Uncut version: Jesus and the Powers (Review)

Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies by N.T. Wright and Michael F. Bird. Zondervan, 2024. 201 pp., $22.99

This is the full-length, uncut version of the review we are running today at Current. Like other non-academic publication, we usually do not publish page numbers and detailed citations. In addition, we generally keep reviews closer to 1,500 words. In the case of this review, however, we felt that the uncut version of this review would be of interest for some readers, who may like having all the page references and other details that got cut in the process of editing.

From the outset, Wright and Bird promise readers that Jesus and the Powers will not be like most works on Christianity and politics: “We are not going to tell Christians what they should think about abortion, gun control, Brexit, Trump, climate change, racial justice and other hot-button issues.” At the same time, neither are they “offering an abstract theory of statecraft and faith-craft that never quite comes in to land in real life” (p. xiii).

Wright and Bird thread that needle delicately and powerfully. At 183 pages of writing, the book is a tour de force in unassumingly compact fashion. Its frequent, almost constant, reference to Scripture is a model for how to approach this thorny subject. Furthermore, the ever-evolving dynamics of geopolitical events threatens to make such a book almost immediately outdated. The Postscript of their Preface on Israel and Palestine proves this. Nevertheless, the authors have obviously done their homework. The number of sources utilized that have only recently been published is especially impressive.

Channeling the moderation of their Anglican faith, the authors identify extremes throughout the book and then work inward from there. Rather than attempting to “immanentize the eschaton” or passively waiting for Christ’s return, Christians should “build for the kingdom” (p. 7). Like John the Baptist “preparing the bride to meet the groom,” Christians are to “prepare this sin-cursed and war-torn earth to receive the reign of God on the day when heaven and earth are married together” (p. 9).

Chapter 1 begins with details from Michael Bird’s life in order to turn our attention to the perpetual presence of empire. Amid these “powers,” are God’s people destined to be passively pushed about, or can they be a force for kingdom good? The authors walk the reader through the biblical story of God’s people in the shadow of empire to prove the latter (Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Macedonia, the Ptolemies and Seleucids, and finally the Roman Empire). Wright and Bird want to emphasize that the kingdom message of Jesus and his followers was directly relevant for the world around them, not spiritually removed from it, challenging the powers without calling for revolution. In this regard, one need only read Rom 13:1–7 (p. 20). In a remarkable turn of events, Christianity went from persecuted to privileged with a new legal status, thanks to Constantine. The Christian population boomed, garnering new members among the most authoritative and, inevitably, leading to new problems for the Church.

In Chapter 2, Wright and Bird maintain that the downsides of Church/State relations in the past should not result in the Church’s retreat from politics today. Instead, the Church should act as the moral voice of a society, speaking truth to power and standing up to the powers—“we must do kingdom-business with the business of political power” (p. xv). Against an isolationist approach to politics, the authors make a strong case for increased political involvement. Christian testimony, they write, “must not shrink back from its theo-political implications, even if it must be vigilant not to be seduced by the temptations of proximity to power” (p. 176). Such a conviction undoubtedly stems from their Anglicanism. One can feel their impassioned dismay at more radically Protestant political positions:

We are no fans of theocracy, nor of the divine right of kings. Yet when we hear that complaint, we always have a standard answer. Yes, you want to avoid the evils of Constantine and Christendom. Instead of seeking influence in the halls of power, you want to be the angry prophet on the margins speaking truth to power. All well and good. But what happens when the power listens? What happens when the power or the people ask you to sit on a committee, contribute to an investigation, run a programme, advise on policy, or serve as a chaplain? That kind of absolute separation of Church and State is fine if you want to be a critic making snarky criticisms on the sidelines. But if you want to change the game you need skin in the game. The people who change history must make history. If you want to build for the kingdom, then you have to build something: relationships, alliances, advocacy, food banks, para-church ministries, youth clubs, foreign aid programmes. You need to be in the room where it happens. (37)

Again, Wright and Bird seek to thread the needle in Chapter 3: “The Christian vocation is neither pious longing for heaven nor scheming to make Jesus king by exerting force over unwilling subjects” (p. xv). In this chapter, they lay out a political theology from a close reading of several biblical texts. The paradox of politics, they explain, is that human beings both maintain order and abuse their authority, often simultaneously.

