American evangelical politics seems to be a movement about establishing the kingdom of God on earth right here and right now, especially with the current presidential administration. While heavily publicized as a predominantly White movement of various hues and shades across the spectrum from White nationalists to White “fragilists,” there are apparently some nonWhite individuals who support this movement as well. Alignment with biblical principles as traditionally and conservatively conceived appears to be the key to unlocking the door into this movement. Why there should even be such a movement, I believe, stems from the Puritanical roots of America.

Before July 4, 1776, the Puritans, among others, fled to the newfound American soil to find religious freedom to express their religious faith tradition as they saw fit. In large measure, many of the ideals of the Puritans have remained with us to this day, such that in many sociopolitical conversations, there is much made of dichotomies that apparently hold, as, for example, male/female, Black/White, gay/straight, theist/atheist, conservative/liberal, Democrat/Republican, me/you, us/them. Indeed, it is my personal opinion that because of this dichotomist thinking (which, to be sure, stretches further back than the Puritans of early America), we in the United States are reacting to dichotomies ad infinitum: the problem is not the reaction against the dichotomies; rather, is it the established dichotomies themselves.

Tangentially, though pertinent to this study, I suggest that we not think in terms of dichotomies, but rather in terms of elastic spectrums that span across/around a range of possibilities. For example, I suggest doing away with the male/female dichotomy and thinking of biological sex and societal ideas of gender in more elastic terms across a spectrum such that maleness is but one end and femaleness is but the other end of gender/sexual identities, with a slew of varieties lying in between; additionally, the spectrum may also be conceived of as a round band or circle, wherein the “ends” of the spectrum are but one and the same, and there is no real distinction between the two, though apparent distinctions might obtain. This, I believe, might help us in the American landscape be able to better relate to one another in understanding, respect, and tolerance.

The story of the New Testament is political from beginning to end, albeit about the heavenly kingdom of God. (Indeed, the whole of the Bible, read properly, is political.) However much the kingdom of God might be situated in the heavenly courts, it is profoundly grounded in the “here and now” of the first century world, which has far-reaching implications for us today in the world of the twenty-first century. Today, however, the political implications of the story of the New Testament have been hijacked by particular political conservatives of the evangelical church and twisted to mean something the authors of the New Testament never intended.

Strictly speaking, the term “political” is rooted in the Greek word polis, which translates to “city” or “state,” as the regions in ancient Greece were city-states, and carries with it the connotation of the people therein and the public thereof, though, in ancient Greece, the public consisted of a narrowly defined class of persons, namely, wealthy, landed adult males. As the term “political” has come to be known and used today in the United States, however, it encompasses all persons who can vote and/or are citizens of the state and/or country. Furthermore, the term spans the spread of all persons in the city and generally may be expanded to include all activity in the public sphere thereof.

Read in this light, then, the Bible is indeed political. However, was the Bible, particularly the New Testament as well as its use of the Old Testament, political in its day, specifically in first century Palestine, when the  New Testament was penned and its authors were active?

When Jesus set foot on the scene of first century Palestine, speaking of the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven, his words were neither minced nor mistaken. He did not waste time trying to play the part of the politician as today, when a public figure will tend to waiver back and forth between words and the meanings thereof, trying to appear to appease everyone, while really only satisfying their own pocketbook. Neither was Jesus mistaken in what he said and meant: he acted like the king of the kingdom and he talked like he was really the king of the kingdom. While he does tell Pilate that his kingdom is not of this world, the very fact that the claimed to be any kind of king at all got him hung on a cross.

The political movement of Jesus in the first century was one of this kind: that of the poor and underprivileged, that of the weak and disenfranchised, that of the despised and rejected—particularly, the sinner, tax collector, and prostitute. For, as Jesus said, “it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the ill.” Thus, Jesus, insofar as he claimed to be king of the heavenly kingdom of God, his claim or claims were in direct contradiction to the claims of the Roman emperor, who was considered the Son of God—that is, God Incarnate—whose birth was the “gospel” of the whole world, and who was Lord and Savior of all the world, bringing about the Pax Romona, the peace of Rome.

The authors of the Gospel accounts, particularly, that of Mark, established in no uncertain terms that it was Jesus—not Caesar—who was to be considered the Son of God, God Incarnate, whose birth was the (true) gospel, who was Lord and Savior of the world, and whose reign brought lasting peace. Herein lies the contention: is Christ or Caesar Lord and Savior? Who is the legitimate Son of God, truly God Incarnate? With whom does the true gospel of peace stand?

Needless to say, the persecution that shortly broke out against the early Christians was not a result of their being misunderstood or misinterpreted; rather, it was because they were rightly understood and properly interpreted that they were persecuted. Initially and only for a very, very brief period of time, the early Christians were conceived of as being a sect of Judaism, which was a protected religion of the ancient Roman Empire. However, once it became apparent that Christianity was distinct and different from Judaism, tolerance for Christians dissipated, and Christians were persecuted. It is interesting to note that the faith of Christianity, as initially conceived (and long before the conversion of Emperor Constantine to Christianity in 312 CE), was one of the underdogs, one of the underprivileged, of the down-and-out. The fact that the leader of the movement was a crucified messiah and that the majority of the early believers were poor and impoverished, unlearned and insignificant individuals, points to a kingdom of nobodies.

If the heavenly kingdom of God to be established by Jesus Christ was to be a kingdom of nobodies, as the picture is painted in the pages of the New Testament, then the power and privilege of American (evangelical) Christians today is opposed to the powerlessness and underprivileged nature of the first-century Christian, as found in the text of the New Testament. That is not to say that power and privilege must be shirked—that is beyond the scope of this paper. However, it is to say that the heavenly kingdom of God as promulgated and taught by the authors of the text of the New Testament is diametrically opposed to the kingdom of God that American evangelical Christians seem to be seeking to establish in the world today. As Jesus stated, his followers are to “be in the world, but not of it.” The kingdom Jesus sought to establish was not one based on power and privilege, but one based on love and forgiveness—grace and truth, to be sure, but the grace that empowers one to love and be loved and the truth that empowers one to love and be loved.