In my last post, I talked about how our understanding of warfare in the kingdom of God is often more like superhero plotlines than a biblical understanding. In particular, I pointed out that in contrast to the world of the superhero, in God’s kingdom, there is no closely matched fight between two opponents. Jesus has already won the day.

Here’s another contrast that came to mind.

Superheroes rely on the same methods as their enemies (usually physical violence) in order to defeat them. This is justifiable because the villain is, of course, a villain, and worthy of such treatment. In essence, the ends justify the means. Furthermore, people who are not explicitly with the superhero can many times be considered acceptable "collateral damage". A good example of this is the movie, “The Matrix”, where everyone who was still plugged into the Matrix could be considered a potential enemy and could be eliminated as necessary.

Jesus totally rejected this approach and insisted that his followers love their enemies and pray for those who might want to harm them. The other option certainly was available to Jesus and his contemporaries; as Andy mentioned in his Deeper Life teaching, this was how the Zealots saw the kingdom of God arriving. Andy even showed that they had a good reason too! Yet, Jesus chose a different path, a path of weakness, a path that led to the cross.

So, what difference should this make in the way that we think about doing battle in God’s kingdom? One thing immediately comes to mind.

Be wary of trying to use human power to accomplish God's mission. While using whatever means possible to defeat your enemy might be the way of superheroes and the rest of the world, is not the way of the kingdom of God. All throughout Scripture, God seems to make it clear that human power doesn’t help God accomplish his mission; it just gets in the way. For example, when Gideon had an army of 32,000 men, God pared it down to 300 to defeat the Midianites. When David undertook a census on his army, God became very angry with him because David was putting his faith in the numerical strength of his military. Jesus chewed out Peter for pulling out the sword in the garden of Gethsemane. Paul even lays it out explicitly for us: human power has to be brought to its end in weakness before Christ’s power can rest us on us.[1]

From this, I think that it’s pretty clear that we need to avoid trying to bring in the kingdom of God using human power, because the two just don’t work together. Examples? There are lots in our Christian heritage, unfortunately. The Crusades are a pretty well-known one. Another less well-known example is how North African Christianity took a serious nose-dive soon after Augustine convinced the Roman authority to use its military power to crush theological dissenters.[2] Now, these are pretty easy to point out since they’re quite old. Let me give you another more modern example that’s bound to generate more debate: the debate on gay marriage. I think that all our efforts trying to ban gay marriage are just attempts at consolidating human power. Even if Christians in Canada had convinced the legislators to ban gay marriage, in my mind, it’s a complete waste of time because it's an attempt at trying to impose God’s reign using human power. Now, I’m not suggesting that gay marriage is compatible with the kingdom of God; it’s actually quite the opposite. God quite clearly intended that marriage would be between one man and one woman. What I’m trying to say is that trying to restrict gay marriage through political power, through the power of the state, doesn’t get us at all closer to God’s kingdom. Perhaps it might restrict the behaviour, but it doesn’t really get to the heart of the matter, and for God, that seems to be the most important.

This might seem a bit disheartening to you. If we can’t use our human efforts to help accomplish God’s will, is there anything we can do?

Thankfully, there’s a lot! While trying to use human power to accomplish God’s will won’t get us anywhere, there are a number of actions that we can undertake. From a human point of view, these actions may seem weak and foolish, but that’s precisely the point! Andy hit on this stuff in his response to my last blog. It’s precisely through acts of weakness, like prayer, that God’s kingdom comes. In fact, I would pick prayer as the foundational aspect here. Prayer helps us realize that, fundamentally, our dependence has to be on God. Prayer is about the furthest thing away from consolidating human power--from a human perspective, you might as well be doing nothing. However, it seems to have the capacity to do far more than we could ever hope to do ourselves.

This mentality then flows into the idea of spiritual “weaponry” that we use in this spiritual battle. I use the word “weaponry” in quotes because these are about the furthest things from weapons imaginable. Think about it—try convincing any soldier that they should take the “belt of truth”, “breastplate of righteousness”, “shield of faith”, “helmet of salvation”, and “sword of the Spirit” into a real battle and they’ll think that you’ve snapped. These items are completely useless on the human realm. Yet, these are exactly the “weapons” that Paul tells us are most effective.

So what do you think of all this? Judging by some of the responses to my last posting, it seems like you are heading in the same direction. But let me know what you think. Does any of this need correction?

As well, let’s begin to dialogue about other areas where we need to get rid of our reliance on human power and instead look to replace them with acts of weakness. Andy had one in his last response: change where we make our investments. Thoughts on that? Any others?

[1] This idea comes from 2 Cor 12:9, although most translations don’t make this clear. A good translation of the beginning of this verse would be, “My grace is sufficient for you, for human power is brought to its end in weakness.” Marva Dawn brought this to my attention in her fantastic book, “Powers, Weakness, and the Tabernacling of God.”

[2] North African Christianity was nearly completely replaced by Islam, and this unholy alliance of state power with Christianity was one of a few key factors in this switch. I have a great article on this topic for anyone who’s interested.