism. They say the church should by all means preach law and gospel to people in church, but other means must be used in the kingdom of the secular world since we all know these kinds of people are enemies of God and totally reject the authority of the Bible.
Over Memorial Day weekend six people in Birmingham were shot and murdered, two of them in Fairfield and one in Bessemer. In one of the murders police say ninety rounds were fired within one minute. In Chicago, over the Memorial Day weekend fifty people were shot, ten of whom died.
LGBTQ+ activists have called for a new campaign to warn corporate leaders not to bow to pressure from Christian groups and others who are calling for the boycott of Target, Bud Light beer, and other companies which have been pushing homosexuality and transgenderism. And in the midst of all our troubles the church seems unable to address with power the devastating effects of a nation which has forgotten God and has been drowning for many years in secularism, which is the absence of the Christian faith from the public arena. Secularism leads to the notion that Christianity has nothing to say to the state, a position two kingdom proponents are only too happy to accept.
To be sure, the church has in varying degrees attempted to address the woes of culture and church but with very little societal impact. Why is this the case? Consider the account in Mark 9 of Jesus who came down the Mount of Transfiguration where His disciples, Peter, James, and John, witnessed the amazing scene of Jesus with exceedingly white garments, changed before their very eyes and where both Moses and Elijah appeared with Him. When they came down the mountain they saw a large crowd with Jesus’ other disciples. The disciples had been attempting to cast a demon out of a young man but they were unable to do it. Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and cast it out of the boy. When asked by His disciples why they had not been able to cast out the demon, something they had previously done many times (Luke 10:17), He said, “This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer,” (Mark 9:29).
Two kingdom theology, which believes in the “spirituality of the church,” meaning the church is not to engage in politics but is only to do those things deemed spiritual—preaching, evangelizing, counseling, and leading people in corporate worship (this view, by the way, was held by the Southern Presbyterians in the antebellum south and was a convenient excuse for them to espouse chattel slavery since they deemed this “peculiar institution” a political issue rather than moral one), seems to be particularly impotent in addressing the woes of our culture. While two kingdom proponents believe the Bible most certainly is authoritative within the kingdom of the church, they are far less confident that the Bible can hold sway over the opinions of people in a world gone mad in secularism. They say the church should by all means preach law and gospel to people in church, but other means must be used in the kingdom of the secular world since we all know these kinds of people are enemies of God and totally reject the authority of the Bible.
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