Postcards From Babylon Quotes

When we see faith leaders fawning over proximity to political power, don’t we feel the falseness of their faith? Don’t we know that they too have secretly confessed, “We have no king but Caesar”? “Woe to them! For they go the way of Cain, and abandon themselves to Balaam’s error for the sake of gain.

What I see among evangelicals—especially among some of the most prominent evangelical leaders—is an enthusiastic, uncritical, carte blanche support of Donald Trump that has more than a touch of religious aura to it. And this concerns me deeply. I’m profoundly uncomfortable when I see enthusiastic support for Donald Trump impinging upon allegiance to Jesus Christ and what he taught his followers.

Christians can and should be productive citizens within the particular nation they happen to have residence; they should pray for political leaders and pay their taxes; they can vote and participate in public service and contribute to the public good. But they should not labor under the delusion that the nation itself can be Christian. Only that which is baptized can be Christian, and you cannot baptize a nation-state.

Feed on a lot more Philippians and a lot less Fox News. Feed on a lot more Luke and a lot less Rush. If like Daniel and his friends we refuse the fare of the empire’s propaganda, it will be evident that we are far healthier than those feeding on the fear-inducing menu of Mammon and Mars. Those who feed on faith, hope, and love stand out in a culture characterized by fear; they are distinguished by the healthy glow of a robust peace.

Using an anti-abortion position to provide moral cover for pro-death practices and policies advantageous to the principalities and powers should not be confused with a pro-life ethic derived from the life and teaching of Jesus Christ.

The first precondition of being called a spiritual leader is to perceive and feel the falsehood that is prevailing in society, and then to dedicate one’s life to a struggle against that falsehood. If one tolerates the falsehood and resigns oneself to it, one can never become a prophet. If one cannot rise above material life, one cannot even become a citizen in the Kingdom of the Spirit, far less a leader of others. —Vladimir Solovyov in his eulogy of Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1881

When life is viewed as a competitive game of acquisition, the strain to stay on top can lead to pathological anxiety and a litany of foolish decisions. Life is not a game; life is a gift. The purpose of life is not to win; the purpose of life is to learn to love well.

our gospel is not heard as somewhat threatening to the one percent who are most privileged by the current arrangement of things, we may want to question if our evangelistic news is really gospel. If our gospel is not especially good news to the poor, Jesus and his apostles would not recognize it as the gospel of the kingdom they proclaimed.

Can you feel the falseness that prevails in Babylon? Babylon is always religious and knows how to keep up appearances, but that only serves to conceal the idols Babylon really worships. Money and Power. Economy and Military. The falseness is the phony assumption that the pursuit of money and power is sustainable and leads to a life worth living.

You can bomb the world to pieces, but you can’t bomb the world to peace.

was Jesus guiding Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson in the White House, or was he picking cotton in Mississippi and walking the Trail of Tears?

I’m a Christian and ultimately my political theology can be summed up in three words: Jesus is Lord.

The original Jesus movement was not a pietistic religion of private belief about how to go to heaven when you die. The original Jesus movement was a countercultural way of public life.

I write it so my grandchildren will know that during the Trump era I wasn’t duped, I wasn’t silent, and I didn’t go along for the ride. I want them to know that I saw what was happening, I knew it for what it was, and I spoke out.

Daniel is about how to live responsibly but faithfully in an idolatrous culture. Thus Daniel is a book that’s always relevant for the people of God—whether ancient Jews living in Babylon or early Christians living in Rome or modern Christians living in America.

The Jesus of the Gospels is far more suited for an F.B.I. Wanted poster than for being the poster child of American values. While the historical Jesus certainly wasn’t a hippie, he was obviously dangerous and subversive. After all, Rome didn’t crucify people for extolling civic virtues and pledging allegiance to the empire.

Politics is the art of compromise, but there are some areas where Christians must not compromise. You can’t absolve the sin of being pro-torture by claiming to be pro-life. If making America great again involves waterboarding, nuclear weapons, child detention camps, and ridiculing environmental concerns, it’s a project Christians cannot participate in.

It’s not the task of the church to “Make America Great Again.” The contemporary task of the church is to make Christianity countercultural again. And once we untether Jesus from the interests of empire, we begin to see just how countercultural and radical Jesus’ ideas actually are. Enemies? Love them. Violence? Renounce it. Money? Share it. Foreigners? Welcome them. Sinners? Forgive them. These are the kind of radical ideas that will always be opposed by the principalities and powers, but which the followers of Jesus are called to embrace, announce, and enact. And the degree to which the church is faithful to Jesus and his radical ideas is the degree to which the church embodies a faith that is truly countercultural.

