Jesus and the Powers by Wright and Bird is a book we are using in a book club at our church in July. Since I am going back through it, I will be posting some thoughts on my notes, which will probably be repeats of pasts posts I have forgotten I posted when I first read the book…

History has not ended, empires are still on the march, and liberal democracy is not the bastion of benevolence that we like to pretend it is. Economic growth has not brought liberalism to China but rather drives its one-party authoritarianism. Russia has returned to its status quo as a military autocracy. Europe can’t decide whether it wants to be the Habsburg Empire 2.0, a technocratic villain in a James Bond film, or a society of nationless nihilists where people are devoted to Europe in general but belong to nowhere in particular. The global war on terror peeled back the curtain to show that liberal democracies are heavily dependent on war for economic growth as well as for moral coherence. (p. 5)

Ideologies fail. All of them.

Capitalism. Democracy. Anarchism. Socialism.

They all fail.

We want to call Jesus a “socialist” to prove our point… or a “capitalist” to prove our point. And that is the error. We want to prove OUR point… our ideals.

All of that is quite simply not the Kingdom of God. We have our eyes everywhere but on the Kingdom of God. As I have been working my way through Daniel and the life of Moses and the life of Abraham to study intercessors, I have noticed one constant, especially in Daniel: no matter the power that is in control, they will certainly LOOK like they are in control and about to run everyone over, and then they are gone. What is left?

The Kingdom of God.

We need a new resolve as the Body of Christ in America! We need to repent of our ideologies and ask the Kingdom of God to have full reign in our lives. We’re a long way from that stance, but there is a remnant, I believe, that is praying ahead of this. Like Daniel, they are repenting for a group that is not ready to repent on their own.

It is time for prayer. It is ALWAYS time for prayer.