For example, when Christians went from persecuted to privileged under Constantine, Christians became “the ‘religious department’ of an empire” even as Christianity became “the moral compass of Western civilisation” (p. 28). Today, in what seems to be an increasingly post-Christian society (or, as in Aaron Renn’s thesis, a “negative world”), is our role as Christ followers to re-narrate the biblical foundations of Western Civilization while remaining cognizant of the human propensity for evil?

The sovereign God made human beings in his image (Gen 1:27). For Wright and Bird, the imago dei denotes humanity’s vocation to share in the governing of creation, for God’s glory. “The Creator intends his world to be run through obedient human beings,” they write (p. 43; emphasis original). God put Adam and Eve in the Garden to work it and to guard it (Gen 2:15). Therefore, government is a prelapsarian institution, not “a badge of lost innocence,” as Thomas Paine wrote in his manifesto, Common Sense. The vocation of imago dei is “reaffirmed” in Psalm 8, Wright and Bird explain, which “begins and ends” by declaring God’s sovereignty and, in between, describes the responsibility of human beings to reflect, like a mirror, God’s authority in his world (pp. 43–44).

At every step, the authors seem to intuit the reader’s questions as they arise. In particular, we were eager to see them identify “the powers.” Doing so, of course, threatens to jeopardize their promise not to be unnecessarily specific (see again p. xiii). Using Paul, the authors challenge an Epicurean dichotomy of the earthly and heavenly since “Anything in creation that is worshipped instead of the Creator God has the capacity to become an idol” (p. 52). That means that, behind those propped up as “gods” (whether Zeus or Caesar), lies the “shadowy sub-personal and demonising influence of the demons” (p. 52). We appreciated their critique of Western rationalism in this regard, citing “the dark mood” of Nazi Germany and the “extraneous influence” of forces encountered in “deliverance ministry” (p. 53) as examples of the powers. Still, though subject to darkness, government is not in itself evil. As Christ breaks the power of sin so that the redeemed can faithfully serve as a royal priesthood, so too does He break the powers of this world. In principle, they write, God has reconciled “the structures of governance, the tendons and ligaments of complex human society” (p. 60).

After surveying the Church’s origins and history of political involvement, and articulating their understanding of the Church’s role in relation to political power, Chapter 4 offers needed practical suggestions. Until Christ returns (and Christians one day find themselves judging angels, as Paul anticipates in 1 Corinthians 6), it is the role of the Church “to hold authorities to account” (p. 63). To do so, Christians may need to be “in the room where it happens” (p. 37). So, rather than building the kingdom (something we are unable to do), what does “building for the kingdom” look like? The authors offer tangible examples of how one goes about such work (p. 89).

Throughout the book, Wright and Bird fervently combat the temptation to live with a dichotomy of sacred/secular (like the earthly/heavenly critiqued in Chapter 3). Their opening examples of British prime ministers Tony Blair and David Cameron mean to establish certain extremes in faith and politics (though mild in the grand scheme): either compartmentalized and siloed away or nakedly interventionist (pp. 74–75). They are concerned to emphasize that, regardless of one’s nuanced understanding of ideal Church-State relations, it should not require Christians “to abandon public witness or to avoid taking political stances” (p. 97).

