I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about the buzzwords and catch phrases and all the other “church” language Christians like to use. Words like, evangelism, discipleship, “good news,” faith, mission, and so on. One the most popular and overused of these phrases is “the kingdom of God.” Now, I’ve already expressed my distaste with this phrase and the need to abandon it elsewhere, I don’t really want to rehash that here. What I do want to reflect on is the way that nomenclature is normally used.
I hear people say it all the time. They use the phrase “to build the kingdom of God” or “building the kingdom of God” or something to that effect. I’ll confess that I’ve used it myself to some extent. But when I stop and I think about it I wonder about the verb: build. I wonder if that is the right word to use. Even further I wonder what the implications are of using words and phrases like “to build” and “building” with our pet phrase “the kingdom of God.”
And the more I think about it, the more reservations I have. It seems to me that it is this “building” mindset that has lead to the perversion of Jesus message in the name of nationalism, empire and colonialism. I’m pretty sure Jesus didn’t come to building another “power over” empire. In fact, I get the sense from reading the gospels that Jesus actually resisted the building of oppressive empires. Instead he spoke of an alternative reality, not “power over” but “power under,” not building, but nurturing and participating—participating in a process that already is and continues to be, a reality that is already “within.”
But for some reason Christians over the course of church history have really latched on to this Constantinian idea of “building.” We hopped in bed with the empire in hopes that we might spread the good news more effectively and “build” our church more efficiently. We’ve done some terrible things in the name of “building”: the Crusades, the Inquisition, subjugation of native peoples, slavery, war, colonialism, jingoism, I could go on. But we rationalized that all of those things helped “build the church” and “build the kingdom.” And, in turn, as a civil religion we helped build and expand the empire.
So, I’ve said all that to say I dislike speaking of “building the kingdom of God” just as much as I dislike retaining the archaic image of the kingdom itself. I’m not sure what to replace that verb with and I don’t necessarily think that is a bad idea. As I’ve always said, I tend to be apprehensive at global, catch-all phrases. I think perhaps it is better find ways of reclaiming the original veracity of the Jesus agenda within specific contexts and locales rather than taking the easy way out of constructing some sort of abstract template or stencil that can be thrown about.
What do you think?
4 responses so far ↓
1 Craig L. Adams // May 13, 2008 at 12:03 pm
It seems to me we are invited into the Kingdom. We are not invited to build the Kingdom. It is the Kingdom of God, not of us.
2 Matt Scott // May 13, 2008 at 3:18 pm
But we’re also invited to join bring the kingdom on earth, which is a far cry from building it, I suppose. It’s said to already be here, amongst us, waiting for us. That terminology sounds quite like the building part’s already been completed, the citizenship seems to be the only thing missing.
As far as the term “Kingdom” I really don’t take issue with it, I think it should be used in proper context, but perhaps Nation would be a better modern day take on the nomenclature.
3 Louis // May 13, 2008 at 6:34 pm
I agree with that “build” is a dangerous term. It invokes an image of crushing the things of the world to establish the church. This imperialism is not what Christianity is about. I think you’re right in pointing that out and its something that we need to remind ourselves of at times.
At the same time, I still think the phrase “the kingdom of God” has merit. We lose a lot of the vocabulary of faith when phrases become cliche or misused. However, should our response be to abandon these terms or to reclaim them? If we simply let these terms turn into bad words, then what good is it promoting? The words “church” and “Jesus” are bad words among some people because these terms make them think of self-righteous hypocrites and street-corner, fire and brimstone evangelists. But what if we worked more towards showing people what the church really is, a community of people who follow the guy we see as the Savior of humanity. The church is a body of people aiming towards loving each other and loving God. Jesus is our Savior, the living embodiment of God’s grace and towards His creation.
As for the “Kingdom of God”, we must remember what this phrase means. I’m not sure that “kingdom” is an archaic term. We have an adversity towards anything that seems to concentrate power or subject the many to the will of the few or the one. However, is the sort of relationship people might have to a good and wise king not reminiscent of the relationship we have towards God? This is not necessarily perfectly allegorical, but simply a way of expressing our relationship to God in a way that people understood back then and still, I believe, understand somewhat today. The Kingdom of God refers to the fully realized presence of God’s loving will and awesome power. Now, I won’t attempt to fully understand it, because I cannot possibly wrap my mind around it. But, it seems to me that God’s power might look a little different from what we consider power. The teachings promulgated by Jesus seemed and seem strangely weak in the eyes of accepted standards. However, their essence demonstrates an even greater power that is majestic and foreign, while, at the same time, seeming unbelievably familiar and true. I’ve already typed a lot, so I won’t go much further, but to me its this kind of stuff that seems to make up the kingdom of God.
Honestly, because we are human, we are never going to completely live up to these phrases we throw around. But, instead of dropping them, we must strive to live up to them. We must make it clear to others that we are aware of our own brokenness, but that we still want to throw everything we’ve got into responding to the grace we’ve been given. I think we need to worry less about language and more about what it truly means to bear the kingdom of God (or whatever you want to call it) out into our broken world.
4 blake // May 13, 2008 at 7:56 pm
@matt. i agree with you per the citizenship. that’s definitely a missing component. my only problem with using the word “nation” instead of “kingdom” is temptation towards overly zealous nationalism on the part of already existing nation states. i don’t think that’s what you’re trying to do, but i think we’ve seen and are seeing the sort of problems that presents.
@louis. i agree with you for the most part. i would encourage you to take a look at my “kingdom language” series i posted a while back. i take look at the kingdom verbiage more in depth there. there are links to the entire series here. for what it’s worth i’m not suggesting we abandon the original veracity that “the kingdom of god” carried. i’m simply positing that we find new ways and new terms, terms that carry the same visceral meaning and significance in our contexts today that the term “kingdom” did in 1st century palestine. i don’t believe jesus would refer to the kingdom of god were he here today, thus given the subversive and revolutionary nature of the jesus movement, i’m suggesting we ask what images and phrases he might refer to instead.
Leave a Comment