GOD'S EXILES BLESS BABYLON.

Civil Religion tries to enlist religion and the church to support the State’s agenda, but Public Theology urges God’s people to return to God’s Word, and then sends them into the public square to pursue the common good of all society — not just your own religious tribe. I treasure a gift from Chinese students in the USA — an object of calligraphy that may be translated, Honor God and Bless People — a good summary of the Great Commandments and Public Theology!

God expelled the people of Israel from their land because they were unfaithful, serving idols. Deported to Babylon, they were told to not be nostalgic for their failed theocracy, but repent of their idolatry, then bless the pagan empire, Babylon. Repent > Be Refined > Bless.

This is the way forward for American Christians and churches. We must first recognize the bad consequences of our trust in politicians. The path ahead is not to go back to some golden age. We must rediscover our identity as God's foreigners. To invert an old phrase, we must learn to live as a moral minority in a foreign land. Or, in John Stott's words: to be spiritually distinct, but not socially segregated. Only when Jesus’ followers and church are spiritually distinct, salt and light, can we bless our nation.

David Brooks, who converted to Christ from Judaism, has noted that the Jews in Babylon are the only case when a people retained and did not lose its cultural-religious distinctives through assimilation. Only the people who belong to God, and who live as God's foreigners, will bless the world. To learn to live as Exiles, God’s people have guidance from God's Word, the Bible. Three examples:

From the Old Testament: Jeremiah’s letter to the Jewish Exiles: Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons … give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare [Shalom, complete well being] of the city where I have sent you into exile … pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare [Shalom] you will find your welfare [Shalom]. (Jeremiah 29:4-7)

From the New Testament: the Apostle Paul to the Philippians: our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ (Philippians 3:20). The cultural context: Philippi was a colony of Rome in the heart of Greek Macedonia. But, rather than exercise their rights and social status as Roman citizens, they must do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind … which is yours in Christ Jesus … (Philippians 2:3-5)

Again, from the New Testament: the Apostle Peter writes to Christians in Asia Minor, a power center of the Caesar cult: to those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia … I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh … Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. (1:1, 2:11-12).

Like the Jews in imperial Babylon, or the early Christians under imperial Rome, American Christians now live under an authoritarian regime. Journalist David French notes that this is typical in history, but we live in one of the few times when Christians democratically voted themselves for such a regime (the 1930’s “good Germans” also come to mind). When we confess and follow Jesus Christ under the thumb of a Caesar in a decaying empire, that is the more typical historical norm.

Now, if we live in such circumstances and serve counter-culturally (protecting unwanted lives, redeeming and not disposing of them, or welcoming foreigners to take refuge in our embassies), we may be maligned as “backward conservatives” or “woke progressives.” But, in truth, we will become glimpses of the Kingdom of God, a new world coming, filled with righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. (Romans 14:17)

From his distant vantage point in North Africa, Augustine witnessed the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire. The “eternal city” on earth was overrun and sacked by the Visigoths in AD 410. But Augustine also glimpsed and wrote about the true Eternal City, The City of God.

Now, as 80 years of a Pax Americana degenerates to an inevitable end, may the good news of God’s Kingdom spread rapidly through the lives of people who live as Jesus Christ's Ambassadors, and through local churches that serve their communities as Embassies of God’s Kingdom — the only Empire that cannot be shaken!