We are less than a year away from the general election.

 

Typically, the political news cycles are just heating up, and dominating public discourse for the next year. Yet, we have not been granted a reprieve since, perhaps, 2015, and the ins and outs of our politicians have been occupying our public discourse for about the last half-decade.

 

A common line I hear around this season is, “keep politics and religion separate.”

 

 

There is, unfortunately, a deeply embedded concept of privatized religion that pervades our Western consciences. It is the idea that my doctrinal commitments do not need to impede upon my political commitments. They can be totally separate. And by political, I mean our outlook on society, money, power, privilege, class, etc. A Christian worldview that does not form its adherent in any of these areas is woefully deficient. Jesus wades in these waters all throughout the Gospels. While I can try to understand the various historical-theological-philosophical developments of the past two and a half millennia and how they shaped the Western conscious into propagating this absurd bifurcation, it nonetheless does not change the fact that the New Testament simply does not play by these roles.

 

I have thought through a few different ways to write a post like this. Because the question that I cannot get past when I hear this notion is “how is it that we are reading the same Gospels?”

 

I have decided to imagine in some spots what the Gospels would say if Jesus were, indeed, apolitical.

 

Hopefully the absurdity of it will aid you in seeing that, in every possible way, the proclamation that a crucified, Jewish peasant was indeed the true Savior and Lord (names for Caesar) was inherently, and purposefully, political.

 

Please suffer my foolishness:

 

Matthew 2:3 –

 

When King Herod heard [of the newborn king of the Jews that the magi went to visit], he was certainly not troubled, and neither was anyone else in Jerusalem!
(You see, King Herod has nothing to fear of this Christ. Even though Christ/Messiah is a synonym for “king” in the Jewish imagination, we all know this Jesus is just coming to rule over our hearts. The presence of this new king needn’t impugn on the status of any present-day king.)

 

Mark 1:14-15 –

 

After John was arrested (don’t worry, he wasn’t actually doing anything like speaking truth to anyone in political power), Jesus came into Galilee announcing God’s good news, saying, “Now is the time! Here comes a nice idea about God! Repent in your private, theological commitments, and accept the correct doctrine.”
(You see, even though Mark says “Kingdom,” we all know that Jesus wants to reign in our hearts, not in the public sphere. Religion is a private endeavor, of course.)

 

John 6:14-15 –

 

When the people saw that [Jesus] had done a miraculous sign, they said, “This truly is the prophet who is coming into the world.” Jesus understood that they were about to come and force him to be their king, of course, it didn’t make any sense to him since he was just preaching a privatized, spiritual message, so he took refuge again, alone on a mountain.
(These people were misunderstanding Jesus so much. They were treating him so unfair. How they connected his spiritual, private message with the promised Shepherd who lead the world into justice and peace is just inconceivable. No wonder he had to run away from them.)

 

John 11:47-50, 53 –

 

Then the chief priest and Pharisees called together the council and said, “What are we going to do? This man is doing many miraculous signs! If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him. Then the Romans will come away and take both our temple and our people, because certainly their sensibilities will be offended by Jesus’ privatized religious message. One of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, told them, “You don’t know anything! You don’t see that it is better for you that one man die for the people rather than the whole nation be destroyed, again, not because of the movement of a new, rival king, but because the Romans don’t like these pesky new private, religious ideas” … From that day on they plotted to kill [Jesus].
(There is power, you see, in a private religious experience. Jerusalem was definitely not a hotbed of political upheaval in the first century, and certainly not during their many, annual pilgrimage festivals celebrating their definitely not-political freedom from oppressive rulers. Rome didn’t have to worry about this political aspect whatsoever. You see, Pilate just liked the weather in Palestine in the Spring, his presence there locally had nothing to do with Jerusalem’s many not-actually-political revolts of the preceding two centuries.)

 

This is actually quite fun for me.

 

I could bring up Jesus’ conversation about whose image is on what (Caesar’s is on the coins, God’s is on the people; Matthew 22:15-22).

 

I could bring up Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on a donkey and how the authors of that event in the various Gospels describe it in ways conversant with how Judah Maccabee’s entry into Jerusalem about two centuries earlier. Both cleanse the Temple and are intentionally trying to set up a Kingdom, although the differences are enormous. (You can read about this story in 1 Maccabees.)

 

I could bring up Jesus’ death itself, dying a death reserved for political revolutionaries.

 

We can try to strip these stories of their political dimension, as I have done above.

 

A little blunting here, a little explaining away there. A Jesus who just wants us to think nice thoughts is a much easier Jesus to accept, of course. If my mental life is all that must change, well all I have to do is raise my hand at the conference.

 

We lose the real Jesus when we strip this away from him.

 

Jesus died a rival-king’s death after leading a movement of disenfranchised peasants. The early authors and characters of the New Testament trusted this Jesus, and found themselves constantly being thrown in prison while or accosted by various communities. In Thessalonica, a mob captures Jason (who had been hosting Paul and Silas), saying, “These people have been turning the world upside down have also come here. What is more, Jason has welcomed them into his home. Every one of them does what is contrary to Caesar’s decrees by naming someone else as king: Jesus” (Acts 17:6-7). You can look at how the early church continued to turn Caesar’s world upside down through their very public—not private—Christian worldview in an earlier post of mine here.

 

So, as the political machine keeps turning over the next year, please sacrifice the notion of an apolitical Jesus.

 

 

Instead, perhaps, commit to reading the Gospels this political season fully attuned to the political dimensions.
There are a few things that could aid such an endeavor.

Who was Jesus’ Kingdom for?

Who did Jesus celebrate?

Who did Jesus criticize?

What does Jesus talk about a lot?

What does Jesus not talk about?

Who is welcomed at Jesus’ table?

 

Perhaps you can think of some more. If so, post them below!

 

Let us bring the political Jesus with us through this season, trusting that if we share his concerns, we will be led into the life, peace, and joy he promises. Even if it leads us away from a treasured position that the apolitical Jesus had sanctioned.