The failure to see the clear difference between Jesus sacrificing his life while forgiving his enemies on the cross and the sacrifice of a soldier slain while waging war on a battlefield is an indication of the degree to which a commitment to militarism has obscured the implications of the gospel. But when waging war is regarded as a religious sacrifice, such confusions abound.

Trust the holy instincts within you—the instincts of compassion aroused by the Holy Spirit. Yes, politics are always complicated, but what does Jesus want your attitude to be toward Syrian refugees, Honduran asylum seekers, and undocumented day laborers? You already know. You’ve always known. Some will say power trumps everything, but you’ve always known that mercy triumphs over judgment.

Of course some will ask, what about the white horse rider in the book of Revelation? In the end doesn’t Jesus resort to the ways of war? No! If God’s final solution for violence is simply a more gruesome version of the Nazi Final Solution, then we might as well throw away our Bibles away and roll out the TNT. And those caissons go rolling along. For that matter, if the world is to be shaped by violent power and not by co-suffering love, we should stop quoting Jesus and start quoting Nietzsche. If God’s solution for evil is to kill people who are evil, God didn’t need to send his Son—he  could have just sent in the tanks. Reading the end of the Bible as though Jesus ultimately renounces the Sermon on the Mount and resorts to catastrophic violence is a reckless and irresponsible reading of the apocalyptic text.

Pilate’s cynical reply is infamous. “What is truth?”[6] After having Jesus scourged, Pilate answered his own question about truth when he said to Jesus, “Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?”[7] This is Pilate’s truth, Caesar’s truth, Cain’s truth, Satan’s truth—the will to shape the world by violent power. For the “great men of the world,” ultimate truth is the power to kill.

For the first three hundred years of the church any suggestion that the aims of the kingdom of Christ could be served by corrupt Caesars would have been viewed as ludicrous or even demonic. The early Christians knew that the ways of Jesus and the ways of Caesar are forever incompatible. One is Christ; the other is anti-Christ. Though Christians prayed for Caesar to behave benignly, they always knew that Caesar was more likely to behave beastly. Empire is always bloody in tooth and claw. Christians never thought Caesar was capable of carrying out the work of Christ. Caesar advances the interests of the principalities and powers by wounding and killing the weak. Christ advances his kingdom by being a lamb wounded and killed. Peter could never have imagined a day when Christians would clamor over who should hold Caesar’s bloody sword.

The earliest believers’ shared life of following Jesus together was called the Way, not because it was the way to heaven (the afterlife was never the emphasis), but because they had come to believe that following Jesus was the new and true way to be human. And because the lifestyle of the Way was such a radical departure from the way of the Roman Empire, it’s no surprise that people viewed the Way with great suspicion and often derided it as a cult.

In a culture that venerates materialism and militarism, the only way to truly follow Jesus is to be countercultural. Sure, the prosperity gospel extols materialism and the religious right celebrates militarism, but these are nothing but attempts to smuggle the idols of Mammon and Mars into Christianity. A synchronistic religion that attempts to amalgamate Jesus and American values may be popular, but it’s unfaithful to the Spirit who calls the people of God out of Babylon.

I see charismatics—people I know well and love—scrounging around in the Old Testament and making preposterous claims about Donald Trump being some kind of modern-day Cyrus. Please. Do these people not have a New Testament? Don’t they know that God has raised Jesus Christ from the dead and exalted him to his right hand? Don’t they know that God has given dominion over the nations to his exalted Son? Don’t they know that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to King Jesus? God may have occasionally worked his will through pagan kings in the world before Christ, but we’re now living in Anno Domini—the year of our Lord. If you’re looking for God to work his will through a pagan king (who will always coincidently belong to your political party!), I’m thinking you haven’t spent much time seriously reading and digesting the New Testament epistles. God is no longer raising up pagan kings to enact his purposes, God has raised Jesus from the dead, and the fullness of God’s purposes are accomplished through him!

The Jesus of the Gospels is far more suited for an F.B.I. Wanted poster than for being the poster child of American values. While the historical Jesus certainly wasn’t a hippie, he was obviously dangerous and subversive. After all, Rome didn’t crucify people for extolling civic virtues and pledging allegiance to the empire. In announcing and enacting the kingdom of God, Jesus was countercultural and counter-imperial. This is why Jesus was crucified. His crime was claiming to be a king who had not been installed by Caesar.

