The politics of the Kingdom, if we pay close attention to Jesus, has a very distinctive feel. To quote the maxim of Stan Hauerwas:The church does not have a social ethic. The church is a social ethic.Encapsulated within that little maxim is a fundamental Anabaptist confession:
The social and political witness of Christians is simply to be the Church.When Christians begin talking about politics, I think that's where we have to begin. Just be the Church. Being the Church is political engagement. This imperative distinguishes the Church from conservative and liberal/progressive Christian politics, which can be tempted by theocratic impulses and, thus, contaminated by Constantinianism and the temptations of Empire.
Being the Church -- really being the the Church -- is a political intervention, the Church is a counter-politics to the politics of the State. Which means that to think politically in the Church is to think locally, focusing on addressing our social and moral ills within the common life of the local congregation.
The Acts of the Apostles is the pattern here.
For example, the goal of the local church is to "have no needy person among you" (Acts 4.34). We are to address poverty locally in our communal sphere of influence, among ourselves. To have no needy person among us.
Relatedly, this touches on what Christians have to say about labor/work. Paul says that "the one who doesn't work shall not eat" (2 Thessalonians 3.10). Importantly, that statement has nothing to do with the welfare state and entitlements. Paul is speaking to a local, congregational, and relational issue. The conversation about work is between people who know and love each other.
The point here is that the Christian approach to poverty and work is inherently personal, relational and local. Christians practice a "small politics". These aren't laws being passed by the government but a common life being negotiated among friends.
Let me be honest here: I don't give one whiff about what the government may or may not do for the poor. Because I don't look to the State to be the savior and deliver of those who are poor. That task belongs rightly to the Church. That the Church relents on its responsibilities to those among us is only a judgment on our own house. The fact that we end up arguing over whether the liberals or conservatives have this right means we've already adopted an attitude that allows the State to be the Church. To disastrous ends.
It's telling to me that the judgments in Revelation 17 are addressed to those with economic and political power. That is, the judgments of Revelation 17 are addressed to nation-states like the United States. And the Church sits idly by, while allowing the State to do the Church's vocation.
The State can never be a substitute for the Church. The vocation, then, isn't to give up the Church for political activism (as some have accused me of over the years) but to invest more radically in becoming the Church.
When I read Acts 4, I read a judgment on my own house. To rephrase GK Chesterton a bit: "The Church has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried".