Kingdom of God

I have been rather bothered recently by the way in which the emerging church - though not only the emerging church - makes use of the concept of the ‘kingdom of God’ to define its mission, the idea being that the task of the church is to extend or build the kingdom of God on earth. Very often there is an implicit polemical aspect to the usage: we build the kingdom of God rather than merely convert people; or we are more concerned about the concrete social dimension of the kingdom on earth than the rarefied - if not mind-numbing - prospect of an eternity in heaven. The phrase ‘kingdom of God’ appears to capture for us something of the down-to-earth political and moral relevance of the gospel that we are so anxious to reintroduce into Christian discourse; and it gives substantial theological justification for this shift in missional focus. But I am not at all sure that this is how the term works biblically.

Richard Eric Gunby, while politely acknowledging that my heart seems to be in the right place, has taken issue with a statement that I made in the ‘NT Wright, mission, and the big red balloon’ post. In response to my assertion that ‘There is no vision of the whole earth being brought under the kingship of God’, he points out that Psalm 2 and Psalm 22:27-31 appear to speak quite unequivocally of God’s future reign over the nations and quotes Hodge, Spurgeon, Warfield, and Rushdoony to that effect.

This is an attempt, in response to some perceptive comments by Chris Tilling and samlcarr on the recent ‘NT Wright and the confusion of kingdom and new creation’ post, to clarify how I understand the relation between ‘kingdom of God’ and ‘new creation’. These two themes have become central to the thinking of the emerging church, but I’m not sure that the tendency to treat them as broadly synonymous does justice to their biblical provenance.

I came across a curious paragraph in Tom Wright’s Simply Christian, in which he highlights a ‘mystery’ in the social organization of God’s ‘new world’. He argues that the end of all things is not the emigration of the righteous to heaven but the reintegration of heaven and earth, when God will remake the world and ‘raise all his people to new bodily life to live in it’. I have a bit of a problem with the way he characterizes resurrection as ‘life after life after death’, but the basic assertion that we are summoned ‘to live in the present as people called to that future’, in the light of the believed in renewal of creation, is surely a good one.

Having now read McLaren’s book I can see why it’s controversial in evangelical circles. It’s thought-provoking, forcing the reader to reconsider assumptions about the relationship between the gospel and the world. I think he makes a good case for his position. Rather than interacting specifically with Andrew’s review, I’ll try to summarize (at some length, alas) my own response to the book.

It’s three months now since Brian McLaren’s latest book Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope was released, and in the frenzied, web-driven world of emerging theology, three months is a long time. For all I know it’s not even his latest book any more. It has been widely reviewed, blogged on, commented on, pod- and videocasted about, facebooked, eulogized, trashed on the web. But I found it a highly stimulating read for all sorts of reasons and I think it’s well worth reviewing even at this late stage in the cycle of fashionability. The review comes in two parts: first, in this post a synopsis of McLaren’s argument in the book; and secondly, at some time in the near future, a critical evaluation in which I want to consider in particular how the category of ‘kingdom of God’ fits into a vision of social transformation, which seems to me to be the central theological question posed by the book.

I have been reading with some considerable frustration An Emergent Manifesto of Hope, edited by Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones. The book describes itself on the back cover as:

a coming together of divergent voices into a collection of writings that will bring you the latest thinking of the emerging church. You will have a front-row seat as both established leaders and up-and-comers in this influential international movement grapple with how to be faithful Christians in today’s ever-changing cultural context.

I find such hope in how Jesus conveys to us the Kingdom of God. I feel I want the kingdom of God much more than Christianity. But this chapter (Matthew 22) plain scares me. It is a parable of a wedding, invitation, murder, re-invitation, and throwing out. If I imagine my own wedding, I was indeed sad when someone said they could not come.