Confident in the good and gracious will of God revealed not by reason but by Christ, Christians are free for the vocation of citizenship without nationalistic idolatry.
Thielicke was, in fact, acutely aware of the political environment in which he lived and was able to speak to it without making the sermon an instrument for championing a particular cause. The preacher is not a court chaplain dispatched to give partisan support for one party or another. Thielicke reminds the preacher:
“The Church has all Christians under its pastoral care, whatever it may think of their particular social or political convictions.”
The preacher is not a crusader for social justice nor is he simply and advocate for public morality. Having said this, it should be noted that Thielicke opposes both a “false conservatism” and a “false revolutionism.” The calling of the preacher is not to simply uphold the status quo of settled standards of common decency and moral virtue, much less is he to be a catalysis for revolutionary change. Either of these false paths displaces and undermines the “one thing needful,” the proclamation of the Word of the cross.
“False revolutionism” is a result of a kind of fanaticism. Thielicke writes:
“Here the attempt is made, as by fanatics in every age, to transfer the Kingdom of God and its radical laws directly into this aeon. The circumstances of the Kingdom are transferred to our present world in such a simple and unrefracted way as to overlook the fact that the Kingdom of God and this fallen world are altogether different.”
On the other hand, a “false conservatism” runs the risk of confusing God’s will with life as it is now experienced temporally and results in a kind of political apathy on the part of the Church. Not all political questions can be disentangled from faith and confession. For example, Thielicke notes how the question of war and peace is:
A “question [that] involves life and death, love and hate, the building up and tearing down of the souls of men for whom Christ died... Here the Church is called upon in a profound way to fulfill its office of watchman and shepherd.”
Yet, Thielicke insists the Church cannot speak in any way it sees fit confusing prophetic proclamation with a particular political solution.
Thielicke also warns of attempts to domesticate the Church politically by those who would see ecclesiastical endorsement as a benefit to their partisan causes. His statement, “The Church is and always will be a foreign body,” recalls the words of Jesus in John 18:36: “My kingship is not of this world.” Hence, Thielicke observes that the world recognizes something of the foreignness of God’s Kingdom and so:
“It comes to see that the Church cannot be subjugated and made to serve temporal goals, not when it remains faithful to its Head, and, hence, also to itself. That is why the world usually reacts against the Church as an organism reacts against a foreign body which has invaded it. It mobilizes against it all the forces of resistance at its command.”
Thielicke also warns of attempts to domesticate the Church politically by those who would see ecclesiastical endorsement as a benefit to their partisan causes.Luther’s understanding of the Two Kingdoms is to frame our approach to political preaching according to Thielicke. God is at work in both kingdoms (or spheres) but with different means and different goals. The doctrine of the Two Kingdoms is a necessity as long as the aeon of this present age exists. Evangelical-Lutheran preaching will always be cognizant of the fact that while we are dealing with significant decisions in the Kingdom of God’s left-hand, they are penultimate. Only the Kingdom of God’s right-hand is ultimate. Preaching can address the duties and responsibilities of citizenship (see the Ten Commandments and the Table of Duties), the prayer for good government (the Fourth Petition), while avoiding the apocalyptic rhetoric which too often attaches itself to an election year. For example, statements like, “If candidate XYZ wins, this will be the end of America.” Governed by the First Commandment, Lutheran preaching will not hint at our trust being given to any candidate, as that trust is reserved for the Triune God alone. Idolatry cannot but create anxiety. Thielicke reminds us:
“It is the heart that pictures the world as full of moths and rust, atom bombs and catastrophes, and is afraid of all the things that are ‘possible’ and could happen in an unpredictable world.”
Politicians feed these fears and pander to these anxieties. Preachers are mouthpieces of the Good Shepherd who displaces fear with faith and anxiety with adoration. Preachers proclaim a kingdom that is not shaken by the political fortunes or misfortunes of November.
As Christians also live in this old aeon, they have a calling as citizens to make informed and sober decisions based on what Thielicke calls “the normative authority for the technical ordering of political affairs, [which] is reason.” Citing Luther, Thielicke asserts:
“It is along these lines that we understand the well-known words of Luther in which he says that there are flourishing political states outside of Christendom too, and that if it came to a choice, he would prefer a wicked but wise prince to a good, i.e. Christian, but stupid one. ‘It is not required [by God] that a person be Christian to be a magistrate. Hence it is not necessary that the emperor be some holy person. It is not required that he be a Christian in order to rule. All that is necessary is that the emperor be guided by reason. This is why the Lord God has preserved the kingdom of Turks.’”
Confident in the good and gracious will of God revealed not by reason but by Christ, Christians are free for the vocation of citizenship without nationalistic idolatry. Living bodily in the old aeon and by faith in the new aeon, Christians know:
“At the evening of the world the victory of God will be celebrated!”
Christ Jesus, not any of the rulers of this age, be they Democrat or Republican, remains the Lord. Thielicke wrote his political ethics under the conditions of the Cold War in post war Germany. His was a different situation but his insights remain valuable for Christians who seek to live faithfully in both of God’s Kingdoms.
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