November 2008 – Render to Constantine?

Today was the day that citizens of New Zealand had the opportunity to influence the make-up of the government. Hence, today, the discussion among the editorial committee over lunch focused around who voted for what, whom, and why, or why the person did not vote. So, how should citizens of the kingdom of heaven operate as citizens of New Zealand? How should they vote? There are, of course, as many opinions in the Church on this question as there are parties on the voting form!

The Christian church started in Palestine and Syria as largely marginal communities known for their inclusion of those whom others would not include. They saw themselves as citizens of another kingdom and their standards of behaviour excluded them from participation in many parts of wider society. Involvement in commerce without sacrificing at guild altars was difficult; participation in public office was almost impossible, and the almost universal pacifist position within the church effectively prevented followers of Jesus from being a soldier.

The Constantinian settlement in the 300s changed these attitudes as the problem of “required” idolatry ceased, thus no longer preventing wider involvement in civic society; the Church now had a stake in earthly affairs that blunted its heavenly focus. We have this position echoed in New Zealand. Our churches are largely middle class affairs with the interests of their members firmly planted in those of wider New Zealand. Conservative values such as law and order, preservation of property, and protection of traditional family structures are often held – not for any “religious” reasons, but purely because we want to hang on to what we have. When we vote, selfinterest reigns; there is little left over “…for the interests of others”, let alone for any kind of self-emptying that Paul has in mind as he describes Jesus in Philippians 2.

The key narratives that the early Christians understood themselves through were, of course, the Gospels and Acts and the irony of these stories was not lost on them. The divine message for the expansion of this community is presented to the leadership (Acts 1:8), but the actual growth occurs through nameless women and men led by the Spirit, while the leadership endlessly plays catch up. When Paul triumphantly reaches Rome, there is already a church there, much as there were already Maori Christians on the east coast of the North Island when the missionaries moved south in the 1830s and 40s.

However, as the Constantinian settlement slowly blunted the kingdom focus of the early Church, so in New Zealand the earthly interests of the settler Church in the 1860s largely undid the work of the nameless Maori Christians. Land was more important than kingdom. Citizenship in New Zealand trumped citizenship in heaven.

The lesson from both Acts and early New Zealand history is that nameless individuals “… who lose their life for my sake …” (Mt 10:39) can make a difference. If we are behaving in a kingdom-centric manner we should be living (whether voting or not voting) so that the kingdom spreads, and this will probably be at odds with our own earthly interests! We trust that this edition of Stimulus will help you lose life where you need to lose it and find life where you need to find it so that you can be numbered among the nameless heroes of the story of stories.

David Cashmore
for the editorial committee

Douglas Maclachlan
Publisher