I am a (relatively) wealthy white American male, which is fine, but it means I have to work hard at reading the Bible right. I have to see myself basically as aligned with Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, and Caesar. In that case, what does the Bible ask of me? Voluntary poverty? Not necessarily. But certainly the Bible calls me to deep humility — a humility demonstrated in hospitality and generosity. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with being a relatively well-off white American male, but I better be humble, hospitable, and generous!

The kingdom of God is built on all that the kingdom of Satan is opposed to. Instead of rivalry, there is to be love. Instead of accusation, there is to be advocacy. Instead of violence, there is to be peace. Instead of domination, there is to be liberation. Instead of maintaining the vicious cycle of beastly empire, Jesus comes to establish the humane kingdom come from heaven. This is the gospel! The demonic is all that is negation, pro-death, and anti-human. Jesus brings all that is flourishing, life-affirming, and truly pro-life.

And yet Christians celebrate Palm Sunday year after year. Don’t we believe that something monumental happened when the King of Kings eschewed the warhorse to ride a peace donkey? Don’t we at least believe Jesus offers us an alternative to all those dudes with their horses, tanks and ICBMs? We must believe it! The Palm Sunday shout is hosanna! It means “save now.” In a world married to war, now more than ever, we need to acclaim Christ as King and shout hosanna. But our hosanna must not be a plea for Jesus to join our side, bless our troops, and help us win our war—it must be a plea to save us from our addiction to war.

What we see on Palm Sunday are two parades. One from the west and one from the east. One where Caesar’s Prefect of Judea rides a warhorse and one where God’s anointed Messiah rides a donkey. One is a military parade projecting the power of empire—the Roman Empire. The other is a prophetic parade announcing the arrival of an alternative empire—the kingdom of God. One parade derives its power from a willingness to crucify its enemies. The other derives its power by embracing the cross and forgiving its enemies. One is a perpetuation of the domination systems of empire. The other is the only hope the world has for true liberation. The question is, which parade will we march in?

Jesus’ invasion by birth into the dark time of tyrant kings gives us a choice: we can trust in the armed brutality of violent power or we can trust in the naked vulnerability of love. It seems like an absurd choice, but only one of these ways is the Jesus way. We have to choose between the old way of Caesar and the new way of Christ. It’s the choice between the sword and the cross. We have to decide if we’ll pledge our allegiance to the Empire of Power or the Empire of Love, but we can’t do both. Following the Jesus way of loving enemies and doing good to those who hate us isn’t necessarily safe and it doesn’t mean we won’t ever get hurt, but it does mean the darkness won’t prevail.

The church in every western power after Constantine has at some point succumbed to the Siren seduction of empire and has conflated Christianity and nationalism into a single syncretic religion. Rome, Byzantium, Russia, Spain, France, England, and Germany have all done it. Seventeen centuries ago the Roman church got tangled up in imperial purple. In the 1930s, the German evangelical church got tangled up in Nazi red and black. The Anglican church spent a long time tangled up in the Union Jack. Today the American evangelical church is tangled up in red, white, and blue. That this kind of entanglement has been a common failure of the church for centuries doesn’t make it any less tragic.

We should notice how remarkable it is that so many of the central characters in the story of the New Testament are arrested. John the Baptist, Jesus, all of the twelve disciples, Paul and his companions, John of Patmos—they all end up in jail at some point. We even have a genre of the New Testament known as “the prison epistles.”  This should alert us to the truth that the gospel is uncomfortably political. The gospel of the kingdom is not partisan—it will not serve the partisan interests of a particular political party—but it is intensely political. It’s political because it poses a direct challenge to the principalities and powers and the way the world is arranged. What Herod and the rest of the ruling elite got right about the message of John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth was that it carried enormous political implications—political implications that motivated them to attack the kingdom of heaven.

Most of us are easily impressed by glorious generals on their magnificent warhorses (or their modern equivalents), but Yahweh and his prophets are not. For example, the prophet Isaiah sees Jerusalem’s trust in chariots and horses as idolatrous and a forsaking of the ways of Yahweh. After announcing that the reign of Messiah will be characterized by a renunciation of militarism where swords are turned into plowshares, spears into pruning hooks, war renounced, and military training abandoned,[7] Isaiah goes on to immediately denounce Israel’s idolatrous militarism by saying, Come, descendents of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord! For the Lord has rejected his people, the descendents of Jacob, because they have filled their land with practices from the East and with sorcerers, as the Philistines do. Israel is full of silver and gold; there is no end to its treasures. Their land is full of warhorses; there is no end to its chariots. Their land is full of idols; the people worship things they have made with their own hands.

