Reviews for Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church

The average rating for Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-01-27 00:00:00 Devin Patterson The Church: God's Plan A There are many biblical metaphors to describe this world that God has created. It is a field full of wheat and tares. It is a pasture spilling over with sheep and goats. Or it is a land, a house, or a vineyard full of both faithful and unfaithful caretakers. St. Augustine famously described the world in terms of the City of God and the City of Man. These are some of the many images that all share in common the doctrine of antithesis. In Genesis 3 we see that the world is split between the offspring of the serpent and the offspring of the woman, and this split is no friendly spat. Antithesis is no friendly arm-wrestling match in the back of a stuffy Sunday school room. Antithesis means "enmity," a hatred leading to violence and death. "His" heel shall be bruised and the serpent's head will be crushed. Quite simply, this is war. It is the holy war that Christ has fought, won and will conclude when He returns again. Moreover, this is the war we wage as we seek to transform culture. Now it may surprise some to speak of transforming culture as war, but this is how the Scriptures view culture. Culture is not about pleasant conversations over styles and trends (though that's a part of it). Because culture is about man's activities, it cannot be separated from the holy war between the two cities that began in the Garden of Eden. All too often, though, we live as though culture were not related to the holy war. We shut our eyes and sing our hymns on Sunday while living "in the culture" the other six days of the week. To live this way is to mistake what culture is in the first place. Culture is necessarily theological. That is, it's impossible for a man to live in a culture without revealing his theology. From music to art to architecture, and from government to commerce, everything man does stems from what he holds most dearly, the Lord God or one of many gods. Culture reveals what man thinks about God and how he acts in light of that. Culture is the flower that grows from the stem of theology. This point is furthered by looking at man himself. Man is a Trinitarian creature because he bears the image of the Trinity. One implication of this is that man is a priest and king, and it is important to notice that man is a priest first and then a king. Adam's first duty was to tend the sanctuary-Garden (priest), the sacred place where God met with Adam and Eve. The Garden is a sanctuary because that is the hallowed place of God, and Adam is a priest who cared for the sanctuary. Following Adam's priestly role, he was to deal with the lands outside Eden such as Havilah (king). Work in the garden was liturgical, and from out of the worship in the garden flowed Adam's cultural work. Adam is a "liturgico-cultural" being, a priest-king. Furthermore, the second Adam, Christ, is our high priest who was and is the sacrifice to cover our sin. He is also our king that rules over every part of the earth. This dual nature holds a vital principle for transforming culture. As the sheep are busily working to convert the goats, and the wheat is overcoming the tares, we must remember the hierarchy of priest-king that we see in creation. The roles are complimentary, and never separated. But they are distinct, and there is a hierarchy. Man as priest comes before man as king, and so worship comes before culture. Put another way, culture flourishes out of the pure worship of the church. As the worshipping church goes, so goes the culture. Perhaps we should clarify that this hierarchy is not a formula. This hierarchy is a principle that does not work as an over-simplistic analysis. If homosexual marriages are legalized tomorrow, it is not because some churches "worshipped poorly" the Sunday before. There is no one-to-one corollary here. The Spirit works mysteriously over the earth, and we should treat biblical principles with faith and wisdom. Scripture often paints in broad strokes so that the patterns and habits we see cross generations and nations, not Sunday to Monday. This brings us to the next question. If the cosmos is at war first in the sanctuary and then in the culture, what are the tools of warfare? How do we fight? How do we go about the work of transforming the culture for Christ? What will we do to be faithful to Christ? Peter Leithart's lucid (and convicting) book, The Kingdom and the Power, answers this question by asserting that we must recognize the centrality of the church. Leithart approaches the question of "what will we do to be faithful" in terms of the kingdom. He simply asks, what is the kingdom of God? How we see the kingdom of God will dictate what we do to see her flourish. Leithart sees five predominant theological models of the kingdom: 1) the millennial model asserts that the kingdom will come in the future, and Christ will reign for a thousand years of peace; 2) the eschatological model emphasizes that the kingdom has begun, but is not yet fulfilled; 3) the social activist model preaches dominion, namely that a Christian civilization will come through evangelism, discipleship and political means; 4) the mystical model looks for the kingdom within taking Luke 17:21 to heart: "the kingdom of God is within you"; 5) the sacramental or liturgical model posits that "the power and blessing of the kingdom are made present by the Spirit to the church primarily in her worship and through her sacraments" (Leithart, p. xi). Leithart is quick to point out that each of these models offers true, biblical insight. Comparing these models is not a question of right or wrong, but another question of hierarchy and current need. Which comes first? What do the Scriptures emphasize? Moreover, in this day and age, what does the evangelical church need to address? What are her particular weaknesses? On these points, Leithart is resolute that we should focus on the sacramental and liturgical model of the kingdom of God. We could also call this the ecclesiastical model because the church, Leithart reminds us, is "the primary institution of the kingdom." In a way, the church validates the other models by encompassing the other models. The point is that we must keep first things first. We could trace the biblical and historic proofs for this in volumes and volumes, but it all begins in the beginning when God set Adam about the work of worship in the sanctuary-Garden. As George Grant has put it: "in the good providence of God, the church is Plan A and there is no Plan B." As Christians we should live in light of the holy war that wages all around us. In doing so, we will be challenged to live by faith, and we will be comforted to see Christ's victory all around us, even in the midst of life's struggles. Seeing the holy war means seeing Christ's victory because He has already won. Living in light of this Christocentric holy war is the key to transforming culture. Moreover, we do not fight in this holy war without tools. Christ has washed us in the water of baptism and He feeds us with the bread and wine. These sacramental tools are the way to wage war, and these are the visible signs to show us the kingdom of Heaven here and now. As Leithart points out, the kingdom is "the new order that Christ has established in His life, death, resurrection and ascension," and we are victorious citizens of this kingdom invited to the Lamb's high feast. The worship and sacraments of the Church are the "stuff" of life because they are the tools God appointed for us. All too often we fall short and lose sight of the holy war that is at the root of it all. Because of that we select the wrong tool at the wrong time. We seek to transform culture through good things but in the wrong order. For instance, we look to political activism to usher in the kingdom. We look to the next election as "the litmus test" for where we are going as a nation, or we rally to protest a local pornography store thinking that that is the key. Even the family, a sphere of covenant life that nurtures souls from the womb, can be rightly championed, but mistakenly championed as the primary tool of redemption. These are good things, but these activities are not the key. These faithful acts should flow from the work of the church. The war is won in worship and prayer. Bread and wine at the Lord's table are the tools that strike down the gates of Hell. In conclusion, we should be encouraged that the Lord's table is no mere sign and symbol. The bread and wine challenge us to consider the power of a sign and symbol that God has ordained for us. There is great power in the sacraments because Christ is present there. He transforms the world. Again, Leithart quoting Geoffrey Wainwright: The eucharistic celebration does not leave the world unchanged. The future has occupied the present for a moment at least, and that moment is henceforth an ineradicable part of the experience of those who lived it. ...When God has visited a receptive people in the eucharist, men have been made more righteous, the peace of God has been more firmly established among them, and the Holy Spirit has brought an ineffaceable experience of joy to their hearts...the kingdom of God has come closer with each eucharistic celebration (Leithart, p. 125).

Review # 2 was written on 2017-06-23 00:00:00 Alicia Nisbet This was actually published by P and R, something that won't happen today. Some good typology and a clear account of the AD 30-70 transition.