Theological Journal – September 7 Nikolai Berdyaev, Russian writer, in 1925.

 

"Christianity cannot be wholly either with the rightist camp, nor with the leftist camp, nor with the centrist camp, since in all these camps there can be the same triumph of the godless kingdom of Caesar.

 "To judge people by whether they are of the right or of the left is a great spiritual perversion. The right or the left, monarchism and republicanism, are in essence totally insignificant and pitiful things, things third-rate before the face of God, before the face of authentic spiritual life.

 

"People become spiritually close and united or spiritually distant and divided not at all because they are rightists or leftists, not because they are for monarchy or for republic. It is not at all in these external spheres that the relationships of people are determined.

 

"The Church of Christ in this world always was and will be oppressed—either by a false protection, converting it into a tool of the state, to Caesar's ends, or by persecution."

 

"The third period of Christian history brings with it a final freeing of Christianity from the temptations of a pagan Roman imperialism, from utopian visionary dreams about the universal might of tsar or pope... The Christian world is being freed from those pagan and anti-Christian temptations, is being cleansed, is being rendered more spiritual and deeply profound.

 

"In the Kingdom of God there will be nothing of a resemblance to the kingdom of Caesar, to the present order of the natural world. It will be a real transfiguration of the cosmos, a new heaven and a new earth." (H/T Chris Green)

 

The punch line in this wonderful statement is “The Christian world is being freed from those pagan and anti-Christian temptations, is being cleansed, is being rendered more spiritual and deeply profound.” Though it may not seem or feel like it as we go through it, this is what is happening in our midst in America today. The more the right and the left reveal themselves more partisans for their political causes, the more it will become clear that the church of Jesus Christ has nothing to do with such commitments. It has rather a passion for “faith working through love” and a robust hope in God’s renewal of all we truly value and need.

 

 

 

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