For Kings and all who are in Authority

On Political Power and the Kingdom of God

by Presbyter PHILLIP LEMASTERS

What is the border between Christ’s Kingdom and the kingdoms of the world? The Savior said clearly that His Kingdom “is not of this world,” but the world is where we have to live out our lives as His followers. Throughout the Divine Liturgy, we pray for the salvation of all, peace for the world, and the wellbeing of our civil authorities and armed forces. To do this with integrity, we must discern how to deal with political and social matters in ways that not only convey the transcendence of the Kingdom, but also show how God’s will can be done, albeit imperfectly and partially, here on earth. The border between these realms is real, but not impermeable.

The tension between the heavenly reign and earthly politics strikes at the heart of the Christian faith. The gospels show that Jesus Christ rejected the temptation to acquire conventional political power throughout His ministry. Despite the expectations of His own disciples and the cheers of the crowd on Palm Sunday, the Lord steadfastly refused to take up arms or lead an insurrection as an earthly king. The Roman Empire crucified Him at the instigation of corrupt religious leaders who saw Him as a threat to their power, which was based on distorting the faith of Israel in order to gain prestige, wealth, and influence for themselves. Those who riled up the crowds against Him said to Pilate, “If you let this Man go, you are not Caesar’s friend. Whoever makes himself a king speaks against Caesar… We have no king but Caesar!” (Jn. 19: 12, 15). In reality, they served no one but themselves and plotted against Christ when it became clear that He was a threat to their interests (the post-truth political world is nothing new). Though Pilate was not eager to crucify the Savior, under his leadership, a placard was put on the Cross, calling Christ the king of the Jews, as a warning of what the Romans would do to anyone who dared challenge their authority. There could not be a more vivid manifestation of how Christ’s Kingdom is not of this world than the profound contrast between how He ascended the Cross and how His enemies put Him on it.

This realization challenges the delusions of those who distort Christianity into a way of making the interests of nations and ethnic groups their false gods. Only His Body, the Church, is “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people…” (1 Pet. 2:9). The merely human distinctions of this world underlie the political and social divisions that happen to exist in our collective life outside of Paradise. They lack the power to raise anyone from the dead or usher in eschatological perfection. The fullness of God’s salvation does not come through any particular arrangement of the powers that be in the collective life of humanity. In Christ’s Reign, one’s citizenship or ancestry in Belize, Iraq, Mozambique, or any other nation has no intrinsic spiritual significance at all. In Jesus Christ, as St. Paul taught, “there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all” (Col. 3:11). Before the majesty of the One Who alone is thrice-holy, the nations remain, as the Prophet Isaiah proclaimed, “a drop in a bucket” (Isa. 40:15). That includes our own, regardless of where we live, how we vote, or any other human characteristic.

Amid the stress of the current political climate in America, we must remember that there is no one-to-one correspondence between any political structure or ideology and the Kingdom of God. The border between them remains real. It is what the philosophers call a category mistake to think that there is something like a “Christian politics,” other than the faithful witness of the Body

"There could not be a more vivid manifestation of how Christ’s Kingdom is not of this world than the profound contrast between how He ascended the Cross and how His enemies put Him on it. "

of Christ. The history of Orthodoxy includes many different arrangements of politics and religion, none of which have been free of tension and imperfection. Some Byzantine emperors were proclaimed as saints while others were condemned as heretics. There are also Orthodox rulers, such as Czar Nicholas II, whose holiness was manifested in the consequences of complete political failure, at least by worldly standards, through their martyrdom. Periods of persecution and of peace have both produced saints. Regardless of challenges presented by circumstances beyond our control, the Church has withstood all, and will persevere. As the Lord taught, “the gates of hell will not prevail” against His Body (Matt. 16:18).

In every Divine Liturgy, during the Great Entrance, we pray for “our President, civil authorities, and armed forces,” that the Lord would “remember them in His Kingdom, always, now and ever, and unto ages of ages.” No matter who is president or what party controls what offices, we offer this petition for God to fulfill His gracious purposes for and through them. My Romanian friends have reminded me that they prayed the same petitions for decades for the Communist head of state. When we do this, we are following St. Paul’s instruction to pray for “kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence” (1 Tim. 2:2). Obviously, such prayers are not a reward for rulers or governments we particularly admire. Paul, of all people, understood this; like Christ, he too called for submission to the governing authorities, including the matter of paying taxes. (Rom 13:1-6). He lived in the pagan Roman Empire and was martyred under the Emperor Nero.

We also pray in the Divine Liturgy for the peace of the whole world. God’s peace is not reserved entirely for the eschatological future but entails blessing and healing for people today who must endure the trials of life in a broken world. Those who enter liturgically into the Kingdom of Heaven must respond to the problems of their neighbors in ways that foreshadow the fulfillment of God’s gracious purposes for them. Even as God’s reign transcends conventional political and social divisions, those who live eucharistically will not allow the divisions of the fallen world to define the parameters of their love for others. No matter who has civil authority, we pray that God will “speak to their hearts good things” concerning God’s Church and His people.

