Contrasting the characters of William Faulkner’s great novel Absalom, Absalom! with King David exposes the way in which the unlovely can be redeemed, albeit not without suffering.
Jesus bears God’s seal of origin, the sign that he is God’s message to humanity. Yet this seal often remains unbroken, the message unreceived.
Jesus’s example in resisting the crowd’s desire to make him a king following his feeding of the five thousand is a challenge to a Church that so often pursues political power. It presents us with a vision of a Church characterized by ‘downward mobility’.
The formation of a new international polity is integral to the Apostle Paul’s understanding of the gospel. The Church provides a model for transformed international relations.
Psalm 85 speaks of the meeting of justice and peace in a kiss in God’s new order. While we often futilely pursue such a goal through our politics, in Scripture we see its fulfilment through the cross.
In this week’s reading from Mark’s gospel Jesus challenges the complacency that so commonly comes with privilege. The ease of privilege within the status quo can inure us to the claims of truth or justice that might unsettle it or that might trouble its assurance of its purchase upon reality. Yet such claims lie at the very heart of the Kingdom of God.
The book of Samuel’s unembarrassed portrayal of a form of political rule suffused by eros—a politics displayed in David’s lament for Saul and Jonathan—may provide an illuminating challenge to our attempts to pursue a rational politics beyond such dynamics.
The storm at sea is one of the most potent experiences and images of chaos. Jesus’ miraculous calming of the storm is an image, not merely of his power with regard to nature, but also of his mastery over the chaotic political elements that threaten us.
The politics of new creation involves the bringing together of words and actions in the form of consistent living, by means of the work of the Spirit of Christ. Hypocrisy and intolerance among Christians are a departure from this model, flowing from an unwarranted confidence.
1 Samuel 8:4-20 illustrates how fear of vague enemies can lead to the development of a military-industrial complex and fuel the domination of rich elites of the mass of a people. Against this stands the Deuteronomic vision of limited monarchy under God.
The biblical images of God as divine king are often handled with embarrassment in a more egalitarian age. However, although it may appear little more than accommodation to ancient despotic assumptions, throughout the Scriptures the kingship of God is presented as a great force for liberation against all human tyrants.
Luke’s account of Pentecost frames it as the installation of a prophet. As we reflect upon the shape of the prophetic vocation and the content and shape that Luke’s narrative gives to the Church’s calling we will be empowered for our political vocation in the twenty-first century.