Article
Citizens Of Earth
James Ayre, 13th May 2022
I’m a creature of habit, which has ramifications for many aspects of my life, one of which being, I often watch the same 5 TV series over and over again. One show that is at the top of my list for rewatches is the masterpiece, The West Wing from the late 90’s/early 2000’s.
The West Wing centres around the inner circle of the President of the United States staff as they conduct the rigorous task of governing the country. The show has everything you can want in a TV series; serious moments where relevant topics are addressed, drama, comedy and romance. But what made me and many others fall in love with the show is the over-the-top idealism that government can be a force for good. A lot has changed since the 90s and early 2000’s when it comes to people’s view of government.
Recently ICAC released a report on the state of democracy in Australia and how the general public views the Local, State and Federal government. It was found that 61% of Gen Z’er’s, 69% of Millennials and 79% of Gen X’ers trust the federal government and the leader of the country. This is a trend that we are seeing across many western democracies and leads to increasing division and distrust, not only of political parties and government but of each other.
So as citizens of heaven (check out our previous blog post), how are we to conduct ourselves as citizens of earth? What does it look like, during contentious election periods, to be cities on a hill in our world? (Matt 5:14).
Here’s four ways we live out as citizens of earth whose ultimate identity is in heaven…
Know that Christianity doesn’t fit neatly into the party system
A trend that political scientists and sociologists see in western democracies is that Christians attach their faith to a political party. They see people say; “That to be Christian means you have to vote for ______”. “If you’re a Christian, you must vote based on ______ issue”.
But the bottom line is — the way of Jesus doesn’t fit neatly into one party. It is not possible to claim that one party is the one ‘Christian party’.
Theologian Tim Keller poignantly points out, in his New York Times article titled “How do Christians Fit into a Two Party System? They Don’t”, to be a follower of Jesus, you need to follow _____ party and this can result in a barrier being created for people. It also communicates what our culture believes, which is that Christianity is a devoted voting bloc aiming to gain power. As citizens of heaven and of earth; we must be counter-cultural by not hitching Christianity to one political party, we must flee from idolatry and avoid reducing the gospel to a political agenda — those agendas are not the light of the world — Jesus is.
Love thy Neighbour
Division because of political opinion is nothing new. It’s been around since the birth of democracy in Athens in the 5th century BC, however, something is different in the 21st century. With the birth of social media, algorithms that tailor things to our own bias and over saturation of media that plays to their base; we get a slanted and twisted view of those who hold different views than ourselves. This ends up causing greater division, resulting in people viewing those who have different views as “the others” and people not listening to different views but dehumanising those that hold them instead. This often plays out in Facebook comments where snarky, reductive memes are posted and keyboard warriors take arms with little accountability.
As our churches are called to be a gathering of “every tribe tongue and nation” (Rev 7:9), there is bound to be differences in cultural and political beliefs, that’s part of the beauty and diversity of the local church family. As followers of Jesus, we’re called to something that transcends political discourse, which is “‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Mark 12:31).
Loving your neighbour, and loving people who have different views than you doesn’t mean you distil them down to a talking point or news headline. It doesn’t mean you right off everything they say because they might hold different views on one issue, but instead, you listen, you seek to understand, empathise and love them as Christ loves them. As citizens of earth and heaven, we view those who we disagree with as people made in the image of God.
We practice our civil duty to the glory of God.
With the rise of people’s disillusionment with our political system, there has been the rise of what is called a ‘donkey vote’. ‘Donkey vote’ is when you just write down the ballot, not considering who you’re voting for (and just write a random name) or any sort of voting that makes your ballot careless.
As followers of Jesus, we are to obey the laws of the land (Rom 13:1-7), which in Australia means it is compulsory for every citizen over the age of 18 to vote. This means we should make the most out of the privilege to vote by exercising our civil duty, by being informed, praying and ultimately using wisdom to vote.
During my time studying politics, I was struck by the fact that it is a privilege to live in a democratic country where we get to have a say on who our leaders are. It’s not forced upon us by military might, it’s chosen by us who have the freedom to vote. We get to have our voices as followers of Jesus heard by voting at the ballot box. So as citizens of earth, we practice our civic duty and vote.
We take confidence in knowing Jesus still reigns on the throne
Finally and most importantly, when all is said and done and we wake up on May 22nd we take comfort knowing that Jesus is still on the throne. We don’t hitch our wagon behind a political party or candidate, we’ve gone all in on Jesus. At the end of the day we pray for our leaders, pray for our city and country, bring awareness to the things that God cares about and we find peace and take confidence in the beautiful truth that regardless of what happens, Jesus still reigns over all things.
Whether the person or party we wanted gets into office doesn’t matter, we recommit ourselves to our ultimate purpose as citizens of earth — to make disciples of Jesus Christ and bring glory to His name.