Orthodoxy is relatively new both to the American scene and to the challenges posed by Western democracy. While the Church is neither a partisan political party nor a nationalistic entity, its members certainly may vote for candidates whom they can support in good conscience in light of their understanding of an Orthodox vision of God’s purposes for society. The laity may run for office and participate in campaigns and other forms of peaceful political action. The Church does not, however, endorse a slate of candidates, a party, or a political ideology. People of the same beliefs and morality may well at times vote for opposing candidates because of prudential judgments about what policies will be most effective in serving God’s intentions for social

Icon of the Last Judgement

Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Monastery, Jordanville, NY

life. Politics remains the art of the possible, and it is impossible to avoid shades of grey in the world as we know it. Given that some politicians (and people in other walks of life) cynically use religious and moral rhetoric for their own corrupt ends, we must be “wise as serpents” in assessing what candidates and policies are worthy of support in given contexts (Matt. 10:16). Above all, that means rejecting the temptation of thinking that any political ideology or earthly ruler will bring salvation to the world. “Put not your trust in princes…” (Ps. 146:3).

Orthodox Christians must look at politics with a strong note of realism also because people often fall prey to the temptation to absolutize the relative in an idolatrous fashion. The old heresy of Manichaeism lurks behind uncritical rhetoric about a dualistic struggle between Good and Evil, capital G and capital E, in the choice between inevitably ambiguous and compromised options, none of which will usher in the eschatological Reign. Unfortunately, some today speak of politics in precisely such terms, regardless of their affiliation or ideology. Their words give the impression that the salvation of the world rests on a particular arrangement of political power. Thinking in this way amounts to looking for false messiahs to purify a nation from evildoers and bring an illusory realm of perfection to the world. Even a passing acquaintance with world history should suffice to disabuse anyone of such unrealistic expectations for earthly kingdoms. Placing our hope elsewhere than in the Lord serves only to inflame our passions against those we view as enemies because they have different opinions on relatively trivial matters. This amounts to building a false border.

One way of attempting to cope with anxiety caused by slavery to the fear of death is for people to identify themselves with something larger and more powerful than their mortal selves, such as a nation, a racial group, or a political movement. Those who do so project their well-being onto the hope of worldly success in a way that inevitably fuels a prideful sense of their own superiority. If someone criticizes their cause, they take that personally as an assault to their very existence. The passion of anger then rears its ugly head against anyone who would dare to do so. Politics ceases to be the process of discerning the most prudent steps to pursue the common good in a lessthan-perfect world under a given set of circumstances. Instead, it becomes a brutal contest for life or death. This is another form of the nihilism, for it recognizes no truth other than a vain attempt at self-preservation.

It is, however, possible to participate in politics in ways that are not distorted by pride, fear, and anger. Doing so requires mindful vigilance and acquiring the spiritual health found by orienting our

"The border remains, but the God-Man has made it possible for every dimension of our existence, including even political life, to provide a glimpse, however dim, of the entrance of humanity into the Wedding Feast of the Lamb."

lives fundamentally toward a kingdom not of this world. Doing so requires learning to pray for all the governments and peoples of the world, especially those we consider our enemies, in an echo of the petitions of the Divine Liturgy for the salvation and blessing of all. It requires fasting from media, thoughts, and words that inflame our passions and keep us from seeing every neighbor, especially those with whom we disagree about politics, as a living icon of the Lord. It requires giving sacrificially of our time and resources to build relationships with the suffering and outcast people with whom the Savior identified Himself, especially when doing so requires overcoming fear and prejudice toward those we have come to view as “the other.” It requires crossing many of the false borders of this world.

If we do not pursue faithfulness to the way of Christ from the depths of our souls, we will lack the spiritual strength to avoid the powerful temptations to idolatry that come with the politics of the world as we know it. If we fall prey to those temptations, we will end up rejecting the Savior as surely as those who handed Him over to Pilate and said that they had no king but Caesar. As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote in The Gulag Archipelago, “the line separating good and evil passes…right through every human heart.” Even as we pray for our leaders, our nation, and the rest of the world, we must not assume that “our side” embodies perfection and that “the other side” is of the devil. That is a false border. Instead, we must gain the purity of heart to see the world and all its inhabitants in the brilliant light of Christ. Surely, every social order and person serves Him at least to an extent, but even the best of them fall radically short of manifesting the fullness of His Kingdom. No partisan agenda has ever lined up fully with the Beatitudes.

The border remains, but the God-Man has made it possible for every dimension of our existence, including even political life, to provide a glimpse, however dim, of the entrance of humanity into the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. For the Church to pray with integrity for such an entrance, its common life must provide an embodied witness of what happens when people become radiant with holiness in a communion of love that overcomes the petty distinctions of nationality, ethnicity, and ideology. The Church must form people with the character necessary to discern how to bring their political and social engagement into union with the great Self-Offering of the Savior. They will offer themselves within the context of a world very far from its restoration while engaging it in a manner that signals hope to those beyond the Church’s visible boundaries. Christ’s Kingdom as “a new heaven and a new earth” will be all encompassing, but until its consummation, the tension between His Reign and that of other kingdoms remains (Rev. 21:1). The distinction between them is not in God but in us. Those with pure hearts may engage any dimension of the life of the world in a fashion that points to its fulfillment in the life of the world to come. Christ’s Kingdom remains not of this world, yet it is relevant to addressing its many challenges.

REV. PHILIP LEMASTERS is a professor of religion and the director of the honors program at McMurry University. He served on the board of trustees at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary from 2008 to 2020. His most recent book is The Forgotten Faith: Ancient Insights for Contemporary Believers from Eastern Christianity (Cascade, 2013). He is the pastor of St. Luke Orthodox Church in Abilene, Texas.