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Many Christians and especially church leaders are grappling with how to address and engage politics in an increasingly divided America. In fact, one of the key reasons for this podcast is to help Christians as they think, feel (yes, we are emotional beings) and work through their way through the seismic shifts in American public life and how to respond to them.
And that is why I am grateful for Jonathan Leeman’s book How the Nations Rage, a practical but thorough review of what the Bible says about government, the relationship between church and state and how to prioritize our citizenship in Heaven while being good citizens of the United States. In this episode, we discuss these topics at length and explore how faithful, gospel-centered Christian citizenship can impact the American experiment moving forward.
Jonathan Leeman is an elder at Cheverly Baptist Church in suburban Washington, D.C., has graduate and undergraduate degrees in political science and a master of divinity and a Ph.D. in theology, is the editorial director for 9Marks, teaches adjunctively at a number of seminaries, and is the author of (among other books) How the Nations Rage: Rethinking Faith and Politics for a Divided Age (Thomas Nelson). You can follow him on Twitter at @JonathanLeeman.
Key Takeaways:
- Psalm 2 as a foundation for public theology. Great quote: “History’s greatest political rivalry, it would seem, is between the nations of the earth and the Messiah.”
- The myth of the neutral public square, and why politics is currently a battleground of “little g” gods. Why we can and should separate the institutions of church and state but cannot and should not attempt to separate the influence of religion from politics.
- Why Christians should be engaged in the public square as an expression of love for neighbor.
- The Biblical role of government and the two primary views of freedom and liberty.
- The Biblical role of the church as it relates to the state. The state’s role as platform builder and the church’s role as sign maker and what Leeman means by that.
- Why it is the church’s job to equip individual Christians in their role as an ambassador of God’s kingdom in the United States.
- Why it is important to discern between “straight-line” issues and “jagged-line” issues in our political engagement.
- Leeman’s thoughts on the future of the American experiment and how we as Christian citizens should focus our efforts in the coming years.