Sojourn Community Church has been plowing through the book of Romans all this year, and, as luck (??) would have it, we just finished chapter 12 and are about to move into chapter 13. Just in time for the national election… hmm…
I’m really excited as to what they are going to say, because Pastor Daniel Montgomery has promised to “pick a fight” with all of us. The Church, if I remember my demographics correctly, runs about 50/50 Democrat and Republican- so that’s a whole lot of fights to pick. Here is a part of the blurb posted on the church’s site:
“Our call as Christians is to live in the tension between political apathy and political idolatry. As we turn to God’s word, we come to Romans 13
, Paul’s message to Christians under the reign of Christ and also under the earthly authority of government. How do we live under seemingly contradicting authorities? We hope you’ll join us as we investigate how our new identity in Christ as his church informs and transforms our relationship to politics.”
You can read the whole thing here. If you’re at all interested in this, you can also be watching the resources page for audio and video of the sermons after they are given.
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Should be interesting as this relates well with my series in the differences between Amillennialism and Postmillennialism. I think that both hold that the civil government is accountable to God’s law, but I would suggest that the Amillennialist tends to be more apathetic toward hold civil government accountable.
On the flip side however, the postmillennialist has a tendency to promote an ideology of “kingdom by political upheaval”, or as you put it, political idolatry.
Hey PL- long time!
I think your observations are pretty right on the money. I’ve noticed the same leanings for both sides as well.
I am particularity interested in how much Daniel will draw (of if any) the correlation between what the text is saying to First century Roman government structures and American-Democratic government structures. I feel that chapter 13 needs to be read with a lot of care and attention to historical criticism because what Paul meant by the state is not what we mean when we say the State nowadays. They are two different realities that function with different premises and ideals.
Should be fun and insightful regardless!