In Chapters 5 and 6, the authors try to take a middle path “between submission and subversion.” Reading Romans 13, Wright and Bird emphatically affirm the goodness of government done right but also offer a roadmap for those instances when governments “revert from public service to predatory tyranny” (p. xvi). In Chapter 5, one gets a sense of the degree to which Wright and Bird are attempting to be thoughtful and careful, regularly commenting that they are in “morally fraught space” (p. 117), and “Would anyone claim that there is an easy answer?” (p. 120). The chapter is a deft overview of political theology from ancient to modern. In the end, it seems that the authors side with Calvin, who remained opposed to tyrannicide and reluctant to revolt (p. 114; Institutes 4.20.31 in p. 113 n. 42).

Chapter 6 spells out situations where a Christian witness might require active disobedience. We appreciated Bird’s awareness of current legislation in his own country and his modeling of how one thinks in kingdom-minded ways about such issues (p. 138 n. 43), especially when there are efforts to “redefine what it means to be a human being” (p. 138). (If anything, the book could have offered more specific examples of how to apply their theories of “statecraft and faith-craft,” as promised in the Preface.) While concerns about the far-right are regularly voiced, Wright and Bird do not pull punches about the far-left either. As they write, some species of political progressivism “amount to liberationist sentiments without liberalism, a post-colonial project which does not end caste systems so much as reinvent them” (p. 137). Such efforts go beyond the Christian language and currency (see p. 28) that much of liberalism still utilizes.

In Chapter 7, Wright and Bird stake their claim in “liberal democracy” as the best for human flourishing. At the very least (and in the spirit of Churchill), it is “the least worst option” (p. 158). The authors are aware that their discussion is largely Anglo/Eurocentric, acknowledging that “attempts to turn parts of the Middle East and Central Asia into liberal democracies have either proved difficult or been an abject failure” (pp. 166–67). Furthermore, the authors are realistic about their use of the Bible when it comes to proving the “right” form of government. Reasoning from biblical precepts rather than following clearly articulated divine commands, Wright and Bird argue on behalf of confident pluralism as articulated by John Inazu: “love of neighbour,” they write, should involve allowing “our neighbour to be beside us and yet be different from us” (p. 159).

By the end of their concise book, the authors meet their objective in proclaiming that “in an age of ascending autocracies, in a time of fear and fragmentation, amid carnage and crises, Jesus is King, and Jesus’ kingdom remains the object of the Church’s witness and work” (p. xiii). But, to us, the book does not clearly answer a few foundational questions that, even in such a brief work, should be addressed. Some are theological. For example, how should Christians reconcile Jesus’ seemingly non-violent ethic with the government’s use of “the sword” (which Paul praises in Romans 13), not to mention several Old Testament passages? Wright and Bird speak against modern theocratic governments but, if wishing to be fully canonical, do not address why it was permitted for ancient Israel to operate in violence as they did. In other words, how do we get from Josh 6:21 to John 18:36 under the same God?

We also wanted the authors to say more about the ultimate end to which government should be directed, in addition to Christians’ involvement. What is the purposeof Christian political witness—to “bring people into the family of faith” (p. 101), and help create a just social order? Can they both be done without sacrificing the other? Frustrating as it is for those who want to be told the “right” candidate, party, or policy, in the end, the authors are pragmatic: “Sometimes it is a matter of siding with the lesser evil” (p. 167). In this, they capture how many feel and vote. Yet, such judgment is in the eye of the beholder. Does voting for someone because of an affinity with policy ever threaten a Christian’s witness to the gospel?

To ask another way, is our duty twofold: (1) to build for the kingdom wherever God has placed us, and (2) to ensure the survival of liberal democracy as the least worst option since its benefits as outlined are regularly in jeopardy? As they write, “Democracy falters when people take democracy for granted rather than prizing and cherishing the freedoms it gives us. Democracy can atrophy with apathy” (p. 168). First Timothy 2 speaks with noteworthy apathy about the form of government under which Christians live, as long as it secures certain ends, such as allowing Christians to “live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and dignity.” Whoever wields the sword, whether a king (the one), those in authority (the few), or all people (the many), pray for them. The authors’ discussion on p. 167 nods in this direction, but the passage is only mentioned once (p. 7) and simply as concerns prayer. Though critical of certain interpreters from the third century onwards (p. 66), one is hard-pressed to see how Augustine strays far from 1 Timothy 2 in the City of God: “As far as this life of mortals is concerned, which is spent and ended in a few days, what does it matter under whose government a dying man lives, if they who govern do not force him to impiety and iniquity?”

This pushes back against their strong resistance to what they refer to as an “escapist piety” (p. 65). They go so far as to call “going to heaven” an “unbiblical theme” (p. 68). While we too fear the abuse of Platonic and Epicurean dichotomies—and enthusiastically agree with the vision of a people and cosmos made new—we felt that the point could have been made in a more nuanced and humble manner. Does anyone really know how the new heaven and new earth will come about apart from John the seer? Apparently, the old ones will “pass away” (Rev 21:1–2). The new Jerusalem is spatially described as “coming down” from heaven (Rev 21:2). Paul even implies some degree of distance between us now and the Lord’s presence (1 Cor 5:6). Like the patriarchs and matriarchs of old recounted by the author of Hebrews, are we not “strangers and sojourners on the earth” seeking a country of our own (Heb 11:13–14)? And is it not a “heavenly” city (Heb 11:16; see also 2 Tim 4:18)? Whether Platonic or not, it is a feature of Israelite, Judaean, and early Christian outlook (Exod 25:8–9, 40; Wis 9:8; T. Levi 3:1–5; 2 Bar. 4:2–6; 4Q400 [Songs of the Sabbath] frag. 1, I, 1–4; Philo, Migr. 89–94).

We also felt that Wright and Bird made unnecessary sideswipes at the American Revolution and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, claiming that “the price of tea and the ambitions of landholding gentry” in the colonies did not justify war against the crown (p. 120) and that the First Amendment radically embodies the Enlightenment’s “strict separation of Church and State” (p. 96). These contested assertions require (at a minimum) further elaboration, especially since the book seems directed, at least in part, to an American audience. Christians attempting to steer clear of utopian dreams and escapist piety could learn a thing or two from the American Revolutionaries’ “sober expectations” and “Prudence,” which the Declaration of Independence reminds us “dictate[s] that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.”

Moreover, the idea that the First Amendment erects “a wall of separation of church and state” is at best one opinion among many. As we read it, rather than prohibiting the Church from influencing government, the First Amendment prohibits the government from dictating religious belief and worship. And it does so because religion has public significance. Look at the structure of the amendment: Americans are free to believe (Establishment) and worship (Free Exercise) as their consciences dictate; to declare their deeply held beliefs with their voice and pen (Speech and Press); then, persuading each other, gather together and present their arguments in order to reform government or society (Assembly and Petition). As John Courtney Murray wrote, the First Amendment “is not a piece of eighteenth-century rationalist theory; it is far more the product of Christian history.” Americans, he wrote, learned human dignity and equality “in the school of Christian faith.”

In the end, we walked away with the impression that Wright and Bird were at pains to articulate a kingdom ethic. “At pains” in the sense that this project required and delivered on the details mentioned above as a compelling political theology. Yet, the ways in which they expressed that ethic seemed effortless. Again, the authors should be applauded for their awareness of current events and issues. Such awareness is exhausting but necessary. Nonetheless, what Wright and Bird offer here is, in a certain sense, timeless. The approach is very Wesleyan. While speaking of current events, they weave a compelling tapestry of Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. While ardent defenders of liberal democracy, they are clear-eyed about its pitfalls. Abuses and extremes on both ends of the political spectrum are addressed forthrightly. Regardless of its size, Jesus and the Powers will undoubtedly serve as a first-stop reference resource. It is not only saturated with Scripture, history, and sources, the prose is also most entertaining, attainable, and inspiring. They carefully yet boldly “speak truth to power.”