What about patriotism? Is it permissible for a Christian to be patriotic? Yes and no. It depends on what is meant by patriotism. If by patriotism we mean a benign pride of place that encourages civic duty and responsible citizenship, then patriotism poses no conflict with Christian baptismal identity. But if by patriotism we mean religious devotion to nationalism at the expense of the wellbeing of other nations; if we mean a willingness to kill others (even other Christians) in the name of national allegiance; if we mean an uncritical support of political policies without regard to their justice, then patriotism is a repudiation of Christian baptismal identity. It is extraordinarily naive for a Christian to rule out categorically the possibility of any conflict between their national identity and their baptismal identity. But it’s precisely this kind of naiveté that is on display every time a church flies an American flag above the so-called Christian flag. Or perhaps it’s a bit of unintended truth-telling. Flags are powerful symbols that have the capacity to evoke strong emotions—think of the passion connected with protests involving flag burning. In the world of symbol, flags are among the most revered signs. So when a church flies the American flag above the Christian flag, what is the message being communicated? How can it be anything other than that all allegiances—including allegiance to Christ—must be subordinate to a supreme national allegiance? This is what Caiaphas admitted when he confessed to Pilate, “We have no king but Caesar.”[8] When the American flag is placed in supremacy over all other flags—including a flag intended to represent Christian faith—aren’t we saying our faith is subordinate to our patriotism? Is there any other interpretation? And if you’re inclined to argue that I’m making too much out of the mere arrangement of flags on a church lawn, try reversing them and see what happens! For the “America First” Christian it would create too much cognitive dissonance to actually admit that their loyalty to Christ is penultimate, trumped by their primary allegiance to America, but there are plenty of moments when the truth seeps out.

So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late. Let’s remember again the radical profession that we Christians make. We confess that Jesus is the world’s true king. We confess that Jesus is Lord...right now. The rightful ruler of the world is not some ancient Caesar, not some contemporary Commander in Chief, but Jesus Christ! Jesus is not going to be king someday, Jesus is King of Kings right now! Christ was crowned on the cross and God vindicated him as the world’s true king by raising him from the dead. This is what Christians confess, believe, and seek to live. We have no king but Jesus. And our king has nothing to do with violent power. Our king has no use for nuclear weapons. Why? Because you can’t love your neighbor with hydrogen bombs. Our king said his kingdom does not come from the world of war, which is why his servants do not fight. Jesus told Pontius Pilate, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my servants would be fighting.”[9] The kingdom from heaven that Jesus brings into the world does not come riding an M1 Abrams tank. In the kingdom of the Prince of Peace, we study war no more, we turn swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, we turn tanks into tractors and missile silos into grain silos. Our task is not to turn the world into a battlefield, our task is to turn the world into a garden. Our goal is not Armageddon, our goal is New Jerusalem. We’re marching to Zion, the beautiful city of God. Of course Governor Pilate doesn’t believe any of this.

To put it bluntly, Romans 13 isn’t about you—Romans 12 is about you! Regardless of what Caesar might do with the sword of vengeance, and however we might envision God accomplishing sovereign purposes through a pagan government, followers of Jesus are called to renounce revenge and love their enemies. Always. This is the Jesus way.

America First” is incompatible with a global church whose mission it is to announce and embody the kingdom of Christ.

If Christianity is not seen as countercultural and even subversive within a military-economic superpower, you can be sure it is a deeply compromised Christianity. A Christianity at home in an empire is the kind of compromised Christianity that the book of Revelation so passionately and creatively warns us against.

Postcards from Babylon: The Church in American Exile,

If I read the Bible with the appropriate perspective and humility I don’t use the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus as a proof-text to condemn others to hell. I use it as a reminder that I’m a rich man and Lazarus lies at my door. I don’t use the conquest narratives of Joshua to justify Manifest Destiny. Instead I see myself as a Rahab who needs to welcome newcomers. I don’t fancy myself as Elijah calling down fire from heaven. I’m more like Nebuchadnezzar who needs to humble himself lest I go insane. I have a problem with the Bible, but all is not lost. I just need to read it standing on my head. I need to change my perspective. If I can accept that the Bible is trying to lift up those who are unlike me, then perhaps I can read the Bible right.

The violence of the cross is not what God does, the violence of the cross is what God endures. The cross is not what God inflicts upon Christ in order to forgive. This is what N.T. Wright has called a “paganized soteriology.”[7] The cross is not the violent appeasement of a pagan deity, but what God in Christ suffers as God pardons the world. God does not employ and inflict violence; God absorbs and forgives violence. The cross is where God in Christ transforms the hideous violence of Good Friday into the healing peace of Easter Sunday. The silent witness of every crucifix bears testimony to this, though I sadly admit we have been very slow to learn this lesson; at times the church has forgotten it all together.

