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Essays

The Politics of Extraordinary Ordinariness—Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9 (Alastair Roberts)

Moses taught Israel that its primary calling as a people before the nations was not conflict but witness through its showcasing of the goodness, wisdom, and righteousness of the divinely given law. Likewise, the chief political task of Christians is found in the cultivation of a quiet extraordinariness in the most ordinary affairs of life.

The Politics of White Supremacy—Ephesians 6:10-20 (Robert Williamson)

Although the Apostle Paul’s discussion of our struggle against rulers, authorities, cosmic powers, and spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places may strike many readers as a relic of a primitive cosmological outlook, it is fiercely relevant in our own day, where white supremacy functions as just such a power. Ta-Nehisi Coates has spoken of the illusions and lies undergirding the American Dream and, with the Apostle, calls us to awake to and struggle against the forces and ideologies that bind and enthral us.

The Politics of Fearing God—Psalm 34:9-14 (Richard Davis)

The psalmist calls us to the fear of the Lord, offering us the secret to its pursuit. Straightforward though it may be, the psalm’s challenge to avoid evil-speaking, deceit, and to depart from wickedness and pursue peace would have seismic effects for our political landscape were we to commit ourselves to it.

The Politics of Loving the Unlovely—2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33 (Stephen Dawson)

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.

The Politics of God’s Sealed Message—John 6:24-35 (Amy Allen)

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.