What about patriotism? Is it permissible for a Christian to be patriotic? Yes and no. It depends on what is meant by patriotism. If by patriotism we mean a benign pride of place that encourages civic duty and responsible citizenship, then patriotism poses no conflict with Christian baptismal identity. But if by patriotism we mean religious devotion to nationalism at the expense of the wellbeing of other nations; if we mean a willingness to kill others (even other Christians) in the name of national allegiance; if we mean an uncritical support of political policies without regard to their justice, then patriotism is a repudiation of Christian baptismal identity. It is extraordinarily naive for a Christian to rule out categorically the possibility of any conflict between their national identity and their baptismal identity. But it’s precisely this kind of naiveté that is on display every time a church flies an American flag above the so-called Christian flag.

One of the most remarkable things about the Bible is that in it we find the narrative told from the perspective of the poor, the oppressed, the enslaved, the conquered, the occupied, the defeated. This is what makes it prophetic. We know that history is written by the winners. This is true—except in the case of the Bible it’s the opposite! This is the subversive genius of the Hebrew prophets. They wrote from a bottom-up perspective.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego defied the king and lived to tell about it. Allow me to tell the story with an anachronism that makes the point. In the face of the Third Reich, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego signed the Barmen Declaration and were then delivered from the megalomaniac intentions of the Führer. That’s the happy ending version of the story that we find in Daniel. But we know that fidelity to God doesn’t always result in a reprieve from suffering and martyrdom, as Dietrich Bonheoffer and Martin Niemöller can testify...and as millions of twentieth-century Jews can testify. Yet I find consolation in my conviction that the fourth man “like the Son of God” was in the furnace with each and every one of them.

Prioritizing the economy above principle changes Christians into de facto pagans.

The twelve North African Christians hauled before the Roman magistrate during the reign of Marcus Aurelius made it clear that they would render Caesar his due with respect and taxes, but in rendering to God what is God’s alone they could not worship Caesar or participate in war. As a result of their fidelity to God they received the honor of becoming the first Christian martyrs in Africa. Fidelity to God in a world of idolatry sometimes calls for heroic faith.

This crucifix conveyed peace to me. How odd that is! After all, a crucifix is on one level the graphic portrayal of a man being tortured to death. And yet it’s also the very heart of the good news. This is the mystery of the gospel.

I’m sure the Joint Chiefs of Staff would agree that you cannot run the Pentagon according to the Sermon on the Mount.

Pharaoh and the princes of Egypt were about to find out the hard way that Hebrew Lives Matter.

What’s not easy or safe is to ask what it means to be a Christian in a culture that doesn’t want you to actually live according to the Jesus way. In a culture that may wear a thin veneer of Christian civic religion but in truth venerates Mars and Mammon,

The gospel is not motivational talks about happy marriages, being debt free, and achieving your destiny.

We should always remember that the ends never justify the means; rather, the means are the ends in the process of becoming. If the means are death-dealing, the ends aren’t going to be life-affirming. You can bomb the world to pieces, but you can’t bomb the world to peace.

So let us recover our courage. Let us dare to live a risky Christianity. Let us dare to be a counterculture pushing back against the falseness prevailing in society. Let us risk being ridiculed, mocked, or worse. Let us not play it safe. Jesus never promised us safety. Jesus promised us abundant life, eternal life, true life—but Jesus never promised us a safe life. In my time of dying I doubt I’ll find any comfort in having played it safe, but I will find comfort in being able to honestly say that I chose a risky live for the sake of the kingdom of Christ. If you feel the falseness prevailing in society, then reject the falseness by risking everything on the gamble that what the Gospels say about Jesus Christ is true.

Of course, winning wars is not as easy as the myths would have us believe; besides that, we seem to be in an age of asymmetrical warfare where conventional victory and surrender do not apply. It’s hard to imagine how something as vague as the “war on terror” can be won in any way that resembles winning WWII. When the nation-states of Germany and Japan surrendered, America celebrated V-E and V-J Day. But it’s hard to imagine a V-T Day. And even if you are able to arrange a “good old-fashioned war” between two nation-states wearing uniforms and all, in an age where both sides are likely to have nuclear arsenals, it’s hard to imagine anyone “winning.” If we are committed to generating social unity through the civic religion of war sacrifice, we may very well be on the road to global annihilation.

created

The syncretism of the kingdom of heaven and violent empire that created Christendom has been a blight on the gospel since the fourth century.